Category: Labour
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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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Labour Turmoil and the Fight for Public Education
Over the last three decades, the post-secondary education sector in Canada has been consistently undermined by a crisis of under-funding. Provincial and federal governments have followed neoliberal policies which seek … Keep reading »
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BC Labour Convention Confronts Economic Crisis
The biannual policy convention of the British Columbia Federation of Labour, held in Vancouver from November 24 to 28, reflected a growing anger among unionized workers with corporate attacks and … Keep reading »
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The Neoliberal University: Looking at the York Strike
Placed neatly in the middle of a global economic maelstrom, it is near impossible to understand or predict what, if any, consequences the strike by 3500 odd teaching and research … Keep reading »
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Precarious Employment and the Struggle for Good Jobs in the University Sector
Precarious employment is one of the hallmarks of what is euphemistically called “the new economy.” It has deep roots in the university sector. Recent decades have seen a move away … Keep reading »
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Too little too late? The State of the Canadian Labour Movement Today
Standing in a crowd of a few thousand auto workers, their families, and union and community allies rallying outside General Motors’ Oshawa truck plant in June, I couldn’t help but … Keep reading »
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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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Challenging the Framework for Concessions
At an October 26th unit meeting, scheduled to discuss proposals for amending the collective agreement – up for renegotiations in December – about 225 workers from the Magna-owned Mississauga Seating … Keep reading »
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Looking for Solutions: Labour and the Crisis of Neoliberal Capitalism
The current financial turmoil besetting the world market and the Canadian economy has set in motion an intense struggle for solutions. The main policies that have come forward from the … Keep reading »
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Labour Day 2008 and Canadian Workers
Labour Day 2008 in Canada sees a number of longer term trends over this period of neoliberalism intensifying – downward pressures on real wages, growing precarious and marginal work, undermining … Keep reading »
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The Oshawa Plant Closing
In the wake of GM’s shocking announcement of its plan to close the Oshawa Truck Plant – just two weeks after the end of bargaining – CAW Local 222 organized … 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 »