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Letters Policy

Mick — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 15:17:15 -0700

Common Cause and our publication Linchpin encourages our readers to send in letters to the editors on topics published in the newspaper or on this website. We reserve the right to edit letters for clarity and length. If you want your letter published please indicate so when you send it to us.

To send a letter to us please use our online contact form.

CLASS WAR ON THE WORKFLOOR SPEAKING TOUR

Alex_Hamilton — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 14:26:18 -0700

On strike, locked out, and legislated back to work, postal workers have experienced first hand the bosses’ agenda of taking away rights workers fought for decades ago. Because postal workers are not alone in facing cutbacks, exploitation, greedy bosses, and the like, we have a lot in common with other workers, and we stand to learn a lot from each others’ struggles. The rules of the game are changing, and workers will have to start taking matters into our own hands instead of relying on elected officials in our unions or governments to make wise decisions for us.

Class war on the work floor: Postal worker Rachel Stafford speaking tour

PhilD — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 14:45:05 -0700

Start: 10/22/2011 - 18:00

End: 10/28/2011 - 23:00

Timezone: Etc/GMT-4

Class war on the work floor: speaking tour with postal worker Rachel Stafford

Common Cause supports the 8,000 OPSEU CAAT strikers!

Linchpin — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 17:00:59 -0700

September 3, 2011

Common Cause, an Ontario organization of working-class anarchists, would like to commend you as you embark on your historic strike against your employers.

Many of us are current or former college students and workers in the education sector and some have been on strike ourselves as unionized workers at Ontario universities.

We know that your fight is just and support you 100% as you fight for better wages and working conditions from the wealth that as workers you helped produce.

We are walking the same picket lines that you are at colleges across Ontario because while we may not be part of your bargaining unit we are all part of the same class – the working class.

We will stand with you no matter what your employers or the government try to do to break your strike and bust your union.

This summer we stood with the striking workers at Air Canada and Canada Post as the federal government forced them back to work with legislation.

Dead on Arrival: A Critical Assessment of the Days of Action Against Harris, 1995-1998

Linchpin — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 16:26:39 -0700

By Gerard Lefebvre

In 1995, Mike Harris was elected Premier of Ontario, bringing an end to Bob Rae's five year NDP government. The province was ailing under a deep recession, which had seen many manufacturing and public service jobs threatened by what the governing NDP had referred to as “a new economic reality”. Elected into office by a population thoroughly dissatisfied with status quo responses to these economic maladies, the NDPs crafted a wholly inadequate response to the situation: a meld of traditional Keynesian anti-recession spending mechanisms and hard-line cuts to programs and services; Rae instituted a "welfare fraud" policing task force and new policies on student loans that ensured students would be saddled with debt years after completing their education. They also began what amounted to an attack on unionized public sector workers, demanding rollbacks and wage freezes.

Raise the Rates 2011

Linchpin — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 12:05:59 -0700

Mass Demonstration!
Friday, April 1st, 2011
@ 12:00 Noon, Nathan Phillips Square
Toronto, ON

Join the Fightback to Raise the Rates!

Ottawa, Montreal (Fri), Toronto (Sat) - Rallies in Solidarity with people in Egypt

Greg — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 12:27:59 -0800

Start: 01/28/2011 - 13:30

End: 01/29/2011 - 16:00

Timezone: Etc/GMT-4

Taken from http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=137508642980661
'Support the Revolution in Egypt! January 28th & 29th'

Ottawa: Fri 1:30-4pm at the Egyptian Embassy
Montreal: Fri 1:30-4pm at the Egyptian Consulate
Toronto: Sat 1-4pm at Yonge and Dundas square

(full details and contact info at bottom)

We are holding peaceful rallies in downtown Toronto and in front of the Egyptian embassies in Ottawa and Montreal to express our solidarity with Egyptian protesters. We are a group of Egyptians and Canadians of diverse political, cultural and ideological backgrounds, and we invite all Egyptians, Canadians and believers in human rights, civic democracy and freedom of expression to rally in solidarity with the people of Egypt.

Labour Chasing Fool's Gold, Austerity and class struggle

Ajamu — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 06:26:07 -0800

by Ajamu Nangwaya

BASICS Issue #23 (Nov / Dec 2010)

“Hegel remarks somewhere that all facts and personages of great importance in world history occur, as it were twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.”
– Karl Marx, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

The above quotation could have been referring to the affection for Keynesian economics by the bureaucrats in Ontario’s trade unions (organized labour).

Keynesianism is a fiscal policy approach that believes the state’s management of the overall injection of spending into the economy by government, businesses and consumers is critical to achieving full employment and economic prosperity.

It’s the class struggle, stupid!

Linchpin — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 21:14:01 -0700

Organized labour’s confused response to the McGuinty Liberals' attack on Ontario’s working-class

By Ajamu Nangwaya and Alex Diceanu

Organized labour in Ontario will continue to put forth a weak and ineffective response to attacks from the ruling class as long as it continues to ignore the reality of class struggle. A perfect example is its current response to a proposed two-year wage-freeze that the Dalton McGuinty-led Ontario government plans on imposing on unionized public sector workers. The provincial Liberals would like to save $750 million per year from a wage-freeze, so as to help manage the $19.3 billion budget deficit. Readers need not be reminded that this deficit is the result of the risky financial speculations of the captains of finance, industry and commerce that created the Great Recession of 2008.

Build the General Strike!

Linchpin — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 18:37:10 -0700

EDITORIAL

The rich play and the rest pay. That should be the motto of the G20 meetings being held in downtown Toronto this month as the political and business leaders of the 20 largest national economies discuss a range of issues with one underlying question; How are they going to make the workers of the world pay for the international financial crisis?

Dubbed “Austerity programs” by their creators these programs are clearly aimed at ensuring “austerity” for working people while leaving the capitalists whose system created the crisis free to accumulate and destroy wealth at will.

Ontario workers are told to “tighten our belts”, wages are frozen or cut, strikes and lockouts are being provoked in both the public and private sectors, a wide range of social programs are being slashed and public assets are being sold off at fire-sale prices.

Such a widespread attack on the entire working class can only be successfully responded to by all working class people standing together and using our collective power as workers to withdraw our labour in a general strike.