Work and workplace

Work and workplace struggles

¡Llamado para Solidaridad y Fondos para l@s obrer@s de Haití!

Workers in a sewing factory in a free trade area of Haiti where Batay Ouvriye organizes Photo: Piet den Blanken

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14/01/09- Una catástrofe ha caído encima de Haití cuya dimensión solo vemos la superficie en este momento. El pueblo haitiano estará luchando para rehacer sus vidas y sus hogares posiblemente durante decadas en vista del colapso sin precedentes, tanto físico como social. Pero a pesar de la incertidumbre de los terremotos, esta desastre no es natural, una monstruosidad de nuestros tiempos. El alcance de los daños del terremoto es parte de las consequencias de la explotación desenfrenada que en cada paso pone la ganancia por encima de la salud, la seguridad y el bienestar del pueblo haitiano.

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Appel à la solidarité et à l’envoi de fonds pour les travailleurs d’Haïti!

Workers in a sewing factory in a free trade area of Haiti where Batay Ouvriye organizes Photo: Piet den Blanken

Appel à la solidarité

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et à l’envoi de fonds pour les travailleurs d’Haïti !

Une catastrophe naturelle vient de s’abattre sur Haïti, dont nous n’entrevoyons encore que la surface. Les haitiens vont devoir lutter pour reconstruire leur vie et leurs maisons, et ce vraisemblablement pour des décennies considérant cet effondrement sans précédent, à la fois physique et social.

Pourtant, malgré les l’imprévisibilité des tremblements de terre, ce désastre est contre nature, une monstruosité de notre temps. L’ampleur des dégâts du tremblement de terre fait partie du coût de l’exploitation effrénée qui, à chaque moment, met le profit devant la santé, devant la sécurité et devant le bien être du peuple de Haïti.

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Call for Solidarity and Funds for the Working People of Haiti!

Workers in a sewing factory in a free trade area of Haiti where Batay Ouvriye organizes Photo: Piet den Blanken

Joint statement from Miami autonomy and solidarity and the Batay Ouvriye Haiti Solidarity Network

[Français], [Castellano], [Italiano], [Ελληνικά]

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Payable to Miami Workers Center (in memo write MAS)
Miami Workers Center
6127 Northwest 7th Avenue
Miami, FL, USA
33127-1111

01/14/09- A natural disaster has descended upon Haiti whose scope we only are seeing the surface of at this time. The Haitian people will be struggling to rebuild their lives and their home possibly for decades in light of unprecedented collapse, both physical and social. Yet despite the unpredictability of earthquakes, this disaster is unnatural, a monstrosity of our time. The extent of the damage of the earthquake is part of the cost of unrestrained exploitation which at every step put profit above the health, safety, and well being of the Haitian people. While the world watches on ready to help, power is being dealt an opportunity. The Haitian workers and peasants have been fighting for their rights to even the most basic level of existence for decades, while the UN-occupying force, the state, and the ruling elites maintain the social misery without relenting. Now as Port-Au-Prince is in rubble, new opportunities arise for rulers to rebuild Haiti in their own interests, and likewise for the Haitian workers and peasants to assert their right to their own Haiti, one where they will be not be forced to live in dangerous buildings, and work merely to fill the pockets of elites, foreign or domestic.

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Workers Without Bosses - Speaking Tour

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The popular response to the Argentine economic crisis of December 2001 and lessons for us in Canada - a Québec and Ontario speaking tour presented by the Union Communiste Libertaire (UCL) and Common Cause.

We are going through one of the worst economic crises in the history of capitalism and the answers provided by the state and its lackeys are illusory. In addition, faced with this impasse, our leaders are trying to shift the entire burden of the crisis to workers and their communities.

How can we respond differently to this economic crisis? Can we learn from the experiences of struggles that have happened elsewhere in the world?

To consider these issues, the UCL and Common Cause are organizing a Québec and Ontario speaking tour this winter on the response of the Argentine popular classes in the face of a serious economic crisis that shook the country in the late 2001.

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Photos: Workers rally to "oppose economic terrorism"


Steelworkers rally in downtown Hamilton against lay-offs and pension cuts marching under the slogan "Oppose Economic Terrorism." Dec. 14, 2009





The rally covered all four corners of Main and James streets. Workers from U.S. Steel (formerly Stelco) handed out flyers as they have done every Monday afternoon for the past year. The flyer attacked "the monopolies and the rich" for the economic crisis and called for "public ownership and control over the basic sectors of the economy."


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Quebec public sector unions unite in a "Common Front"

By Nicolas Phébus
Quebec correspondent

On Oct. 30, the public sector unions in Québec made their central demands for the negotiations with the province. Under the banner "together for public services", they are demanding a negotiated agreement that includes better pay, improved retirement plans and accommodation of workers family commitments. The demands are backed by a “Common Front” of unions representing 475,000 workers in health care, social services, education, public service and government agencies. While the mobilization is not yet impressive, and may never become, some unions and activists are taking positive steps for wider grassroots participation.

Video of the delivery of the demands to the Quebec government

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Museum strike not civilized

Pickets at the War Museum in Ottawa  on Nov. 14, 2009  Photo: LINCHPIN / Rick Watson

By Shawn Doyle

OTTAWA — The strike at the Museum of Civilization and War Museum has been dragging on since Sept. 21, and it's not getting any easier. Management at the museums "have hired a private film crew that is trying to catch us doing illegal stuff, but (it) has not succeeded," said Ralph Brassard, a striking tour guide with the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC). "They have hired scabs," he added.

PSAC Regional Executive Vice President Maria Fitzpatrick has confirmed the museums "have been using workers from the U.S. and international firms to replace the museum professionals that are on strike." Fitzpatrick says management is also using security firms to "harass" workers on strike, calling it "shameful that Canadians' tax dollars are best spent in this manner, rather than resolving the strike and allowing the museum workers to return to their jobs."

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The ‘crime’ of sex work

Members of the International Union of Sex Workers in the U.K.  CC 2.0 Photo: Emma Campbell

By Jeff Shantz
State Repression columnist

Criminal justice systems in capitalist liberal democracies like Canada have criminalized work that is predominantly done by women. Examples of this regulation of women's labour range from the witch hunts — the punishment of women largely for medicinal knowledge; the criminalization of midwifery and abortion provision; and the criminalization of sex-trade workers. Three sex-trade workers challenging Canada's prostitution laws in a court case in Toronto show the struggles over the regulation of sex work in Canada.

The three sex-trade workers involved in the court case, dominatrix Terri-Jean Bedford and prostitutes Valerie Scott and Amy Lebovitch, argue that the laws against keeping a common bawdy house and communicating for the purposes of prostitution perpetuate violence against women by forcing them into more dangerous working conditions.

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Not in service: London transit workers on strike

ATU workers picketing in London, Ontario.  PHOTO: ATU LOCAL 741

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.

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Labour Day in Hamilton


Most of the Hamilton branch of Common Cause attended the Hamilton's Labour Day parade on September 7.





United Steelworkers of America Local (USWA) 1005 (US Steel/Stelco, Hamilton) stand silent with hats off near Hamilton's injured worker's monument. 1005 has stood strong in recent years against many threats to retirees, existing workers, and new workers from both Canadian and US owners. With production increasingly moving elsewhere, some workers turn to nationalistic slogans.


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