The RadioLabour episode that carried this report can be found at: https://rabble.ca/podcast/the-ai-financial-bubble-will-burst-and-cause-a-great-recession/
This week the top stories sections on our Canadian French- and English-language pages included a new report from UFCW on the struggles of migrant agricultural workers, a joint Steelworkers/CLC statement re. the systemic and abject failure of the federal government’s corporate social responsible watchdog to deal with Canadian Tire’s use of suppliers in Bangladesh who, among other things, pay workers there less than the living wage.
Other stories included Press Progresses reminder that 2025 was an interesting, to say the least, year on the labour rights front. Posties and flight attendants may have been out front and making the headlines, but 2025 also saw direct attacks on workers and their right to strike in Alberta and Quebec.
As LabourStart is a global organization I like to highlight at least one non-Canadian story for you. This week’s is from Argentina where on the 18th workers against struck for a day against the so-called reforms of the country’s labour laws. Coming from a self-described ‘anarcho-capitalist’, those ‘reforms’ are what you might expect.
Rather than point you to a few stories on our health and safety page, given that the holiday season is upon us, I thought a rant was in order.
It may not seem so at times but Amazon isn’t the only way to shop. The Christmas shopping season has started and retail workers are preparing to face a tsunami of abuse and even violence.
A quick survey of LabourStart’s health and safety news page tells the tale. Unions representing shop workers in dozens of countries where Christmas is celebrated are campaigning to protect workers from over-stressed shoppers.
Some, like UFCW and Unifor here in Canada and the USDAW in the UK, where 70% of retail workers report abuse or violence, and where reports of physical attacks have been skyrocketing, are campaigning to raise public awareness of the issue and to remind consumers that shop staff don’t set prices and aren’t responsible for maintaining stocks of popular gifts.
Projections based on historical data predict that as consumers, most of them workers themselves, experience increased stress in their own workplaces, attacks on retail workers will increase.
If you’re out shopping this Christmas, remember that the worker helping you find that special toy or cashing you out when you buy increasingly expensive groceries is no more responsible for how their employer runs its business than you are for your employer’s decisions.
LabourStart’s Photo of the Week, which you can catch on our main page until Monday, is from the National Garment Workers Federation of Bangladesh. It’s a shot of one of the union’s members, a victim of a massive fire in a slum where thousands of the union’s members live. That fire destroyed 1500 homes. The photo shows a garment worker with the relief package that the union has been able to pull together and distribute to otherwise destitute and homeless members.
The labour movement’s history is what our current struggles are built on and this week we marked the anniversaries of these events:
In1995 workers in London, Ontario mounted the first of a series of Days of Action held across the province in response to attacks on labour and social programs initiated by the Progressive Conservative government.
In 1965 a small group of women workers at Tilco Plastics in Peterborough, Ontario, went on strike for a union contract, only to face strikebreakers and court injunctions against picketing. The strike is lost but leads to the abolition of ex parte injunctions.
And in 1945 the historic 99-day strike at Ford in Windsor, Ontario ends with an agreement to have Supreme Court Justice Ivan C. Rand arbitrate a new collective agreement. His decision leads to adoption of the Rand Formula for union security.
And that’s it for 2025.
A happy new year and a merry and kind holiday season to all who celebrate at this time of year from everyone at LabourStart.
This is Derek Blackadder from LabourStart reporting for RadioLabour.
Labour News Network 