Articles
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Leo Mckay And Davis Day
Imagine being limited to working part-time hours at a job so dangerous it threatened your life every day. Imagine your family suffering continuous hunger and deprivation, all because the company you worked for only paid you $3.65 a day while charging you exorbitant rates for your lodging, utilities and household necessities. Keep reading…
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ACTIVIST WITH AN ATTITUDE
Anna Willats
It was very different growing up poor in a rural area in the 50s and 60s than it is growing up poor in Toronto today. I didn’t know we were poor until I was much older,” says Anna Willats, 52-year-old butch lesbian mother of two, feminist, educator, and community activist to be reckoned with. Keep reading…
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The Power To Change Things
At one time, human rights activists tended to focus on individual “prisoners of conscience,” emphasizing the denial of a narrow set of political freedoms. And labour rights tended to be only the concern of unions. But with the end of the Cold War all that changed. Keep reading…
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Notes From A Picket Line
Gender Barriers
I began writing this commentary the day after York University’s administration derailed bargaining talks and decided to push the Ontario Ministry of Labour for a forced ratification vote. This move came less than 24 hours after 85 per cent of more than 500 contract faculty, research assistants and graduate assistants, all members of Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 3903, had voted down York administration’s latest offer at our general membership meeting.A teaching assistant for… Keep reading…
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Podcast To The Working Class
Scott McWhinnie and The Labour Show
Most days Scott McWhinnie can be found doing his electrician’s job at the University of Guelph, roaming the southern Ontario campus doing urgent repairs and general maintenance. But every few weeks, McWhinnie puts his media-mogul top hat on and uses his working-class sensibility to produce and host The Labour Show, a podcast. Keep reading…
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Is The Movement At A Standstill?
Union Efforts and Outcomes
There is a growing perception, among both academics and union activists, that the union movement in Canada is at a standstill. Professor Charlotte Yates from McMaster University recently wrote that: “In the 1990s unions in Canada were relatively successful at rebuilding their membership through organizing and exploiting new opportunities. But in many instances, this progress seems to have stalled in the last 10 years.” Many labour analysts agree with this assessment, some citing battle fatigu… Keep reading…
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The Workers’ Story
Alberta’s Labour History Institute
It’s the end of summer and we are in the Atlas Mine Museum just south of Drumheller, not far from some of the world’s largest dinosaur diggings. We are doing labour history in an area that witnessed some of the most radical trade union action in Canada. Keep reading…
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Rising Up
Have Your Say
Rebellion and solidarity were on clear display in June this year at the blockade of General Motors’ Canadian headquarters in Oshawa, Ontario, after GM announced it would be closing the award-winning pickup truck plant in Oshawa in 2009. This is where I work. Keep reading…
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Manufacturing Gone Missing
Canada’s Economic Disappearing Act
Canadians can be forgiven for being a bit confused about the state of Canada’s economy. Breathless news reports exclaim about the low unemployment rate, surging dollar and buoyant forecasts. But in our neighbourhoods, something seems amiss. Across the country, working people seem to be treading water at best. Keep reading…
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Facebook Facts
Finding Friends and Foes
Unions and workers are making much use of the latest web fad: social networking sites. But are sites like Facebook really adding anything to our ability to organize? If yes, how, exactly? And where are the pitfalls in using online commercial sites for organizing (in every sense of that word)?Social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Second Life are hard to avoid these days. For those who haven’t caught the bug yet, these are websites that allow users to organize themselves and… Keep reading…
