The RadioLabour episode that carried this report can be found at: https://rabble.ca/podcast/american-scholars-moving-to-canada-eh/
This week the top stories sections on our Canadian French- and English-language pages included more strike dates for 13,000 Quebec daycare workers and the threat of warning strikes evolving into an open-ended walkout, Unifor’s plan for building solidarity through supply chains, and something rarely see: A joint declaration from two major unions, in this case CUPE and Unifor. The statement is about, you guessed it, the US attack on Canadian workers.
We also carried news of a transit strike in BC over a 19th century issue: access to clean and safe washrooms, personal care workers in Manitoba protesting because their employer hasn’t paid them, another 19th century problem, and the end of the BCGEU inland ferry strike.
But my favourite item, among our Canadian stories at least, was about the call for solidarity with Telus workers in Türkiye (Turkey). Yes, Telus…in Türkiye. Most of us are probably not aware that Telus is way more than a Canadian telecom. It has contracts to provide everything from human resources services to Ontario hospitals to content moderation of posts on some of the most popular social media platforms on earth.
Which is the horrendous job Telus workers in Türkiye are doing for TikTok. Traumatized by their work, they are organizing but face an employer that terminates workers for supporting Çağrı-İş, an independent union representing call center workers. This is something that these workers share with other content moderators around the world and is why they are networking globally while organizing locally.
But what makes this a Canadian labour news story? Steel does. The Steelworkers represents most Telus workers in Canada and Steel, as Steel is wont to do, is trying to engage Canadian workers in support of our comrades in Turkiye. So pay attention. And send a solidarity and protest message via the online action Steel and the other union and global union federation involved have asked LabourStart to host.
The Turkish union is convinced that messages from Canadians will carry extra weight not just with Telus, but with the Turkish workers. A few seconds of digital solidarity can have a huge impact on morale in a workplace as horrible as theirs.
This week’s LabourStart podcast is an interview with Luc Triangle, General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). Luc detailed the horrendous conditions for trade unionists in Belarus in the lead-up to a global day of action in solidarity with them.
On our Working Women News page you’ll find stories from Canada and from around the globe in 9 languages.
Stories like those marking Equal Pay Day on 10 April. The date changes from year to year but it is the date on which the average woman worker earns as much for her work in 2024 and the for three and a bit months of 2025 as did men doing similar work in 2024 alone.
And like the piece from Northern Ontario, where the Labourers have launched a new programme to get women workers onto construction sites and one detailing why women parents support women workers as the Quebec daycare strikes heat up.
Among the Canadian items appearing on our health and safety page and newswire this week was coverage of the surge in shoplifting from Liquor New Brunswick stores and its effects on the CUPE members who work in them and another regarding the mental health issues corrections workers face and how one union, OPSEU, is addressing them.
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 members of FO, a French union confederation like the CLC, as they participated in a national day of protest against neoliberal austerity policies in the social services and healthcare sectors.
Labour’s history is what our current struggles are built on and this week we marked the anniversaries of these events:
This week in 1983 a tractor trailer drove through a picket line at a strikebound Alcan plant in Scarborough, Ontario, causing the death of Claude Dougdeen, 51, a Trinidad immigrant and father of seven. Outraged union leaders called on the province to bring in anti-scab laws with no success.
In 1972 more than 200,000 public sector workers, organized in the Québec Common Front, began a ten-day strike. Three leaders were jailed, but the Common Front ultimately succeeded in winning a $100 minimum weekly wage for public employees.
In 1980 The Canadian Farmworkers Union held its founding convention at Douglas College in Vancouver. Delegates elect Raj Chouhan as president of the CFU, Canada’s first union of agricultural workers.
And last but definitely not least, this week in 1937 In Oshawa, Ontario, 4,000 workers went on strike at the General Motors plant for recognition of the United Auto Workers. They won major concessions, and the strike is often considered the birth of industrial unionism in Canada.
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.
This is Derek Blackadder from LabourStart reporting for RadioLabour.
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