On the weekend of February 8th, London, Ontario is hosting a Prisoners Justice Film Festival. The wide ranging festival features short films and presentations on topics that are problematic with how humans are treated when they are forced into government detention.

On Friday, February 8th, the focus is on Queer, Trans, and 2 Spirit perspectives. This evening will have 5 films shown, and also will contain presentations from speakers who work with people who face discrimination within the Prison Industrial Complex. The event will be held at the Central Library (251 Dundas) starting at 7pm.

On Saturday, February 9th, the location shifts to Old East Studios (755 Dundas), and will begin at 1pm. There will be 3 different series presented on this day, starting with films based on Immigration and Indigenous people, and the state violence that is perpetuated against them. 5 films will be shown in this segment, which is hosted by No One Is Illegal London.

By: Brentington AuntieFascist

On Tuesday, November 13th Western Lifeline, an anti-choice group based at Western Ontario (UWO), will host a talk with Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth. Woodworth is infamous for his hardline, anti-choice views on abortion.

Protest signs and work boots hang off a fence at the front gate of the Electro-Motive Diesel plant in London Ont. on Jan. 21 Photo: Mick Sweetman

By Alex Balch

There was little to celebrate this New Years Eve for workers at the Electro-Motive Canada (EMC) plant in London, Ontario. As midnight struck, the factory's 465 employees found themselves locked out of their workplace and forced into a labour dispute with one of the largest industrial equipment manufacturers in the world – Caterpillar Inc (CAT).

Common Cause supports the locked out workers of CAW Local 27 in their struggle for a living wage. The year of 2012 has begun with a blatant attack on the working class. Electromotive Canada (EMC), owned by Caterpillar, has demanded a 50 per cent wage cut and major pension and benefit concessions. When the workers refused to accept that offer the company locked them out at the start of the year. This shows that the capitalist class, aka the 1%, is only interested in their own profits and will stop at nothing to meet this goal.

The events at EMC will set the tone for the struggle against exploitation in London, Canada, and beyond. Whether this ends in victory or defeat, this struggle is important for all working people, but we must do everything we can to win. If mobilized, the power of the labour movement can stop the bosses in their tracks.

From London Free Press: [http://www.lfpress.com/news/london/2011/09/26/18740111.html#/news/london/2011/09/26/pf-18740111.html]

Taunting police and chanting obscenities, a crowd of rowdy youths took to London streets for nearly eight hours Monday, protesting against last week’s caught-on-video police Tasering of a city-high school student.

“F--- the police,” the protestors — most of them students at Beal secondary, near where the incident took place — chanted, dozens of them thrusting their middle fingers up at a handful of police officers who stood outside police headquarters.

Occasionally, the crowd changed its chant to “peace and love,” “shame on you,” or “stop police brutality.”

But the overriding message was against the police.

“It’s taking a bunch of teenage kids to tell the police they are doing a bad job,” shouted one protestor by megaphone.

“We had a 17-year-old shot in the face with a Taser, and we want accountability.”

By Kate Dubinski - London Free Press

What was billed as a neo-Nazi rally outside London’s city hall instead turned into a bizarre shouting match between anarchists and two men who said they were there to protest fluoride in tap water.

The two fluoride protesters were known local white-supremacist Tomasz Winnicki and Dave Ruud, who heads the Northern Alliance, a far-right neo-Nazi group based in London.

Both held signs telling people to go to websites that promote taking fluoride out of city drinking water.

The two were far outnumbered by about 20 counter-protesters who showed up wearing black bandanas over their faces and shouting at the two men to go home.

“Are you a Nazi? Are you a Nazi?” yelled one man at Ruud, who backed away and said he was there to protest fluoride.

Carrying a banner reading "These faggots kill fascists" anti-fascists send a different message in front of homophobic signs held by bigots at the London, Ontario pride parade on July 25, 2010. Photo: Toban Black

By Alex Balch

London, Ont. - On Sunday July 25, fifty anti-fascist activists from southern Ontario joined hundreds of Londoners to show their support for the London Pride Parade. By all accounts, the day was a great success; the weather was excellent, the floats were fun and creative, the atmosphere was great – and the fascists were nowhere to be seen.

By Alex Balch

LONDON, Ont. — Workers of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 741 went on strike at midnight Nov. 16, when the deadline for a new contract passed unheeded by their employer, the London Transit Commission (LTC). ATU-741 represents 450 bus drivers, maintenance workers and support staff, and the strike has effectively paralyzed London’s public transit system.

The workers of the LTC have been without a contract since June. Chief among their demands are regularly scheduled lunch breaks, a 12 per cent wage increase over three years and improvements to dental and short-term disability benefits. The union has repeatedly requested arbitration as a means of settling the dispute, but their requests have been blocked by LTC general manager Larry Ducharme and the city’s mayor, Anne Marie DeCicco-Best.