Tag: Labour Movement

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.

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.

How a public-sector union became the leading advocate of jail-building in Manitoba – and laid the foundation for the province’s incarceration disaster.

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.

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.”

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.

Can Alberta’s labour movement rise to the challenge presented by the new UCP government?

It’s past time for serious planning in Saskatchewan toward a just transition. The question remains: will unions take the lead before it’s too late – and which union will lead the charge?

The student strike is alive and well in Quebec. This week, tens of thousands of Quebec students will walk out of their classes, demanding wages for all interns.

How CUPW is bringing union advocacy into the 21st century

Workers on strike at Co-op locations in and around Saskatoon have been braving sub-zero temperatures and snow on the picket lines.

Unions in Canada and the U.S. are throwing open the doors to collective bargaining meetings, hoping to win stronger contracts and more engaged members. Will it work?

“Hell’s Hole,” “the Devil’s Row,” and “the Western Front” – these were the nicknames for the coal mines of the Drumheller valley. In 1919, around 6,500 Drumheller coal miners walked off the job after voting to join the radical and militant One Big Union. Nearly a hundred years later, the 1919 Drumheller strike remains one of the most famous examples of workers’ power on the Prairies.