April-May 2011
Features
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12
Maru Maesa and Migrante Canada
Like millions of Filipino women, I was forced to leave my country and my family out of the urgent need to survive. Right now, I am a worker under the Live-in Caregiver Program, in Canada.
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18
Resisting the Shock Doctrine
The attack on public sector unions and workers’ bargaining rights is intensifying in the United States, and is now spreading across the border to Canada.
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22
Cover Story: Tax Fairness and Public Services
Kamloops outreach worker Sharron Gardner says we have to connect the dots between getting a tax break and losing social services. “You may save $10 in a tax break but the loss of the service could mean you pay $40 to get what you need through privatization.” A cross-country check-up with five of the 100 union activists trained to make the connection, through one-on-one conversations with their co-workers, between fair taxes and public services.
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29
Saving Our Saskatchewan
Laundry worker and union activist Rhonda Derby, and the many other volunteers taking part in the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour’s Labour Issues campaign, are making a difference, one person at a time, in the fight against privatization by providing co-workers, neighbours and friends with the information they need. The same goes for Jennifer Britton at SOS Saskatchewan.
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37
Are the Kids Alright?
Decades of political inaction have enabled various governments to drag down child labour standards to the detriment of young workers. Today, young trade unionists are taking on this fight.
Departments
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5
Letters
In Gil Levine’s Memory * Our Film Buff has a Fan
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6
Notes
Rally for Respect * Peace Arch Rally * Farmworker Struggle Continues * Japan’s Heroic Workers * Fair Shares * Orange Crush
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9
Webwork: What We’re Saying Matters
I spend a lot of time telling people not to let their enthusiasm for the new media take them over the edge into true geekdom.
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11
Our Times Tally
Percentage of employers in the U.S. who require one-on-one meetings with workers during a unionization drive: 63
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35
Poetry
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40
Review: Housing and Homelessness
The Home Safe film trilogy demonstrates how, for many Canadians, homelessness is not necessarily the lack of a home, but the conditions that put their families just one pay cheque away from eviction.
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44
Commentary: Growing a Movement
Our members are yearning for social and political meaning and involvement. Trade unions are poised to deliver that, for the sake of our whole society.
