CONTENTS

1. CALLS TO ACTION
2. EVENTS
3. ARTICLES
4. EMPLOYMENT

Living Wage at YYZ

Workers at Canada’s largest workplace Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ) don’t need a new federal minimum wage of $16.65/hr. on April 1st. They need a Living Wage, as it is impossibly expensive to live anywhere even remotely close to YYZ at $16.65/hr.

A full time workers take-home pay should not represent close to 100% or more of their housing costs!

A recent CP 24 news release indicates people need an income of $200,000 per year to break into the Toronto Area housing market.

The Vancouver Airport Authority recently introduced a Living Wage for thousands of workers at YVR, so Y not YYZ? Is Toronto not just as expensive to live?

change.org

ODSP – Nothing Without Us

When: July 4th, 11am
Where: Matt Cohen Park, 393 Bloor St W (across from Chrystia Freeland’s Office)

Join ODSP Action Coalition and their allies in Toronto to discuss the proposed low disability rates, access requirements, and other barriers of the upcoming Canada Disability Benefit.

Let’s come together and make the federal Liberal government listen!

From Genocide in Gaza to Decolonizing Palestine

When: July 4th, 7pm
Where: Friends House, 60 Lowther Ave

While our attention and hearts are focused on Gaza, civil society cannot abandon the wider fight for Palestinian rights and a better future for everyone between the River and the Sea.

Jeff Halper is a Jewish Israeli-American peace activist and author, co-founder of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, and a founding member of the Palestinian-led One Democratic State Campaign.

eventbrite.ca

Book launch: Chocolate Woman Dreams the Milky Way

When: Friday, July 5th, 7pm
Where: Another Story Bookshop, 315 Roncesvalles Ave

Join us for a book launch of Chocolate Woman Dreams the Milky Way: Mapping Embodied Indigenous Performance by Monique Mojica and Brenda Farnell.

anotherstory.ca | Facebook

Keep LCBO Public

When: Saturday, July 6th at 12pm
Where: LCBO Near You

OPSEU members at the LCBO are set to go on strike this Friday. Meanwhile the Ford government is pushing a 2-week lockout on OPSEU members. Let’s make sure the Ford government knows we support LCBO workers!

opseu.org | PDF poster

Gaza’s Healthcare System Under Attack

When: July 6th, 1pm

Join Labour for Palestine’s Nurses’ Caucus for a webinar featuring Palestinian health care workers, including nurses, who will share their harrowing experiences working in Gaza in the midst of Israel’s most recent military assault, recognized by the ICJ as plausibly genocidal. The deliberate attacks on healthcare infrastructure and workers aim to make Gaza unlivable. In the context of 76 years of illegal Israeli occupation and apartheid and 17 years of siege on the Gaza Strip, the attacks must be understood as a key strategy of settler-colonial elimination.

zoom.us

Gaza Square

When: Every Sunday, 11am to 1pm
Where: 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 12pm

Week 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

Canadian Foreign Policy Hour with Yves Engler

When: Mondays at 6pm

Join 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

In Praise of Laziness

By Harrison Dressler and Daniel Tubb

Walter A. Ratcliffe, a deaf-blind socialist, collected a bundle of poems and shuffled through Ontario’s alleyways, disregarding the stares and glances of passersby. It was Brantford: 1926. The twentieth century had cemented the ascendancy of monopoly capitalism, with economic development undermining the livelihoods of artisans and craftspeople. Traveling door-to-door, Ratcliffe survived by hawking wares, his pamphlets, and literature on streetcorners in Port Hope and Listowel. The disabled workman refused to remain isolated in sheltered workshops. A teacher-turned-vagrant, Ratcliffe lectured, propagandizing working-class Canadians – the proletarian masses.

Source: The Bullet No. 3009

ANC’s Crushing Electoral Defeat

By Gunnett Kaaf

South Africa is in the throes of a deepening political and social crisis. The precipitous electoral loss of the African National Congress (ANC) by a whopping 17 percentage points, from 57% to 40% in general elections held on 29 May 2024, was a signal of this deepening political and social crisis. It was a decisive rejection of the ANC by voters, following the ANC’s political dominance for 30 years, during which the ANC presided over a neoliberal economic development that wrought dire development outcomes such as a high level of unemployment, massive poverty, huge income and wealth inequality, rural and urban underdevelopment and poor delivery of basic public services by the state.

Source: The Bullet No. 3010

Climate Politics in the Age of Populist Denialism

By Richard Sandbrook

You can have a scientifically rigorous diagnosis of climate change, together with a plethora of reasonable policies to tackle the problem, but if your program lacks a strong coalition and powerful political strategy, it will fail. Many of us thought that reason would prevail in responding to the climate crisis. If we established that climate change is real, that human activity is the main driver, and that policies and technologies are at hand to deal with the problem, then governments would respond. An aroused public would ultimately demand an emergency response. But we know now that this assumption is naive.

Source: The Bullet No. 3011

Sde Teiman Camp: Israel’s ‘Guantanamo’

The Israeli occupation authorities acknowledged early last month [June/24] the martyrdom, in the Sde Teiman camp, of 36 detainees from the Gaza Strip. These deaths demand that we focus on the grave violations that Palestinian detainees from the Gaza Strip are exposed to from the moment of arrest on the street or in their homes during ongoing military operations, to when they are subjected to field interrogation. This treatment has led to the death of dozens of detainees, either in the field or inside detention and interrogation camps, most notably the Sde Teiman camp where Gaza Strip detainees are held.

Source: The Bullet No. 3012

Finance Manager

The Ontario Employment Education and Research Centre (OEERC) is a dynamic, multi-dimensional community organization committed to delivering education about workers’ rights, providing supports for workers in low-wage and precarious jobs, and implementing strategies for improving wages and working conditions. Our work is guided by the principle of strengthening the organizing capacity of workers so they can become leaders and advocates for their own communities.

Start date: July 15 or as determined with successful candidate
Salary range: $71,109 to $75,604 based on prior experience (full-time salary, will be prorated based on days worked per week)
Benefits: Employer-paid benefits package and RRSP contribution

workersactioncentre.org