Sept. 02, 2023 | by Barry Weisleder | Socialist Action The Toronto Region Socialist Action Annual End-of-Summer Picnic took place at Withrow Park on September 2, 2023 with dozens of folks in attendance. The gathering featured live music, with HOTCHA!,…
Read More SA Toronto Picnic Celebrates last long weekend of summer 2023
The gig economy presents a significant opportunity for capitalists to counteract the decline in the rate of profit. In response to the profitability decline since 1997, which was exacerbated by the COVID pandemic, capitalists aim to increase the intensity of work and tighten labour discipline to extract more surplus value from workers. Gig work capitalists take advantage of workers' job precariousness, and they enjoy the absence of unions, which enables them to heighten this trend. The clear solution to this exploitative relationship is public ownership of the platform, which after all is a means of production similar to the machinery in a car factory. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to develop a political strategy and a set of tactics with transitional demands that will unite gig workers themselves, unite them with other workers, and together resist the capitalist offensive.
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.
On the domestic political landscape, the biggest development in the Fall was the two-day walkout by CUPE-Ontario education workers. They boldly defied a law pre-emptively banning strike action. CUPE and allies, including the Ontario Public Service Employees' Union, forced the Thug Ford Conservative government to rescind Bill 28 and its use of the notwithstanding clause to violate the Charter of Rights.
Socialist Action is a growing revolutionary workers’ party that puts a great emphasis on political education. At the same time, SA is an activist organization. It has many practical accomplishments to its credit, including achievements in local elections, in building a fighting left wing inside mass working class organizations, and in promoting international solidarity. From Iran to Haiti, from Britain to Ontario, 2022 has been a year of revolt against austerity, authoritarianism, and repression.
Last Monday, Socialist Action took part in the 150th Labour Day Parade. Organized by the Toronto and York Region Labour Council. Socialist Action was joined by members of the Municipal Socialist Alliance and over 20,000 union members from both the public and private sectors. Comrades and allies marched from Queen and University to the entrance of the CNE. Chanting, singing, waving flags and banners, and even posing for pictures along the way.
by Stefan Peters-Hnatiuk, At the end of May, the Ontario Liberal government announced “sweeping” labour law reforms, inclining them to bask in the glory of their freshly appropriated “progressive values”, eliciting the ire and indignation of Conservatives, while causing New…
By Joel Harden, CUPE 1281 (Published with permission of rankandfile.ca) At its best, the recent 28th Constitutional Convention of the Canadian Labour Congress demonstrated how far unions have come on Indigenous rights, Palestinian rights (more on that later), racism, queer…
Read More Beyond optics, towards politics: A report back from CLC Convention
by Barry Weisleder Though the October 19 Canadian federal election is still three months away, the changing pattern of public opinion is forcing the major parties to shift gears. According to a major late-June poll, the labour-based NDP has the…
The warm rays of the sun appeared just in time for university workers and their supporters to take demands for decent income and job security to the streets of Toronto on Saturday, March 21. Over two thousand teaching assistants/graduate assistants,…
Read More Report on Toronto demonstration for striking university workers on March 21
by Julius Arscott Employees of the Ontario Public Service are getting ready to hit the bricks. Negotiations for a collective agreement for the 35,000 workers, members of the Ontario Public Service Employees' Union, are stalled. The old agreement expired on…
Over 400 people rallied on Saturday, September 20 outside the uptown Toronto constituency office of Conservative Finance Minister Joe Oliver to demand a halt to Tory and Canada Post Corporation plans to eliminate home mail delivery and set higher prices…
If you are in the Montreal area on May 5, do you plan to attend this event? The Workers' Solidarity and Union Democracy Coalition invites you to a Public Forum at the site of the Canadian Labour Congress Convention in Montreal, Monday,…
by Barry Weisleder Too much ink already has been spilled to expose the antics of Toronto's crack smoking, drunk driving, serial lying, gangster-linked mayor. The butt of late night comedy TV, Rob Ford is merely the unvarnished version of the…
Once again, the leadership of the Toronto and York Region Labour Council and of several key union affiliates, is taking workers down the primrose path of liberal, middle class politics towards the October 2014 municipal election. Rather than host a…
TROTSKY SCHOOL - Education for Activists Conference with special guest speaker Glen Ford, U.S. radio host of the Black Agenda Report Friday, November 15 7 p.m. Security, Surveillance and the Strong State Glen Ford, editor, Black Agenda Report, radio host…
Read More Education for Activists Conference November 15 – 16
by Barry Weisleder And the downbeat goes on. In sector after sector, from auto to steel to forestry to railways to the Ontario and Federal Public Service, to the federal postal service, bosses usually get the concessions they demand…
Read More Labour Day 2013 marred by unions bowing to austerity
