Banks as predators? Surely, no! Temporary foreign workers have become a lightning-rod topic in Canadian labour in recent months with the high-profile news of the Royal Bank of Canada replacing staff with TFWs. But the issue is not about RBC, which is merely the latest flashpoint. The temporary foreign worker
Continue readingTag: Labour Theory of Value
Politics, Re-Spun: Labour Day 2013: Say Hello to the Pavement!
Workers in Canada and around the world have been under assault for decades, but most of our recent tactics to stop the bleeding have been ineffective. Are we lazy, complacent, overworked, obedient, compliant, subdued, afraid, docile, or fully tamed and intimidated by the one per cent? If we don’t get
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: The Hudson’s Bay Retail Sweatshop
Sweatshops ‘R Us! Ripping off employees by paying them less than a living wage [the Metro Vancouver 2013 living wage is $19,64], all to pad shareholder profits, is the glory of exploitative capitalism! Long live capitalism! Oh wait, what happens when your own employees can’t afford to shop at your
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: The Occupy Movement Vs. Maquiladoras
Workplace justice: a pipe dream, or something to build solidarity to fight for? I had the distinct, and creepy, pleasure of sitting in front of a group of fellows yesterday in, ironically, the cheap seats at the Seattle Mariners game. They were discussing business. One fellow, who of course may
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: The Red Wings Fiddle While Detroit Burns
The new iconic photo of post-crash Detroit. Listen, can you hear the footsteps of Robocop? We can’t really blame just the Red Wings. We have to blame the Tigers and the Lions too, but really the 1% who own them. Detroit is bankrupt. Services will be privatized to privateer leeches.
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: IKEA’s (Sad) Spin Reply to My Boycott Letter
Solidarity means an attack on one is an offense to all! So if you have sent your letter to IKEA explaining why you are boycotting them for locking out their Richmond workers for 10 weeks, you may have received this precious reply from the corporation, below. I will re-spin it
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: It’s 12 O’Clock, Have You Boycotted IKEA Yet Today?
$3.85 billion in profit is just not enough. Union busting and global greed now! Gratitude, then and now. It used to include a t-shirt and more, for all employees around the world. Now, union busting. The best part of the Teamster Local 213 rally in Richmond on Saturday was the
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Walmart and McDonald’s Pretend They’re Great Employers!
We need to work harder to ensure everyone earns a living wage! I love when gross corporations try to spin reality to defend against criticisms. For instance: Walmart used to take out dead peasant life insurance on its employees, putting itself in a conflict of interest: do their best to
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Ikea’s Union-Busting Lockout in Richmond, BC Reaches Two Months
Is Walmart Ikea’s labour relations mentor? Ikea, that family-friendly darling of home decor and Swedish innocence is trying to break its union, Teamsters Local 213. They have locked out their Richmond, BC workers for two months now, while deciding to bargain in reverse: Start with a pathetic offer, then as
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: So Did YOU Get a 3% Raise Last Year?
So, did you get a 3% raise last year? The average Canadian did. See the first chart below. If not, you’re behind the average Canadian. And even with a small offset of increased hours worked going up by only 1% for the 12 months ending last June, at worst, the
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Bravery in a Time of Struggle
I was but wee when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. It must have been quite trying: a feat of technological innovation, cooperative efforts by thousands of mostly anonymous people and the global fame of a few astonishingly brave people who would be willing to sit atop a huge bomb
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: More Worker Bashing in BC, with Squishy Numbers
Below is a recent tweet from a new worker/NDP/union attack Twitter i.d. talking about how awful unionized workers are. Read it, then let’s de-spin it for sanity: Average salary in BC $44k, average teacher salary $70k bced.gov.bc.ca/reporting/ #Underpaid #Overworked #Lies #BCPoli #BCNDP #BCTF via Twitter / @NotBCNDP: Average salary in
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Let’s Have an End to People Dying at Work
Ben Isitt is a Victoria city councillor, historian, professor, lawyer and optimist. Rarely have I been so moved by an account of the struggle working people have in the face of this new world order of anti-worker 1%ism. We are so effectively trained to accept the balance of power is
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Day Three of Tragedy of the Market: From Crisis to Commons
Tragedy of the Market: From Crisis to Commons January 6-8, 2012 Vancouver/Burnaby All panelist biographies are here. Below are some lessons learned and observations from the sessions. Friday: The opening panel is recorded in the Twitter storify here. Saturday: My notes are here. Sunday: Opening Panel Radical Squares: Reflections on
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Day Two of Tragedy of the Market: From Crisis to Commons
Tragedy of the Market: From Crisis to Commons January 6-8, 2012 Vancouver/Burnaby All panelist biographies are here: Below are some lessons learned and observations from the sessions. Friday: The opening panel is recorded in the Twitter storify here. Saturday: Opening Panel A Global Tradition: History of the Commons Silvia Federici
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Opening Panel from the Tragedy of the Market: From Crisis to Commons
This weekend I attended Tragedy of the Market: From Crisis to Commons community gathering in Vancouver and Burnaby, sponsored by these groups and people. The basic premise is not so much that capitalism is broken, and we just need to fix it, but that neoliberal market fundamentalism is inherently broken
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Why I Am Going to Attend Occupy Vancouver
I am white, middle class, educated and, by all accounts, an extremely fortunate woman. I live in Canada where my parents’ (sometimes life-threatening) health issues are covered by a provincial medical plan. My water and air are clean, and food is plentiful. My husband and I are employed. I am not desperate, but I am […]
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Politics, Re-Spun on Coop Radio, September 5, 2011
Spending Labour Day with Imtiaz Popat on “The Rational” on Vancouver’s COOP Radio, talking about Christy Clark’s revocation of a pre-2013 election date [coup, not really a premier, perhaps a “notional premier”], the end of the HST, the BCTF negotiations and how the courts noted how the government yanked almost $3 billion from BC’s K-12 […]
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: The Great Shopping Shift
I end each day quietly lamenting how I haven’t yet succeeded in completely reforming the global economy. Certainly, it’s a tall order. I search for economic and environmental sustainability. I explore no-growth, steady-state economics to see how we can transform our society’s deranged obsession with unlimited capitalist growth into a more eco-socialist model. I don’t […]
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Austerity Leads to Suicide Rate Increase
Friday’s Vancouver Sun had a short item that you might have missed, “Suicides up, road deaths down due to recession.” It’s in the bottom corner of page B5: Suicides rates rose sharply in Europe in 2007 to 2009 as the financial crisis drove unemployment up and squeezed incomes, with the worst hit countries like Greece […]
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