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PolEconJournal Posts

Cobourg and Port Hope workers strike for a living wage

NOVEMBER 18, 2002[1] – The average union member working at the Cobourg Daily Star and Port Hope Evening Guide, earns $10.91 an hour.[2] No wonder they have been walking the picket line since October 11,[3] demanding nothing more than a living wage. Twenty years ago, non-union graphic arts employees were making $10 an hour in Ontario. It is scandalous that, 20 years of price increases later, people are expected to live on the same amount. According to the strikers’ union, the Communication Workers of America local 30248, “over the past three years employees” at the two papers “have lost 1.9…

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Hamilton Web workers on strike

DECEMBER 8, 2001 – Fifty newspaper inserters making poverty line wages and fighting for their first union contract have been stymied at every turn by their employer, media giant CanWest Global. “In the lead up to Christmas, one of the most profitable times for newspapers, these women who make an average of $8 an hour, have literally been left out in the cold,” said Cec Makowski, the Ontario Region Vice-President for the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada. The 50 women workers, many single moms and newcomers to Canada, have been forced out on strike against Hamilton Web, the…

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Indonesia – ‘This state was built on the sweat of the workers’

JUNE 30, 2001 – Prior to the raid on the anti-globalization conference in Indonesia, myself and three others (two from Australia and one from Thailand) were able to meet with and interview trade union activists in Jakarta. We first talked with a young organizer with the Greater Jakarta Labour Union. What are the conditions like for workers in Indonesia? Let me give you an example of conditions. Go to the garment factories or the shoe factories. The working day is supposed to be eight hours. But almost every day, if there’s work to be done, they’ll have to do two…

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Eyewitness account from Indonesia – Repression and resistance

JUNE 18, 2001 – June 11, the Asia-Pacific Peoples’ Solidarity Conference – an anti-globalization conference taking place in Jakarta, Indonesia –– was violently shut down by police and a pro-police right-wing militia. [1] I was one of the delegates and wrote this report. To understand Indonesia, you have to understand the depth of the economic crisis. Jakarta, where I was staying, is a city blasted raw by the market and by imperialism. Just a few years ago, held up as an example of “capitalist development”, Jakarta today is a city where you can see in the background, the bank towers…

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Rather than Charlie’s Angels – Watch Jackie Brown

JANUARY 8, 2001 – Journalists seem to love Charlie’s Angels. Toronto’s Eye magazine calls the film “100 per cent boredom free.” Now magazine admits that the film is a little exploitative of women. But not to worry – it’s very fun exploitation. “More fun than any other movie this year.” Really? Force of circumstances took me to a screening of the film. There is no question – it really does exploit women. And fun? – only if you like unrealistic fight scenes, impossible exploits and can see past the layers and layers of stereotyping. Perhaps we should swallow hard and…

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Three hundred meet to remember Joe Flexer

AUGUST 7, 2000 – Saturday August 5, more than 300 people gathered in downtown Toronto at a memorial for well-known Toronto activist, Joe Flexer. Flexer, a long-time member of the Canadian Auto Workers, and a socialist for most of his adult life, died August 2 from heart failure. The gathering pulled together people from the 1960’s and 1970’s left, as well as unionists and activists from the current period. Speakers included Hassan Yussuf from the CAW, well known writer and activist Judy Rebick, Joe’s partner Mary McCarthy and his son Dani Flexer. Two workers from CAW Local 112 spoke about…

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Can Mike Harris win?

MAY 10, 1999 – Suddenly, what seemed unthinkable 18 months ago, is looming as a real possibility. Mike Harris, reviled by thousands, might just get re-elected in the Ontario election. Some polls have him trailing the Liberals. But the Toronto Star, based on a fairly large sample, put Harris at 51% just as the election was called, 12 points up on the Liberals, and far ahead of the NDP.[1] Harris could still blow it. There is deep hatred towards him across the province. He will be dogged by activists at every stop. But what happens on June 4 if we…

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CUPE mass pickets show Tories can be beaten

MARCH 15, 1999 – When striking educational support staff in Toronto turned to mass pickets last week, they unleashed a power that can stop the Tory cuts. Two weeks into their strike against the Toronto Board of Education, the 14,000 striking members of CUPE local 4400 switched from pickets scattered across the more than 300 schools in the district, to concentrated mass pickets of hundreds at selected high schools.[1] From Harbord Collegiate and West Toronto Collegiate in the west end, to Riverdale and East York in the east, hundreds and hundreds of pickets and supporters, on Monday and Tuesday of…

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Support staff walk out – Striking against the Harris cuts

MARCH 1, 1999 – Saturday morning, February 27, more than 14,000 educational workers in the Toronto school board, members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) local 4400, walked off the job.[1] According to CUPE, the Toronto board is facing budget cuts of $172-million because of the Harris Tories’ Bill 160, cuts which pose the possibility of 4,358 job losses in the next four years.[2] But these are essential workers. They are the custodians, administrative staff, teaching assistants, English as a Second Language (ESL) instructors, international language instructors and lunch-room assistants. They have already faced job losses and downsizing.…

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Heads of Unions cancel general strike

AUGUST 3, 1998 – The summer of silence from the Ontario Federation of Labour was broken through an article in The Globe and Mail.[1] The heads of Ontario unions have met, the bosses’ paper reported, and there will be no one-day province-wide strike this fall against the Harris Tories. In a phone interview, Buzz Hargrove, head of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW), said “my understanding is that there’s no one-day” general strike. Sid Ryan of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) said, “apparently, the province-wide strike at this time has been cancelled.” Wayne Samuelson, head of the Ontario Federation…

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