CONTENTS
CALLS TO ACTION
ACTRA Takes Action
ACTRA Toronto appreciates the support of our labour allies in the ongoing unlawful lockout of commercial performers. Sign up here to take part in future ACTRA rallies and events.actratoronto.com
It’s time to abolish employer-specific work permits
Whereas:– The 2009 CIMM Standing Committee report on Temporary foreign workers and non-status workers recommended that the government discontinue employer-specific work permits;
– The 2016 HUMA Standing Committee report on the Temporary Foreign Worker Program found that employer-specific work permits “place migrant workers in a vulnerable position with negative implications for their physical and mental well-being” and recommended that immediate steps be taken to eliminate employer-specific work permits;
– In 2019 Canada acknowledged that employer-specific work permits create a power imbalance that “favours the employer and can result in a migrant worker enduring situations of misconduct, abuse or other forms of employer retribution” when it implemented the Open work permit for vulnerable workers (OWP-V) policy;
– Numerous regulatory reforms attempting to improve the protection of temporary foreign workers, including the OWP-V policy, have failed to meaningfully counteract the high risk of abuse imposed on workers by employer-specific work permits; and
– A truly just and equitable immigration system provides full and permanent status to all workers coming to Canada and regularization programs for those currently without status. As an interim measure, migrant workers should not be tied to a specific employer or sector.
We, the undersigned, citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the Government of Canada to eliminate, without delay, the employer-specific work permit and adopt a work authorization regime that permits temporary foreign workers to freely change employers while in the country, regardless of their occupation or national origin.
petitions.ourcommons.ca
EVENTS
Solidarity with ATU 1587
When: November 10th, 12:30pmWhere: 123 Queen St W. (in front of Sheraton Hotel)
Also:
Mondays – Fridays, 2pm – 7pm
Where: Bathurst North Yard, 433 Front St W
Support GO Transit workers who are fighting for safe transit and job security. Join a picket line near you!
ofl.ca
The Petroleum Papers
When: Thursday November 10th, 3pmHow long has Big Oil denied their role in climate change? Join climate investigative journalist and award winning author Geoff Dembicki live from Brooklyn for a conversation on his latest work, which draws from confidential oil industry documents to uncover how companies like Exxon, Koch Industries, and Shell built a global right-wing echo chamber to protect oil sands profits. And learn more about the high-stakes stories of people fighting back: a Seattle lawyer who brought down Big Tobacco and is now going after Big Oil, a Filipina activist whose family drowned in a climate disaster, and a former Exxon engineer pushed out for asking hard questions.
eventbrite.ca
Screening of Herança Maldita
When: Thursday November 10th, 7pmJoin MiningWatch Canada and Earthworks for a film screening and director’s Q & A for the film, “Herança Maldita.” This documentary traces the repercussions of the Brumadinho tailings dam failure and examines the impacts that mining in Brazil has had on land, water, and communities.
zoom.us
Peace and Disarmament, Not War
When: Friday November 11th, 12pmWhere: SW corner of Yonge and Dundas
Common Thread in the Streets choir, VOW members and others will gather at the SW corner of Yonge and Dundas to share music and white poppies.
twitter.com/VOWPeace
White Supremacy, Racism, and the Coloniality of Anti-Trafficking
When: Friday November 11th, 5pmWhere: William Doo Auditorium, 45 Willcocks St
Global efforts to combat human trafficking are ubiquitous and reference particular ideas about unfreedoms, suffering, and rescue. The discourse has, however, a distinct racialized legacy that is lodged specifically in fears about “white slavery,” women in prostitution and migration, and the defilement of white womanhood by the criminal and racialized Other.White Supremacy, Racism, and the Coloniality of Anti-Trafficking centers the legacies of race and racism in contemporary anti-trafficking work and examines them in greater detail.
anotherstory.ca
At COP27 climate justice is imperative
When: Saturday November 12th, 1pmWhere: Matt Cohen Park (Spadina and Bloor)
Rich countries like Canada need to repay their climate debt and heed the calls of the Most Affected Peoples and Areas.
– Reach zero emissions quickly – at least 60% below 2005 levels by 2030
– Contribute more international climate funds, making up for shortfalls
– Cancel debts and pay reparations to Global South adaptation, loss and damage
climatevoice.ca | Facebook event
Together Against Antisemitism: Together Against Israeli Apartheid
When: November 13th, 2pmSpeakers:
– Sheryl Nestel, sociologist and the co-author of Unveiling the Chilly Climate – the Suppression of Speech on Palestine in Canada.
– Rabbi David Mivasair, Hamilton-based retired rabbi
– Erika Campbell, PhD candidate in McMaster University Health Sciences
– Moderator: Jillian Rogin, University of Windsor law professor
zoom.us
The Making of a Black Bolshevik
When: November 17th, 7:30pmWhere: Another Story Bookshop, 315 Roncesvalles Ave
Featuring a conversation with Winston James and Ronald Cummings. Remarks by Andrea A. Davis.
One of the foremost Black writers and intellectuals of his era, Claude McKay (1889–1948) was a central figure in Caribbean literature, the Harlem Renaissance, and the Black radical tradition. McKay’s life and writing were defined by his class consciousness and anticolonialism, shaped by his experiences growing up in colonial Jamaica as well as his early career as a writer in Harlem and then London. Dedicated to confronting both racism and capitalist exploitation, he was a critical observer of the Black condition throughout the African diaspora and became a committed Bolshevik.
ARTICLES
Ontario Government Greets Education Workers with an Iron Fist
By Joseph FantauzziNot content simply to suppress the wages of public workers across the province, Ontario’s Progressive Conservative (OPC) government of Doug Ford has fired a fresh barrage in its ongoing war: it aims to curb the right of education workers to strike. The new front the Conservative Party has opened against Ontario workers occurs at a moment of impasse in a specific contract negotiation. But it may also be understood as an example of a wider crisis in neoliberal public labour management in Ontario.
Source: The Bullet No. 2715
In Support of CUPE Education Workers
By Socialist Project Steering CommitteeOver the past several decades, governments in Canada have intervened in labour disputes on behalf of employers with increasing frequency. In recent years postal workers, teaching assistants, college instructors, pilots, healthcare workers, and others, have had their collective bargaining rights trampled by back-to-work legislation passed at both the provincial and federal levels.
Source: The Bullet No. 2716
Doug Ford’s Attack on Workers is a Canadian Tradition Taken to New Extremes
By Charles W. SmithIt’s called the Keeping Students in Class Act. The title of the bill, which passed Ontario’s legislature Thursday, is a weak attempt to make it seem like Premier Doug Ford is protecting public education in the province. In reality, Bill 28 is draconian legislation that removes the rights of 55,000 education workers to collectively bargain and to take meaningful job action. The bill prevents workers from accessing the labour board, which is an independent third party that resolves disputes between employers, employees and unions.
Source: The Bullet No. 2717
COP27: Still Fiddling While the World Burns
By Ecosocialist AllianceCOP 27, which will meet from the 6th – 18th November 2022, unfolds against a backdrop of growing climate chaos and ecological degradation. As this latest Conference of the Parties (COP) approaches, economic recession, increased poverty and war run alongside the multiple interlinked and inseparable crises of climate, environment, extinction and zoonotic diseases. We now face a global economic recession likely to be deeper even than that of 2008.
Source: The Bullet No. 2718
Ford, CUPE, Class Struggle and the Charter: A Primer
By Harry GlasbeekWhy do workers strike? In Canada, our fundamental political economic premise is that, if all individuals decide for themselves how to deploy their resources and talents, the best use will be made of our combined resources and talents. Our law, therefore, promotes individual autonomy and choice. However, this wealth-creation model has a built-in problem. Talents are randomly distributed in a population; resources are not. A very small number of individuals own most of the assets. Those with assets, with wealth, have a real choice as to when, where, how much, for how long they will invest their wealth to further their own interests.
Source: The Bullet No. 2720