Recent correspondence from Ken Georgetti (President of the Canada Labour Congress) and Michel Arsenault of the FTQ (Provincial Labour Central of Quebec) and various officers in the broader Anglophone Labour Movement sends a clear message: labour jurisdiction trumps labour solidarity. Georgetti and Arsenault believe that this is the time to “facilitate a settlement instead of fueling fires”.

Aresenault wrote to Georgetti on May 28th, saying that the “radical wings” are not to be “promoted” in order to facilitate an agreement. It seem that to him, an agreement in itself is more important than a victory for the students and workers of Quebec. The message is clear, class peace at all costs. He says the students are tired and have been fighting a long time as a reason why they should not be supported. This is pathetic.

In this excellent May Day report from Montreal, video journalist Zach Ruiter comes away with some great footage (and great bruises) from his recent trip to Quebec. As the historic student strike stretches on into its third month, the police repression is intensifying.

Republished from The Dominion.

It’s a Student Strike, a People’s Struggle

Statement by CLASSE
Translated by Richard Fidler

Hike in tuition fees is part of “the cultural revolution”

For several weeks now a student revolt has shaken the neoliberal consensus imposed for many years by the Quebec and Canadian governments. It was sparked by the announcement of a new, 75 per cent increase in university tuition fees.

By Hao Di

On September 3 2011, the Ontario New Democratic Party (ONDP) rescinded the candidacy of Barry Weisleder, who had won the provincial nomination for the riding of Thornhill.

This action generated ripples of controversy amongst left-leaning New Democrats. Weisleder, a party member for over forty years and current chair of the self-styled NDP “Socialist Caucus” has a long and storied reputation as an agitator for state-socialist policies within the NDP, and has often served as a thorn in the side of the party's increasingly centrist leadership.

By Mick Sweetman

This past year has witnessed a renewed assault on unionized workers that should be seen for what it is: a co-ordinated attack on the right of workers to collectively bargain with their employers.

One of the opening salvos in this new wave of class warfare occurred immediately after the far-right ideologue Rob Ford was elected Mayor of Toronto on a platform of “stopping the gravy train”—none-too-subtle code words for attacking public sector workers and the services they provide.

By Gerard Lefebvre

In 1995, Mike Harris was elected Premier of Ontario, bringing an end to Bob Rae's five year NDP government. The province was ailing under a deep recession, which had seen many manufacturing and public service jobs threatened by what the governing NDP had referred to as “a new economic reality”. Elected into office by a population thoroughly dissatisfied with status quo responses to these economic maladies, the NDPs crafted a wholly inadequate response to the situation: a meld of traditional Keynesian anti-recession spending mechanisms and hard-line cuts to programs and services; Rae instituted a "welfare fraud" policing task force and new policies on student loans that ensured students would be saddled with debt years after completing their education. They also began what amounted to an attack on unionized public sector workers, demanding rollbacks and wage freezes.

By Ajamu Nangwaya

Madison, Wisconsin, may have given organized labour - or the labouring classes - a hint at the possibility of resistance in the streets of America. Or should the credit go to the children of Caliban [1] in the streets and squares of Egypt? Can you imagine the role reversal implied by the prospect of the children of Caliban’s teaching those of Prospero, the great civilizer, the art of being human or striving for moral autonomy…collective personhood?

By Alex Balch

At the G20 Summit held this past June in Toronto, the heads of the world’s most advanced capitalist economies met with their counterparts from the IMF and World Bank to hammer out a savagely coordinated attack on the international working class.

Central to the “decade of austerity” prescribed by the IMF – and zealously promoted by the meeting’s host, Stephen Harper – are massive cuts to public spending, aimed at curbing the national deficits that resulted from injecting trillions of dollars into the international banking system in the wake of the 2008 economic crisis.

Effectively, this amounts to the largest transfer of wealth in modern history – and a particularly audacious act of class warfare, waged by the rich against the poor.

By Khalil Tian Shahyd

The rapid rise of the Tea Party Movement has fueled ongoing debate about the potential influence of the movement on American public policy and politics. The movement’s appeal and almost exclusive attraction to working class white voters has also caused many to question the role that race has played in its emergence and in sustaining its anger. However, much of the discussion on the role of race in the TPM tends to get lost in two perspectives; 1.) to outright deny or downplay the influence of race in the movement’s political goals altogether; which is made possible by the charges of the second perspective that, 2.) limits itself to a catalogue list of racist actions, political slogans and associations that can be charged against individuals, Tea Party leaders and organizations [1].

By Scott Neigh
August 1, 2009

More than 3300 employees of mining giant Vale Inco are on strike in Sudbury, Ontario, and in other Canadian communities to defend decades' worth of gains. Beyond that, the strike by members of Locals 6500 and 6200 of the United Steel Workers of America also raise important questions about how unions orient themselves towards their communities and towards the nation-states in which their members live.

There are a number of "very provocative issues for the men" in the company's demands, according to a 21-year veteran of Inco's transportation division who requested to remain anonymous when interviewed at a picket line in the Sudbury community of Copper Cliff.* He pointed out, "There's absolutely no monetary raise in this contract" and no expectation by the members that there would be one, given the low price of nickel and the state of the global economy.