This is a quick follow-up to my October 30 articles about stress and call center jobs, the first of which was basically a review of On the Clock, What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane, by Philadelphia-based journalist Emily Guendelsberger, who took three low-wage jobsRead...

Resigning woman Lucia MacIsaac resigned as board chair of the Port of Sydney Development Corporation last week prompting residents all over the CBRM to say, “Who?” MacIsaac has not been exactly high profile in her role but then, neither has the port board. In fact, the only thing I canRead More

I was listening to Intercepted, a podcast from The Intercept news outlet, on Wednesday and heard an interview with Emily Guendelsberger, a Philadelphia-based journalist who has written a book called  On the Clock, What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane. The interviewer, Jeremy Scahill, explainedRead...

Fact Box On September 18, the Cape Breton Post carried a short article under the headline, “Payroll rebates for Cape Breton metal fabrication company.” The story — a reprint of a Nova Scotia Business Inc (NSBI) press release — explained that East Coast Metal Fabrication (2015) Inc (ECMF) had receivedRead More

Air Inverness I read an interesting Inverness airport-related story in Friday’s Chronicle Herald (but not, inexplicably, in Friday’s Cape Breton Post — although as a Post subscriber explained to me, “It will probably be in tomorrow”). It seems the Province of Nova Scotia is continuing to evaluate an application toRead...

I was listening to an interview with businessman Andrew Yang, one of the many Democratic presidential candidates in the US, during which he listed the jobs he felt were most vulnerable to automation in the near future (it was part the case he was making for a basic annual income).Read More

Better than a poke in the eye Does anyone else find it funny that our globe-trotting, international port promoter may be, even as we speak, sitting in a tree in Florida? I’ve been following Albert Barbusci’s progress in taking over a bankrupt extreme adventure course in Hernando County, Florida, and thisRead More

ServiCom, as most readers surely know by now, did not just operate the call center in Sydney. The company also had a call center in Rockford, Illinois (175 Executive Parkway) and two in the nearby town of Machesney Park, Illinois (10100 Forest Hills Road and 9942 N. Alpine Road). OnRead More

I am writing this letter as a follow up to my letter printed in the Spectator on 6 June 2018 regarding staffing at CBRM. Since then, CBRM posted a call for expression of interest from citizens willing to serve on the CBRM Diversity Committee and as a result the followingRead More

Remember I told you about the provincial government subsidizing the wages paid by Marine Recycling Corporation to some of its workers? The Ontario-based shipbreaking company operating out of Sydport is benefiting from a program called New Opportunities for Work (NOW) which, according to the Department of Labour and Advanced TrainingRead More