Beyond the impasse of Canadian labour: union renewal, political renewal

21/05/14
Author: 
Sam Gindin

Canadian workers have been remarkably patient. For over three decades now—a generation—their wages have been restrained, workloads intensified and social benefits eroded, the promise being that this will ultimately bring security for themselves and their families. What they got was more of the same while class inequality reached the highest levels in over 80 years. Where is the anger? When the Great Financial Crisis hit, first and deeper in the US then in Canada, the Canadian state acted decisively to subsidize banks and imposed austerity on workers to pay for this. Where was the rage?