by Shane Martínez – BASICS Issue #27 (Dec 2011 / Jan 2012)
This ‘NOT FOR(D) SALE’ sign posted up on one of the 700+ Toronto Community Housing buildings and houses slated for sale and/or demolition in the City of Toronto. (Photo by Shane Martínez)
On Saturday, November 26, 2011, the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) and its allies held a rally and march in Toronto’s Moss Park neighbourhood. The purpose of the event was to mobilize in anticipation for the city’s announcement of its proposed budget, scheduled to take place the following Monday.
Approximately 100 people took to Sherbourne Street and marched through Moss Park, one of Canada’s poorest urban communities. The location was chosen because this community, like many other marginalized ones in the city, was anticipated to be hard hit by Mayor Rob Ford’s intended cuts to social services, including libraries, childcare and shelters.
While walking behind a banner reading ‘Fight Rob Ford – Stop City Cuts,’ the group chanted “Stop the war on the poor, make the rich pay!” and visited a number of houses alleged to be sites that the city plans on socially cleansing through gentrification. Organizers vowed that “If they don’t build it [affordable social housing], we will take it! We will occupy houses like this!” Read more…
by S. da Silva – 28 February 2011.
February 28 is not just the anniversary of Canada’s invasion and military occupation of Haiti, and the kidnapping of Jean-Bertrand Aristide (Feb 28, 2004). It’s the anniversary of an colonial struggle against Canadian imperialism within Canada’s (illegitimate) borders. On February 28, 2006, protesters of the Six Nations reserve began a protest against the unceded land upon which was being constructed the suburban housing development known as the Douglas Creek Estates.
Support for the small protest quickly grew amongst the people of Six Nations, especially after April 20, 2006 O.P.P. raid at the reclamation site which led to the arrest of 21 people. Later that day, hundreds of people from Six Nations reclaimed the site and drove back the police officers.
Five years later, the dispute has yet to be resolved, and reclamation site remains open.
Yesterday, Sunday February 27, a small demonstration was organized by Gary McHale, a long-time outside agitator from Richmond Hill who has worked to turn Caledonia’s white residents against the struggle of the Six Nations people. McHale’s demonstration – more of a media stunt than anything else – had planned to erect a monument at the Douglas Creek Estates that offered an “OPP Apology” and “Six Nations” apology to the people of Caledonia. McHale’s supporters were no more than 15-20 and were outnumbered by some one hundred non-Native supporters from Guelph, Kitchener-Waterloo, Hamilton, and Toronto, including delegations from the United Steelworkers and Canadian Autoworkers.
McHale has worked tirelessly to whip up a rightwing populism that paints the residents of Caledonia as the the victims of Six Nations “terrorists” and “thugs” and victims of the seeming indifference of police forces and the provincial and federal governments to the issue. McHale’s calls for the “rule of law” to be implemented in Caledonia does not include a support for those treaty obligations that Canada and the British Crown have made in the past with Six Nations.
Afterwards, supporters of Six Nations attended a pot-luck at the reclamation site for a couple hours before returning home.
Migrant Women’s Coordinating Body Organizing the Anti-Imperialist Contingent for IWD 2010
by Ashley Matthew – BASICS Issue #18
War and occupation. The right to status. Systemic repression. Exploitation. Imperialism. What do these words mean to you? To us, of the Migrant Women’s Coordinating Body, it has been important to educate one another about these issues and many others. and how they affect migrant women in particular and working class women generally.
by Herman Rosenfeld
BASICS #15 (Sep/Oct 2009)
The 39 day strike of 24,000 members of Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Locals 79 and 416, representing inside and outside Toronto municipal workers, ended in a partial economic victory, but a political setback as well.
It was a victory in the sense that both groups of workers were able to work together to stop a host of major concessions demanded by the city. These included:
o Initial wage offers well below those already bargained by police, firefighters, hydro workers, and other municipal workers. This pattern included the 2.4 percent wage increase City Council voted themselves, and the retention of their own generous ‘severance’ packages.
o Demands to take away the use of sick days for absences and the right to bank them as a way of providing severance on retirement; and
o A series of other concession demands around seniority rights and methods of filling job openings
Both union locals held out and prevented the city from attaining its goals. Wage rates were somewhat below those gained by others, but higher than the city’s original demands. Existing workers were able to maintain the sick day bank, while they also have the choice of opting for a new short-term disability plan and a cash buyout of their banked sick days. New hires will not have access to the sick days, but will use the disability plan. This is a partial victory: current workers keep their benefits; but for those who opt for the new plan and the new hires, they will lose out on the use of banked days as severance. Hopefully, the union can fight for severance in the future. Having a disability plan is not, in itself a loss. The other concessions were taken off the table.
But the strike was also a political defeat. The two large union locals didn’t wage a battle to win over the general public – the vast majority of whom are working class people. The Toronto city government’s attack on the workers was only one part of a larger attempt to force workers to pay for the crisis by lowering wages and benefits through concessions or demands for takeaways and weakening unions. After having forced a massive defeat on autoworkers – accompanied by a propaganda offensive targeting the workers as being privileged and responsible for the problems in the industry – the capitalist class and governments moved on to attack municipal workers, demonizing workers for the sick day benefit.
None of these issues were raised by CUPE. There were precious few efforts to convince ordinary Torontonians that the union was fighting to defend public services and the rights of all working people. The CUPE locals acted as if this was just another labour dispute, ignoring the political role that all public sector struggles must necessarily play.
CUPE’s educational, research and public communications resources seemed completely out of sync with the striking locals, giving the impression of a union in disarray. Even among the strikers, there was little education and preparation, with almost no examples of strike education, helping the workers learn about the main strike issues, the political forces behind the employer, and how to speak to the general public.
The rest of the labour movement in Toronto played a weak role in supporting the strike. The huge Stewards’ Assembly held by the Labour Council in May did not serve as a base for building a mass movement behind this struggle.
Without a strong effort by the union to clarify the political issues behind the struggle, the right-wing forces in Toronto were strengthened. Mayor David Miller and his allies on city council put the interests of wealthy real estate and corporate interests ahead of their main voting base, showing the futility of the current political strategy of organized labour in Toronto. In the future, public service delivery and the rights of the city’s public sector workers are in danger.
It’s time for the left within CUPE to organize itself, raise important questions about the union’s structure, the dysfunctional role of business unionism and the necessity of building a capacity and willingness to engage in political education and mobilization with the members and the public. The Toronto Labour Council needs to rethink its links with the Miller administration, city counselors who refused to support the CUPE strikers and the entire private sector development strategy. The socialist left needs to build a stronger base in the Toronto union movement as a whole.
Contract Faculty at CUPE 3902 Fighting for Basic Job Security
by Farshad Azadian
BASICS #15 (Sep / Oct 2009)
Contract faculty and various other instructor staff at the University of Toronto (UofT), represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) local 3902, have been bargaining with their employer since July 15, 2009. These academic workers are pushing for a better contract, with proposals that include demands for basic job security, funded research and decent wages. Thus far, bargaining with the UofT administration has not gotten very far. With the university’s bargaining team dragging its feet and slowing the process, their inaction has given way to the possibility of a strike by as early as October 2009.??
What is different about this labour dispute at UofT is the role that class-conscious students are playing in supporting these workers. A student-worker solidarity campaign called Students in Support of CUPE 3902 was initiated during the last round of bargaining where teaching assistants had entered a similar dispute with their employer. This campaign continues in the spirit of supporting working class struggles and with an understanding that, as students, most of us will enter a workforce where employers enjoy a huge amount of power over workers. ??A good example of the power dynamics between workers and bosses can be seen in the precarious working conditions of the contract faculty at UofT. For example, a contract course instructor may have been teaching a particular course for a decade. This teacher must re-apply each year to instruct that course in the upcoming semester. There is no certainty that they will get the job, leaving these academic workers with very little job security, even after having put years or even decades into the workplace.
You might be tempted to think that these academic workers are a very insignificant part of the workforce. In reality, these lecturers instruct about 30% of undergraduate courses, often teaching the larger classrooms with as many as over a thousand students. The trend of Canadian universities to depend more and more on vulnerable, underpaid contract academic labour is a reflection of an overall tendency of capitalism in Canada over the last thirty years towards precarious temporary and contract jobs. This is, in part, a reflection of a weakened labour movement that has been unable to organize a fightback to these attacks by the bosses.
In response to the reality of their work conditions, one of the central demands of CUPE 3902 is for rolling job commitments from year to year, which represents a starting point to getting basic job security for these workers. One of the important realizations of progressive students at the University of Toronto is that their quality of education is directly linked to the working conditions and job security of the teaching staff. Furthermore, in the case of a strike, class-conscious students realize that the only way to reach an end to the dispute quickly is to give full support to the workers and to put pressure on the administration to give contract faculty dignified terms of employment.
It is in this spirit that Students in Support of CUPE 3902 call on all UofT students to join in pressuring the administration to give a decent contract, and should a strike occur, to defend the picket lines in a show of working class solidarity. Those interested in working with the Students in Support of CUPE 3902 campaign can contact them at [email protected].?
Barrio Nuevo is a Latino community organization in Toronto which runs the radio program by the same name on Voces Latinas 1610AM. Barrio Nuevo is also the founder of the Frente Norman Bethune international exchange of community organizers, information of which can be found elsewhere on our website.
Barrio Nuevo strongly condemns and opposes the military coup d’état carried out today in Honduras forcibly removing the democratically-elected President, Manuel Zelaya. We call for the immediate reinstatement of President Zelaya and for those responsible for ordering and carrying out the coup d’état to be brought to justice. Furthermore, we call for the Canadian government to condemn the coup and to not recognize any illegal government in Honduras. Barrio Nuevo stands in solidarity with the Honduran people as they mobilize in the streets to denounce the coup in the face of violent repression from the military. For a report on the crisis in Honduras, click here: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/06/2009628124715921328.html
Please call or send a message to Lawrence Cannon, Minister of Foreign Affairs, demanding that the Canadian government 1) denounce the coup d’état; 2) not recognize any illegal government in Honduras; 3) call for the immediate reinstatement of President Zelaya. Please send copies of any correspondence to Minister of State for the Americas, Peter Kent, and to the leaders of the three opposition parties. Finally, we call on our allies and progressive organizations in the GTA to support Honduran democracy, to call for President Zelaya’s reinstatement, and to remain vigilant as further actions and demonstrations are organized. To contact Barrio Nuevo, please send an email to [email protected].
Contacts:
Lawrence Cannon, Minister of Foreign Affairs
Tel: 613-992-5516
Fax: 613-992-6802
Email: [email protected]
Peter Kent, Minister of State of Foreign Affairs (Americas)
Tel: 613-992-0253
Fax: 613-992-0887
Email: [email protected]
Michael Ignatieff
Email: [email protected]
Gilles Duceppe
Email: [email protected]
Jack Layton
Email: [email protected]
We are a network of workers, advocates and community allies who are calling for fundamental changes to the federal Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) and other Temporary Foreign Worker Programs (TFWP).
Canada is a country of immigrants. It continues to need immigrants to sustain growth in its economic and cultural life.
Over the last 30 years, the failure of our federal and provincial governments to adequately address the gaps in Canadian immigration and labour policy has led to the systemic discrimination and exploitation of migrant workers, including caregivers under the LCP and others under TFWP.
Our communities do not want the growth of Canada, as a nation, to be based on the systemic discrimination and exploitation of migrant workers!
We are calling for the following changes:
Organized by the Coalition for Change: Live-in Caregivers and Temporary Foreign Workers
Organizations that endorse this rally include: Adhika-Phillipne Development Concerns, Caregivers Action Centre, Caregivers’ Connection, Colour of Poverty Campaign, CAW- Canada, Community Alliance for Social Justice (CASJ), Filipino Centre-Toronto, Filipino Ministerial Fellowship, Gateway Centre for New Canadians, Good Jobs for All Coalition, Independent Workers Association, Justicia for Migrant Workers, Migrante-Ontario, No One is Illegal – Toronto, Parkdale Community Legal Services, Santiaginian Association of Ontario, Silayan Community Centre, United Food and Commercial Workers-Canada, United Steelworkers and Workers’ Action Centre.
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Visit: migrante.ca
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Migrante-Ontario member organizations:
Filipino Migrant Workers Movement; AWARE; Philippine Advocacy Through Arts and Culture (PATAC); Damayan Migrant Education and Resource Center; Migrante Youth; Migrant Workers and Family Resource Center – Hamilton; Pilipinong Migrante sa Canada (PMSC) – Ottawa; Pilipinong Migrante sa Barrie (PMB) – Barrie
More police brutality not the solution to violence in our communities
by Kabir Joshi-Vijayan and E. Jamal Chang
BASICS #14 – June/July 2009
There has been a lot of talk recently about the supposed ‘gang war’ in some of Toronto’s poorest neighbourhoods. Over 12 people have been murdered and more than 50 shot in the west-end since January alone; including a 14 year-old youth gunned down on Scarlett Road, and a 5 year-old girl who survived a stray bullet to the chest at Lawrence and Weston. City politicians, corporate media reporters, and so-called “community organizations” have been discussing the conditions in and solutions for the largely black and brown areas experiencing the violence. But the commentaries and proposals have been flawed, and even racist, since they have ignored the role of the state in both causing and creating the conditions that cause violence in the first place. So the project now being enforced on the city’s poor and racialized communities as a solution to gun violence is the boosting and backing up of what could be described as this city’s largest gang: the Toronto Police.
Any honest discussion about the violence in low-income communities in Toronto and elsewhere must acknowledge that police brutality is routine and systematic. It is experienced daily; it is cold, calculated, raw, and at times, homicidal. Because of this, many residents of these communities approach the police with fear, and at times even frustration and anger.
The story of Shak featured in this issue is just one example of violence the Toronto Police are well known for, brutality that escapes both the media lens and any public accountability. Shak’s only “crime” was informing his neighbours that suspicious men (police) were lurking in their backyard. For this the cops pulled Shak off his bike, dragged him out of sight and violently beat him so badly that he later fell unconscious. He is in grade nine. Only one week after that brutal attack, the Toronto Sun released information about 2 black youth in Richmond Hill who were nearly beaten to death by eight masked York cops in September. The cops had broken into their hotel room and tazered them 24 times, leaving one of the youth unconscious and nearly blind in one eye.
Police Brutality in its most extreme form, murder, also takes place in this city regularly. Most notably, 17-year old Alwy Al-Nadhir who was murdered on Halloween night 2007 and Byron Debassige on February 16, 2008.
These acts of violence don’t only affect their direct victims, but are used to terrorize, contain, oppress and silence whole communities. Even families who have the courage to speak out are confronted with a state that uses every means – from the media, to the court system, to the corrupt SIU – to cover up for and justify police brutality.
In this way, the police are agents of the very activities they claim to act against: their fists bruise, their batons smash, and their guns kill. Amidst a worsening economy, poor housing conditions, gentrification, and an unhealthy relationship with police forces, how can we expect to see any real changes in our communities? When the school system isolates, and expels our youth, when the economy leaves them with no opportunities, and when our neighbourhoods are flooded with weapons and drugs, what is to be excepted other than a rise in crime?
The only solution is to come together and unite in our neighbourhoods, to mobilize so we can end the violence ourselves, whether caused in our communities, or from the hands of those employed “serve and protect”.
See poster for details. More information will be available soon on this website.
For more information, call 647-887-7857 or email [email protected].
Registration will be available soon through the Facebook group “Justice for Alwy Campaign Against Toronto Police Brutality”.
