Tag: Collective Agreements

Review of Jane McAlevey’s “A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing, and the Fight for Democracy”: Two Steps Backward and One Step Forward, Part One

Jane McAlevey is everywhere these days. Recently appointed a senior fellow at Berkeley’s Labor Center, she is now also a regular columnist for both the Nation and Jacobin. Her webinar (“Organizing for Union Power”) has a global audience. She continues to be called on to address unions and run training sessions in the United States, Canada, the … Continue reading Review of Jane McAlevey’s “A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing, and the Fight for Democracy”: Two Steps Backward and One Step Forward, Part One →

The Poverty of Academic Leftism, Part Five: Middle-Class Delusions

This is a continuation of a critique of an academic leftist (aka academic historical materialist), the philosopher Jeff Noonan. As noted in a previous post, Professor Noonan makes the following statement in relation to employees at a university (from Thinkings 4: Collected Interventions, Readings, Evocations, 2014-2015, page 13): Instead, all members of the institution– faculty, librarians, … Continue reading The Poverty of Academic Leftism, Part Five: Middle-Class Delusions →

Management Rights, Part Eight: Private Sector Collective Agreement, Quebec

Here is another clause from a collective agreement concerning management rights, this time from the private sector--and in a province in Canada where French is predominant officially. Undoubtedly for the social-democratic left, it expresses a situation where there is decent work--a cliché among the left, who refuse to investigate its meaning in a democratic fashion. It … Continue reading Management Rights, Part Eight: Private Sector Collective Agreement, Quebec →

The Silences of the Social-Democratic Left

I had two recent conversations with social democrats on two different (though undoubtedly related topics). The first conversation is a representative of Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 4400 (education workers). The Local's website indicates the following: Toronto Education Workers/Local 4400 is made up of approximately 12,000 Education Workers who primarily work within the … Continue reading The Silences of the Social-Democratic Left →

Do Collective Agreements Convert Working for an Employer into Decent Work?

Tracy MacMaster is a union steward for Local 561 of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU); she was also vice-president of the local union at one point. However, she prides herself most on her activity of organizing part-time college workers (she works at a college as a library technician). . On March 25, 2019, … Continue reading Do Collective Agreements Convert Working for an Employer into Decent Work? →

The Poverty of Academic Leftism, Part Three: Collective Bargaining and the Interests of the Working Class

This is a continuation of a critique of an academic leftist (aka academic historical materialist), the philosopher Jeff Noonan. Another example of the limitations of Professor Noonan's analysis is the following (from Thinkings 4: Collected Interventions, Readings, Evocations, 2014-2015,page 10): And sometimes it is necessary to struggle to protect or extend our rights as workers to … Continue reading The Poverty of Academic Leftism, Part Three: Collective Bargaining and the Interests of the Working Class →

The Radical Left Needs to Call into Question Existing Social Institutions at Every Opportunity, Part One

Before I obtained a so-called permanent teaching position (I will explain in a much later post why I use the word "so-called"), I worked for a number of years as a substitute teacher (with short periods of term teaching positions). I became an executive member of the Winnipeg Teachers' Association (WTA) (in the province of … Continue reading The Radical Left Needs to Call into Question Existing Social Institutions at Every Opportunity, Part One →

Management Rights, Part Seven: Public Sector Collective Agreement, Quebec

It is fascinating how the social-democratic or reformist left, with their talk of "good contracts," "decent work," a "fair deal," and "economic justice" and so forth do not feel that they have the need to justify themselves. They assume what they must prove to workers--that a collective agreement expresses "good contracts," and so forth. Do … Continue reading Management Rights, Part Seven: Public Sector Collective Agreement, Quebec →

The Poverty of Academic Leftism, Part Two: Collective Bargaining and the Interests of the Working Class

Professor Jeff Noonan, as contained in a reference to his work in a previous post( The Poverty of Academic Marxism, Part One), claimed that historical materialism must evolve. This seems to imply that his form of historical materialism, under present conditions, is superior to the historical materialism proposed by Marx. Professor Noonan claims the following … Continue reading The Poverty of Academic Leftism, Part Two: Collective Bargaining and the Interests of the Working Class →