Author: Sam Gindin
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Saving the Detroit Three, Finishing Off the UAW: Learning From the Auto Crisis
At the end of 1979, President Carter offered loan guarantees to Chrysler to prevent the company’s imminent bankruptcy. The loans were conditional on wage concessions of some 10% and the … Keep reading »
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Grasping the Financial Crisis
Toronto, November 26, 2008. With Sam Gindin, Leo Panitch, Eric Cazdyn, Kanishka Goonewardena: MP3 audio Sam Gindin is Professor in the Department of Political Science at York University, and has … Watch video »
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Beyond Wage Cuts, Beyond the Bailout
The global crisis quickly engulfing us threatens to become the worst since the Great Depression, and this means that past ways of doing things need to be fundamentally rethought. But … Keep reading »
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The Financial Crisis: Notes on Alternatives
Over the last quarter century, the left in most of the developed world has been marginalized as a social force. The ‘culture of possibilities’ for left alternatives has correspondingly narrowed. … Keep reading »
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The Current Crisis: A Socialist Perspective
‘They say they won’t intervene. But they will.’ This is how Robert Rubin, Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary, responded to Paul O’Neill, the first Treasury Secretary under George W. Bush, who … Keep reading »
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Democracy: Too Important to Leave to the Members?
Earlier this summer, it looked like the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) union was about to experience something truly unusual in its history – a contested campaign for national president. The … Keep reading »
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Perspectives on the U.S. Financial Crisis
It is time to take stock. The centrality of the American economy to the capitalist world – which now literally does encompass the whole world – has spread the financial … Keep reading »
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The CAW and Panic Bargaining: Early Opening at the Big Three
In the face of a deteriorating economic climate and concerns about the ‘investment competitiveness’ of Canadian plants, the CAW leadership made a startling move this spring. It had an air … Keep reading »
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Two-tier Wages, Second-Class Workers
When Autoworker President Buzz Hargrove makes new pronouncements, they carry weight within and beyond the labour movement – even when, as has recently been the case, they seem to undermine … Keep reading »
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The UAW-Big Three Settlements: From Defeat to Rebellion
The 2007 United Autoworkers (UAW) agreements with the Detroit Big Three represented – as many people inside and outside the union have noted – the greatest economic concessions in the … Keep reading »
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The CAW and Magna: What if Magna Builds an Assembly Plant?
In the discussions of the proposed Magna-CAW (Canadian Auto Workers) ‘Framework of Fairness’ deal, the focus has been on Magna as a components company. But what if Magna opened an … Keep reading »
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The CAW and Magna: Disorganizing the Working Class
“In the neoconservative Canada of the late 1990s, the labour movement needs to become more militant, less accommodating to the demands of corporations and governments. If this sounds like a … Keep reading »