By David Camfield
People in Canada who want deep-rooted social change are divided when it comes to unions today. While many are pro-union, it’s not uncommon to run into dismissive or simply hostile attitudes too.
By Clarice Kuhling
In June 2010, leaders of the G20 countries gathering in Toronto were met with a large protest march organized by union officials as well as by a series of actions organized by community-based activists. Police arrests of activists began before the march. Many hundreds of arrests followed, in the wake of attacks on property in downtown Toronto by some protestors.
By Maryann Abbs
Review of David Camfield, Canadian Labour in Crisis: Reinventing the Workers’ Movement
(Winnipeg: Fernwood, 2011).
By Alan Sears
I have a dream about the end of Harper, in which he is driven from office, a reviled figure.
Alan Sears’s “Notes Towards a Socialism for the Times” is a very good article to get people interested in socialism, or to reinvigorate the passion of those already knowledgeable on the topic. It strives to explain what socialism from below is, how it fell by the wayside and why we need it back.
By Harold Lavender
In the May Federal election, Stephen Harper won a majority government without winning a majority of the vote. Only 39.6 percent of the population voted Conservative while 60 percent voted against. Much discussion has focused on the election results and what to do about the Harper majority. But relatively little of this has focused on the electoral system.
By Alan Sears and James Cairns
The federal election of 2011 drastically shifted the terrain of parliamentary politics in Canada.
By Alan Sears and James Cairns
Despite severe problems with electoral politics, radicals building movements for real social change need to engage seriously with elections. In this article, we look at the current Canadian election from a Toronto perspective.
By Scott Neigh
We hear a lot these days about the need for cuts to public spending, for saving money. The use of this rhetoric to cover massive changes in how our lives and societies are organized has a long history, but in the current “age of austerity” — ushered in by unprecedented giveaways of ordinary people’s money to rich people and powerful institutions and the Toronto G20 meeting’s commitment to make up for that by further attacks on ordinary people — mean that we’re hearing it rather a lot at the moment.
Wanted: A Left to Stop Ford
It will take a mighty movement to defeat the Ford agenda and turn back the age of austerity. We need a Left that can reach out to broad layers of the population, communicating a political alternative effectively and contributing to effective activism that really makes a difference.
In the first part of a two-part article, Alan Sears argues that Toronto’s very right-wing mayor is no mere buffoon, but “the immediate face” of the “Age of Austerity” and a “bad cop” of neoliberalism.
By Alan Sears
Workers in Wisconsin have responded to attempts to destroy collective bargaining rights in the public sector with massive protest actions. These actions have galvanized workers in other states to confront their own employers and to support the movement in Wisconsin.
David Broder, of the British publication The Commune, interviewed Jeffery R. Webber on his two books on Bolivian politics out this year.
By Ali Mustafa
The Greater Toronto Workers’ Assembly (GTWA) is a promising new initiative aiming to build a united, non-sectarian, and militant anti-capitalist movement in the city among a diversity of rank-and-file labour unionists, grassroots community organizers, and youth alike. Since the GTWA’s inception in early 2010, mass public transit has emerged as one of the organization’s key political battlegrounds. In this in-depth roundtable discussion, members of the GTWA’s transit committee Jordy Cummings, Lisa Leinveer, Leo Panitch, Kamilla Pietrzyk, and Herman Rosenfeld explore both the opportunities and obstacles facing the campaign Towards a Free and Accessible TTC.
By Murray Smith
With the onset of the world economic crisis, the European workers’ movement finds itself in a new phase, one that is replete with dangers and challenges. It is important to underline that we are in fact in a new situation and not just a continuation of the previous period.
This article is the first in a series by one of the editors of NS Webzine that we will be publishing this year. As always, we welcome constructive comments from readers.
By Hamid Sodeifi
A Review of Greg Albo, Sam Gindin and Leo Panitch, In and Out of Crisis by (PM Press, 2010)
By Johanna Brenner
The Great Recession has no doubt punctured US celebration of the unregulated market, generated anger at wealth disparities and shock at the loss of the American Dream. Yet three decades of conservative dominance and political drift to the right have taken their toll.
By Ali Mustafa
Background
Public outcry continues to grow across Canada over the widespread abuse of civil liberties during the recent G20 Summit in Toronto. Over 1,000 people were rounded-up and arrested between June 26th– 27th, resulting in the largest mass arrest in Canadian history. While the majority of those arrested have since been released, at least 16 people remain under strict bail conditions and face a variety of serious criminal charges. Countless others who managed to avoid arrest were indiscriminately searched, detained for hours, and even violently attacked by police.