On Sunday night hours from a strike deadline, CUPE representing 55,000 Ontario education workers, announced they achieved restored services for students and a fair contract for workers. For months, the government has been playing hardball with workers, students and parents in the education system. But workers, students and parents are fighting back. CUPE’s incredible win Continue readingWalk-in to Fight Ford’s Education Cuts
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Eric Blanc discusses his new book Red State Revolt: The Teachers’ Strike Wave and Working Class Politics and what lessons it might hold for workers in Canada. Join RankandFile.ca and author Eric Blanc for the public book launch of Red State Revolt on May 29, 2019 at the Worker’s Action Centre in Toronto, Ontario. Order Continue readingWhy the Red State Revolt matters for Canada
By Gerard Di Trolio There has been a modest but not insignificant revival of the strike in the United States. After all, it is the ultimate weapon of workers and its decline alongside that of the American labour movement has had a disastrous impact on economic inequality and working conditions. Teacher strikes have been a Continue readingBook Review: Red State Revolt
Chloe Rockarts reflects on conversations with public sector labour leaders in Alberta for a RankandFile.ca article called The Past, Present and Future of Workers’ Power in Alberta. We reflect on tangible steps needed to build worker capacity to fight public sector cuts and privatization, build solidarity between unionized & non-unionized workers, and fight white supremacy. Continue readingFighting Back in Jason Kenney’s Alberta
By David Bush The political ground in Ontario is shifting. On April 4, 150,000 high school students from 700 schools across the province walked out of class in protest of the Tory government’s proposed cuts to education. Just two days later, over 30,000 teachers, education workers, and allies rallied at Queen’s Park against the cuts. Continue readingHow is labour going to fight Ford?
By Peter Hogarth “I feel like education has been moving in a really good direction; schools are getting that they have to be there to support students’ mental health, we have to take care of racism and make students feel safe and this is just setting us back in so many different ways.” Nicole Luinenburg, Continue readingTeaching the Tories a lesson
By Doug Nesbitt and David Bush Ontario secondary school students organized the biggest walkout in the province’s history on April 4. Somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 students from over 700 high schools participated. Walkouts even spread to elementary schools. This is the second major student walk out in the province since the Tories were elected. Continue readingOntario’s Spring: Students lead, labour must follow
By Nick French After decades of decline, the past year has seen a dramatic revival in labor militancy. Public school teachers have been at the forefront of this resurgence, starting with a dramatic wildcat strike in West Virginia in February 2018, then a wave of teacher strikes that swept the nation, moving from red states like Arizona and Oklahoma to blue California and Colorado. Continue readingA Different Kind of Teachers’ Strike Wave
By Barbara Madeloni “Don’t start those buses tomorrow,” said Joe White, executive director of the West Virginia School Service Personnel Association. He was announcing the second statewide education strike in West Virginia in a year, alongside the leaders of the state’s two teacher unions. The next morning, February 19, buses throughout the state sat idle Continue readingWest Virginia Strikes Again, Defeating Privatization Bill in a Single Day
By Gillian Russom We had just an enormous number of demands because we’re been dealing with schools that have been neglected for so long, and because as a democratic union we had a pretty big process for all sorts of constituents to say what they wanted to see in the contract. And on top of that, Continue readingLA teachers won a historic victory
By Barbara Madeloni Last spring a teacher uprising swept the red states. Today it reached the West Coast, as the 34,000 members of United Teachers Los Angeles began a long-anticipated strike in the nation’s second-largest school district. Teachers, parents, students, and community supporters hit the picket lines in their fight against the budget cuts and Continue readingLos Angeles Teachers Strike to Defend Public Schools from the Privatizers
By Gerard Di Trolio A little over a week since the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (ETFO) announced that it would defend teachers who taught the now abolished 2015 sex-ed curriculum, Doug Ford has responded with a website encouraging parents to snitch on teachers. The website also instructs parents that they can also complain to Continue readingFord’s teacher snitch line is a declaration of war