The RadioLabour episode that carried this report can be found at: https://rabble.ca/podcast/unions-rally-against-mark-carney-and-bill-c-39/
Top stories on our Canadian French- and English-language pages this week included the coast-to-coast demos in opposition to bill C-39 and its undermining of the right to strike, what Alberta’s labour movement is doing in the last days of the referendum campaign in that province, and retrospective pieces in the mainstream media about the largest strike in Canadian history. Never heard of it? No idea what I’m talking about? Keep listening
Other stories our volunteers found and posted were about the library strike in Thunder Bay that started when the employer left the table just hours from the strike deadline to go to another meeting, the CFNU ongoing campaign to force the federal government to enforce the Canada Health Act and stop the rush to private, for-profit healthcare, and the launch of yet another campaign by public sector workers who are facing increasing levels of workplace violence. This time it’s the CSQ taking the lead. And, also from Quebec, came coverage of Unifor’s support for a community effort to buy an about-to-close paper products plant that might just save an entire town from disappearing.
This week’s international story of note came from Ireland, where 300,000 public service workers held a one-day strike on Wednesday. The walkout is just the first of weekly warning strikes that will lead either to an acceptable settlement or an open-ended general strike later this year.
Over on LabourStart’s Working Women pages stories from Canada included a peek at the PSAC’s brand-new LEAD+ programme. Intended for emerging local union leaders, participants explored how PSAC works and developed skills on how to effectively advocate and organize. They exchanged perspectives, connected with one another, and reflected on barriers to participation and leadership. And they considered how identities and lived experiences could help build a union where everyone has a voice.
Among the Canadian items appearing on our health and safety page and newswire this week were any number of bad news stories with the news that Manitoba set a new record for workplace injuries for the third year in a row being at the top, or bottom, of that list.
LabourStart’s Photo of the Week, which you can catch on our main page until Monday, is from Portugal where CGTP members were a large proportion of the thousands who marched through Lisbon on 10 October to demand peace in the Middle East and in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
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 1973 the Ontario Nurses Association was founded during an all-day meeting of 85 nurses’ associations.
In 1944 the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada chartered Federal Labour Union 180 at Vancouver General Hospital. This is the beginning of the Hospital Employees’ Union of British Columbia, now the province’s largest health care union and a Division of CUPE.
1976 saw Air Traffic Control Assistants who were members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada start a one-week country-wide wildcat strike over work classification.
Also in 1976 the CLC organized Canada’s first country-wide general strike, when one million workers join a Day of Protest against the federal government’s wage controls policy. That was fun. We should do it again sometime. Like mebbe now.
And, finally, in 1963 more than 200 nurses started an illegal strike at the Hôpital Sainte-Justine in Montréal. They sought an end to overwork and recognition of their role in the health system. The resulting thirty-day strike achieved a settlement that encouraged unionization, the best kind of settlement.
This is Derek Blackadder from LabourStart reporting for Radio
