Not long after CUPE Ontario passed its now-famous Resolution 50 in support of the divestment, boycott and sanctions (DBS) campaign against Israel, the union received a significant letter of solidarity from the Congress of South African Trade Unions. The letter admonished CUPE, “Those supporting the ideology of Zionism and the pro-Israeli lobby will muster their substantial resources against you.”

During the bombing of Lebanon, several unions, including the Canadian Labour Congress, issued strong statements condemning the senseless deaths of civilians and destruction of infrastructure. It is time for the labour movement in Canada to revisit its policies concerning the Middle East. If one thing has become clear in recent months it is that only massive international pressure will convince Israel to seriously pursue a negotiated settlement.

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.

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.

In the early 1980s, the auto majors reversed four decades of steady growth in wages by successfully forcing concessions out of the once-powerful United Auto Workers. That working-class defeat had not only continental, but global, ramifications. So, when Delphi, the largest parts manufacturer in North America, declared a little over two decades later (2004) that it would reduce workers’ wages by over 60 per cent, it seemed that another, even more dramatic round of concessions was about to begin. But this time a remarkable resistance emerged from below to defeat the auto majors and their strategy. This unexpected victory, combined with worker skepticism of union-negotiated concessions at GM and Ford (with Daimler-Chrysler workers expected to be even more critical), raised instead a new possibility. Could we be on the verge of a revival of the American labour movement?

“All other sources of labour having been exhausted, the migrants were the last resource.” So reads the text accompanying the 1940-41 Migration series of paintings by Jacob Lawrence on display at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. More than 60 years later, the demand for migrant labour remains Canada’s “last resource” in efforts to maintain economic growth, although the overall context has shifted somewhat.

Privatization is not gender-neutral. It threatens advances toward women’s equality in the labour market and in the home. In the labour market, privatization usually means lower wages for women workers, fewer workplace rights, reduced health and welfare benefits, no pension coverage, less predictable work hours, more precarious employment, a heavier workload and generally more exploitative working conditions.

The seeds were sown in the campaign for the eight-hour workday. On May 1, 1886, hundreds of thousands of North American workers mobilized to strike. In Chicago, the demonstration spilled over into support for workers at a major farm-implements factory who’d been locked out for union activities. On May 3, during a pitched battle between picketers and scabs, police shot two workers.

llegal strikes are almost always caused by management provocations – firing union activists, health and safety violations, introducing non-union workers at a job site, or the introduction of repressive labour legislation.Illegal job actions mostly don’t end up in clear victories for the unions. Dismissals, arrests, or court injunctions often enter into the equation, adding to the issues that must be resolved and putting the unions further onto the defensive.

For many years the Left in the labour movement fought to get the Canadian Labour Congress to play a role in establishing collective agreement priorities. In the 1980s the CLC held conferences and produced educational materials on issues like reduced working time and bargaining technological change. But affiliate unions showed little interest in developing common priorities or coordinating their efforts concerning bargaining.