For this strike to be successful, unions across Ontario and Canada will need to offer more than strong words.
To borrow a phrase from Mark Hancock, the national president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), the Doug Ford government in Ontario has gone “full nuclear” and suspended the Charter-protected rights of the provinces’ lowest paid education workers to collectively bargain and strike.
The Doug Ford government has just turned a minor labour dispute into class war in Ontario.
Refusing to budge in negotiations, offering a piddly 10 per cent wage increase when 50 per cent was demanded, the Ford government, usually notoriously lazy, started the legislative session at 5 a.m. on November 1 to drive through a bill that not only removes union rights to free collective bargaining and to strike in Ontario but also puts at threat all of our constitutionally protected rights.
Website editor: the second short video below is worth watching - "Heating and eating: can cost of living and climate protesters join forces?"
Oct. 26, 2022
As the crackdown on our freedoms intensifies, the list of our national ailments seems endless. But there’s one issue that can prise things open
Before we decide what needs to change, let’s take stock of what we have lost. I want to begin with what happened last week. I don’t mean the resignation of the prime minister. This is more important.
Here's a very excellent video adaptation of a 2010 David Harvey presentation which explains the 2008 economic crisis and how the financialization of capital (among other things) helped to contribute to that crisis.
In this RSA Animate, celebrated academic David Harvey looks beyond capitalism towards a new social order. Can we find a more responsible, just, and humane economic system?
With promises to rejuvenate forests from the air, tree-planting start-ups are looking to supplement shovels and long days of labour with swarms of seed-bearing aerial drones. A growing target: B.C.'s burnt forests.
The charred remains of Douglas fir and Lodgepole pine forests once sent their seeds fluttering through the air — often in the belly or beak of a bird — but not like this.
A potential showdown between organized labor and Wall Street looms over the world of freight trains: An influential railroad workers group is urging fellow union members to reject a tentative labor agreement that has prevented an industry-wide strike, and to fight for public ownership of railroads. Negotiations are tense, and the unions are telling members that every vote counts.
Thanks to everyone who has written in support of my @guardian piece urging radical change. I must make one correction: it’s not about Corbynism. It’s about socialism. The fight for a kinder society is a collective struggle: we owe it to each other to win.
