Tag: Labour Movement

Workers are fed up with measly wages that don’t pay the rent while their bosses’ profit margins soar.

Not only do labour-focused publications RankandFile.ca and Labor Notes report on workers’ struggles – they help workers build a stronger labour movement. Here are a few articles for workers looking to organize more strategically.

Food service workers struggle under weak protections from extreme weather. B.C. labour advocates are fighting to change that.

Of the hundreds of unionized Starbucks locations in Canada and the U.S., only two have negotiated a collective agreement. Baristas fight against the coffee giant is just beginning.

As bosses and Big Tech push us to make every second productive, this issue’s articles show that we can take control of working conditions, from status for all, to a just transition, to Big Tech’s reach, if we’re willing to make those demands – and to act for them.

As thousands of workers push to unionize, their bosses are hiring union-busting companies to cling to power. Here’s how you can out-organize your boss.

Four years after the historic Hong Kong protests, organizers reflect on how to grow the labour movement under China’s increasing political repression.

In year four of the COVID-19 pandemic, will unions fight for workers’ right not to get sick on the job?

From leading one of British Columbia’s earliest strikes to fighting against low wages and racist bosses, some pivotal moments in Indigenous labour history.

If anti-scab legislation is to be extended across Canada, the NDP’s best efforts and the Liberals’ reluctant co-operation might not be enough. The history of the Quebec labour movement can show us how to fight for anti-scab legislation.

Across Canada, farm workers are facing hotter summers and extreme weather, while being denied basic labour protections like a minimum wage. The farm workers organizing within the National Farmers Union want to change agriculture’s unsustainable conditions.

As the term “just transition” gains traction with policymakers and fossil fuel companies trying to paint themselves green, the articles in this issue remind us that a just transition means justice for workers, migrants, and Indigenous Peoples.

At the beginning of the pandemic, the Pacific Gateway and Hilton Metrotown hotels laid off their workers – then refused to hire them back. Hotel workers are fighting for their jobs, and for the future of the hotel industry after the pandemic.

More strategies for challenging patriarchal white supremacy in labour

Millions of Canada’s plastic Remembrance Day poppies have been made by prisoners and people labelled with intellectual/developmental disabilities, who are paid pennies on the hour. It’s part of a long history of prisons and institutions using poverty to control disabled and criminalized workers.

Union members and staff say that sexism, anti-Black racism, and other oppressive attitudes are deeply entrenched in many unions. Drawing on a history of women, trans, and racialized workers fighting for their place in the labour movement, trade unionists share ideas to transform unions today.

It’s time for unions to expel police from their membership, because a strong labour movement can only be built on a foundation of safety for Black and Indigenous members. 

My newsroom unionized. We were shut down two weeks later. Here’s why it was still worth it.

Where can we speak honestly about the weaknesses of the labour movement, offering constructive criticism and debating paths forward, without making the movement vulnerable to bad-faith attacks by neoliberal columnists and far-right ghouls? 

Celebrating the 40th anniversary of CUPW’s 1981 strike, which won postal workers paid maternity leave, and raised the floor for maternal benefits throughout Canada.