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Currently viewing articles tagged with Unions.
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Thinking through the York University strike
The recent strike by CUPE 3903, which represents the contract faculty, teaching assistants and graduate assistants at York University, has left deep divisions in the union and on campus. In a heated discussion about the merits of the two articles we commissioned, the Dimension collective generated a number of questions over which no agreement emerged. We thought it would be useful to share these questions with our readers.
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Unions and the crisis
The political and economic setting facing the union movement today is the most difficult since the Great Depression. Unions have already confronted two decades of unrelenting assault from neoliberal policies of labour-market flexibility, austerity and political conservatism. Then, the global financial crisis ripped across the entire world market. Many forecasts for 2009 are projecting negative growth for the world economy as a whole for the first time since the 1930s.
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The Labour Report
One might think that a prolonged and deep recession would provide the inspiration for socialist renewal. The contradictions of capital, combined with the insatiable greed of many capitalists, have once again revealed how this system doesn’t work for people who depend on selling their labour. But failures of capitalism don’t automatically lead to thoughts of socialism. If history can teach us, we should look beyond the labour movement for sources of new inspiration and leadership.
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Drawing a line in the sand
Plans are afoot for the wholesale ecological reconfiguration of vast parts of the northern hemisphere. The planners are suggesting that infrastructure is required to facilitate far-reaching change: the second-largest dam in the world, a possible nuclear-power station at Peace River, and pipelines across Alberta to the west coast, across the prairies, and down the Mackenzie River.
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Dissent and Democracy
For a while it looked like the 2007 CUPE national convention was going to be a placid affair. As in 2005, the majority of delegates voted in favour of increasing the representation of women on the National Executive Board. But once again, nothing will change because the vote was not quite sufficient to break the two-thirds threshold required by CUPE for constitutional changes to be adopted.
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The CAW-Magna Agreement
Collective bargaining is a complex process. It requires assessments of relative power and strategic considerations that are usually only fully appreciated by the people directly involved. As such, we are reluctant to comment on the decision of the Canadian Autoworkers Union to agree to the Framework of Fairness Agreement (FAA) with Magna International Inc.
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Working People’s Assemblies
The editorial in the July/August issue of Canadian Dimension — “Building a Grassroots Opposition to Harper” — noted that some members of the CD collective have been discussing the possibility of establishing local “people’s assemblies.” In this article, CD Editorial Collective member Sam Gindin explains how a project of this type has already emerged in the U.S. — and bears close observation on this side of the border.*
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Labour Should Follow CUPE on Israel
When CUPE delegates returned to their homes and workplaces after attending the Ontario Division’s annual convention in May, the media reports they would see and hear focused on but one resolution adopted at the convention. That was the now-famous Resolution 50, which called for the Division to work with Palestine solidarity and human rights organizations and develop an education campaign about the apartheid nature of the Israeli state and the political and economic support of Canada for these practices. The resolution also called for CUPE Ontario to support the international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law including the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.
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Why the Canadian Football League is the Sweden of the Sports World
In the age of sports superstars with multi-million-dollar salaries, we tend not to think of professional athletes as workers. But, like other workers, professional athletes sell their labour to capitalists in return for a wage. With fame and fortune, they may be the most peculiar proletariat capitalism has ever produced, but it is important to remember that, throughout sporting history, athletes, like other workers, have had to form trade unions to fight for decent wages, benefits, and working conditions. And, like national economies, sports leagues vary in terms of their capital-labour relations. In some leagues athletes are still without the protection of a union and are thus subject to serious exploitation. In other leagues, players have a strong voice in the direction of their league and the future of their livelihoods.
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Labour Stands Up Against War
The Canadian Labour Congress’s statement on Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan is clear and unequivocal; it calls for the troops to be brought home now. The statement marks a significant step forward for the labour movement concerning the development of policy with respect to the use the Canadian military.
Not only does the CLC demand the “safe and immediate withdrawal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan,” it also challenges many of the arguments used by those who would have our troops die and kill to support the American war in the Middle East.
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