When capital is in crisis, there are always two options—to give in or to move in. If masses are armed with a clear conception of the socialist alternative, they can turn a crisis in capitalism into the crisis of capitalism. Of course, it is possible that the current struggles against the capitalist offensive ultimately may lead to defeat. It is possible but we must take that chance.

Ultimately, what it would take for this to be a radical campaign in BC is a shift in framing: are we simply trying to incrementally improve worker wellbeing and, maybe, cut a few tonnes of carbon emissions? Or are we trying to take a step towards transforming our ecologically unsustainable class society by moving away from the capitalist growth imperative?

On February 16, over 40 CUPW members at a Canada Post processing plant in Edmonton exercised their right to complain at a pre-scheduled meeting with management, who initially refused to give them five minutes to read their prepared statement and threatened them with discipline. Then those members were served with five-day consecutive suspensions and final warnings. Brett McKay reports.

Now in its fourth edition, From Consent to Coercion: The Continuing Assault on Labour remains an invaluable tool for understanding how the state and capital manage the subordination of labour. The new edition contains timely material that wrestles with the pressing issues of precarity and polarization and the dire need to rebuild and renew socialist politics. The following is excerpted from the book.

John Smith’s Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century: Globalization, Super-Exploitation, and Capitalism’s Final Crisis argues for a theory of contemporary imperialism grounded in super-exploitation, outsourcing, and global labour arbitrage. It is a highly readable and clarifying text that offers a comprehensive analysis of the global shift of production to the South in recent decades.

The ideas and theories of John Maynard Keynes still dominate the economic views and policy proposals of the leaders of the labour movement in the major capitalist economies. Keynes is seen as offering a ‘third way’ between the pro-capitalist ‘free market’ economics that dominates the universities and is often perceived as the opposite of dangerously revolutionary Marxian economics.

At this moment in time, writes author and researcher Sam Gindin, the over-riding political question is how we to organize ourselves so as to build that kind of working class. The Ontario CUPE education workers gave us a glimpse of what is needed and what is possible. Will the labour movement in Canada build on this? There is much more to be done.

While there is no doubt that Joe Biden, whose administration has already been characterized by high inflation, had plenty of political motivation to prevent an even deeper supply chain crisis by blocking the rail strike, the confidence private capital interests had in his willingness to prevent it from happening exposes the president’s “union-guy” persona as a façade.

If we want to improve and ultimately dismantle the systems which enable the exploitation of migrant workers, our focus and solidarity must be extended across the globe. That begins by acknowledging that the reality in Qatar cannot be divorced from the Western-led globalized capitalist market economy that strips vulnerable people of their basic dignity while undermining workers rights everywhere.

Moments of struggle always provide openings to build and move forward, and for workers who are participating, to learn key lessons and develop deeper consciousness and understanding. But every struggle and every moment aren’t necessarily similar. As a socialist, one has to look at the particularities of the experience and the potentials, and build on them.