Standing room only at book launch in Regina This past April, people gathered in Regina to mark the launch of a new book, Unjust Transition, about the 2019-2020 Co-op Refinery lockout in Regina. The Regina Brewing Taphouse was packed with standing room only. Books were sold out before speakers even started. A panel of oil Continue reading“Unjust Transition” tells story of Co-op Refinery lockout
Videos
by Emily Leedham To address the shortage of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and other medical equipment such as ventilators, workers are demanding former General Motors plant in Oshawa be converted to produce these supplies to support frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. “There’s a dire shortage of that equipment, it’s being rationed,” Michael Hurley, President Continue readingWorkers demand Oshawa GM plant converted to produce medical equipment
by Emily Leedham Regina refinery workers have been locked out since December 5, 2019. This short video provides a recap of the struggle to the present, including the scab camp: a ticking COVID-19 time bomb. Sign the petition to shut down the scab camp here.
“They thought they was gonna play with these amigos, and they said, ‘aw yeah, we rise together, homie.’ And they leaving! And they not bullshitting!” On July 31, over a non-union hundred workers, led by Latino workers, walked off the job at an Indiana UPS superhub. The workers, mostly contractors (millwrights, welders, conveyor installers and Continue readingWeekend Video: “The Mexicans shut this motherfucker down”
“If they don’t win the struggle here, it’s just going to get worse across the country. I think we’ve just seen the tip of the iceberg…” The right-wing assault On July 7 1983, British Columbia’s newly re-elected Social Credit (Socred) government brought forward an unprecedented “restraint” budget (aka austerity) and 26 pieces of legislation to Continue readingWeekend Video: BC’s Solidarity movement
It is often hoped and assumed that union stewardship of pension investments will produce tangible and enduring benefits for workers and their communities while minimizing the negative effects of what are now global and intensely competitive capital markets. At the core of the book The Contradictions of Pension Fund Capitalism is a desire to question Continue readingWeekend Video: The Contradictions of Pension Fund Capitalism
Goodbyes are a ritual for Delroy. A migrant worker from Jamaica, he spends six months of every year working in the tobacco fields of southwestern Ontario. He is the only breadwinner for his wife and six children. His family’s survival hinges on his annual departure for Canada each spring; a journey he has made for Continue readingWeekend Video: Babe, I Hate To Go
Between 1949 and 1956 the small town of Dresden, in South Western Ontario, Canada, was the scene of an aggressive campaign by the National Unity Association to end anti-black racism and discrimination. The courage and determination of folks like Hugh Burnett and his allies in the Labour Movement resulted in the passing of the Fair Continue readingWeekend Video: Welcome to Dresden
The night before his assassination in April 1968, Martin Luther King told a group of striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee: “We’ve got to give ourselves to this struggle until the end. Nothing would be more tragic than to stop at this point in Memphis. We’ve got to see it through”. King believed the struggle Continue readingWeekend Video: I Have Been to the Mountaintop
The Last Pullman Car follows the efforts of the United Steelworkers Local 1834 to prevent the Pullman-Standard Company from shutting down operations in Pullman, Chicago. The plant had opened in 1864 when George Pullman began selling his famous railroad sleeping cars. Yet in 1981, the industrial empire began to break down, leaving the Pullman workers Continue readingWeekend Video: The Last Pullman Car
In Toronto, Izabel, Bebeth, Natasha, Benoît, Grace and Jean, members of Ontario’s “working poor” directly affected by the economic crisis, agree to take part in group sessions organized by filmmaker Geoff Bowie. They talk about having to work multiple jobs to get by, describe the stress generated by financial vulnerability, and courageously explain their strategies Continue readingWeekend Video: Courage
A Matter of Survival, a 1969 short narrative film produced by the National Film Board of Canada. The film looks at the impacts the introduction of a computer has in the workplace. Managers and workers deal with their anxiety and fears about job loss and changing nature of work due to automation. A Matter of Continue readingWeekend Video: A Matter of Survival