Labour - Unions

The “jobs versus environment” debate is often seen as a fundamental division between labor and environmentalists, most recently emerging in the fight over the Keystone XL pipeline.

A revitalized teacher union movement is bubbling up in the midst of relentless attacks on public schools and the teaching profession. Over the next several years this new movement may well be the most important force to defend and improve public schools, and in so doing, defend our communities and our democracy. The most recent indication of this fresh upsurge was the union election in Los Angeles. Union Power, an activist caucus, won leadership of the United Teachers of Los Angeles, the second-largest teacher local in the country.

If you want jobs, you need to pump and transport oil and gas, albeit as safely as humanly possible. That's been the mantra from B.C. premier Christy Clark -- a key, many would argue, to her surprise victory in the 2013 provincial election. It's a message one might assume resonates with organized labour in B.C., given that resource extraction has been vital to the province's economy. But union support for Clark's agenda is more complex and even fragmented. The arguments within, and among, unions turn on a couple of debates...

Last November, during the last Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) convention, delegates marched in the streets of Toronto calling for a $14 minimum wage. During this rally, while I was walking with a fellow young worker, a reporter approached us. Seeing all the union flags, he asked us what we thought about the lack of young workers or typical minimum wage earners at the protest. Part of me was outraged at the question.

So often we hear governments and the oil and gas industry promoting fracking as a way to create jobs. Job creation and fracking -- and other fossil fuel projects -- are often pitted against water, environmental and public health concerns. The debate is framed as a black and white issue: If you oppose fracking, you are "anti-jobs" and you cannot possibly be an environmentalist that supports job creation. Here are five points that debunk these myths. The reality is we have different options and we need to get our governments to start talking about them.

Locked out for thirteen months, over three hundred IKEA workers in Richmond, BC are still holding out. While setting record profits in 2013, IKEA is trying to impose a two-tier wage system and seriously weaken benefits. The stakes are high as IKEA Richmond sets workplace standards for non-union IKEA stores. Of the twelve IKEA stores in Canada and Quebec, it is the only one unionized outside of Montreal where workers are represented by CSN. Teamsters Local 213 represents the workers in Richmond.

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?

The following remarks were made by Seattle City Councilor Kshama Sawant on Monday, June 2, as the council voted unaminously to pass a $15 minimum wage, the highest in the nation:

Do people exist to serve the economy or does the economy exist to serve people?

This question came to me as the left side of my brain was reading Thomas Piketty's important new book Capital in the Twenty-First Century while the right side of my brain watched the news.

The Canadian Labour Congress, the umbrella organization for most of the country's labour organizations, has chosen a new president who has vowed to make the national body more militant in confronting management and the Harper Conservatives.