The library workers in Mississauga went on strike this summer. They refused concessions and demanded that all members receive a living wage. Effective strategy and tremendous community solidarity won the day. The library workers’ victory is an example of what can be achieved when the gap between the precarious part-timers and the full-timers is bridged. They Continue readingWeekend Video: Library workers fight and win
Videos
In 1999, the part-time cashiers and clerks of the University of Toronto Bookstore unionized with the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 3261. 16 years ago, in the summer of 2000, these workers went on a 13-week strike for their first union contract. This is their story.
Joe Allen, authour of The Package King: A Rank and File History of UPS traces the rise of UPS as a powerful corporation and its labour-management struggles. Allen examines UPS from the perspective of rank and file trade union activists fighting for their rights, dignity and survival against what has become one of the most Continue readingWeekend Video: The Package King
This 1959 documentary, produced by the National Film Board of Canada, follows migrant workers as they harvest tobacco in southwestern Ontario, Canada. Under physically exhausting conditions, men and women pick, load, sort, string, pole, and store the crop. Stompin’ Tom Connors captured the experience in his song “Tillsonburg”. Little has changed since this film was Continue readingWeekend Video: The Back-Breaking Leaf
Winnipeg, June 17, 2016 – Representatives of Friends of Public Services, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers and Solidarity Winnipeg discuss how Canada Post could become the hub of a post-carbon economy. Speakers: Dru Jay – Friends of Public Services Basia Sokal – Canadian Union of Postal Workers Maya Martinez-Alper – Solidarity Winnipeg Sofia Soriano Continue readingWeekend Video: Delivering Community Power – Winnipeg
A panel of activists and historians on the struggles of women and the poor in the city’s history. Gaetan Heroux is an anti-poverty activist with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty. He has worked in the Dundas and Sherbourne area more than 25 years. He is also co-author, with Bryan D. Palmer, of Toronto’s Poor: A Continue readingWeekend Video: Class Struggles TO: Women & the Poor in the City’s History
In July 2016, CUPE Local 1989, Mississauga Library Workers Union, was on strike for 18 days. They forged deep bonds with with their fellow co-workers, made new friends with supporters, and most importantly. worked together to fight for justice. And they won! This video shows what issues were driving the strikers and why they won.
Nuit Debout is a French social movement that began on 31 March 2016, arising out of protests against proposed labor reforms known as the El Khomri law or Loi travail. It has been compared to the Occupy movement in the United States and to Spain’s anti-austerity 15-M or Indignados movement. The movement is centered at Continue readingWeekend video: Struggle[s] at Nuit Debout, Part 1 – Paris
On May 28 Working While Black in Nova Scotia hosted a symposium looking at questions: Is there such thing as employment equity? Is racism profitable? How is racism in the workplace making us sick? Speakers and topics: -Marlene Ruck-Simmonds (Intergenerational Trauma, Working in Racist Environments and Psychological Efftects) -Isaac Saney (History of Anti-Black Racism in Continue readingWeeknd Video: Working While Black
A talk Robert McChesney and John Nichols co-authors of the book People Get Ready: The Fight Against a Jobless Economy and a Citizenless Democracy (Nation Books), recorded March 9, 2016 at Town Hall Seattle. The consequences of the technological revolution are about to hit hard: unemployment will spike as new technologies replace labor in the manufacturing, service, Continue readingWeekend video: The fight against a jobless economy and a citizenless democracy
A history of Saskatchewan Working Women (SWW) and the role of feminism in the trade union movement. The SWW was a grassroots, feminist organization of female wage earners which operated from 1978 to 1990. SWW was formed by an alliance of trade union women and community-based feminists. Members of SWW came from many different political Continue readingWeekend video: It’s Not Over Yet
InvestigativeMEDIA turns its unflinching focus on Canadian miner Hudbay Minerals Inc. and its controversial plans to construct the massive Rosemont open-pit copper mine in the Santa Rita Mountains on the Coronado National Forest southeast of Tucson. InvestigativeMEDIA’s John Dougherty documents Hudbay’s legacy of lead poisoning in a remote Manitoba community where the company operated a Continue readingWeekend Video: Flin Flon Flim Flam (Hudbay’s Hoax)