Sept. 15, 2023 | by Susan Rosenthal In late July, 3,700 workers organized in Unifor Local 414 struck Metro grocery stores across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) for five weeks. Did they win or lose? Unifor’s press release crowed, “Metro…
by Rubina Chowdhury | Socialist Action Canada Homelessness is a situation in which an individual, family or community lacks safe, proper, and stable housing. The reasons behind homelessness are: systematic or societal barriers, financial instability, lack of employment opportunities, lack…
Read More Impact of Homelessness on Gender-Based Violence in Toronto
Discontent with the capitalist status quo is spreading rapidly. At the forefront are mobilizations in France against President Emanuel Macron's reform of the country's retirement law. Under Socialist Party President Francois Mitterrand and up to the 1990s the legal retirement age with full pension was 60 years. Since then, right wing governments have pushed it up to 62 years. Macron announced a move to raise it to 65 years, but backed down. He now proposes age 64. Mass action involving strikes and demonstrations, one day at a time, usually once or twice a week, have followed the parliamentary calendar. More militant sectors in the union movement have been calling for renewable strikes from one day to the next, towards a general strike.
Canada’s 100 highest-paid corporate executives made an average of $14.3 million in 2021, exceeding the previous record of $11.8 million set three years earlier. By January 3, the average CEO on that list made $58,800, the amount an average Canadian worker earns in an entire year, according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
Whether a couple is planning to settle down or a family is seeking a place to raise kids in the province, they are sure to feel the heat in the Canadian housing market. The question: 'How did we get here?' often leads to inconclusive answers and simply pointing a finger at the easiest target. The predatory nature of housing market big players means they have no interest in addressing the needs of the people. For them, housing is a commodity designed to make shareholders happy. Actually, the housing market is doing very well to meet its mandates - funneling wealth upwards.
In the lead-up to the June 2 provincial election, Conservative and Liberal leaders are scrambling to align with public opinion by professing ‘progressive’ policies. Tory Premier Doug Ford hopes voters will forget he spent years attacking workers’ rights, broke a teachers’ strike early in 2020, privatized nursing homes and grossly mishandled the pandemic. Claims by Liberal leader Steven Del Duca that he will hike funding for healthcare and education are belied by his record as a cabinet minister in the Kathleen Wynne government which watched hospital services and schools deteriorate drastically, and sold off Ontario Hydro for a pittance.
I want YOU to die for the economy!
Palestine Land Day was marked in Toronto by a rally at Land Back (Yonge-Dundas) Square on April 2, 2022. About eighty participants chanted in English and Arabic, and applauded speakers who demanded an end to Zionist apartheid and the occupation of Indigenous lands, from Turtle Island to Palestine. At the end of the 90 minute gathering a Socialist Action spokesperson addressed the crowd, calling for an end to Canadian state and big business complicity with Zionism. SA's predecessor organizations opposed the creation of the colonial settler state by the United Nations (pushed by the USA, Britain, France, Canada and the USSR) in 1948. SA supports the struggle for a Single Democratic, Secular state. "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free!"
Toronto – After nearly two weeks on strike, the bargaining team representing roughly 160 LifeLabs couriers and mailroom clerks in the GTA has reached a tentative agreement with the employer.
If a majority of the 160 OPSEU/SEFPO Local 5119 members vote to accept the tentative agreement, the strike will be over. The vote will take place electronically on Saturday, March 26, and the workers will soon be sent the voting information.
The technology of blockchain continues to gain in popularity. It’s been advertised as disruptive, even revolutionary. Proponents believe it will change the world economy for the better, making it a more fair and equitable place. From the rooftops they shout, “Decentralization! Immutability!”
But is the hype all it’s cracked up to be? Is this a fad destined to fizzle? Or, even worse, is the blockchain push just a smokescreen for something much more sinister?
