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• January/February 2010 –In the wake of the global convergence in Copenhagen and looking ahead to the anti-Olympic demonstrations in February 2010, Briarpatch sets out to assess the state of social movements today. Where are the emerging opportunities for collective action and popular empowerment? What have we learned in the ten years since…
• Canada’s rebellious era –_Canada’s 1960s_ is a magnificent achievement that distills the essence of the political and social upheavals that defined the 1960s in Canada. Palmer sets out to demonstrate that the 1960s transformed Canada in fundamental ways, and does so very convincingly.
• Teamsters and turtles –Turtles and teamsters, together at last. Ten years after the anti-globalization movement shut down the World Trade Organization negotiations, that slogan, and the vision it embodied of trade unionists and environmentalists joining forces to halt neoliberal globalization in its tracks, continues to inspire activists in both camps.
• Days of smoke and roses –Every year from May until August, initial attack crews are deployed from Canadian district fire bases to help contain fires (and occasionally conduct prescribed burns) in Canada’s boreal forest. Like intelligence operatives, fire rangers often work in isolation and obscurity, in a remote and dangerous world hidden from public view.…
• Will write for food –It’s an unremarkable Tuesday evening in mid-October and I’ve just entered a second-floor meeting room at the Northern District Library in downtown Toronto. I’m feeling optimistic.
• Women fight for a minimum wage –Lin Shiu, 65, walks into the small Hong Kong Women Workers’ Association office, still sweating from her morning shift. Wearing a blue suit, baseball cap and fluorescent green mesh vest, she gratefully accepts a glass of water. In an hour, she must get back to work cleaning a luxurious Hong…
• Two-tier workforce –South Korea’s export-led economy has been hard hit by the global economic crisis, and the country’s migrant workforce has made a particularly easy target for politicians looking for scapegoats. South Korea has historically been ethnically homogeneous and has had a tepid relationship with outsiders even in prosperous times; during times…
• Saints or scabs? –It’s not easy getting a cab to the Lower Ninth Ward. Even now, with most of the former population cleared out, some drivers still won’t cross the Claiborne Avenue Bridge unless it’s to take a carload of tourists to gawk at Hurricane Katrina’s Ground Zero. So when the third cab…
• Government and the global jobs crisis –Various talking heads have proclaimed that the worst of the global recession may be over, but the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) maintains that “employment is the bottom line of the current crisis,” which has the potential to turn “into a long-term unemployment crisis.”
• Work less, live more –Work is a blessing and a curse. At its best, work gives our lives meaning and purpose. Many of us derive our self-identity from our work. More than just a means to an income, work can provide an opportunity to contribute, interact and connect with others.
• Cutting the global economy down to size –For over a century, we’ve thought of work as the use of human labour and technology to transform natural resources into tradeable goods. This economic model has brought us unparalleled prosperity - and exhausted the planet’s capacity to support us.
• Organizing in tough times –Being a bike courier was the first job Mark Hayward had that he not only liked, but loved. But times are tough: if he were offered a better job tomorrow, he’d be gone. “For the first time ever, work was so slow, couriers were complaining they didn’t have enough money…
• The coming austerity –With the _Financial Times_ lamenting the “end of the era of liberalization” and the “death of global free-market capitalism” and _Newsweek_ declaring “we are all Socialists now,” one could be forgiven for believing that the worst excesses of neoliberalism have been relegated to the dustbin of history.
• November/December 2009 –The economic crisis has taken a grim toll on working people and on the labour movement. In its wake, can labour activists and environmentalists join forces to build a green economy that works for everyone? This is just one of the many questions we set out to answer in our…
• Letter from the editor –For two summers several years ago I worked as a literacy tutor for migrant workers in southern Ontario. I had read Paolo Freire’s _Pedagogy of the Oppressed_ and brought with me all kinds of ideas about popular education, but it was all just theory for me at that point. Those…
• The myth of the multicultural patchwork –Multiculturalism - the idea that the existence of multiple cultures within Canada should be accepted and encouraged - has been official state policy since 1971. Celebration of the diversity of our northern cultural kaleidoscope has become a mark of national pride. But while the myth of multiculturalism encourages us to…
• The road to Flobbertown –Remember Grade 3, when school was all about storybooks and gym class and crafts? We had to learn our multiplication tables and cursive writing, too, but these are not the memories we tend to hang on to.
• Generation debt –Education is increasingly thought to be for the good of the individual rather than for the greater good of society - a belief that has made it politically acceptable to place the bulk of education costs squarely on the shoulders of the students seeking that education.
• B.A., M.A., McJob –Imagine opening your morning paper to read the following: “The Minister of Human Resources announced today that she will be working with the provinces to lower university and college enrolments across the country. ‘We don’t think young Canadians should be wasting their time with post-secondary education,’ the Minister said. ‘It’s…
• Freedom & absurdity –The Sunday blues are back, familiar and unwelcome like symptoms of an old illness.