Month

November 2014

Articles

The Intractable Marginality of the Activist Left

/

By Stephen D’Arcy

Strikes are only one form of struggle, and perhaps less and less important as the years pass. But the disappearance of strikes — documented in the accompanying graph — is not an anomaly. It reflects a pattern of diminishing overall levels of oppositional social mobilization. Although there aren’t (as far as I know) statistics on it, it is obvious that levels of social struggle generally, in the Canadian state, are lower now than at any time since written records have been kept.

Articles

Rebuilding the Labour Movement One Worker at a Time

/

By Mostafa Henaway

The recent article by David Camfield and Salmaan Khan highlights the increasing urgency to rethink the state of the labour movement. Six years after the financial crisis, organized labour is still on the defensive. Yet as the authors point out “the weakness or absence of workers’ organization reveals a movement in need of reinvention.” But we also need to think about how we rebuild a militant labour movement at the point of organizing, among the rank-and-file, and not simply look at theory and strategies. Activists and organizers need to think about reinventing the labour movement almost one worker at a time. 

Articles

The 2014 BC Teachers’ Strike: Weathering a Perfect Storm

/

By Lisa Descary

It is hard to imagine that anybody who strongly supports public education in British Columbia was thrilled when the BC Liberals pulled off an unwelcome, last-minute election victory in 2013. Given the Liberals’ history of failure to address the basic needs of the public school system, it was plain to see that more trouble was on the horizon. But this time teachers would not just face the ongoing ebb and flow of government cut-backs and attempts at privatization that our union has to push back against, but a perfect storm that would test us like never before.

The Real Attack on Democracy in Canada
Articles

The Real Attack on Democracy in Canada

/

By James Cairns

On October 22, Corporal Nathan Cirillo was shot and killed in front of the War Memorial in Ottawa. Since then, his life as a soldier in the Canadian military has been celebrated in Parliament, in schools, in National Hockey League arenas, and in endless media coverage. 

Three days after the death of Cirillo, an explosion at an industrial plant in Veolia, Ontario seriously injured five workers. One of the workers has since died. But the body of the dead Veolia worker will not be paraded past cheering crowds on the so-called “Highway of Heroes.” There will not be tributes for him in Parliament. The Veolia explosion has hardly been discussed in the media. 

X