$50 billion in subsidies has failed to secure jobs, investment and a future By Doug Nesbitt On October 16 2023 it was all smiles for the cameras in Loyalist Township when politicians and corporate executives gathered for a groundbreaking ceremony to build a new $2.761 billion Electric Vehicle battery parts plant. Loyalist Township, located next Continue readingCanada’s failed EV strategy is corporate welfare run amok
Articles
A Special Rankandfile.ca Report In less than 10 years, the Ontario’s Workplace Safety Insurance Board went from an alleged “unfunded liability crisis” threatening the very existence of the compensation system, to a surplus in which employer premiums have been slashed and corporations gifted billions of dollars. Rankandfile.ca presents this Special Report by Chris Grawey, a Continue readingThe WSIB “Surplus”: A Political Slush Fund
It has been a decade since the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that workers do have collective rights, including the right to strike, which employers and governments cannot easily overturn. As labour scholar Charles Smith wrote a decade ago for Rankandfile.ca: The challenge now is how workers and their unions can transform their legal victory Continue reading10 Years of the Right to Strike
By Samantha Porter The corporate media has made a contest out of spreading the most outlandish lies about postal workers. We’re simultaneously considered obsolete, glorified paperboys, yet also blamed for destroying Canadian small businesses. They say we should be privatized and subjected to the whims of the market, but in the same breath demand that Continue readingThe Perspective of a Letter Carrier in Toronto
By Michael Mcdonald, Canada Post PO5 forklift driver, St. John’s Canada Post has framed this narrative that they are losing money… well, I guess if you say something enough, people will start to believe it is the truth even though it is not! I believe it’s unfair that the crown corporation can state that it Continue readingA worker’s opinion on Canada Post’s false narratives
By Mason Godden On September 21st, 124 retired trade unionists, activists, and various friends, allies, and families of the labour movement congregated inside the Unifor union hall on 12th Street in New Westminster, British Columbia. The occasion was the 60th anniversary of the Canadian Association of Industrial, Mechanical, and Allied Workers (CAIMAW). If the name Continue readingCAIMAW’s 60th anniversary
By Doug Nesbitt Slavery was legally abolished in most of the British Empire and what is now Canada on August 1, 1834, although exemptions were made for the British East India Company until 1838. Emancipation Day, August 1, has been celebrated among black communities in Canada since the 19th century. Emancipation Day was officially recognized Continue readingAugust 1 is Emancipation Day in Canada
By Doug Nesbitt “We have to be fast like a robot. So we say we’re not robots,” says a former Amazon worker, Ibrahim Al Sahary, ahead of Amazon’s big discount “Prime Day” scheduled July 16 and 17. Amazon Prime Day and other Amazon sale periods are notorious among Amazon warehouse workers for speed-ups, cancelled breaks, Continue readingBeyond the Beachhead: Unionizing Amazon in Canada
“Under capitalism the working class has but two courses to follow: crawl or fight” – JB McLachlan By Doug Nesbitt Today is Davis Day in Nova Scotia. William Davis was a coal miner shot and killed June 11 by company police during the 1925 Cape Breton coal miners’ strike. The miners were fighting against a Continue readingThe Origins of Davis Day, June 11
By Anthony Marco, OSSTF member Here’s why I will be voting AGAINST the upcoming OSSTF proposal to use arbitration as a tactic to prompt more effective bargaining with Ford’s Conservatives. I will be voting against the proposal even though I acknowledge that THIS TIME it could likely result in a better wage deal for OSSTF Continue readingArbitration tactic a mistake, says OSSTF member
In the early hours of July 6, 2013, a parked Montreal Maine & Atlantic Railway train’s brakes failed. Crewed by a single person, the train was carrying oil cars and derailed in the Quebec town of Lac-Mégantic. The resulting explosion killed 47 people and the downtown was completely destroyed. Three railway workers were dragged through Continue readingRemember Lac-Mégantic!
By Andrew Stevens Sunny ways are back in Saskatchewan. Manufacturing sales are up, exports are growing, oil production and mineral sales have increased,[1] and the provincial government raked in a $1.2 billion surplus.[2] We’re even seeing the population rebound after some years of stagnation. But what does this mean for the average worker? Well that Continue readingAn economic snapshot of Saskatchewan (from labour’s standpoint)