● Year in which a Toronto Globe newspaper editorial stated that “Unions have outlived their usefulness”: 1886
● Percentage of workers in Canada who belong to a union: 30
● Number of new workers who must be unionized each year for Canada to maintain its 30% union density rate: 80,000
● Estimated number of jobs that will be created in South Africa due to the 2010 World Cup being held there: 415,000
● Number of people in South Africa who are officially unemployed: 4.5 million
● Price of the cheapest ticket for an opening round World Cup match, in American dollars: $365
● Number of South Africans who live on less than $2 a day: 21.5 million
● Average annual income of a Nike soccer ball production worker in India: $600
● Number of years which they would have to work to earn the annual income of Nike CEO Mark Parker: 12,701
● Before-tax profits of Canada’s financial sector in 2009: $44 billion
● Estimated cost of providing housing and income supports to every homeless person in Canada: $3.5 billion
● Percentage of Americans who say they’re suffering from “debt-related stress”: 46
● Total female income as a percentage of male income in Saudi Arabia: 17
● Total female income as a percentage of male income in Kenya: 82
● International rank of Canada in having the highest percentage of female income to that of male income: 40th
● Chance that an American worker currently is or has been a victim of workplace bullying: 1 in 3
● Chance that a bullied worker never reports the bullying to their employer: 2 in 5
● Percentage of Ontarians who are opposed to the planned Harmonized Sales Tax (HST): 74
● Percentage of British Columbians who are: 82
● As of June 4, estimated amount of oil released into the Gulf of Mexico from the well disaster, in litres: 133 million
● As of 05/28/2010, estimated total economic cost of the oil spill: $980 billion
● Date on which BP CEO Tony Hayward said the environmental impact would be “very, very modest”: 05/17/2010
● Percentage of Americans who believe BP’s response to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is “good or “very good”: 24
● Percentage of Americans who believe that compensation received by Wall Street executives is “reasonable”: 27
● Percentage of 13 and 15 year-olds in Britain who admitted being drunk at least twice during the past year: 22
● Percentage of 13 and 15 year-olds in France who admitted this: 11
● Estimated amount of wealth that will be spent by the federal government to host the June 2010 G8 Summit: $1.3 billion
● Total amount spent by the federal government toward the Haitian Earthquake relief efforts since January 2010: $305 million
● Total amount the government of Haiti spends each year paying interest on its foreign debt: $57 million
● Total amount in foreign aid given to Haiti each year for health care, education and social services combined: $39 million
● Percentage of the “service life” of public infrastructure in Canada that has been used up: 79
● Current cost of eliminating this “infrastructural deficit”: $123 billion
● Household debt as a percentage of disposable income in Canada in 2009: 144
● Chance that a Canadian CEO believes that higher taxes are necessary to reduce the federal deficit: 3 in 5
● Percentage of all public sector managerial positions in Canada occupied by people of colour: 4
● Chance that a Canadian citizen believes that detainees handed over to Afghan authorities have been tortured: 3 in 5
● Percentage of all agricultural land in Brazil owned by the wealthiest three percent of the population: 75
● Number of hours spent working each week by an average employee in Greece: 41
● Number of hours by an average employee in Germany: 27.5
● Estimated workweek hours for an average peasant serf in 13th century England: 31
● Estimated workweek hours for an average person living on earth 20,000 years ago: 15
Our Times Tally, inspired by Harpers Index (see www.harpers.org), is compiled by freelance writer Sean Cain.