CONTENTS
CALLS TO ACTION
Campaign to Stop Cuts to Public Education
Having the resources and supports kids need at school has always been important but this is especially true today. Kids are going through a lot and with larger classes and more complexity, many of their needs are going unmet.Despite calls from educators and parents for investment in public schools, the Ford government keeps cutting. Adjusted for inflation, per student funding is now $1,500 dollars less than it was in 2018. That’s a huge gap at a time when schools desperately need investment.
After years of calling on the government to ensure that Ontario students have what they need to be successful, we’re stepping up our efforts.
buildingbetterschools.ca
Donate to “Legal Fund”
On October 17th, the OHC challenged the Ford government’s decision to reward Orchard Villa with a massive expansion and new 30-year license in court. Without your incredible support, we could not have launched this court challenge to quash the license awarded to this for-profit long-term care home that is responsible for one of the worst pandemic death records and longstanding records of terrible conditions. While we wait for the Divisional Court’s ruling, please find below a sample of just some of the news coverage of the court challenge from the past two days. We extend an enormous thank you for your support and hope you are proud of our collective work!The Ontario Health Coalition has to raise money to be able to cover the costs for its court challenge. Any and all donations will help. There is no pressure to donate and there are many other ways to support. If you can, it will be an enormous help.
To donate online, please click here and scroll down to “Legal Fund”.
To donate via cheque, please mail it to 15 Gervais Drive, Suite 201, Toronto, Ontario M3C 1Y8. You can also send a donation via e-transfer to admin@ontariohc.ca.
ontariohealthcoalition.ca
EVENTS
Raise the Rates!
When: Thursday, October 24th at NoonWhere: Queen’s Park, Front Lawn
Join CUPE Ontario, ODSP Action Coalition, and Disability Justice Network of Ontario to demand Ford Raise the Rates!
Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Program recipients are forced to live well below the poverty line. Social assistance recipients deserve dignity, but struggle to afford rent and food. That must change.
raisetherates.ca | Facebook poster
How will C-59 provide positive climate outcomes?
When: October 24th, 1pmProfessors William Carroll, of the University of Victoria, and Jean Philippe Sapinski, of the University of Moncton, discuss Canada’s new C-59 laws and learn how they support positive climate outcomes.
youtube.com | Facebook
Building Worker Power in Latin America
When: Thursday October 24th, 2:30pmWhere: Ross building – Room S701 @ York University (Keele)
Panelists: Jeffery Webber, Chris Little, Cirila Quintero, Viviana Patroni
The panel explores recent developments in the everyday realities of workers and the conditions under which they organize, stemming from the economic and political changes that have occurred in Latin America over the last two decades. While a diversity of work experiences and of economic and political trends characterizes the region, high levels of inequality and growing precariousness are common among Latin American workers.
yorku.ca
The Long Walk to Peace
When: October 24th, 5pmWhere: 60 Lowther Ave
Stories of the Nova Scotia peace march and planning of future actions
in person | zoom.us
Our Democratic Futures
When: October 25th, 12pmThe United States, Canada, and the UK all use winner-take-all electoral systems for their legislatures. In recent years, each country has also faced unique political and governmental challenges stemming from their use of WTA elections. Featuring leading experts in and campaigners for electoral reform from Canada, the US, and the UK, this webinar will discuss the different issues each country has with their winner-take-all elections, why proportional representation is needed, and what the routes to reform in each country look like.
zoom.us
End the Horror
When: Saturday October 26th, 2pmWhere: Bay + Front St
We’re calling on everyone to stand with the people of Palestine and Lebanon who are facing displacement, dispossession, and genocide. Children are starving, families are being burnt alive and yet, the powers in the world remain silent!
Facebook | x.com
Book launch: How To Abolish Prisons
When: Saturday October 26th, 7pmWhere: Worker’s Action Centre, 720 Spadina Ave (Suite 220)
Join authors Rachel Herzing and Justin Piché for their Toronto book launch and a discussion about lessons from the movement against imprisonment. Critics of abolition sometimes castigate the movement for its utopianism, but in How to Abolish Prisons, long-time organizers reveal a movement that has made the struggle for abolition as real as the institutions they are fighting against.
The discussion will be moderated by Jessica Evans, and feature discussants Tiina Eldridge and Robyn Maynard.
torontomu.ca
Book launch: The World After Amazon
When: Saturday October 26th, 8pmWhere: Another Story, 315 Roncesvalles Ave.
Join us for the launch of The World After Amazon: Stories from Amazon Workers!
afteramazon.world | anotherstory.ca
Gaza Square
When: Every Sunday, 11am to 1pmWhere: 371 Wallace Ave
We’ll be at Gaza square once again this Sunday morning with hot chocolate and coffee, buttons and posters, lawn signs and colourful chalk! Come say hi and meet your fellow neighbours/organizers as we make our presence known and continue to build safety in our community!
Instagram poster
Weekly Phone-zap for Palestine
When: Mondays at 12:30pmWeek after week, we’re keeping the momentum going with our Monday lunchtime zaps.
Our collective action is making waves, but we need to ensure our elected officials continue to feel the pressure until real change happens.
Instagram poster | Register at zoom
How to push politicians to support Healthcare for All?
When: October 28th, 6:00pmThe Ontario Legislative Assembly returns on October 22. They are yet to take any action to ensure everyone in Ontario has access to healthcare, regardless of immigration status.
It’s time to meet with our elected representatives directly and let them know that healthcare for all is an urgent issue.
Join us for this workshop on how to advocate for #Healthcare4All to our MPPs.
decentworkandhealth.org
Canadian Foreign Policy Hour with Yves Engler
When: Mondays at 6pmJoin author Yves Engler on Mondays for a weekly news roundup and interactive discussion about Canada’s role abroad. This weekly session will delve into the latest developments on subjects ranging from military affairs and Canada’s role in Ukraine to its contribution to Palestinian dispossession, and the exploitation of African resources. Join Yves for a critical take on Canada’s foreign policy. Questions, comments, and criticisms are all welcome.
zoom.us
Book launch: The Canadian Non-Profit Sector
When: Tuesday October 29th, 4pmWhere: 288 Church Street, Room 707/709
This session brings together important non-profit sector voices reflecting on contemporary challenges faced by the sector and the migrant and other communities they serve. Emerging from the pandemic crisis immigrant settlement service agencies and other non-profit providers confront many pressing issues from funding to HR to rapidly increasing service demands in a political environment shifting towards the embrace of austerity. The timely release of the volume The Canadian Non-profit Sector: Neoliberalism and the Assault on Community offers a point of critical consideration of some of these developments. Leading non-profit actors and the book’s authors share their perspectives on what challenges and opportunities await in these uncertain times.
fernwoodpublishing.ca
Film screening: Nae Pasaran
When: Wednesday, October 30th, 6:30pm (Doors open at 6:15 pm)Where: Innis Town Hall, 2 Sussex Ave
Join Labour for Palestine – GTA, Mayworks Festival, Palestinian Youth Movement – Toronto, and Latinx4Palestine for a screening of Nae Pasaran.
Nae Pasaran is a 2018 feature length documentary directed by Felipe Bustos Sierra. The film tells the story of Scottish workers in the 70s who refused to work on weapons parts for the Pinochet regime in Chile. This history of work floor action gives us important lessons for worker solidarity today in support of the liberation struggle of Palestinian workers and people.
Registration is required
FilmSocial Presents: “La Llarona”
When: October 30th, 7pmWhere: Eyesore Cinema, 1176 Bloor St
The Leo Panitch School for Socialist Education and the Socialist Project present La Llorona as the next film in our ongoing FilmSocial series.
La Llorona (Guatemala, 2019.) is the modern re-imagining of the Mexican and Central American folktale about a vengeful ghost who roams near bodies of water mourning her dead children whom she killed after discovering her unfaithful husband. Director and screenwriter Jayro Bustamante places the legend inside contemporary Guatemala at a particularly turbulent time. Retired Guatemalan general Enrique Monteverde is being tried for orchestrating a brutal genocide against native Mayans in the 1980s. Now elderly and ailing he lives comfortably with his wife, daughter, and granddaughter, but is haunted by his past.
leopanitchschool.ca
The Truth About the ’37 Oshawa GM Strike
When: October 30th, 7pmWhere: A Different Booklist, 779 Bathurst St
Autoworkers in Oshawa unionized the General Motors plant in Oshawa in 1937 after a bitterly fought strike that pitted them against a rabidly anti-union government, hostile press, and GM corporation. It was a major turning point in Canadian labour history. Crucial factors contributing to the strike’s success include the historical background of working-class struggle in the community, patient and courageous prior organizing by Communists, the engaged leadership of rank-and-file GM workers, and the solid support of the United Autoworkers International Union.
The author, Tony Leah, focuses on the voices and actions of rank-and-file workers and on the day-to-day events, many of which have been misunderstood or misinterpreted.
adifferentbooklist.com | Facebook
Let Gaza Live
When: Thursday, October 31st, 12pmPlease join us for a powerful panel discussion featuring Diana Buttu, Dr. Ahmed Abu Shaban, Dr. Sheryl Nestel, and Dr. Amgad Sharif.
eventbrite.com
Workers for Palestine
When: four Thursdays in November. Register by October 25thJoin Workers in Palestine and Labour Notes for a series of interactive online workshops focused on strengthening organising skills to build real and lasting support for Palestine in our workplaces and unions. Sessions will provide practical tools and real-world examples to help us organise to win.
workersinpalestine.org
ARTICLES
One Year On: Our Call to Workers Everywhere – Stop the Genocide
Palestinian Trade Unions Call for Immediate Action Against the Ongoing GenocideOne year ago, Palestinian trade unions made an urgent global call to action, imploring workers across the world to halt the arms trade with Israel. But today, the genocide continues — an ongoing assault against working people and organised labour.
As we write this, we are surrounded in the Jabalia refugee camp, under relentless bombardment. Across Gaza, airstrikes continue, and a brutal starvation policy is cutting off food, water, and essential supplies. There is no safe place in Gaza. Meanwhile, Israel is inflicting the same violence on the West Bank, with bombings in Tulkarem and Jenin, and now extending its attacks into Lebanon.
Source: The Bullet No. 3049
A Prime Competitor: Understanding Amazon’s Market Power
By Stephen Maher and Scott AquannoA large body of scholarship has emerged in recent years attempting to assess if Amazon is a monopoly. Such accounts generally define monopoly in terms of the neoclassical “quantity theory of competition,” which measures competition by the number of sellers in a market. According to this framework, “perfect competition” gives way to increasingly “imperfect competition” over time as the number of firms in a particular sector declines through concentration and centralization. As the market comes to be dominated by a smaller number of giant firms, it becomes impossible for new challengers to compete – what economists call “barriers to entry.” Since the monopoly firms are largely free from competition, they can effectively fix prices and thus rake in monopoly “super profits.” Consequently, they have little incentive to invest in new technologies, improve efficiency, or intensify the exploitation of labour.
Source: The Bullet No. 3050