A trend is taking hold across Canada of working class resistance to the capitalist crisis and attacks by governments and corporations on workers’ rights and the social wage. Library workers in the city of Toronto and transit and university workers in Halifax recently went on strike, as did daycare workers in Quebec. Workers at Air […]
Author Archive | Roger Annis
British Columbia’s Fossil Fuel Superpower Ambitions
The province of Alberta is well known as a climate-destroying behemoth. The tar sands developments in the north of that province are the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions on the planet. Less well known are the ambitions of its neighbouring province, British Columbia. It shares similar fossil fuel reserves and ambitions as Alberta. […]
Unions in New Zealand Organize the Unorganized, Win Gains in Minimum Wage
AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND — On April 6, 2009, I spent a day visiting the offices of New Zealand’s newest, and among its most dynamic, trade unions, Unite. Unite is at the forefront of a revitalization of a section of the labour movement in New Zealand that has resulted in thousands of young and marginalized workers […]
New Zealand Union Campaigns to Organize Young Workers
Melbourne, Australia — Four years ago, some experienced social and political organizers sat down with young people in Auckland, New Zealand to map out a plan for a novel trade union, one that would potentially represent the thousands of workers who toil in poorly paid and mostly part-time jobs in the fast food and other […]
Haiti: A Modern Tragedy
AN UNBROKEN AGONY: Haiti, From Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President by Randall RobinsonBUY THIS BOOK Randall Robinson has written the story of a great tragedy of recent times — the violent overthrow of Haiti’s elected president and government on February 29, 2004. An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, From Revolution to the Kidnapping of a […]
The Disappearance of Lovinsky Pierre Antoine in Haiti
On August 12, one of Haiti’s best-known and respected advocates of human and social rights, Lovinsky Pierre Antoine, disappeared. The Haitian National Police later confirmed that he was kidnapped. There has been no communication with alleged kidnappers since the early days of his disappearance. As the silence continues, it seems increasingly evident that his disappearance […]
Western Canada Labor Battles Show Need for Solidarity
Thirty-eight thousand public school teachers in British Columbia voted on October 23 by seventy-seven percent to end a sixteen-day strike that had brought the province to the brink of a general strike. The teachers, members of the BC Teachers Federation, walked off the job on October 6. Bargaining for a new collective agreement was going […]
