The Socialist Project Steering Committee wrote the following on its website (Taking on the GM Shutdown: Unifor, Oshawa and Community Control) : General Motor’s plan to end production at its Oshawa plant at the end of 2019 is a callous, cynical act by the U.S.-based multinational auto giant that needs to be challenged. After accepting … Continue reading Management Rights and the Crisis in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada: Limitations of the Reformist Left, Part One
Tag: Unions
The Meaning of Being Hired, Fired and Laid Off
The following is a debate on Facebook I had with a pro-employer right-winger. The context was the closing down of the Oshawa GM auto factory (among others) in Ontario, Canada, the loss of around 3,000 direct jobs there and the possible loss of around 15,000 additional workers due to the spin-off losses of the suppliers … Continue reading The Meaning of Being Hired, Fired and Laid Off
The Canadian Left’s Lack of a Vision of the Good Life Beyond a Class of Employers
Stanley Aronowitz, in his book The Death and Life of American Labor: Toward a New Workers’ Movement (New York: Verso, page 162) , points out how the left has in effect abandoned any real intention of developing a movement powerful enough to challenge a system dominated by the class of employers: Professional intellectuals need not … Continue reading The Canadian Left’s Lack of a Vision of the Good Life Beyond a Class of Employers
Confessions of a Union Representative Concerning the Real Power of Employers
In the context of the process of passing legislation related to the Westray mining disaster (ultimately diluted to satisfy the interests of employers), a union representative explicitly expressed the reality that workers face when they work for employers. The problem with this explicit admission of the power of employers is that it does not play … Continue reading Confessions of a Union Representative Concerning the Real Power of Employers
Unions and Safety on Jobs Controlled by Employers
The following tries to explain why unions do not adequately address the safety concerns of rank-and-file workers who work for an employer. Of course, safety conditions in non-unionized settings may be even worse, but we should not idealize unionized settings either. They are better than non-unionized settings, generally, but they remain inadequate since workers' safety … Continue reading Unions and Safety on Jobs Controlled by Employers
Social-Reformist Leftist Activists Share Assumptions with the Right
In an earlier post (Basic Income: A Critique of the Social-Reformist Left’s Assumptions and Analysis: Part Two), I argued that the social-reformist leftist activist Mr. Bush used Karl Marx's theory of surplus value for conservative (reformist purposes). This post will expand on this view by pointing out, in a more theoretical way, how Mr. Bush, … Continue reading Social-Reformist Leftist Activists Share Assumptions with the Right
Management Rights, Part Four: Private Sector Collective Agreement, Ontario, or: How the Social-Democratic Left Ignore Them
Management Rights The social-democratic left typically is incapable of dealing with the issue of the power of management. There is little or no discussion over such issues despite the existence of the power of the class of employers at various levels of society: economic, political, social and cultural. This silence expresses both the power of … Continue reading Management Rights, Part Four: Private Sector Collective Agreement, Ontario, or: How the Social-Democratic Left Ignore Them
Comments from John Urkevich, AESES-UM Business Agent, to my Critique of the Grievance and Arbitration Procedure: Letter to the Editor, Inside The Association of Employees Supporting Educational Services (AESES), Vol. 17, No. 4, May 1994
As I wrote in my last post (Critique of the Grievance and Arbitration Procedure: Letter to the Editor, Inside The Association of Employees Supporting Educational Services (AESES), Vol. 17, No. 4, May 1994), I would provide the business agent's reply to my letter to the editor in the same volume of the union newsletter. Here … Continue reading Comments from John Urkevich, AESES-UM Business Agent, to my Critique of the Grievance and Arbitration Procedure: Letter to the Editor, Inside The Association of Employees Supporting Educational Services (AESES), Vol. 17, No. 4, May 1994
Critique of the Grievance and Arbitration Procedure: Letter to the Editor, Inside The Association of Employees Supporting Educational Services (AESES), Vol. 17, No. 4, May 1994
In a previous post, I provided the current management rights clause between AESES and the University of Manitoba (Management (Employer) Rights, Part Three: Public Sector Collective Agreement, Manitoba). This is a continuation, of sorts. The title indicates what the content of this post will be about. In 1994, I worked on a project at Dafoe … Continue reading Critique of the Grievance and Arbitration Procedure: Letter to the Editor, Inside The Association of Employees Supporting Educational Services (AESES), Vol. 17, No. 4, May 1994
The Socialist Project’s Critique of Doug Ford’s Attack on Local Democracy Falls Short
The following was written almost six years ago; it is still relevant. The Socialist Project has rightly condemned Doug Ford (the new Premier of Ontario, Canada) for his unilateral reduction of the number of Toronto city councilors (in the midst of Toronto elections, no less--indeed, an autocratic act) (see Ford's Attack on Local Democracy in … Continue reading The Socialist Project’s Critique of Doug Ford’s Attack on Local Democracy Falls Short
The Abolitionary 