Download our 2010 Mayworks events calendar.

Movement for equity is disappearing from the labour agenda. Acknowledging the issues facing women, lesbian, gay, and trans people, workers of colour, differently abled workers, and Indigenous workers is increasingly becoming lip service. Our issues are not being integrated into labours agenda, and often appear as add-ons in our communications and action strategies.

Tony Buttaro is a Hamilton steelworker who injured his back at work. He later became a supervisor who had compassion for his workers. Tony paid dearly for these two things. He ended up physically and mentally traumatized. The retirement he had long dreamed about was destroyed.

In an environment where working people in Ontario have suffered major setbacks, organized labour’s response has so far been disappointing. The May 7 coming together of over 1,600 stewards, staff, and other union reps in Toronto around the necessity of fighting against attacks by employers and governments was an unprecedented and impressive exception that brought some hope for forward motion.

What were to happen if we were to challenge our existing social structure by demanding a shorter working day? With more time to pursue personal creative efforts and desires, society could move away from a state of near-constant fatigue and towards a more just society; a society that could focus on more grave concerns that the planet’s neglected majority face on a daily basis.

Tyler McCreary’s article for Canadian Dimension, “Tough union, tough lessons” would be a useful contribution to the important post-mortem of a strike ended wrong, if not for the fact that most of the evidence upon which his arguments are premised bears little resemblance whatsoever to the historical record.

Everything labour across Canada. Festivals of “workers as artists” are happening across the country this May and we have the only national calendar of Mayworks events. From Vancouver Island to Ottawa, head out to a film screening, art-exhibit, May Day march, or workshop and help support worker creativity.

Sections of CUPE 3903 were motivated by the dream of a general strike. But their self-aggrandizement and disdain for working with other unions effectively undermined the objective conditions that would make such a struggle possible and winnable. While unions must be willing to strike to win, it is also necessary to build coalitions and to coordinate larger collective actions.

If a union can be legislated back to work simply because the employer refuses to bargain, where does that leave an already embattled labour movement in the throes of a capitalist crisis? If this is the new climate in which labour must operate, efforts like that of CUPE Ontario to organize coordinated bargaining on a provincial level may be a crucial step in building the political will to defy such legislation.

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.