by Edson Castilho, President, IWK local of the NSNU

I am a nurse at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax. It is a women’s and children’s hospital that serves the people of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and PEI. This hospital has had no cases of patients with the corona virus. Very few or no staff (it is impossible to know because the bosses cite the confidentiality of occupational health information) have tested positive. This means no staffing shortage caused by the need to have contacts of an infected person self-isolate until they test negative. So, we have been relatively lucky, compared to an institution like Northwood.

Northwood is the largest long-term care facility east of Quebec. Fifty-two (as of May 22) of the total of fifty-eight (90%) deaths that have occurred in Nova Scotia as a result of the pandemic have occurred to residents of this one facility. It is a private, not-for-profit facility that receives government funding (woefully inadequate) for the care of the people who live there. Northwood is a facility that consists of a wide range of elderly residents, from seniors who live independently in their own Northwood apartments, to seniors who require some assistance with medical care or activities of daily living, to seniors who are completely reliant on the care provided by the staff for their medical needs as well as activities of daily living.

Continue reading On the Pandemic Front Line in Nova Scotia →

This morning (May 26) the working people of Niagara Region (Ontario) lost one of their most outstanding militants and leaders. Ed Gould was an active trade unionist and leader for nearly three decades dating back to 1990 when he was a Skilled Trades Shop Committeeperson and member of the CAW – GM Master Bargaining Committee. Over the following two decades Ed was a major figure in the local labour movement, including at the St. Catharines & District Labour

Council. Ed was its President in 1998 at the time of the St. Catharines Day of Action/General Strike, putting him at the forefront of that mass mobilization. Ed went on to become the Chair of the Unifor Niagara Skilled Trades Council, member of the CAW Local 199 Executive Board and a Health and Safety Rep for several years. Very few people in the labour movement are as committed to advancing the interests of the working class as was Ed Gould. Stalwart activists and leaders like him are few and far between. Ed stood out by courageously opposing contract concessions in the auto industry. * Ed passed away after a long battle with cancer of the blood. He was wearing his St. Catharines Day of Action t-shirt. His departure is a real loss for us all. Mourn for the dead and fight for the living.

— Bruce Allen, past vice-president of the Niagara Regional Labour Council.

* (Ed Gould was a member of the NDP Socialist Caucus and a cherished friend of Socialist Action. – BW)