The RadioLabour episode that carried this report can be found at: https://rabble.ca/podcast/how-a-democratic-socialist-became-mayor-of-new-york-city-part-2/
Top stories on our Canadian French- and English-language pages this week included a piece from Steel about the union’s efforts to build cross-border solidarity with USian and Mexican unions in the run-up to a review of the free trade agreement.
Steel has a long history of this kind of work and so it’s time to start following what it and its counterparts are up to. The CUSMA review process is for sure going to be ugly, no matter what the eventual outcome, so it’s good to see efforts like this under way.
Other stories our volunteers found and posted were a serious piece about the hilarious decision by the federal government to contract-out a policy consultation with the labour movement to the business lobbying firm.
We also carried piece from The Fulcrum, the student newspaper (if it is still appearing on paper) at the University of Ottawa which compares the way artificial intelligence is being introduced at the U of O and across town at Carleton, and coverage of the good work being done by PEIUPSE around what at first glance looks like a routine move for a youth mental health facility in Charlottetown.
This week my favourite international story is from South Korea. All week we’ve been tracking the roll-out of what Koreans call the ‘yellow envelope law’. It does a bunch of pretty remarkable and good things for Korean workers and their unions, but most fun is the provision that requires top of the supply chain companies to take responsibility for working conditions in their suppliers facilities. Already several hundred applications have been filed that could make familiar brands like Samsung and Hyundai effectively the employers of people who work for sub-contractors and suppliers.
Over on LabourStart’s Working Women pages stories from Canada included, as expected, a pile of IWD stories in both official languages. Some of the statements from unions had calls for specific actions, like one from the AFL demanding pay equity legislation. And a call from the National Farmers Union, which is more of a union than most trade unionists know, for solidarity with women and gender diverse farmers and farm workers.
My first favourite story this week comes from the New Brunswick Media Co-op. It celebrates the founder of the NB Coalition for Pay Equity, Johanne Perron, and the Coalition’s 25 years of fighting for pay equity.
My second favourite is among the Canadian items appearing on our health and safety page and newswire this week. It’s about the creation of a coalition of unions with members working in downtown Winnipeg and facing already spectacular and worsening levels of violence.
In alphabetical order, so that no one gets upset, the coalition consists of ATU, CUPE, the IAM, MGEU, PSAC, United Fire Fighters of Winnipeg and UFCW.
Together, these unions represent workers in transit, emergency services, retail, public services, and community programs. They work at safe consumption sites, the Millennium Library, and with community-based nonprofits providing addiction treatment and services for people experiencing homelessness.
Other members are downtown workers who simply want to arrive at and leave work without fear.
The Coalition is for sure making a splash and we’ll be watching closely for the impact we hope it will have.
Clearly good news is the news that firefighters in BC will in future have a less hard time establishing comp claims for certain kinds of cancer.
Not so good, in fact just downright bad news, are the results of a national survey UFCW just completed. More than 40 per cent of workers say they feel pressured to work in unsafe conditions at least half the time. Hazards include understaffing, outdated equipment, abusive customers, and excessive hours without proper breaks.
Worse yet, more than three in ten UFCW members also identified harassment, discrimination, or workplace violence as serious issues.
LabourStart’s Photo of the Week, which you can catch on our main page until Monday, is from the UK. Unusually for us, it’s of a single worker. Her name is Emma Purcell of Rail, Maritime and Transport workers union, and she was photographed at a mic speaking to Motion 27 last week at the UK Trades Union Congress Women’s Conference. The motion, which passed, pledged support for seafarers experiencing menopause while at sea for long periods of time.
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 1978 women workers begin a 23-week strike for a first contract at a small auto parts plant in Centralia, Ontario. The Fleck workers’ militancy in the face of huge numbers of police in riot gear won them wide support and showed the need for reforms to the province’s Labour Relations Act.
1925 saw a strike by the Hamilton Tigers, who finished first in the regular hockey season. The players struck for an increase of $200 per game. Five days later, the team was suspended from further play in the Stanley Cup finals.
In 2012 legendary union organizer and feminist Madeleine Parent, born in Montreal in 1918, died at age 93 after a lifetime of service to the organization of workers and the cause of social justice.
And in 1919 in Calgary, the Western Canadian Labour Conference called for sweeping political and economic changes, including the abolition of production for profit and the organization of workers on industrial lines. They adopted the name One Big Union.
This is Derek Blackadder from LabourStart reporting for RadioLabour.
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