Strikes rock Ontario construction trades: No concessions!
- Details
- Matt Gardner
Two construction sectors in Ontario have seen their first strikes in 30 years as workers hit the picket lines to fight employer demands for concessions, chief among them increased working hours. On May 6, approximately 5,000 sheet metal workers went on strike after the breakdown of talks between the Ontario Sheet Metal Workers’ and Roofers’ Conference, which represents the workers, and the Ontario Sheet Metal Contractors Association, which represents the bosses. Picket lines were quickly established in communities including Toronto, Ottawa, London, Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Thunder Bay, Niagara, Kingston, and Sarnia.
Workers and youth around the world are taking to the streets to demand action and system change to avert environmental catastrophe. Perhaps the most significant is the “Fridays for Future” or “School Strike for Climate” movement taking place across the globe. This movement was founded by a young Swedish activist, Greta Thunberg, who began protesting outside of the Swedish parliament during school hours in August of 2018. Within months large solidarity rallies had been organized by students around the world. Significantly, on March 15, 2019 the Global Strike for the Future saw 1.4 million students from 125 countries around the world walk out of school to march and demonstrate, demanding government action on the climate crisis.
The number of casualties at the hands of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia in Sudan, after they clamped down on the protests last week, has reached 113. But if the people at the top who ordered this butchery thought it would quell the revolt of the Sudanese people, they clearly miscalculated. The counter-revolution has been manoeuvring to try and create a situation of apparent breakdown in social order, using criminal gangs pretending to be revolutionaries. This is a means of provoking open conflicts in which the RSF could step in and claim to be restoring law and order.
Between May 29 and June 1, the Ontario locals of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) held their 2019 convention. This gathering occurred under the shadow of the Doug Ford provincial government that is attacking the rights of public sector workers and the working class generally. The key issue for the 1000 delegates was how to fight “back-to-work” legislation and attacks on the right to strike. The question of defiance polarized the proceedings.
Hitting the streets on May Day, a group of Foodora couriers launched a union drive with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW). Under the banner of “Justice for Foodora Couriers,” their main demands are fair compensation for dangerous work, the ability to recover when sick or injured, and a respectful workplace free from harassment and intimidation. CUPW has organized a series of actions to support the couriers (who call themselves “foodsters”), including a march on May 15 that saw about 1,000 CUPW members, a contingent from Labour Fightback, and other supporters join the foodsters in solidarity.
Early in the morning of 3 June, the Sudanese armed forces violently raided and cleared the revolutionary sit-in that had camped in front of the Sudanese Ministry of Defence since 6 April. This was only the start of a campaign of terror, organised by the counter-revolutionary Transitional Military Council (TMC). At least 13 have been reported killed and hundreds more injured after the cold-blooded attack on the revolutionary campsite in Khartoum this morning. According to reports, on the previous night, army ranks in the area around the site were partially withdrawn and replaced by the reactionary, tribal-based Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia and riot police.
