Rod Mickleburgh

Last year the Globe and Mail commemorated its sesquicentennial with a series of lengthy essays on the paper’s often cringeworthy coverage of key national issues. The fine labour reporter Vanmala Subramaniam opted to focus hers on a single event, the sixteen-day strike in 1937 at the large General Motors plant in Oshawa, Ontario. It was a good…

Among the many unfortunate aspects of the decline of the mainstream news media in Canada is the disappearance of regular labour coverage. Apart from one or two journalists who cover workplace issues — without focusing much on unions — full-time labour reporters are an extinct species. As a result, most Canadians know little about the contributions of unions to establishing and maintaining decent wages and working…