The RadioLabour episode that carried this report can be found at: https://rabble.ca/podcast/cupe-cries-for-an-end-to-fascism-in-federal-government/
This week the top stories sections on our Canadian French- and English-language pages included CUPW’s announcement that it was moving from an open-ended national walkout to rotating strikes that would allow deliveries to resume. This follows the announcement by the federal government that Canada Post had been freed-up to end home mail delivery.
CUPW’s media release explained the change-up this way:
“this will start mail and parcels moving, while continuing our struggle for good collective agreements and a strong public postal service…We will continue our fight for strong public services, good jobs, and a sustainable public post office for all Canadians.”
Other stories included two items involving Unifor. One regarding the Carney government’s US trade negotiations strategy and the other an update on Amazon’s anti-union tactics at the facility in BC that was recently certified by the BC Labour Relations Board.
And we had updates from the BCGEU as it again announced an expansion of the strike by the province’s civil service. For a peek behind the scenes of this strike give our podcast interview with BCGEU president Paul Finch a listen. It’s already one of our most popular pods and after you listen you’ll know why.
But my favourite item of the week was from CUPE which announced, as its national convention was starting, that its membership total had passed the 800,000 mark. Positive news about or from the movement is hard to find these days, so I would be pleased to see this news even if I wasn’t a former CUPE member and staff.
Something that popped out at me this morning on our Canada news page was the number and variety of jobs on offer by unions across the country. The Alliance and SEIU seem to be on a bit of a hiring spree as both unions have multiple postings out, but UFCW 401 in Alberta and a CUPE local at the University of Toronto are also looking to fill staff vacancies.
You can find very recent postings for jobs with Canadian unions on our news page where the bright blue JOB tag identifies them. But to avoid missing any, and also to check out the jobs outside Canada you might be interested in go direct to our jobs page where you can browse them all.
As LabourStart is a global organization I like to highlight at least one non-Canadian story for you. This week’s is from Iran where the repression of independent trade unions continues to escalate.
LabourStart’s Photo of the Week, which you can catch on our main page until Monday, is from France where on 2 October unions held a second massive national general strike to protest the neoliberal policies of the national government. More are threatened unless the government changes course. Which it may do as the French Prime Minister resigned immediately after the strike.
The labour movement’s history is what our current struggles are built on and this week we marked the anniversaries of these events:
In 2011 the first H&M retail outlet in Canada was organized in Mississauga, Ontario, where workers voted to be represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers.
In 1969 when firefighters and police officers went on strike in Montreal, taxi drivers took action on longstanding grievances against the Murray Hill bus company.
And in 1906, at Buckingham, Québec, workers locked out for organizing a union at the MacLaren pulp mill were attacked by company police. Union officers Thomas Bélanger and François Thériault were shot dead.
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, we are currently campaigning on behalf of workers in Turkiye, Sri Lanka and the Philippines. Their unions are asking us all to take a few seconds out of our busy days and send a solidarity message.
So do that.
This is Derek Blackadder from LabourStart reporting for RadioLabour.
Labour News Network 