The RadioLabour episode that carried this report can be found at: https://rabble.ca/podcast/ontario-government-told-to-pay-compensation-for-illegal-wage-controls/
Top stories on our Canadian French- and English-language pages this week included the release of a poll that shows strong support for trade unions in Quebec, even as the provincial government mounts a legislative attack on them, moves by the CLC to get workers at the table as global trade re-alignment picks up speed, Unifor’s response to the federal government’s new auto sector strategy.
Other stories our volunteers found and posted were efforts by federal public sector unions like PSAC and PIPSC to highlight the effects layoffs are having and more importantly, will have on public services.
They also gathered stories about how McGill University, which is in the midst of cutting $45 million from its annual budget, is still able to find cash to fight union organizing on campus.
Speaking of universities, it seems that Yukon U. would rather bow-out of hosting the Arctic Winter games than reach a settlement with the Yukon Employees Union.
My favourite item among our Canadian stories came complete with photos of an ambulance upside down in front of the Quebec National Assembly. A junker that the CSN had purchased, it helped make the point that emergency medical services in the province are in desperate straits.
And my least favourite was the news that school staff in Nova Scotia have taken to wearing Kevlar body armour in response to rising levels of workplace violence.
This week’s international story that got my attention more than most was from Palestine where representatives of BWI, the global union federation for builders, woodworkers and allied trades was refused entry to the occupied West Bank by Israel.
In a statement responding to the Israeli action Shaher Saed, General Secretary of Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU), said: “Denying entry to international worker representatives confirms a broader reality: exclusion is being built into the process before rebuilding even begins. It reflects the Occupation’s deliberate policy of isolating Palestinian workers and blocking their engagement with the international trade union movement.”
Over on LabourStart’s Working Women pages stories from Canada included how the OFL’s Women’s Committee is marking it’s 50th anniversary for IWD. It’s hosting an open to all hybrid ‘craft-in’ on 6 March. Participants will “stitch, bead, weave and colour, while discussing the political and social justice issues shaping women’s lives and workplaces today.”
And among the Canadian items appearing on our health and safety page and newswire this week was the news that a CUPE member working for Manitoba Hydro at its HQ in Winnipeg was assaulted. Yet another reminder that providing services to the public is an increasingly dangerous occupation.
LabourStart’s Photo of the Week, which you can catch on our main page until Monday, is from one of the dozens of candlelight vigils held across Canada, one of thousands around the world, organized by unions like the CFNU, to honour the memory of Alex Pretti, the nurse executed by ICE in Minneapolis in late January.
The labour movement’s history is what our current struggles are built on and this week we marked the anniversaries of these events:
In 1939 the first group of Canadian veterans of the Spanish Civil War disembark at Halifax. Of the almost 1,700 Canadians who fought fascism in Spain, more than 400 were killed. Most of the volunteers were union activists, radicalized in the 1930s.
And in 2012 eleven farmworkers, including nine migrant workers from Peru, are killed in a highway crash at Hampstead, Ontario. The tragedy highlighted unsafe conditions in the sector and the exploitation of seasonal workers.
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.
Finally, a bit of a shout-out to striking CUPE members who work, when not picketing, for the City of Montreal. Though just a warning strike lasting 24 hours, those hours were more than a bit chilly. The walkout signals that the fundamental rebuilding CUPE 301 has been engaged in is complete and after a bad patch the union is back on track.
This is Derek Blackadder from LabourStart reporting for RadioLabour.
Labour News Network 