Tag: Labour Movement

In year four of the COVID-19 pandemic, will unions fight for workers’ right not to get sick on the job?

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.

As the term “just transition” gains traction with policymakers and fossil fuel companies trying to paint themselves green, the articles in this issue remind us that a just transition means justice for workers, migrants, and Indigenous Peoples.

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.

More strategies for challenging patriarchal white supremacy in labour

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.

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.

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. 

My newsroom unionized. We were shut down two weeks later. Here’s why it was still worth it.

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? 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.