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Magazine
The right to return to work
At the beginning of the pandemic, the Pacific Gateway and Hilton Metrotown hotels laid off their workers – then refused to hire them back. Hotel workers are fighting for their jobs, and for the future of the hotel industry after the pandemic.
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Magazine
Building feminist, anti-racist unions
More strategies for challenging patriarchal white supremacy in labour
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Magazine
A penny a poppy
Millions of Canada’s plastic Remembrance Day poppies have been made by prisoners and people labelled with intellectual/developmental disabilities, who are paid pennies on the hour. It’s part of a long history of prisons and institutions using poverty to control disabled and criminalized workers.
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Magazine
“Do not ever get used to it”
Union members and staff say that sexism, anti-Black racism, and other oppressive attitudes are deeply entrenched in many unions. Drawing on a history of women, trans, and racialized workers fighting for their place in the labour movement, trade unionists share ideas to transform unions today.
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Magazine
The labour movement is stronger without police in it
It’s time for unions to expel police from their membership, because a strong labour movement can only be built on a foundation of safety for Black and Indigenous members.
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Magazine
The HuffPost Canada union is dead. Long live the HuffPost Canada union.
My newsroom unionized. We were shut down two weeks later. Here’s why it was still worth it.
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Magazine
Tough conversations about Canada’s labour movement
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?
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Magazine
Raising the floor
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.
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Magazine
What is a migrant? And is she a revolutionary?
Migrants are now a central part of the local working class in virtually every town and city. Organizing against capitalism involves treating migrants not as objects of charity, but as revolutionary subjects.
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Online-only
Levelling the playing field
Canadian Premier League soccer players are being paid poverty wages by billionaire team owners. Now, a new union is helping players fight for dignity and respect.
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Magazine
Parasitic Solidarity
Unions are meant to defend their working-class members against unfair criticism and wrongful termination. But in Winnipeg, the police union is working to obstruct accountability for police officers who kill and abuse people.
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Online-only
Amazon, McDonald’s, A&W, Sleep Country, TJX Linked To Anti-Union Conference
Top Canadian companies were among the sponsors and attendees of Canada’s largest union-busting event, according to photos and documents obtained by Briarpatch.
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Magazine
New traditions
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.
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Magazine
Mistreated, marginalized, migrant
Following the deaths of three workers to COVID-19, the experience of migrant farmworkers in Canada has received unprecedented media attention. As a result, workers are winning long-overdue changes to their conditions. This timeline charts the wins and losses of migrant agricultural workers in Ontario during seven months of COVID-19.
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Magazine
Exorcise Amazon
Amazon has made a name for itself in pioneering new strategies for worker exploitation. The best way to fight back is to build worker power from below.
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Magazine
Delivering justice
Three months after Foodora couriers won the right to unionize – a historic win for app-based workers – Foodora announced it was leaving Canada. Five worker leaders talk about the highs and lows of the campaign, and what’s next for Foodsters United.
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Magazine
Prison unionism
How a public-sector union became the leading advocate of jail-building in Manitoba – and laid the foundation for the province’s incarceration disaster.
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Magazine
The implicit militancy of gardening
After two months on strike, CUPE 3903 members were feeling worn out. That changed when, one night – armed with a Rototiller, under cover of darkness – they decided to plant a community garden on the picket line.
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Magazine
Striking for the common good
Teachers bargaining for the common good contains the seed of radical change – and I mean “radical” in the same way that Angela Davis uses it, meaning “grasping at the root.”
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Magazine
Bringing back the beat
In mainstream media, labour journalism has been replaced by financial reporting and business sections. But journalism students are raising the labour beat from the grave.