As provincial Premiers gathered in Winnipeg, Manitoba for their annual Council of the Federation meeting, the Council of Canadians was there to warn about the potential loss of control of our water resources and public services if the proposed Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) goes forward. CETA is a wide ranging deal that would put pressure on our provincial and territorial governments to open up public services for water, transportation, child care and...

The Annual Winnipeg Labour Council Mayworks Picnic will take place on Saturday, September 11, 2010 from 12:00 - 4:00 p.m. at Freight House Park (Isabel and Ross). There will be free hot dogs, orange drink, inflatable play stations, face painting and a clown! This picnic is open to all UWFA Members and their families.

Yes. There are only 1.5 tenured women who work full-time in SFU’s Political Science Department out of 21 profs. Soon there will be 0.5. What century is this? Behold the list of faculty in the department: Of the 21 people on that list, only 6 are women. Whoops, that’s pretty low to start with. Of [...]

Statement issued yesterday: RESOLVING THE CENSUS DEBATE Welcoming the Changes Announced on August 11th The National Statistics Council, the senior, external advisory group appointed by the government of Canada to advise the Chief Statistician, has noted the Government’s announcement that it intends “to remove threats of jail time for persons refusing to fill out the census” and its [...]

On Thursday, the Globe and Mail’s post-secondary education blogger, Alex Usher, wrote this piece, in which he argues that any increased government assistance with the goal of increasing access to university ought to be targeted to low-income students (and not consist of an across-the-board tuition reduction).  I have three points to make in response to [...]

Great Article on what the police are now doing with the million dollar equipment they received for the G20. Thanks to Krystalline for a great post. Filed under: Opinions

Since I last posted something on the Census here (August 1! Time flies!), every passing day has advanced the census story with dizzying speed. I’ve said it before: this story has more legs than a bucket of chicken. Here are the top notes of the last 10 days, ending in a fascinating and uniquely Canadian [...]

In Mexico City today 50,000 workers are marching in support of Mexican Trade Unionists. Our own ILWU Canada President, Tom Dufresne, joins them in a show of solidarity and continual support for all unions across the globe. 

BREAKING NEWS!   Paddy Crumlin, General Secretary, Maritime Union of Australia “elected” President of the ITF for the term 2010-2014. CONGRATULATIONS PADDY! For more information on the ITF 42nd Congress visit the ITF Congress website

Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) offers powerful, free tools for trade unions and their activists, and a serious attempt should be made to adopt them, and to defend the freedom of the Internet. In the Canada, this includes working to repeal the Digital Rights Act. The idea of Creative Commons should not be strange [...]

BREAKING NEWS!!!   Terri Mast, National Secretary-Treasurer, IBU/ILWU elected Chair of ITF Women’s Committee and ITF Executive Board at the ITF Congress in Mexico City! CONGRATULATIONS TERRI!   For more information on the ITF 42nd Congress visit the ITF Congress website

Before anyone starts talking about the Tamils who will arrive in Canadian territorial waters today, make sure you understand more than just a 50-word summary of what is going on. For instance, we have this statement in a news report: The Tamil Tigers have been outlawed in Canada as a terrorist group since 2006. via [...]

Webwork column in April-May 2010 Our Times. According to an Ipso survey, Canadians now spend more time online than watching TV. Does your union’s communications strategy reflect that? We have far more access to the web in getting out our message than we ever had to TV, including through podcasting. So, let’s get to it. Wayne McPhail’s session on podcasting at this year’s LabourTech conference in Windsor, Ontario, got rave reviews from participants and generated a lot of talk over coffee and...

Jack Boan retired from the University of Regina’s economics department before I began studying there. Although I never had the privilege of taking a class from him, I received a medal named in his honour. Recently, I was pleased to see Dr. Boan zing the Harper government with a couple of letters to the editor. He had [...]

President of ILWU Canada, Tom Dufresne is currently attending the ITF Congress in Mexico City.  This Congress hosts delegates and activists world wide, creating an environment of global solidarity.  For more information on the daily happenings at the congress, pictures, videos and documents visit the ITF 42nd Congress website

They are according to  a couple of  bank economists cited in a prominent story today’s Globe who think the big loss of education jobs in July (down 60,000) is due to a failure by Stats Can to properly calibrate seasonal adjustment  to take account of  supposed recent changes in employment patterns.  They think many education [...]

The lockout of longshore workers at the Port of Montreal has been lifted and negotiations for a new collective agreement for CUPE Local 375 workers are beginning.  A tentative agreement between the Maritime Employers Association and the Union will remain in effect unitl sometime in mid-October, at which time the two sides must finalize a [...]

The Mark are running a contribution of mine on the latest job numbers and the continued need for special EI and job creation  measures.

So a chunk of floating ice separated from Greenland last week. The ice cube is bigger than Manhattan. No big deal, it seems. How many people sold their cars because of that, or the BP negligent disaster, or the Endbridge pipeline leak. I don’t know how many times an Antarctic ice shelf breaks off a [...]

* Massive public employee strike possible in South Africa

* Bulgarian unions fight for pension rights

* Miners in Ukraine begin work-to-rule campaign

* Transport Workers Federation begins Congress

* Labour unrest in China

* New Zealand federation fights anti-worker laws

* Another teacher in Columbia killed

* Social dialogue in Europe

And more

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