If today’s unionization rate in the US was the same as it was forty years ago (already a low bar, as that number is significantly down from the mid-1950s peak), the number of union members would be well over 30 million instead of about 17 million. In fact, though the workforce has increased by some 56 million since the early 1980s, the number of union members has fallen by over 3 million.
In some good news for BC drivers, Save Old Growth has stated that it will no longer be doing actions on critical infrastructure in the province. The group says the move amounts to a de-escalation of disruptive actions.
Hundreds of workers at a Toronto warehouse belonging to The Bay, a subsidiary of Hudson’s Bay Co., have gone on strike, demanding a retroactive pay increase for working in grueling conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic, and in the midst of inflation that is now soaring.
Tens of thousands of workers demonstrated against the rising cost of living, with many linking the crisis to the NATO’s war and Russia policies. Many demonstrators condemned the US-led NATO alliance and its involvement in the Ukraine war. Many linked their dire economic straits to the EU’s sanctions regime on Russia and with the NATO’s rush to arm Ukraine.
Protesters demanded that their leaders “spend money on salaries, not on weapons,” and chanted “stop NATO.”
An international student leading a controversial civil resistance campaign to end old-growth logging in B.C. is fearful the Canada Border Services Agency is looking to deport him.
Zain Haq, a co-founder of the Save Old Growth (SOG) protest group behind a recent series of highway blockades across the province, has been ordered to show up at a CBSA office.
The third-year history major at Simon Fraser University who hails from Pakistan is in Canada on a study permit, a document issued by Immigration Canada.
Takaro is an expert on the public health impacts of climate change. His potential sentence reflects the absurd predicament Canada finds itself in.
Next week, Dr. Tim Takaro, a distinguished authority on public health, will have his sentencing hearing after pleading guilty to criminal contempt for violating a court-ordered injunction against blocking the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion (TMX).
Editor: One left group's point of view on the war in Ukraine.
May 24, 2022
1. State of the war
. Today, three months have passed since the invasion of Ukraine by Putin’s troops. The Russian army has occupied parts of the territory, particularly in the East and South of the country, while suffering a serious defeat in the region of Kiev.
The B.C. Prosecution Service plans to prosecute 15 protesters for criminal contempt for allegedly defying an injunction protecting construction of a controversial pipeline in northern British Columbia.
A Crown lawyer told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Marguerite Church on Wednesday that prosecutors need four more weeks to decide whether to charge 10 other protesters with criminal contempt in relation to blockades and actions last fall opposing Coastal GasLink's natural gas pipeline.
