Month: May 2025

The RadioLabour episode that carried this report can be found at:   https://rabble.ca/podcast/what-no-federal-labour-minister/

This week the top stories sections on our Canadian French- and English-language pages included CUPW’s announcement of a ban on overtime as negotiations with Canada Post continue.  Watch for the corporation’s response.  Remember that CUPW’s strike last year was a rotating walkout that would not have shut down the postal service; it was the post office’s lockout that did that.

We also carried the story behind the successful organizing drive at an A&W restaurant in BC, the opening days of the CSN’s challenge to Amazon’s decision to close its Quebec operations after workers at one warehouse organized, and the end of the Lifelabs strike in British Columbia.

But my favourite item, among our Canadian stories at least, was from Quebec City, my home town, where the CUPE members who load and unload ship’s in the city’s harbour returned to work after a lockout that not only lasted 987 days but which is widely credited with contributing to the CLC and NDP’s long-standing campaign to ban scabs in federally-regulated workplaces.  That campaign finally saw no-scab amendments to the Canada Labour Code after decades of effort.

The best bit?  Workers from several unions formed a guard of honour to welcome them back to work.

As LabourStart is a global organization I should slip in at least one non-Canadian story worth being highlighted for you.  This week that story is a survey of the repression experienced over the last 20 years by teachers union activists in, of all places, Iran.  A country almost as intolerant of independent trade unions as is North Korea.  But still they organize….

Canadian items appearing on our health and safety page and newswire this week included the fight by nurses who work at Hydro Quebec’s remote worksites to win a first collective agreement and what a possible strike would mean for the CUPE members who work at generating stations in northern Quebec.  And a piece from the building trades in BC complaining that the new requirement for flush toilets at work locations still isn’t being universally enforced.

LabourStart’s Photo of the Week, which you can catch on our main page until Monday, is from Baghdad, where on May Day the Preparatory Committee of the General Union of Platform Workers was officially formed within the Federation of Iraqi Trade Unions (FITU).

The labour movement’s history is what our current struggles are built on and this week we marked the anniversaries of these events:

This week in 1975 a general strike brings out 100,000 protesters after police bludgeon striking workers at United Aircraft in Longueuil, Québec. Later, a new provincial government banned the use of strikebreakers in that province.

And in 1921 the Communist Party of Canada was founded at a three-day meeting in a barn in Guelph, Ontario. The party achieved its greatest influence in the 1930s and 1940s organizing unemployed workers and industrial unions, and in struggles against war and fascism.

There are lots more labour history items like this to be found at the bottom of our Canadian news pages.  Look for them and be inspired.

Speaking of inspiration, 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.

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 Azerbaijan, Türkiye and Belarus.

If you can spare just a few seconds you can do your part in struggles like these by sending a solidarity or protest message.

Look for details on our site.

Before I go, a quick shout out to the news website Alberta Workers and to some workers doing unusual and interesting work in Edmonton.  AW brought us the news that indoor skydiving facility workers in Edmonton are organizing with UFCW.  Next time you’re in the neighbourhood, drop in.  😊

This is Derek Blackadder from LabourStart reporting for RadioLabour.

The RadioLabour episode that carried this report can be found at:  https://rabble.ca/podcast/work-overload-is-destroying-the-physical-and-mental-health-of-workers/

This week the top stories sections on our Canadian French- and English-language pages included the movement’s reaction to the new federal cabinet, Unifor on the news that Honda is at best delaying its EV investments in Ontario, an end to a months-long lockout of the CSN members who work at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, and the good and cheering news that workers at five Starbucks shops in Ontario have ratified first collective agreements after organizing with Steel.

We also carried news of what’s going on in Alberta.  There’s a lot, even now, after the CUPE schools strikes.  Some of it is historic and much of it will have an impact nationally, so check out our Alberta page.  To do that click on Canada on a news item on our main page and then on Alberta wherever it appears.  Or on Nova Scotia, or PEI or…you get the idea.

But my favourite item, among our Canadian stories at least, was from Ontario where CUPE members in the education sector are calling out the provincial government on systemic understaffing.  These are the same folks who faced down the same government in an illegal strike that threatened to engulf the entire province so this should be fun to watch.

As LabourStart is a global organization I should slip in at least one non-Canadian story worth being highlighted for you.  This week that story is Palestine.  Gaza to be specific.  The stories say it all so I won’t even try.

This week’s LabourStart podcast is an interview with Gil McGowan, President of the Alberta Federation of Labour.  Gil was interviewed by LabourStart’s Co-ordinator in Canada, Pat Bulmer, about the AFL’s Solidarity Pact initiative and what unions are facing in Canada’s most conservative province.

Coming in at about 25 minutes it’s our longest-ever pod and you’ll hear why when you listen to it.  Our most popular podcast ever is Pat’s interview with Mark Hancock, National President of CUPE, about the Montreal Declaration, and so we have high expectations of this one.

On our Working Women News page you’ll find stories from around the globe in 9 languages.  But not a one from Canada.  C’mon, Canadian women workers are doing stuff, we’re just not reading about it.  If you have a story send it along and we’ll follow up.

Among the Canadian items appearing on our health and safety page and newswire this week is an account of life as a migrant worker and the discovery of lead in a provincial government building in Alberta.

LabourStart’s Photo of the Week, which you can catch on our main page until Monday, is from New Zealand, where a right-wing government has introduced legislation to roll back pay equity rights for women. Unions are calling it a ‘declaration of war on women workers’. Protesters, like the healthcare workers in the photo, were marching in towns across the country all of last week.

The labour movement’s history is what our current struggles are built on and this week we marked the anniversaries of these events:

This week in 1872, 1500 workers in Hamilton, Ontario took to the streets under the banner of the Nine Hours movement to demand a reduction in working hours.

In 1940, this week saw Emma Goldman, the veteran feminist, labour and anarchist organizer, die in Toronto. A memorial service was held at the Labour Lyceum on Spadina Avenue. She was later buried with the Haymarket Martyrs in Chicago.

And of course, we and the rest of the labour movement marked the start, this week in 1919, of the general strike called by the Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council that brought out 30,000 workers in support of unions in the building and metal trades. The city came to a standstill for six weeks in one of the major labour struggles in Canadian history.

There are lots more labour history items like this to be found at the bottom of our Canadian news pages.  Look for them and be inspired.

Before I go, a quick shout out to all the AUPE members, that’s the Alberta Union of Public Employees, who work for the government of Alberta.  Well done on the strike vote and all our solidarity in what’s coming.

This is Derek Blackadder from LabourStart reporting for RadioLabour.

The RadioLabour episode that carried this report can be found at:  https://rabble.ca/podcast/pension-surplus/

This week the top stories sections on our Canadian French- and English-language pages included a piece on the organizing efforts of the Women of Steel around mental health in and out of the workplace, more evidence that the Alberta Federation of Labour is becoming a key component of the organized opposition to the UCP government in that province, and statements from several unions of Red Dress Day.

We also carried news of the potential impact of a new round of USian tariffs on Canadian films.  Who knew that Guy Maddin was a threat to US national security?  Cronenberg now, that’s different.  His films are a threat to something, that’s for sure.  But Maddin, Egoyan and Polley?

And, of course, our volunteers are following the CUPW negotiations and we’ve got more than a few stories about the chances of another post office walkout at the end of May.

As LabourStart is a global organization I should slip in at least one non-Canadian story worth being highlighted for you.  This week that story is from the ITUC which marked the defeat of fascism in Europe with a call for resistance to the global coup being effected by billionaires.  Authoritarian, business-friendly, to put it mildly, regimes are replacing political democracies.

Kinda makes you wonder whether we should be marking the end of WW2 in Europe as the defeat of fascism or as the start of a truce that just ran out.

Among the Canadian items appearing on our health and safety page and newswire this week were, inevitably it now seems, several stories about workplace violence in healthcare. One is a piece about the increased security coming to hospital emergency rooms in Newfoundland and Labrador as a result of a series of vicious attacks on healthcare workers, another is about the MGEU pushback in Manitoba where paramedics are burning out even faster than usual as a result of what the union calls “unbelievable levels of violence”..

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 shot from Nepal where the Teachers Federation is campaigning to force the government to implement education legislation it committed to over two years ago.

Labour’s history is what our current struggles are built on and this week we marked the anniversaries of these events:

This week in 1972 Saskatchewan’s NDP government  brought in an Occupational Health (and Safety) Act, considered the first of its kind in North America. It included the right to information about workplace hazards, to participate in safety decisions and to refuse unsafe work, all unprecedented in North America.

And also in 1972, leaders of the Québec Common Front went to jail for defying back to work laws during the April general strike. More than 300,000 public sector workers participated in work stoppages and occupations that brought the provincial government back to the bargaining table

There are lots more labour history items like this to be found at the bottom of our Canadian news pages.  Look for them and be inspired.

Speaking of inspiration, 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.

This is Derek Blackadder from LabourStart reporting for RadioLabour.

The RadioLabour episode that carried this report can be found at:  https://rabble.ca/podcast/why-flower-moon-time-is-important-to-indigenous-cultures/

This week the top stories sections on our Canadian French- and English-language pages included the end, finally, of the Quebec port lockout which has seen CUPE members on the street for 32 months, a CUPE lockout record.

Also up there on the priority food chain this week were coverage of Steel’s joint workplace safety pairing with Los Mineros, a Mexican mine workers union and several statements marking the resignation of federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh.

We also carried news of the Posties gearing-up for a return to bargaining at Canada Post, an assortment of analyses of the movement’s role in the election, and some statements marking May Day.  Mostly just statements but there were also some events and actions scattered across the country.

But my favourite item, among our Canadian stories at least, was from Unifor.  Faced with an all-blue southern-western Ontario after the election, Unifor is moving quickly to educate a flock of new Tory MPs on the auto industry, how it works and how important it is to the regional and national economy.  That should be fun.

As LabourStart is a global organization I should slip in at least one non-Canadian story worth being highlighted for you.  This week that story is May Day.  From a resurgent labour movement in the US coming together against the Trump regime through a joint statement from trade unionists forced into exile by authoritarian regimes around the world, to the hundreds of trade unionists arrested for violating a ban on public gatherings in Turkiye, this year’s May Day was an unusual one in good and bad ways. 

Good ways for bad reasons?

An unalloyed up side to this year’s May Day was that after an anti-austerity protest in Fuseta, Portugal, I was able to add to my union May Day banners collection thanks to the good folks of the CGTP in Portugal.  Obrigado camaradas!

On our Working Women News page you’ll find stories from Canada and from around the globe in 9 languages.  

Stories like a piece from the HEU in BC that confirms that healthcare, where most workers are women, is the most dangerous industry in BC, CUPE’s statements at the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women, and an announcement of the winners of AUPE’s Day of Validation and Equity (DOVE) Award for 2025.

And among the Canadian items appearing on our health and safety page and newswire this week were more assaults on hospital workers in several provinces but getting the most attention was an attack on an emergency room nurse in Brandon.

LabourStart’s Photo of the Week was a shot a crowd of Argentinian actors, members of the Asociación Argentina de Actores y Actrices, at a national protest on 25 April.  Like hundreds of thousands of other union members, they were demanding an end to the chainsaw policies of the Milei regime.

Labour’s history is what our current struggles are built on and this week we marked the anniversaries of these events:

This week in 1986 Shirley Carr became the first woman president of the Canadian Labour Congress. A coal miner’s daughter who became a member of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, she was also the first CLC president from a public sector union.

In 1906 socialists in Montreal organized Canada’s first May Day demonstration. The following year ten thousand people assembled in the Champs de Mars before the crowd was dispersed by police.

And finally, this week in 1952 more than 1,000 retail employees, most of them women, began a strike at Dupuis Frères, a major department store in Montréal. It took three months, but support for the new militancy among Catholic unions helped the workers win a collective agreement.

There are lots more 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 Azerbaijan, Turkiye and Belarus.

If you can spare just a few seconds you can do your part in struggles like these by sending a solidarity or protest message.

Look for details on our site.

This is Derek Blackadder from LabourStart reporting for RadioLabour.