Alert! Radio
Episode 155 (May 6th 2010)
ALERT’S last show of the season! Pensions sufficient to keep retirees from growing old in poverty are under frontal attack. Joel Harden of the Canadian Labour Congress Research Department and CD collective member Andrea Levy explain why. This week’s episode also celebrates MayDay week and discusses Canadian mining companies in the global south. And, as always, Mitch Podoluk is here with Music is the Weapon. You can subscribe to our podcast via iTunes and listen to past episodes by clicking the links below. A new season of ALERT will begin in September 2010. Download this episode (27 MB)
Show Notes
Pensions
Pensions sufficient to keep retirees from growing old in poverty are now under frontal attack. Pensions in Peril is the main focus of the May/June issue of Canadian Dimension. Alert has interviews with two of the authors, Joel Harden and Andrea Levy. Joel Harden is with the Research Department of the Canadian Labour Congress. The CLC has published a number of articles on pensions. Andrea Levy is a member of the Dimension collective. She is self-employed. Work issues are among the assignments she addresses.
Mayday
MAYDAY around the world celebrates the contributions of working people to improving the quality of our lives and developing our collective capacities to making this a better place to work and live. On this 2010 MAYDAY, in what shape do we find working people? And in what shape do we find their unions? In its special Mayworks issue, Canadian Dimension held a round table discussion on these very questions. Read Marion Pollack’s contribution here. We have also posted Mayworks events from across the country on our website.
Canadian Mining
Canadian mining companies are among the biggest in the world and they are invested throughout South America, Asia and Africa. They are also among the most reviled transnational corporations in the globe, especially among the villagers whose lives they have disrupted and whose lands they have despoiled. Sakura Saunders is an editor for protestbarrick.net. You can listen to another interview with Sakura here and read some older articles by Saunders published in The Dominion
Recent episodes:
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Episode 214 (May 3rd 2012) – On Mayday Noam Chomsky urges activists to focus their attention not simply on the economy and the environment, but how the market system underlies the fiscal and environmental crisis. Clayton Thomas Muller discusses the diverse strategies of First People’s against colonial structures that destroy their livelihoods and their environment. Nae Burrows describes the successful living-wage campaign in British Columbia.
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Episode 213 (April 26th 2012) – Political Sociologist Trevor Harrison explains why Alison Redford’s PC’s won the Alberta election after all and what it means for Alberta and Canada. Political activist/blogger Richard Fidler updates the Quebec student strike and discusses the importance of the demand for zero tuition fees by the student group CLASSE. Rabble.ca editor Derrick Okeefe talks about the fallout of the NDP victory in two BC byelections last week and the intense resistance to the Kinder Morgan pipeline led by mayors along the BC coastline along with first nations and environmentalists.
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Episode 212 (April 18th 2012) – Researcher Jack Hicks decries the Conservative governments cut backs to NAHO and other Aboriginal Health initiatives. Trevor Harrison dissects the Alberta Provincial Election race. High school teacher and part time journalist Ben Sichel promotes Fare free transit in Halifax.
