The RadioLabour episode that carried this report can be found at: https://rabble.ca/podcast/bc-lifelabs-workers-strike-against-american-corporation/
This week the top stories sections on our Canadian French- and English-language pages was, conveniently enough, not only also our global top story in English but LabourStart’s podcast for the week.
It’s a pretty fab ten minute interview with Mark Hancock, National President of the Canadian Union of Public Employees. My old union as it happens.
Pat Bulmer, LabourStart’s co-ordinator in Canada and a Unifor member, asked Mark about CUPE’s Montreal Declaration and how it sets the stage for CUPE’s response to Trump’s tariffs and to the threat of annexation.
It was a big week for big news in the Canadian labour movement.
In BC, UNITE-HERE members at a hotel in the lower mainland returned to work after 1411 days, ending what just might be our longest strike ever. The strikers, mostly women and racialized workers, won a huge victory not just in terms of wages and working conditions, but they won recall rights for 143 of their comrades who had been sacked during the pandemic.
We also carried the exciting news that CUPE’s chain bargaining strategy in Alberta’s education sector is working as a cascade of settlements started earlier this week.
But my favourite item, among our Canadian stories at least, was about the certification vote this week in which 500 or more Uber drivers in BC decided whether to join UFCW 1518. Fingers crossed of course as the company is putting up the kind of fight you’d expect from it, but we hope to soon bring you some good news about the result.
On our working women news page you’ll find stories from Canada and from around the globe in 9 languages.
Stories like the calls heard from union women for cross-border solidarity with their USian sisters.
And among the Canadian items appearing on our health and safety page and newswire this week was coverage of the start of construction of a memorial to the victims of a crane collapse in Kelowna BC that killed five workers in 2021.
It almost didn’t happen after the BC government denied an application for $150 grand to build the memorial. But after an anonymous donor popped the needed cash construction started this week.
LabourStart’s Photo of the Week isn’t often Canadian but as a Canadian is our photo editor and as that Canadian is me, you all get to hear about our photo of the week in each episode.
This week we carried a photo of two Argentinian police officers firing their shotguns at a crowd of pensioners.
On 12 march, thousands of pensioners peacefully gathered across Argentina to protest cuts to pensions and public services under the Milei regime. Security forces responded brutally. One person remains in hospital in critical condition and the far-right Milei government continues to cut services to citizens while making life easier for the very rich and for large businesses.
Labour’s history is what our current struggles are built on and this week we marked the anniversaries of these events:
This week in 1960 five Italian immigrant workers died in an underground tunnel at a watermain construction project in suburban Toronto. The Hogg’s Hollow Disaster drew public attention to the prevalence of unsafe conditions in construction and the exploitation of immigrant workers.
There are lots more Canadian labour history items like this to be found at the bottom of our Canadian news pages. Look for them and be inspired.
LabourStart hosts online solidarity actions at the request of unions around the world. This week we’d like to highlight urgent appeals for online solidarity with trade union activists in New York City who are fighting union-busting by a cinema chain and another appeal for our solidarity by trade unionists facing jail and worse in Belarus.
And because it was a big week campaigns-wise we have a third new call for solidarity for you: The Fight the Heist campaign unites garment workers across Asia and is targeting global brands like Nike in a push to for a living wage and safe workplaces.
If you can spare just a few seconds you can do your part in these struggles by sending a solidarity message.
Look for details of these and other campaigns on our site.
Is your dream job a staff position with a union? On our main page is a link to our jobs listings page where you’ll see openings at unions around the globe. If you’re looking for work with a Canadian union or perhaps one of the global union federations be sure and check it out.
Before i go, a quick shout out to the 13,000 CSN members who work at 400 daycare centres across Quebec. This week they upped the ante in their dispute with the provincial government and spent two days on the picket line after their union called a warning strike. Such time-limited walkouts are common in several provinces and while they require incredible discipline by the workers warning strikes can also send a powerful message to an employer and reduce the total time on the line that it takes to get a settlement.
This is Derek Blackadder from LabourStart reporting for RadioLabour.
Labour News Network 