Since Israel began its brutal siege of Gaza on October 7, Canada’s labour movement and trade unions have largely lined up in support of Palestinians. Photo by Labour 4 Palestine/X. Since Israel began its brutal siege of the Gaza Strip on October 7, Canada’s labour unions have largely come out
Continue readingAuthor: Herman Rosenfeld
Canadian Dimension: Building a labour movement to take on the billionaire class
In October 2021, 10,000 John Deere workers struck plants and warehouses in Iowa and Illinois, as well as smaller facilities in Kansas, Georgia and Colorado. Photo by Jordan Chariton/Twitter. Class Struggle Unionism Joe Burns Haymarket, 2022 Joe Burns’ new book, Class Struggle Unionism, reads like pamphlet, with a clear call
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: A first post-pandemic political victory—hardly a ‘general strike that could have been’
Education workers and other supporters amass at Queen’s Park to protest after the Ontario government enacted the notwithstanding clause to legislate a contract on the union. Photo courtesy OPSEU. The following article is a response to “The general strike that could have been” by Martin Schoots-McAlpine, published in Canadian Dimension
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Shaking up the status quo in the NDP
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh announces the 2019 election platform in Ottawa. Still image from YouTube/CBC. This article is part of a series in which CD editors asked NDPers, current and former, to weigh in on the state of social democracy in Canada, and on Avi Lewis’s recent decision to pursue
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: US election: What could it mean for Canada and the Canadian left?
US President Donald Trump speaking with supporters at a “Keep America Great” rally at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, Arizona, February 19, 2020. Photo by Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons. United States President Trump represents a danger to working people, in particular those most marginalized, and a threat to relatively
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Challenges and Openings for the Free Transit Movement in Toronto
Toronto’s public transit system is the third largest in North America, after New York City and Mexico City, but it is chronically underfunded. Photo from Needpix. Toronto is Canada’s largest city, with a population of 2.7 million (and over 6 million in the Greater Toronto Area). Its public transit system
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Reform and Transform: Police Abolitionism and Sloppy Thinking
RCMP officers assemble in Burnaby Mountain Park in response to a citizen’s protest rally against oil giant Kinder Morgan, Thursday, November 20, 2014. Photo by Mark Klotz/Flickr. This article is a response to “Abolishing the police is the only reasonable response to Winnipeg Police Killings” by James Wilt, published in
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Ford Unifor Agreement Ratified: Voted Down at Oakville Unit, Local 707
Photo from Windsorite.ca As bargaining between Unifor and the Canadian branches of the Detroit Three automakers came down to the last company, Ford, the signs were pointing to an emerging resistance to decades of concessions. Amid general opposition on the shop floor, leaders at the biggest Ford local were openly
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The NDP and the Election
Photo by Canada’s NDP At this moment, it seems that Harper’s Conservatives are losing ground, headed for possible defeat or minority status, if recent polls are to be believed. If these trends continue, it might represent a long-awaited respite from years of unrelenting and hard-edge neoliberal offensive in all walks
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Alberta’s Orange Crush
Image from Public Domain The New Democratic Party’s (NDP) surprise landslide victory in last week’s provincial elections in Alberta sent a shockwave through Canadian politics. With over 40 percent of the vote and an outright majority in the provincial legislature, the NDP has broken the Conservative Party’s decades-long dominance of
Continue readingCanadian Dimension | Articles: Pensions and the Detroit Bankruptcy
Municipal workers across the United States — and especially those already retired — were dealt a warning shot in mid-July when the city of Detroit filed for bankruptcy. Municipal bankruptcies, which have particularly set their sights on cutting the pensions of public-sector retirees, might become a more favoured tool in
Continue readingCanadian Dimension Feed: Toronto Mayor Rob Ford: A User’s Guide
By now many of you have probably heard of the rather incredible story of Rob Ford, the mayor of Toronto, having a relaxed and rather intimate conversation — and even allegedly appearing to be smoking crack cocaine – with a couple of drug dealers. In the cell phone video, the
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