Tag: Labour

A reading list to help leftists face the conditions within which we organize without consolation or despair. 

Organizing prisoner workers is the first step toward abolishing prisons.

A transition to a sustainable economy is a monumental task that will require transformative change. Whether this transition is just, democratic, and reflective of the scale of the crises we face is still to be determined.

From leading one of British Columbia’s earliest strikes to fighting against low wages and racist bosses, some pivotal moments in Indigenous labour history.

If anti-scab legislation is to be extended across Canada, the NDP’s best efforts and the Liberals’ reluctant co-operation might not be enough. The history of the Quebec labour movement can show us how to fight for anti-scab legislation.

Across Canada, farm workers are facing hotter summers and extreme weather, while being denied basic labour protections like a minimum wage. The farm workers organizing within the National Farmers Union want to change agriculture’s unsustainable conditions.

Where can we speak honestly about the weaknesses of the labour movement, offering constructive criticism and debating paths forward, without making the movement vulnerable to bad-faith attacks by neoliberal columnists and far-right ghouls? 

From live-in caregivers to meat packers, Filipino workers have been at the front lines of COVID – but have received little protection or recognition.

Celebrating the 40th anniversary of CUPW’s 1981 strike, which won postal workers paid maternity leave, and raised the floor for maternal benefits throughout Canada.

Defeat happens all the time in leftist campaigns, but very few leftists (including leftist media) have developed honest, helpful ways of talking about it.

Four Indigo stores have unionized in less than five months. It’s a lesson in how workers can play the pandemic to their advantage – leveraging social media and relying on community support to fight for lasting changes in their workplace.

Top Canadian companies were among the sponsors and attendees of Canada’s largest union-busting event, according to photos and documents obtained by Briarpatch.

When the pandemic took hold in March, the nature of my work as a doctor in remote communities in northern Quebec and Ontario changed drastically. The practice of medicine is defined by coping with uncertainty, but few had experienced the scope of the ambiguity through which we lurched. 

As precarious work becomes the norm, labour activists need to combine the best of our traditions with new approaches that respond to the changing realities of work. To do that, we look to the history of community unionism, worker centres, and whole worker organizing.

Amid COVID-19 and a global uprising against police brutality, the already intense demands and pressures that Black women face at work have become crushing. Hawa Mire convened a roundtable on Black women’s labour during these times

At a manufacturing plant in Ontario, Honda management maps out vulnerable “hot spots” on the shop floor as part of an effort to stop its workers from unionizing.

Toward an abolitionist approach to decent work for all

Who’s making bank off COVID-19, and who’s fighting back? A summary of Resource Movement and Briarpatch’s webinar, “Pandemic Profiteers & the Movements Trying to Stop Them”

From socially-distanced protests to virtual union drives, five vital signs of worker organizing during COVID-19

Militancy, “negative solidarity,” and fighting to win in Saskatchewan and Canada’s labour movement