The RadioLabour episode that carried this report can be found at: https://rabble.ca/podcast/heather-mcphersons-fight-against-company-unions/
This week the top stories sections on our Canadian French- and English-language pages included a reaction to the latest Statistics Canada update to its ongoing “Quality of Employment in Canada” publication.
No surprise, there’s a direct relationship between income and other forms of inequity and sectoral unionization rates. Or, to put it simply: more union, more equality.
Other stories included UFCW’s take on an IUF, that’s the global union for food and hospitality workers, conference that aims to provide decent work for foodworkers in Canada, and a interesting piece from Briarpatch on a subject not much studied: building local unions in rural communities.
You’ll also see a series of articles from a variety of sources about the Montreal transit strikes and how the new and very, very scary Quebec legislation limiting the right to strike played and continues to play a role in the CUPE and CSN bargaining strategies. On their own none of the stories qualified as a top story so to follow the thread click on ‘Quebec’ and read forwards on the provincial page on our site. You can toggle between official languages or just clicking on ‘all languages’ to get the whole sordid story.
As LabourStart is a global organization I like to highlight at least one non-Canadian story for you. This week’s is from South Korea and at first glance seems a little wacky. It’s about the organizing drive mounted by K-pop idols, which this old Canadian takes to mean stars.
In the organizing committee’s own words, the idols are organizing because they “suffer from industrial accidents, death from overwork, and mental illnesses while undergoing long-term training, filming, and overseas activities. However, they are excluded from industrial accident compensation insurance, the four major social insurances, and the Workplace Harassment Prevention Act because they are not recognized as workers.”
Works for me. All the best to them.
Over on LabourStart’s Working Women pages stories from Canada included a piece on USW’s five-day Women of Steel: Developing Leadership course that ran in Ontario last week and more on the NSFL’s election of two women, one of them Black, to lead the fed as President and Secretary-Treasurer.
Among the Canadian items appearing on our health and safety page and newswire this week was the BC government’s decision, after years of pressure from unions, to limit the ability of employers to demand sick notes, what effect a lack of universal sick leave will have on us, again, this year as flu season approaches, and Unifor’s fight to have charges laid after a picket line assault.
LabourStart’s Photo of the Week, which you can catch on our main page until Monday, is from Madagascar where the, Firaisan’ny Sendikan’ny Mpiasa eto Madagasikara (FI.SE.MA.) was central to the protests that swept that country in October, leading to the departure of the country’s President.
The labour movement’s history is what our current struggles are built on and this week we marked the anniversaries of these events:
In 1983, in British Columbia, three months of protests to defend union rights and social services reached a critical turning point as teachers prepared to join a massive mobilization led by Operation Solidarity and the Solidarity Coalition.
Either this is a slow week in Canadian labour history or we’re missing some important events. Know of a labour history item we should include? Send it along.
It’s been a busy week for our campaigns volunteers. We’ve two new ones for you.
Dutch union FNV asked us to generate some global solidarity for one of its activists who has played a critical role in organizing migrant supermarket workers and who has been targeted for harassment by his employer. This is a big deal as clearly the company is aiming to make an example of him and frighten all migrant workers away from organizing.
The other new campaign results from a request from the Public Services International, the global union for public sector workers. PSI affiliates in Canada include CUPE, PSAC and NUPGE.
Their campaign, on behalf of Lesbia Xiomara Conde Pacheco, General Secretary of the National Union of Legislative Workers (STOL) in Guatemala, aims to pressure the Guatemalan Congress to reverse its decision to not recognize her recent election to the top position in her union, apparently because they think her too militant.
Must be nice to be a government and have the power to decide who you want to deal with as an employer, eh?
Takes just a few seconds to send the requested solidarity messages. And, really, how many of us have something more important to do with that time? Hell, take your phone with you to the washroom if that’s what it takes.
Finally, a bit of a shout-out to
This is Derek Blackadder from LabourStart reporting for RadioLabour.
Labour News Network 