Tag: ontario

The Pearson Survey of the 50,000 Employees at the Toronto International Airport: A Document Expressing the Ideology of Employers

The following is based on the report Understanding the Pearson workforce: Canada’s first airport workforce survey: Summary report, October 2019. The survey consists of a sample of 3,582 employees at the Toronto Pearson airport from a variety of positions, with the statistical expectation that these employees would be representative of the 50,000 workers who work at … Continue reading The Pearson Survey of the 50,000 Employees at the Toronto International Airport: A Document Expressing the Ideology of Employers →

Co-optation of Students at School Through We Day, Part Two: The Social-Democratic Left Share Some of We Day’s Assumptions

In a previous post, I outlined how We Day is a form of indoctrination and that schools form vehicles for such indoctrination. What is the social-democratic left's position in relation to  this indoctrination and its incorporation into schools? I already mentioned the Manitoba Teachers' Society (MTS) decision not to promote We Day since some of … Continue reading Co-optation of Students at School Through We Day, Part Two: The Social-Democratic Left Share Some of We Day’s Assumptions →

The Silences of the Social-Democratic Left on the Standards They Use in Relation to Health and Safety

I had a debate on the Facebook page of the Toronto Airport Workers Council (TAWC), an organization designed to facilitate communication and common actions among unions at the Toronto International Pearson Airport. The issue was health and safety and workers' compensation. In Canada, most workers who work for an employer are covered by workers' compensation--a … Continue reading The Silences of the Social-Democratic Left on the Standards They Use in Relation to Health and Safety →

Worker Resistance Against Management, Part Four

This is a continuation of a series of posts on worker resistance. The following was written by Herman Rosenfeld. Since it formed part of a course that he, Jordan House and I presented for workers at the Toronto Pearson International Airport, I am including the preliminary instructions and the subsequent questions so that others can … Continue reading Worker Resistance Against Management, Part Four →

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? →

Critique of a Social-Reformist Left’s Position in RankandFile.Ca on GM’s Decision to Close the Oshawa auto plant

An article (Buckle Up: GM Declares War on Oshawa)   by Gerard Di Trollo, Dave (or David) Bush and Doug Nesbitt, written for the social-reformist unionist website Rankandfile.ca purports to look critically at GM's decision to close the Oshawa plant. It is far from critical in this regard. The title of their article is GM's … Continue reading Critique of a Social-Reformist Left’s Position in RankandFile.Ca on GM’s Decision to Close the Oshawa auto plant →

Working for an Employer May Be Dangerous to Your Health, Part One

The title is a variation of one of the subsections in chapter two of Jeremy Reiman's The Rich Get Richer … and the Poor Get Prison. In a couple of earlier posts, I pointed out that working for an employer involves needless deaths and injuries (The Issue of Health and Safety in the Workplace Dominated by … Continue reading Working for an Employer May Be Dangerous to Your Health, Part One →