There has been substantial debate, and much virtual ink spilt, over the Homeless Hotspot program in Austin, Texas. The program is relatively straightforward from the title: 13 homeless men and one woman with mobile wireless internet hotspots in their pockets hawking internet access on street corners. Launched at SXSW, the premier gathering of hip indie rockers, it has been read by many as the corporate horror-tech future to come, where poor people are little more than machines designed to serve as human infrastructure to extend the privilege of the few.

LabourStart, the union movement’s premier international news and campaigning service, held its annual global solidarity conference on November 18–20 in Istanbul, Turkey. Titled “From Global Networks to Global Revolution,” the conference looked at the important role the internet and social media are playing in workers’ struggles and democratic revolutions around the world.

Today, the message is that if you don’t like the way things are, tough — you have no alternative. The real lesson of course is that if the present economic system can’t offer us a better life, then it is that system, not our expectations that needs changing.

A Panel discussion chaired by Greg Albo including Stephanie Ross, Leo Panitch, Bill Fletcher on the Left’s Response to the Crisis in North America and Europe.

Why did we not prepare millions of union members across the continent with discussions in locals, labour councils, and labour federations? In newsletters and at support rallies? Why did we not unite–as BC unionists did in 1982 to support telephone workers–by holding escalating regional general work stoppages across the continent?

Do most Canadians want a two-tiered society, one made up of citizens with full rights and another underclass of temporary ‘rent-a-workers’ who do not enjoy even basic rights? All of this while Canadian society benefits from their labour and indeed from their payments into a social service system that they will never benefit from?

With Ontario’s senior population projected to double in the next 16 years, senior care is big business and numerous companies are cashing in at the expense of both workers and clients.

There will be no return to the days when full-time permanent jobs were the norm for many working people. Non-standard employment is the working arrangement of choice for employers eyeing their bottom lines.

The real story from Wisconsin is the elephant in the living room none want to acknowledge, namely, the cuts that humbled union production workers in the 1980s are now moving up the ladder to include the last bastion of union held territory.

On July 7 and 8, 2010, striking members of United Steel Workers Local 6500 in Sudbury, Ontario, voted 75% in favour of a contract that ended a bitter strike against transnational mining giant Vale Inco. The 3300 strikers had been on the picket lines for almost one year (along with members of Local 6200 in Port Colborne, Ontario, who voted in favour by a similar margin).