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Out of office: COVID normalized remote work, but is it really here to stay? – Business News

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Sarah Parvini, The Associated Press – Mar 10, 2025 / 6:38 am | Story: 537663

When artificial intelligence-backed tractors became available to vineyards, Tom Gamble wanted to be an early adopter. He knew there would be a learning curve, but Gamble decided the technology was worth figuring out.

The third-generation farmer bought one autonomous tractor. He plans on deploying its self-driving feature this spring and is currently using the tractor’s AI sensor to map his Napa Valley vineyard. As it learns each row, the tractor will know where to go once it is used autonomously. The AI within the machine will then process the data it collects and help Gamble make better-informed decisions about his crops — what he calls “precision farming.”

“It’s not going to completely replace the human element of putting your boot into the vineyard, and that’s one of my favorite things to do,” he said. “But it’s going to be able to allow you to work more smartly, more intelligently and in the end, make better decisions under less fatigue.”

Gamble said he anticipates using the tech as much as possible because of “economic, air quality and regulatory imperatives.” Autonomous tractors, he said, could help lower his fuel use and cut back on pollution.

As AI continues to grow, experts say that the wine industry is proof that businesses can integrate the technology efficiently to supplement labor without displacing a workforce. New agricultural tech like AI can help farmers to cut back on waste, and to run more efficient and sustainable vineyards by monitoring water use and helping determine when and where to use products like fertilizers or pest control. AI-backed tractors and irrigation systems, farmer say, can minimize water use by analyzing soil or vines, while also helping farmers to manage acres of vineyards by providing more accurate data on the health of a crop or what a season’s yield will be.

Other facets of the wine industry have also started adopting the tech, from using generative AI to create custom wine labels to turning to ChatGPT to develop, label and price an entire bottle.

“I don’t see anybody losing their job, because I think that a tractor operator’s skills are going to increase and as a result, and maybe they’re overseeing a small fleet of these machines that are out there, and they’ll be compensated as a result of their increased skill level,” he said.

Farmers, Gamble said, are always evolving. There were fears when the tractor replaced horses and mules pulling plows, but that technology “proved itself” just like AI farming tech will, he said, adding that adopting any new tech always takes time.

Companies like John Deere have started using the AI that wine farmers are beginning to adopt. The agricultural giant uses “Smart Apply” technology on tractors, for example, helping growers apply material for crop retention by using sensors and algorithms to sense foliage on grape canopies, said Sean Sundberg, business integration manager at John Deere.

The tractors that use that tech then only spray “where there are grapes or leaves or whatnot so that it doesn’t spray material unnecessarily,” he said. Last year, the company announced a project with Sonoma County Winegrowers to use tech to help wine grape growers maximize their yield.

Tyler Klick, partner at Redwood Empire Vineyard Management, said his company has started automating irrigation valves at the vineyards it helps manage. The valves send an alert in the event of a leak and will automatically shut off if they notice an “excessive” water flow rate.

“That valve is actually starting to learn typical water use,” Klick said. “It’ll learn how much water is used before the production starts to fall off.”

Klick said each valve costs roughly $600, plus $150 per acre each year to subscribe to the service.

“Our job, viticulture, is to adjust our operations to the climatic conditions we’re dealt,” Klick said. “I can see AI helping us with finite conditions.”

Angelo A. Camillo, a professor of wine business at Sonoma State University, said that despite excitement over AI in the wine industry, some smaller vineyards are more skeptical about their ability to use the technology. Small, family-owned operations, which Camillo said account for about 80% of the wine business in America, are slowly disappearing — many don’t have the money to invest in AI, he said. A robotic arm that helps put together pallets of wine, for example, can cost as much as $150,000, he said.

“For small wineries, there’s a question mark, which is the investment. Then there’s the education. Who’s going to work with all of these AI applications? Where is the training?” he said.

There are also potential challenges with scalability, Camillo added. Drones, for example, could be useful for smaller vineyards that could use AI to target specific crops that have a bug problem, he said — it would be much harder to operate 100 drones in a 1,000 acre vineyard while also employing the IT workers who understand the tech.

“I don’t think a person can manage 40 drones as a swarm of drones,” he said. “So there’s a constraint for the operators to adopt certain things.”

However, AI is particularly good at tracking a crop’s health – including how the plant itself is doing and whether it’s growing enough leaves – while also monitoring grapes to aid in yield projections, said Mason Earles, an assistant professor who leads the Plant AI and Biophysics Lab at UC Davis.

Diseases or viruses can sneak up and destroy entire vineyards, Earles said, calling it an “elephant in the room” across the wine industry. The process of replanting a vineyard and getting it to produce well takes at least five years, he said. AI can help growers determine which virus is affecting their plants, he said, and whether they should rip out some crops immediately to avoid losing their entire vineyard.

Earles, who is also cofounder of the AI-powered farm management platform Scout, said his company uses AI to process thousands of images in hours and extract data quickly — something that would be difficult by hand in large vineyards that span hundreds of acres. Scout’s AI platform then counts and measures the number of grape clusters as early as when a plant is beginning to flower in order to forecast what a yield will be.

The sooner vintners know how much yield to expect, the better they can “dial in” their wine making process, he added.

“Predicting what yields you’re going to have at the end of the season, no one is that good at it right now,” he said. “But it’s really important because it determines how much labor contract you’re going to need and the supplies you’ll need for making wine.”

Earles doesn’t think the budding use of AI in vineyards is “freaking farmers out.” Rather, he anticipates that AI will be used more frequently to help with difficult field labor and to discern problems in vineyards that farmers need help with.

“They’ve seen people trying to sell them tech for decades. It’s hard to farm; it’s unpredictable compared to most other jobs,” he said. “The walking and counting, I think people would have said a long time ago, ‘I would happily let a machine take over.’”

Craig Lord, The Canadian Press – Mar 10, 2025 / 6:28 am | Story: 537658

The Bank of Canada’s interest rate announcement arrives on Wednesday in a cloud of uncertainty thanks to a shifting trade war with the United States.

Most economists expect the central bank will deliver another quarter-point rate cut while it waits to see how long the dispute with Canada’s largest trading partner lasts.

The Bank of Canada faces a difficult task: setting monetary policy at a time when inflation has shown signs of stubbornness and the economy picks up steam, while risks of a sharp downturn tied to U.S. tariffs loom on the horizon.

“It’s a very difficult position for the Bank of Canada to be in,” said Randall Bartlett, Desjardins Group deputy chief economist, in an interview.

Even as U.S. President Donald Trump followed through on his promises to impose sweeping tariffs on Canadian goods on March 4, the exact nature of those tariffs have shifted with a series of pauses and amendments in the days since.

« Who knows what this could look like from day-to-day? It’s almost anyone’s guess, » Bartlett said.

There will be harsh consequences for the Canadian economy in the event of a prolonged trade war with the U.S.

Inflation is likely to rise in the near-term from the trade disruptions, Bartlett said, and job losses in hard-hit sectors could quickly pile up if those industries don’t receive tariff reprieves.

Desjardins expects Canada would fall into a recession by mid-year if steep tariffs remain in place.

That’s a far cry from the trajectory the Canadian economy had been on heading into 2025.

There were signs late last year that previous interest rate cuts from the Bank of Canada were starting to filter through the economy. A renewed Canadian consumer led to a surge in retail activity to close out 2024 and suggested that, barring a major disruption, 2025 was going to be a year of recovery.

After six consecutive cuts to bring the Bank of Canada’s interest rate down to three per cent, Bartlett said the « economic tea leaves » should have been telling the central bank to pause its easing cycle and wait to see where inflation and the economy settled in the coming months.

« But then obviously we got hit with the tariff shock on March 4 and all bets are off in terms of what that means … for the Bank of Canada, » Bartlett said.

Financial markets were largely tilted toward a quarter-point rate cut as of Friday, according to LSEG Data & Analytics. Before tariffs went ahead, markets were showing odds of a hold or cut were essentially a toss-up.

Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem said in a speech on Feb. 21 that, if tariffs are broad-based and long-lasting, « there won’t be a bounce back » in the Canadian economy as there was during the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. It would be a « structural change, » he warned.

Macklem went on to explain that the central bank can’t lean against both weak growth and rising inflation tied to a tariff shock at the same time. He said the central bank plans to use its policy rate to help « smooth » the impact on the economy while keeping inflation expectations well anchored to the two per cent target.

Andrew Grantham, senior economist with CIBC Capital Markets, said in a note to clients on Friday that the central bank « can’t solve the tariff issue » with rate cuts, but it can help the economy transition through the turbulence.

CIBC expects the bank to deliver a quarter-point cut on Wednesday, lowering the benchmark rate to 2.75 per cent, with more cuts to follow this year if trade uncertainty lasts.

Bartlett said he expected the Bank of Canada would err on the side of providing a bit of support to the Canadian economy with a 25-basis-point cut, but hold back from anything larger as it waits to see how long tariffs stay in place in the coming weeks.

He warned the central bank will be constrained in how low it can take its policy rate, in part because of the flagging Canadian dollar.

The loonie is vulnerable not only to hits from the trade war, but also to a widening differential between policy rates in Canada and the U.S., Bartlett said.

If the Bank of Canada drops its policy rate too sharply, the loonie could fall as well, leading to a bigger surge in inflation on food and other goods imported from the U.S.

 

Sammy Hudes, The Canadian Press – | Story: 537655

When the World Health Organization declared a pandemic on March 11, 2020, companies across Canada scrambled to shift their employees to home setups.

Within days, old computer monitors were dragged up from basements and assembled into makeshift work stations. Spouses jostled for laptop space at the kitchen table, while other workers designed camera-ready backdrops of bookshelves and plants for daily Zoom meetings.

For the dozen or so staff at Edmonton-based tech company Punchcard Systems, the new reality meant figuring out « new patterns » of how to communicate as they would have at their downtown office. That meant implementing systems to streamline collaboration and automate workflows, the company said.

Five years on, many office workers from Victoria to St. John’s are back to busy commutes and coffee runs, at least some of the time.

But for Punchcard, now with more than 50 staff scattered across the country, home is where they remain. The company, which develops custom software, apps and other digital tools, has ditched the centralized office in its headquarter city entirely.

« Obviously in March 2020, the parameters for all of us changed and that was really, I think, a point of inflection for us as an organization, » said Sam Jenkins, Punchcard’s managing partner.

« We knew that once we opened Pandora’s box of a distributed team that we had to make sure we didn’t turn remote employees into second-class citizens. If we pulled in our Edmonton staff into a single office, I don’t think it would be fair for Edmonton and it wouldn’t be fair for the rest of our team. »

As the five-year anniversary of the pandemic approaches, companies and their employees continue to wrestle over the ideal balance of in-office and work-from-home requirements.

Costs, productivity and morale are among the factors tilting the pendulum in either direction, with many workplaces having settled somewhere in between a fully remote or in-person model. But there’s rarely a one-size-fits-all happy medium, especially for the new parent juggling work with childcare responsibilities, or the boss trying to build a culture of camaraderie that goes beyond screens.

John Trougakos, a professor of organizational behaviour and HR management at the University of Toronto, said one of the « silver linings of a very terrible time » is that the pandemic normalized the concept of hybrid work, which had been uncommon before 2020.

« The pandemic has fundamentally shifted the way we work, » said Trougakos.

« The majority of office jobs now can in some way incorporate hybrid into their work based on the technologies that are available and the comfort that everyone has utilizing these technologies. »

A report released last September by the C.D. Howe Institute said just over one-quarter of paid employees across Canada spent at least part of their week working from home by the end of 2023.

While that’s down from 42 per cent in the spring of 2020, Trougakos said the proportion of Canadians still working primarily from home today is more than double what it was before COVID-19.

Those still working from home tend to be more educated, employed by large organizations, and are more likely to have young children, wrote Tammy Schirle, author of the C.D. Howe report and an economics professor at Wilfrid Laurier University.

« From an employer’s point of view, offering work-from-home arrangements can help with efforts to attract and retain productive employees who may have otherwise searched for more flexible work arrangements with other employers, » she wrote.

The study also found work-from-home arrangements are more prominent in regions where industries such as finance and insurance, professional services, or public administration — occupations often characterized as « office jobs » — account for a large part of the local economy.

Contrary to some fears over employees being less productive at home, Trougakos said many companies have found their staff actually get more work done in their own surroundings.

Not only are there fewer distractions and disruptions than a shared office space, but remote and hybrid employees tend to indicate they’re less stressed, take fewer sick days and value time saved from not having to commute, said Trougakos.

« They have better work-life balance, » he said.

As an employer, Jenkins said he worried at the outset of the pandemic that Punchcard would « lose our culture » and productivity would lag when employees first began working from home.

« I didn’t realize how much I was going to have to trust that our employees were going to do the right thing, even when nobody’s watching, » he said.

« Lo and behold, we’re more productive in a remote environment because people really value the autonomy they get and the flexibility to work in the formats and patterns that work best for them. »

Still, it’s unclear how long these arrangements will stay mainstream.

South of the border, Donald Trump kicked off his presidency by ordering federal departments to end remote work and require employees to return to the office in-person full-time.

Many large U.S. companies have taken that same approach and it could trickle over to Canada too, said employment and labour lawyer Andy Pushalik.

KPMG’s 2024 CEO outlook, which surveyed large business leaders from 11 markets including Canada, found 83 per cent of chief executives expect a full return to office within three years.

« Maybe the pendulum is really swinging back, » said Pushalik, a partner at Dentons.

« You just see so much movement of these large companies — Dell, Amazon, JPMorgan and most importantly, the U.S. government — that there’s going to be other C-suite leaders looking and saying, ‘Well, we may want to make a change for our own workforce.' »

Pushalik said U.S. law generally gives employers more flexibility to make workforce changes without notice obligations. But Canadian laws around constructive dismissal mean an employer can’t change certain terms of employment overnight, such as in-office requirements, he said.

« An employer could not necessarily decide on a Friday that they want everybody working in the office five days a week on Monday, » he said.

« (An employee) could potentially launch a constructive dismissal claim saying, ‘Look, you didn’t give me the right amount of notice and this is actually akin to a termination, so pay me out.' »

That legal foundation makes it unlikely Canadian companies will fully embrace return-to-office models in the near future, said Pushalik.

« I think people have got a taste of the flexibility that can come with the benefits of our technology and our ability to be connected anywhere that it’s going to be tough to necessarily go back to fully five days a week, » he said.

« The challenge is, how can we harness the new normal to have a productive economy, with workplaces that are filled with collaboration and innovation? »

For Punchcard, the permanent shift to remote work has prompted the tech company to invest more in digital tools, said Jenkins.

Some money saved from reduced overhead has also been put back into the company for travel, so employees can come together twice a year for social and development retreats.

But with his team now spread well-beyond Edmonton, including in cities such as Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg and Toronto, he said he won’t require them to go to an office, even part of the week.

« People do value the camaraderie of getting to see some of their co-workers, but they also value the flexibility of being able to do that on their own terms and their own schedule, » said Jenkins.

« I don’t think we can put that genie back in the bottle. »

 

Yuri Kageyama, The Associated Press – Mar 10, 2025 / 6:07 am | Story: 537653

The van makes its way slowly but surely through the city streets, braking gently when a car swerves into its lane. But its steering wheel is turning on its own, and there’s no one in the driver’s seat.

The driverless technology from Nissan Motor Corp., which uses 14 cameras, nine radars and six LiDar sensors installed in and around the vehicle, highlights Japan’s eagerness to catch up with players like Google’s Waymo that have taken the lead in the U.S.

Japan, home to the world’s top automakers, has not kept pace with the global shift to autonomous driving, so far led by China and the U.S. But momentum is building.

Waymo is going to land in Japan this year. Details haven’t been disclosed, but it has a partnership with major cab company Nihon Kotsu, which will oversee and manage their all-electric Jaguar I-PACE sport-utility vehicles, first in the Tokyo area, still with a human cab driver riding along.

During Nissan’s demonstration, the streets were bustling with other cars and pedestrians. The vehicle stayed within the maximum speed limit in the area of 40 kph (25 mph), its destination set with a smartphone app.

Takeshi Kimura, the Mobility and AI Laboratory engineer at Nissan, insists an automaker is more adept at integrating self-driving technology with the overall workings of a car — simply because it knows cars better.

“How the sensors must be adapted to the car’s movements, or to monitor sensors and computers to ensure reliability and safety requires an understanding of the auto system overall,” he said during a recent demonstration that took reporters on a brief ride.

Nissan’s technology, being tested on its Serena minivan, is still technically at the industry’s Level Two because a person sits before a remote-control panel in a separate location outside the vehicle, in this case, at the automaker’s headquarters, and is ready to step in if the technology fails.

Nissan also has a human sitting in the front passenger seat during the test rides, who can take over the driving, if needed. Unless there is a problem, the people in the remote control room and the passenger seat are doing nothing.

Nissan plans to have 20 such vehicles moving in the Yokohama area in the next couple of years, with the plan to reach Level Four, which means no human involvement even as backup, by 2029 or 2030.

Autonomous vehicles can serve a real need given the nation’s shrinking population, including a shortage of drivers.

Other companies are working on the technology in Japan, including startups like Tier IV, which is pushing an open source collaboration on autonomous driving technology.

So far, Japan has approved the use of so-called Level Four autonomous vehicles in a rural area in Fukui Prefecture, but those look more like golf carts. A Level Four bus is scuttling around a limited area near Tokyo’s Haneda airport. But its maximum speed is 12 kmph (7.5 mph). Nissan’s autonomous vehicle is a real car, capable of all its mechanical workings and speed levels.

Toyota Motor Corp. recently showed its very own “city” or living area for its workers and partnering startups, near Mount Fuji, being built especially to test various technology, including autonomous driving.

Progress has been cautious.

University of Tokyo Professor Takeo Igarashi, who specializes in computer and information technology, believes challenges remain because it’s human nature to be more alarmed by accidents with driverless vehicles than regular crashes.

“In human driving, the driver takes responsibility. It’s so clear. But nobody is driving so you don’t know who will take responsibility,” Igarashi told The Associated Press.

“In Japan, the expectation for commercial services is very high. The customer expects perfect quality for any service — restaurants or drivers or anything. This kind of auto-driving is a service form a company, and everybody expects high quality and perfection. Even a small mistake is not acceptable.”

Nissan says its technology is safe. After all, a human can’t be looking at the front, the back and all around at the same time. But the driverless car can, with all its sensors.

When a system failure happened during the recent demonstration, the car just came to a stop and all was well.

Phil Koopman, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, believes the autonomous vehicle industry is just getting started.

The main problem is what’s known as “edge cases,” those rare but dangerous situations that the machine has not yet been taught to respond to. Using autonomous fleets of a significant size for some time is needed for such edge cases to be learned, he said.

“We will see each city require special engineering efforts and the creation of a special remote support center. This will be a city-by-city deployment for many years,” said Koopman.

“There is no magic switch.”

 

David Baxter, The Canadian Press – Mar 9, 2025 / 4:26 pm | Story: 537591

Hundreds of people gathered on Parliament Hill Sunday for the « Elbows up, Canada » rally as U.S. President Donald Trump threatens economywide tariffs and making the country into the 51st state.

The « Elbows up, Canada » rally came together after four days of planning, drawing big name speakers including former foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy, Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe and stand up comedian Shaun Majumder.

The core message was simple, Canada is not for sale.

Elbows up is a hockey term describing an effective way to protect yourself from an opposing player.

The crowd became a sea of waving flags and signs opposing Trump as the common message was shared that Canada will remain strong, free and independent.

« We’ve had over 150 years of thinking of our neighbour as big and powerful, but also not an adversary. Well that has now changed, » Axworthy told the crowd.

« Mr. Trump has put himself in the ranks of the authoritarians. He wants to destroy the things that have given us as Canadians who we are, what we are and where we should go. »

Trump has threatened Canada with tariffs and “economic force” to make it the 51st state.

After imposing and then quickly pausing 25 per cent tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada that sent markets tumbling over concerns of a trade war, Trump said in a taped interview with Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures » that his plans for broader “reciprocal” tariffs will go into effect April 2.

The timelines for the tariffs, as well as the goalposts for getting them removed, change constantly and are often conflicting.

His commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that 25 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminum imports will take effect Wednesday as scheduled, while others for dairy and lumber will come into effect next month.

Trump said in his interview the tariffs were about restoring balance with America’s trading partners, while Lutnick said the tariffs would stop when Canada and Mexico halt fentanyl from flowing into the country.

In an interview following his speech, Axworthy said that Canada needs to look outside the U.S. for friends.

« We cannot let our security system be dictated by the Americans. Right now we’re buying chips and planes that the Pentagon controls with digital management. That’s craziness, » Axworthy said.

« We’re going to have to learn to stand on our own two feet and work with the Europeans, work with Mexico, work with other countries. »

The last several weeks have been characterized by a push to buy Canadian products, change travel plans to avoid the U.S. and provinces removing American goods from liquor stores.

This renewed sense of patriotism is bringing people together and Sutcliffe said he’s « never been prouder » to be Canadian.

« The last couple of weeks has been a real example of Canadian pride, people pulling together, shopping locally and buying Canadian, people wearing the Maple Leaf, » Sutcliffe said.

« I think it’s a great moment for our country. »

Rosa Saba, The Canadian Press – Mar 8, 2025 / 7:00 am | Story: 537407

When COVID-19 hit, millions of Canadians were either told to work remotely or temporarily laid off as governments ordered lockdowns to protect public health.

Not Arlick Leslie.

While others were setting up a home office or applying for income assistance, he continued to work at a Walmart warehouse in Mississauga, Ont. The non-compliance clerk was one of many workers deemed “essential,” heralded by politicians for their service at a time when even shopping for groceries felt like a risk.

« We had to be out there … facing the elements, » said Leslie.

Many workers, including Leslie, didn’t feel like their treatment matched the important role they were playing. Losing an hourly « hero pay » bump after just a couple of months added to a growing pile of frustrations over wages and scheduling for Leslie and his co-workers.

As time went on, Leslie and his co-workers saw unionized workers at places like Ontario’s liquor wholesaler fighting — and winning gains — at the bargaining table, earning back some of what they felt they had lost since 2020.

“We’ve seen the (unionized) workers speaking up for what they think they deserve,” Leslie said.

« So we’re like, ‘you know what? Why not give this a shot?' »

Workers at the warehouse unionized through Unifor last September, and are now negotiating the terms of their first collective agreement.

The COVID-19 pandemic, and the subsequent runaway inflation that eroded workers’ purchasing power, spurred what experts call a rise in union militancy, where workers drew harder-than-ever lines with employers on issues like wages and working conditions. The result: many workers won significant wage gains and some unionized at notoriously hard-to-organize companies, buoyed by elevated levels of public support.

“We’ve seen it with postal workers, we’ve seen it with dock workers, we’ve seen it with retail workers, we’ve seen it with production workers,” said Bea Bruske, president of the Canadian Labour Congress.

“It’s a pretty universal phenomenon that workers are recognizing their worth and are willing to push for more, and they’re willing to walk the picket line to get more.”

Health, safety and hero status

The so-called hero pay was emblematic of workers in areas like transportation, health care, long-term care and retail becoming “the ones that we relied upon the most,” said Bruske.

But in some sectors, the hero pay was short-lived. For example, Canada’s three major grocers removed their hourly bonuses in June 2020 (Empire reinstated some bonuses for workers in locked-down areas that December).

« While we appreciated them in the short term, it was almost performative, » said Bruske.

In the early months of the pandemic, amid constantly shifting public health measures and supply chain disruptions, many unionized employers looked to defer bargaining, said Lesley Prince, director of organizing at United Food and Commercial Workers Canada, especially in sectors massively affected by closures like hospitality.

« There was so much uncertainty that most companies just wanted to sort of maintain the status quo, because they didn’t know when things were going to reopen and start operating on a full-time basis again, » said Prince.

As the months wore on, companies were dealing with supply chain disruptions stemming from COVID-19 as well as geopolitical tensions and extreme weather, said Pascal Chan, vice-president of strategic policy and supply chains for the Canadian Chamber of Commerce: « There have been no shortage of disruptions. »

Justin Gniposky, who was a national representative in Unifor’s organizing department when the pandemic hit, believes some companies took advantage of the circumstances and sought concessionary deals.

Uncertainty and mass unemployment muted workers’ resistance in 2020 and 2021, said Stephanie Ross, an associate professor at McMaster University’s labour studies school.

But unions had more leverage as inflation spiked, labour tightened and profits stabilized in some sectors

“I think that the pandemic brought to the forefront a new set of issues for the labour movement to confront in workplaces and in public policy, and I think that it also … created the conditions that brought forth a wave of militancy that we haven’t seen in several decades,” said Ross.

“You can’t eat hero status. »

In response to concerns raised by the unionizing workers at Walmart, spokesperson Stephanie Fusco emphasized pay premiums and bonuses the company enacted in 2020, as well as more recent wage increases. (Unionized workers didn’t get the latest round of raises; the company says their wages will be decided through negotiations. Unifor has alleged the raise is an anti-union tactic, which Walmart denies.)

« We take health and safety concerns seriously and work to promptly address them, » Fusco said in a statement.

Bargaining for deals

Unions tried to channel workers’ frustration into negotiations, said Gniposky, now Unifor’s director of organizing.

In 2022 and 2023 Unifor led a series of “aggressive” bargaining rounds, Gniposky said, such as with the Detroit Three automakers. Workers at Stellantis, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors got double-digit wage gains and improvements to various benefits after a short-lived strike. The deals followed pandemic-related supply-chain disruptions amid major pushes to invest in the electric vehicle transition.

Metro grocery workers in the Toronto area made headlines during a month-long strike in 2023, eventually reaching a deal that essentially brought back their lost pandemic pay.

Public-sector workers also took to the streets, including tens of thousands of federal government employees in 2023.

“There was a moment from late 2022 onward, where unions had more relative power to make those gains, to go on strike, and more public support than we had seen for many, many years for those kinds of disruptions,” said Ross, the McMaster labour specialist.

But workers still faced pushback from their employers and, in some cases, governments. Last year the federal government intervened in several high-profile private-sector labour disputes.

Business groups say major labour disruptions, like the month-long strike by Canada Post last year, as well as recent stoppages at ports and railways, cost the economy billions of dollars, disrupt the flow of important commodities and jeopardize the livelihoods of small business owners.

In some cases, industry called on the government to step in.

Recent high-profile work stoppages have not only hurt employers and the economy but also Canada’s reputation as a trading partner, said Chan, with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

« These are getting a lot of attention internationally, » he said.

Some on the industry side, like the Canadian Federation of Independent Business’ Dan Kelly, believe the government has tipped the scales too far toward unionized workers in recent years through legislative changes.

This, plus a tight labour market coming out of the pandemic, empowered workers — including non-unionized employees — to ask for « higher than normal » pay increases, Kelly said.

Breakthroughs in organizing

One group of workers in particular made headlines across North America for unionizing: employees at large chains, including multinational companies such as Starbucks, Walmart and Amazon.

Unifor began organizing at B.C. Amazon warehouses in 2023, and has filed to unionize one of them. The union is currently embroiled in a complaint against Amazon, alleging it tried to dilute and tamp down union support, which the retailer denies.

UFCW, meanwhile, saw success at chains like Indigo and PetSmart.

But Ross, with McMaster, said unions have had a hard time truly moving the needle at these corporate giants.

The first unionized Amazon warehouse in Canada was in Quebec. After it lost a bid to challenge the certification, Amazon announced earlier this year it would close all of its Quebec warehouses, a decision the Confédération des syndicats nationaux is seeking to overturn.

Digital updates

In addition to galvanizing workers, the pandemic also spurred long-overdue technological changes that make it easier to unionize, said Gniposky. For example, digital union cards are now widespread, meaning workers can sign cards from anywhere. Votes are also usually electronic, resulting in a higher turnout.

Ross said the pressures of the past few years have “created a different mood in the labour movement than we’ve seen for a long time.”

“But … the question of whether or not the lessons from this last five years are going to be learned in ways that enhance the power of the labour movement to make economic and political gains for workers is, I think, still an open question,” she said.

The next four years of the Donald Trump presidency could prove to be another opportunity, Gniposky said, as challenging times can build solidarity.

“The fire is still lit,” he said.

“This is an opportunity and we’ve got to take advantage of it.”

Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press – Mar 7, 2025 / 4:20 pm | Story: 537334

Canada’s oldest retailer, Hudson’s Bay, has filed for creditor protection and intends to restructure the business.

The department store company that dates back to 1670 says it has been facing significant pressures including subdued consumer spending, trade tensions between the U.S. and Canada and post-pandemic declines in downtown store traffic.

The company’s hulking footprint spans 80 Hudson’s Bay locations that sell everything from apparel and housewares to cosmetics and furniture.

Through a licensing agreement, it also owns three Saks Fifth Avenue stores and 13 Saks Off 5th locations in Canada, which will continue to operate.

Saks Global, which owns U.S. Saks locations as well as Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman stores is not connected to the creditor protection filing.

Hudson’s Bay said it was exploring several strategic options to strengthen its business and said it would not make promises but was committed to preserving jobs where possible.

The company spent the last several years in a state of deterioration as it closed several stores and carried out several rounds of layoffs, citing challenging headwinds.

The Canadian Press – Mar 7, 2025 / 2:17 pm | Story: 537297

Canadian and United States mayors from the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence region are calling for economic stability and an end to the threat of across-the-board tariffs, saying that millions of livelihoods are at stake on both sides of the border.

Hamilton, Ont., Mayor Andrea Horwath told reporters in Washington, D.C., on Friday that the region forms a single economy that is so integrated the products they produce can’t be described as purely Canadian or American.

« We have one integrated Great Lakes economy, » she said. « In fact, 59 per cent of American imports coming in from Canada are either raw materials or other products that are not yet finished and are being exported to the United States for final assembly, often before being sent right back to Canada to their final customers, their final consumers. »

The mayors were in Washington for the annual gathering of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative, a group of municipal and Indigenous government leaders who represent the region.

Gary, Ind., Mayor Eddie Melton said his state’s economy is reliant on trade with Canada in areas such as energy, manufacturing and transportation. He said he travelled to Washington to ask for a « steady trade environment. »

« Specifically, we are advocating against blanket 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian imports, which will only threaten American jobs and exacerbate inflation, » he said. « Our shared prosperity depends on maintaining free-flowing efficient trade between our countries. »

According to the cities initiative, the region’s economy supports 50 million jobs and is worth over $8 trillion — making it the equivalent of the third-largest economy in the world.

Friday’s news conference came after two Canadian mayors — Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante and St. Catharine’s, Ont., Mayor Mat Siscoe — were denied access to a meeting at the White House earlier in the day. The White House cited « diplomatic protocol » as the reason there « wasn’t enough time to process the requests of the Canadian mayors, » the cities initiative said in a statement, adding that Canadian mayors have attended the White House meetings in previous years without issue.

Instead, only American mayors attended the meeting with an « administration official, » said Mayor Austin Bonta of Portage, Ind. The cities initiative, he said, felt it was important to attend because the mayors wanted to build a relationship with the Trump administration.

« My hope is that next year we go back to how it’s been in previous years where we were all able to get in, » Bonta said. The mayors and the White House official discussed protecting the Great Lakes, and how the trade dispute « impacts all of us because our region is one very united economy. »

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday granted Canada and Mexico a partial reprieve from 25 per cent tariffs until April 2, but also said he plans to move ahead with 25 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminum starting March 12.

At Friday’s conference, the mayors spoke about how the duties on U.S. imports from Canada would hurt Canadian sales and raise prices for U.S. consumers. One mayor from New York also pointed out that parts of her state are also facing the threat of a 25 per cent retaliatory surcharge on electricity from Ontario announced by Premier Doug Ford. Shawyn Patterson-Howard said tariffs could cost the average New York family between $1,200 and $3,000 a year.

Quebec City Mayor Bruno Marchand expressed frustration with Trump’s erratic trade policies.

« Our two countries are not engaged in a game of chess. This has become more like a game of whack-a-mole, » he said, adding, « but this isn’t a game at all, we’re dealing with real livelihoods. »

The Associated Press – Mar 7, 2025 / 10:58 am | Story: 537248

A growing number of prominent companies have scaled back or set aside the diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives that much of corporate America endorsed following the protests that accompanied the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd, a Black man, in 2020.

The changes have come in response to a campaign by conservative activists to target workplace programs in the courts and social media, and more recently, President Donald Trump’s executive orders aimed at upending DEI policies in both the federal government and private sector.

DEI policies typically are intended to root out systemic barriers to the advancement of historically marginalized groups in certain fields or roles. Critics argue that some education, government and business programs are discriminatory because they single out participants based on factors such as race, gender and sexual orientation. They have targeted corporate sponsorships, employee-led affinity groups, programs aimed at steering contracts to minority or women-owned businesses, and goals that some companies established for increasing minority representation in leadership ranks.

While hiring or promotion decisions based on race or gender is illegal under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act in most circumstances, companies say they are not doing that. Instead, they say they aspire to diversify their workforce over time through policies like widening candidate pools for job openings.

These are some of the companies that have retreated from DEI:

Uber

After an conducting an internal investigation that found rampant sexual harassment issues within its corporate office under its founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick, Uber has been focused on overhauling its corporate culture since its current CEO Dara Khosrowshahi took over in 2017.

Those changes had included a ramped-up commitment to diversity and inclusion as part of a commitment that the ride-hailing service highlighted in a section of its annual report for 2023.

But Uber dropped its diversity and inclusion section from its 2024 annual report filed last month. And the word “diversity” doesn’t appear anywhere in its 135 pages.

Uber didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

Salesforce

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff once was on a crusade to inspire other corporate leaders to become social activists in a drive to fix a “train wreck” of inequality, but he has since toned down that message while pledging to work with President Donald Trump “to drive American success and prosperity for all.”

Although Benioff personally has remained an outspoken supporter of LGBTQ+ rights, Salesforce is no longer touting its diversity program. After carving out a section of its annual report filed last year to declare, “Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Equality is a core value at Salesforce,” the San Francisco excluded any discussion of diversity programs in its latest annual report filed March 5.

“While we don’t have representation goals, we remain committed to our value of equality,” Salesforce said in a statement.

Pepsi

PepsiCo confirmed that it’s ending some of its diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, even as rival Coca-Cola voiced support for its own inclusion efforts.

In a memo sent to employees, PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta said the company will no longer set goals for minority representation in its managerial roles or supplier base. The company will also align its sponsorships to events and groups that promote business growth, he said.

Laguarta wrote that inclusion remains important to PepsiCo, whose brands include Gatorade, Lay’s potato chips, Doritos, Mountain Dew as well as Pepsi. The Purchase, New York-based company’s chief diversity officer will transition to a broader role focused on employee engagement, leadership development and ensuring an inclusive culture, he said.

Goldman Sachs

Investment firm Goldman Sachs confirmed that it was dropping a requirement that forced IPO clients to include women and members of minority groups on their board of directors.

“As a result of legal developments related to board diversity requirements, we ended our formal board diversity policy,” said a Goldman Sachs spokesman in an email to The Associated Press. “We continue to believe that successful boards benefit from diverse backgrounds and perspectives, and we will encourage them to take this approach.”

Goldman Sachs said that it will still have a placement service that connects its clients with diverse candidates to serve on their boards.

Google

Google rescinded a goal it had set in 2020 to increase representation of underrepresented groups among the company’s leadership team by 30% within five years. In a memo to employees, the company also said it was considering other changes in response to Trump’s executive order aimed at prohibiting federal contractors from conducting DEI practices that constitute “illegal discrimination.”

Google’s parent company Alphabet also signaled things were changing in its annual 10-K report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The report dropped a boilerplate sentence it has used since 2020 declaring that the company is “committed to making diversity, equity, and inclusion part of everything we do and to growing a workforce that is representative of the users we serve.”

Target

The retailer said that changes to its “Belonging at the Bullseye” strategy would include ending a program it established to help Black employees build meaningful careers, improve the experience of Black shoppers and to promote Black-owned businesses following Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, where Target has its headquarters.

Target, which operates nearly 2,000 stores nationwide and employs more than 400,000 people, said it also would conclude the diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, goals it previously set in three-year cycles.

The goals included hiring and promoting more women and members of racial minority groups, and recruiting more diverse suppliers, including businesses owned by people of color, women, LGBTQ+ people, veterans and people with disabilities.

Target also will no longer participate in surveys designed to gauge the effectiveness of its actions, including an annual index compiled by the Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBTQ+ rights organization. Target also said it would further evaluate corporate partnerships to ensure they’re connected directly to business objectives, but declined to share details.

Meta Platforms

The parent company of Facebook and Instagram said it was getting rid of its diversity, equity and inclusion program, which featured policies for hiring, training and picking vendors.

Like other companies that announced similar changes before Meta, the social media giant said it had been reviewing the program since the Supreme Court’s July 2023 ruling upending affirmative action in higher education.

Citing an internal memo sent to employees, news website Axios reported the Menlo Park, California-based tech giant said it would no longer have a team focused on diversity and inclusion and will instead “focus on how to apply fair and consistent practices that mitigate bias for all, no matter your background.” The change means the company will also end its “diverse slate approach” to hiring, which involved considering a diverse pool of candidates for every open position.

Amazon

Amazon said it was halting some of its DEI programs, although it did not specify which ones. In a Dec. 16 memo to employees, Candi Castleberry, a senior human resources executive, said the company has been “winding down outdated programs and materials, and we’re aiming to complete that by the end of 2024.”

“We also know there will always be individuals or teams who continue to do well-intentioned things that don’t align with our company-wide approach, and we might not always see those right away. But we’ll keep at it,” she wrote.

Rather than “have individual groups build programs,” Castleberry said, Amazon is “focusing on programs with proven outcomes – and we also aim to foster a more truly inclusive culture.”

McDonald’s

Four years after launching a push for more diversity in its ranks, McDonald’s said earlier this month that it is ending some of its diversity practices.

McDonald’s said on Jan. 6 that it will retire specific goals for achieving diversity at senior leadership levels. It also intends to end a program that encourages its suppliers to develop diversity training and to increase the number of minority group members represented within their own leadership ranks.

McDonald’s said it will also pause “external surveys.” The burger giant didn’t elaborate, but several other companies have suspended their participation in an annual survey by the HRC.

In an open letter to employees and franchisees, McDonald’s senior leadership team said it remained committed to inclusion and believes that having a diverse workforce is a competitive advantage.

Walmart

The world’s largest retailer confirmed in November that it would not be renewing a five-year commitment to a racial equity center set up in 2020 after the police killing of George Floyd, and that it would stop participating in the HRC’s Corporate Equality Index.

Walmart also said it will better monitor its third-party marketplace to make sure items sold there do not include products aimed at LGBTQ+ minors, including chest binders intended for transgender youth.

Additionally, the company will no longer consider race and gender as a litmus test to improve diversity when it offers supplier contracts and it won’t be gathering demographic data when determining financing eligibility for those grants.

Ford

CEO Jim Farley sent a memo to the automaker’s employees in August outlining changes to the company’s DEI policies, including a decision to stop taking part in HRC’s Corporate Equality Index.

Ford, he wrote, had been looking at its policies for a year. The company doesn’t use hiring quotas or tie compensation to specific diversity goals but remains committed to “fostering a safe and inclusive workplace,” Farley said.

“We will continue to put our effort and resources into taking care of our customers, our team, and our communities versus publicly commenting on the many polarizing issues of the day,” the memo said.

Lowe’s

In August, Lowe’s executive leadership said the company began “reviewing” its programs following the Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling and decided to combine its employee resource groups into one umbrella organization. Previously, the company had “individual groups representing diverse sections of our associate population.”

The retailer also will no longer participate in the HRC index, and will stop sponsoring and participating in events, such as festivals and parades, that are outside of its business areas.

Harley-Davidson

In a post on X in August, Harley-Davidson said the company would review all sponsorships and organizations it was affiliated with, and that all would have to be centrally approved. It said the company would focus exclusively on growing the sport of motorcycling and retaining its loyal riding community, in addition to supporting first responders, active military members and veterans.

The motorcycle maker said it would no longer participate in the ranking of workplace equality compiled by the HRC, and that its trainings would be related to the needs of the business and absent of socially motivated content.

Harley-Davidson also said it does not have hiring quotas and would no longer have supplier diversity spending goals.

Brown-Forman

The parent company of Jack Daniels also pulled out from participating in the HRC’s Corporate Equality Index, among other changes. Its leaders sent an email to employees in August saying the company launched its diversity and inclusion strategy in 2019, but since then “the world has evolved, our business has changed, and the legal and external landscape has shifted dramatically.”

The company said it would remove its quantitative workforce and supplier diversity ambitions, ensure incentives and employee goals were tied to business performance, and review training programs for consistency with a revised strategy.

“Brown-Forman continues to foster an inclusive work environment where everyone is welcomed, respected, and able to bring their best self to work,” spokeswoman Elizabeth Conway said in an email.

John Deere

The farm equipment maker said in July that it would no longer sponsor “social or cultural awareness” events, and that it would audit all training materials “to ensure the absence of socially-motivated messages” in compliance with federal and local laws.

Moline, Illinois-based John Deere added “the existence of diversity quotas and pronoun identification have never been and are not company policy.” But it noted that it would still continue to “track and advance” the diversity of the company.

Tractor Supply

The retailer in June said it was ending an array of corporate diversity and climate efforts, a move that came after weeks of online conservative backlash against the rural retailer.

Tractor Supply said it would be eliminating all of its DEI roles while retiring current DEI goals. The company added that it would “stop sponsoring non-business activities” such as Pride festivals or voting campaigns — and no longer submit data for the HRC index.

The Brentwood, Tennessee-based company, which sells products ranging from farming equipment to pet supplies, also said that it would withdraw from its carbon emission goals to instead “focus on our land and water conservation efforts.”

The National Black Farmers Association called on Tractor Supply’s president and CEO to step down shortly after the company’s announcement.

 

Sharif Hassan and Ian Bickis, The Canadian Press – Mar 7, 2025 / 9:08 am | Story: 537228

Canadian auto workers and the industry are catching their breath after a roller-coaster week that saw crushing tariffs imposed, then paused, as they wait for the next round of threats.

Mohammad Thraya, who works at Stellantis’ Windsor Assembly Plant, says the mood in the plant is changing daily but there’s a little less anxiety with the pause.

The U.S. Trump administration announced Thursday, just two days after imposing sweeping tariffs, that it was exempting the auto sector until April 2.

Thraya says he’s optimistic the industry will dodge the worst of it, but if it is hit by more tariffs both the plant and the wider Windsor community would be hit hard.

Jose Velasquez, who also works at the plant, says even a slowdown in production could mean layoffs, hitting younger workers with families and mortgages especially hard.

And while the industry has secured a temporary reprieve from broader tariffs, it still faces a hit from more scheduled to come in next week on steel and aluminum, and the uncertainty of what else might be coming.

 

The Canadian Press – Mar 7, 2025 / 9:00 am | Story: 537226

Canada’s main stock index was down in late-morning trading as it saw losses in the technology and base metal sectors, while U.S. stock markets also tumbled on the final day of the trading week.

The S&P/TSX composite index was down 45.60 points at 24,538.44.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 224.20 points at 42,354.88. The S&P 500 index was down 40.35 points at 5,698.17, while the Nasdaq composite was down 150.64 points at 17,918.62.

The Canadian dollar traded for 69.55 cents US compared with 69.89 cents US on Thursday.

The April crude oil contract was up 95 cents at US$67.31 per barrel and the April natural gas contract was down six cents at US$4.25 per mmBTU.

The April gold contract was down US$3.70 at US$2,922.90 an ounce and the May copper contract was down five cents at US$4.75 a pound.

 

 

Glen Korstrom / BIV – Mar 7, 2025 / 8:38 am | Story: 537218

Soaring coffee prices are giving roasters, distributors and coffee shop owners the jitters.

It’s the roasters who are getting roasted the worst because the price of coffee is their biggest input cost, said Vince Piccolo, who has been involved in the coffee business for decades and earlier this year launched the coffee roasting business Ex Animo.

Bulk prices for unroasted coffee beans hit an all-time high of about US$4.40 per pound in early February.

“On top of that, you have a faltering Canadian dollar so Canadian roasters are hit double hard,” he added.

A severe drought in Brazil and increased global demand are two reasons for the price spike.

Piccolo said roasters usually resell coffee for between 30 and 50 per cent more than that input cost.

“I don’t think consumers have seen price increases happen yet,” said Piccolo, who co-founded Caffè Artigiano in the early 2000s and later owned 49th Parallel Coffee Roasters before selling that venture.

“A lot of the coffee shops haven’t really got their price increases yet because a lot of people have had contracts based on last year’s prices.”

High prices contribute to industry consolidation

Last month, what is now known simply as Artigiano bought the 29-year-old, Richmond-based coffee roaster Salt Spring Coffee for an undisclosed amount, Artigiano owner Dean Shillington told BIV.

“Salt Spring had run into some financial challenges with the coffee market,” he said.

Artigiano is better able to shoulder the rising cost of coffee because it has 25 locations.

Coffee shops, Shillington explained, are buffered because they have many more input costs than do coffee roasters.

The cafés sell food. Even when they sell liquid coffee, there is the value-added service of brewing or creating the beverages.

The franchise model also helps Artigiano, as 17 of its cafés are owned by independent entrepreneurs.

Franchisors generate revenue from one-time fees and royalties, which in Artigiano’s case are $40,000 for an initial franchise fee plus a six-per-cent royalty and a three-per-cent marketing fee.

This helps insulate the business from commodity spikes, Shillington said.

He told BIV that he wanted to buy Salt Spring Coffee for the “efficiency that it offered,” given that Artigiano has long bought its beans.

Shillington said he also felt a strong connection to the brand.

Coffee shop owners who do not own roasting companies say they fear price hikes will cut into whatever profit margins they make.

Ming Yang, for example, owns master franchise rights to Honolulu Coffee in B.C., and she owns and operates three locations: in downtown Vancouver, Kerrisdale and near False Creek.

“It is getting very expensive right now,” she told BIV.

She added that she was planning to soon meet her local coffee roaster to discuss options.

Her coffee chain is well known for selling Kona coffee from Hawaii, and those contracts are set with a specific Hawaii-based roaster.

She has some freedom to select her own coffee roasters for other varieties of coffee if the parent company approves, and if the beans meet quality standards and the roaster has a good reputation, she said.

“It’s very tough for the roasters, and then it’s going to be tough for us, because wholesale prices keep rising no matter which roaster,” she said. “They are going to pass it on to the cafés, and cafés pass it to consumers, so everyone will suffer.”

Yang said she believes the price of coffee could stay high because extreme weather events are likely to continue.

Shillington and Piccolo said they expect coffee prices to eventually normalize.

So does former Blenz Coffee president George Moen, who said many customers have a limit for how much they are willing to pay.

“There is a segment within specialty coffee where price doesn’t matter because the buyers live in a world where they can afford whatever coffee they want,” he said.

“It’s that middle-ground coffee segment where I believe consumers are tapped out.”

He suggested that coffee shop owners would be wise to also offer specialty tea beverages and other coffee alternatives.

“Coffee is an addictive substance,” he said. “But people will go down-market from the specialty coffees.”

By that, he means that some consumers could instead become regulars at McDonald’s Corp. (NTYSE:MCD) restaurants instead of at Starbucks Corp. (Nasdaq:SBUX) locations.

 

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