The Dominion - labour

Pinkwashing, Incorporated

Moira Peters — Wed, 30 May 2012 10:34:08 +0000

NFB film delves into depoliticization of breast cancer epidemic

LONDON—I remember the first time it really hit me. It was at the third World Conference on Breast Cancer held in Victoria, BC, in 2002. I walked out onto the balcony overlooking the exhibition hall and there it was, a sea of pink.

This conference wasn’t like the first World Conference on Breast Cancer in Kingston, Ontario in 1997. In Kingston, it was all about environmental and occupational causes of breast cancer, primary prevention and cutting edge science.

The speakers were iconic in their work on prevention, and the conference was attended by campaigners whose names were recognizable from the radical campaign material we in the UK eagerly received from Canada and the US.

The Kingston conference was initiated by Janet Collins, who features in the film Pink Ribbons, Inc., produced by Ravida Din and directed by Lea Pool for the National Film Board of Canada (2011).

“The whole pink ribbon culture drain[ed] and deflect[ed] the kind of militancy we had as women who were appalled to have a disease that is epidemic and yet that we don’t even know the cause of,” said Barbara Ehrenreich, author and activist, who is featured in the film.

“We found sisterhood from other women and [from] looking critically at what was going on with our health care," she said. "I mean, what a change; we used to march in the streets, now you’re supposed to run for a cure or walk for a cure...”

At the third world conference in Victoria, with its pharmaceutical funding sources, many of the previous speakers from the scientific community weren’t invited, and many campaigners stayed away.

Nevertheless, those of us committed to prevention and environmental exposure met together and drafted a resolution.

The resolution urged governments to ban proven and suspected carcinogens, and to take a precautionary approach to those chemicals and substances implicated in breast cancer causation. This would entail that even in the absence of scientific consensus, exposure should be eliminated until proof of no harm can be determined and agreed.

In other words, better safe than sorry.

Although initially hesitant, conference organizers used the resolution as a basis for the conference press release. But we were branded. It was the last time I was invited to speak at the World Conference on Breast Cancer, and I was dropped with no explanation from the international advisory group. I felt like a troublemaker.

But at least I was in good company.

On that balcony, looking at the festival of pink, I first imagined pink ribbons used like blindfolds to prevent women from seeing the harsh realities of the disease, and like gags to silence dissent about the the lack of acknowledgement that exposures in our homes, workplaces and in the wider environment could contribute to our breast cancers. But as Judy Brady, author and activist, points out in the film, “If it were a conspiracy then we could expose it and people would be aware; but it’s not, it’s business as usual”.

In less than a decade, women seem to have gone from challenging organizations like the Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition and the Women’s Community Cancer project, first shown in the film marching with banners reading "Draw The Line At 1 In 8," then as women running in pink feather boas and wearing t-shirts with pharmaceutical company logos on the back, embodying that infamous slogan: running for the cure, sponsored by the cause.

What the hell happened?

Samantha King, author of the book Pink Ribbons, Inc., suggests that the big players in the cancer establishment have boards of directors with representatives from the pharmaceutical, chemical and energy industries. It is thus almost impossible to separate the people who might be responsible for the perpetuation of this disease from those who are responsible for trying to find a way to cure or, even better, to prevent it.

It is obvious, then, that emotions like anger, dissent or disbelief and questions about exposures at work, home or in the wider environment don’t sit well with this festival of pink.

We could say that the pink ribbon industry has identified its audience well: the premise being that breast cancer only affects middle-class ultra-feminine white women, because this is the demographic industry wants to sell pink products to.

While millions of dollars have been spent studying the same populations—white, largely middle-class women—this research does not translate to the many African, Asian, African American and racially diverse women contracting the disease. We know their outcomes aren’t as good as those of their white counterparts. Yet so little is spent finding out why.

Is it because they are not the "right" demographic the pink ribbon industry wants to reach out to?

Along with the socio-economic considerations around breast cancer, the racial, cultural, environmental and occupational inequalities are at best not addressed; at worst, neglected, unfunded and largely ignored.

In the film, King reflects: “It wasn’t until Reagan came to power that we saw explicit policies designed to shift responsibility for health and welfare from the government towards private entities, philanthropic organizations, along with the encouragement specifically for corporations to participate in that.”

Or as Reagan himself said, “A buck for business if it helps to solve our social ills.”

The term pinkwashing is used to describe companies associating with a cause that people care about in order to increase their sales and to market pink products. Breast cancer is the poster child of cause marketing.

The irony is that many of the products sold, specifically cosmetics, perfumes, plastics and petrochemical-based products, contain ingredients linked to breast cancer.

“It is hypocrisy to use carcinogens in products and at the same time be advocating for a cure in another way,” says Jane Houlihan from the Environmental Working Group, speaking in the film.

When looked at skeptically, research requires investment and the end product has to be profitable and marketable. There is no profit in prevention or removing carcinogens from the environment, home or workplace.

One of the women attending the Plastics Automotive Industry focus group in Windsor, Ontario, led by Dr. Jim Brophy and Dr. Margaret Keith, said it was the first time she had ever heard that ingredients in plastics are mimicking the female hormone estrogen. She felt that this message needed to be publicly articulated, loud and clear.

Despite all the information out there on Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs), that information is still not reaching those who need it most. Women who have been working in the plastics industry for decades were given no health and safety training and no safety data sheets.

“The evidence is overwhelming on the impact environmental and occupational exposures have on this disease,” says Brophy. “Very little of the resources are going to looking at pesticides, combustion products, plastics, petrochemicals and solvents, many of the things that millions of women are being exposed to every day, either in the general ambient environment or their workplaces.”

And yet “women die from breast cancer just because they are women,” Dr. Olufunmilayoi Olopade reminds the film’s viewers.

While Pink Ribbons, Inc. doesn’t seek to undermine those who gain hope, strength and a sense of community from pink ribbon fundraising, it does ask critical questions about the industry and the pink ribbon brand.

Helen Lynn has campaigned on cancer prevention since 1995 with Putting Breast Cancer on the Map and the No More Breast Cancer campaign. She is currently a freelance campaigner and facilitates the Alliance for Cancer Prevention in the UK. This review was originally published on Alliance for Cancer Prevention's website.

What can you do?

•Go and see the film.

•If you raise pink ribbon money, follow the money and ask questions about how it is spent.

•Follow the example of the Toxic Links Coalition in San Francisco, which each year in October organizes a toxic tour and visits the branches of the worst polluters in their financial district.

•Organize a workplace group to examine what you are exposed to at work.

•Pay attention to what is in the products you buy—to check out cosmetics ingredients visit Skin Deep, a project of the Environmental Working Group.

•Don’t accept the blame. If 50 per cent of breast cancer cases have no known cause then it ain’t your fault.

•Read the book Pink Ribbons, Inc. by Samantha King.

•Check out the Tools for Action on Pink Ribbon Blues Blog.

•Remember: we can’t shop our way out of this epidemic.

The Big See

Canadian Media Failed to Deliver

Martin Lukacs — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 10:00:00 +0000

Media coverage of Canada Post labour dispute uncritical, Inaccurate

By June 14, members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) had been staging rotating strikes for 11 days. Workers had decided they would slow down the delivery of mail by striking in different communities for two to three days at a time. Workers in Winnipeg, Hamilton, Fredericton, Victoria, Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Cape Breton, and more, had all taken their turns on the picket line.

So while CUPW members in Toronto and Montreal were walking the picket line on June 14, workers in every other community in Canada showed up to work as usual. Letter carriers — Canada Post workers who deliver mail in our communities every Monday through Friday — were told there was no work for them. No mail was being delivered that Tuesday. So mail sat in Canada Post processing plants; undelivered.

Indoor workers in Halifax, who process and sort the mail, were working — but no mail would leave the plant. Even priority packages, which should be delivered by noon the day after they are shipped, were not delivered.

In Fredericton, management sent indoor workers home after only three hours of work, even with mail still to process, according to a twitter update from activist Ella Henry. Fredericton workers had just come off a strike rotation, so the claim from Canada Post that there was no work for both indoor workers and letter carriers seemed quite perplexing.

Despite these circumstances, the local hourly CBC radio broadcast in Halifax told listeners all day that Canada Post workers “consider themselves to be locked out.” A CBC News headline online reads, “Union calls postal service reduction 'partial lockout.'”

The Canadian Labour Code, which governs postal workers, states that a “lockout” “includes the closing of a place of employment, a suspension of work by an employer or a refusal by an employer to continue to employ a number of their employees, done to compel their employees, or to aid another employer to compel that other employer’s employees, to agree to terms or conditions of employment.”

Letter carriers showed up to work on Tuesday, June 14, and were told to go home because Canada Post decided no mail was to be delivered. This is very clearly a “suspension of work by the employer” and in the context of the previous rotating strike, very much “done to compel their employees … to agree to terms or conditions of employment.”

The workers were locked out by their employer, plain and simple. The addition of the caveat “consider themselves” casts doubt on a clear situation, and works in favour of the employer’s spin on the situation.

There are several complexities that reporters and editors may not be familiar with when it comes to labour reporting. For example, during the June 14 partial lockout, CUPW declared the locked out workers to be on strike. This is not because the workers chose to strike that day. By declaring those members on strike, the union was able to protect workers who were not locked out from being pressured or disciplined for refusing to do the work of their locked-out co-workers. It is the responsibility of reporters and editors who intend to cover labour issues to understand these issues in order to cover labour issues fairly and accurately.

This example, though, is just one small example of the corporate and public media’s lack of fair, critical, and accurate coverage of the labour dispute.

Prior to both the rotating strikes and the lockout, which became a nation-wide full lockout on June 15, news sources reporting on the labour negotiations, repeatedly listed wages and benefits that Canada Post workers receive. At $26 per hour, a full-time worker makes about $54,000 per year. While this is higher than the median individual income of Canadian workers, it is well below the median household income of $68,860. The sticking point of the dispute was not wages for current workers. Instead, the issue has always been the implementation of two-tiered wages – lower wages for new workers. These lower wages would see new workers paid about $10,000 less than the median Canadian income, and more than $30,000 below the median household income. We are talking about middle-income, stable, secure jobs. The kind of jobs that governments argue are necessary for economic recovery. CUPW has been fighting to keep these kinds of jobs for new workers.

Many sources, including the CBC, continuously cited Canada Post’s statistic that mail volumes have fallen 17 per cent since 2006. In the Vernon Morning Star in BC, an editorial told readers, “E-mail obviously took over sending a friendly letter in the mail long ago for many of us and internet billing has become the norm … Therefore the amount of mail going into the system has obviously decreased.” Overall, however, mail volumes have increased by 10 per cent since 1997. Considering the worldwide economic recession that has been going on since at least 2008, it is understandable that mail volumes would be down the past couple of years, but it’s hardly an obvious trend. Where was the slew of reporters who should have been asking Canada Post President and CEO Deepak Chopra about the impact of the recession on mail service, whether there were signs of recovery, and what Canada Post was doing to improve and expand services for the future?

Also, there was little to no investigation of why or how mail volumes are dropping. Are people using the mail less? Are people using other mail services? Has Canada Post lost contracts to private companies, or has it given contracts to Purolator, which it owns? Are all volumes down? It is very possible that letter mail volume is down, but parcel shipping is up (think about all the online shopping people do.) Also, the whole argument that mail volumes are down because more things are being done electronically needs to be examined since the internet has been around for a while now. Why wasn’t the corporate and mainstream media looking into all of these issues? Why wasn’t the media exploring what Canada Post could be doing instead – improving door-to-door delivery, providing expanded public services (think of how processing EI claims at a post office could reduce backlogs), or the slew of services taken up by European postal services in the face of more electronic business.

How many stories, instead, were written on the opinions of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business on the strike? How many opinion editorials were published by right wing think tanks? Where were the journalists who are supposed to uncover facts?

Perhaps most frustrating was the incompatible arguments that on one hand mail is becoming irrelevant, and on the other, the disruption of the mail service has significant detrimental impacts on the economy – so detrimental that the government needed to legislate the resumption of mail service. Canada Post and the Harper government can’t have it both ways, and where were journalists to interrogate this contradiction?

Repeatedly, articles published that Canada Post lost over $100 million during the labour dispute. This is a number that was put forward by Canada Post and reporters have given no context for how the corporation arrived at that number. Reporters did little to question where that number came from or even when those losses were from.

While the rotating strikes presented delays in mail delivery, mail was still being delivered to the customer, something that postal workers were keeping in mind. While in a legal strike position, they could very well have held a nation-wide strike and stopped mail delivery all together. Instead, rotating strikes were implemented to balance the need to pressure Canada Post to bargain in good faith, and to continue to serve Canadians. Still, though, the corporate and mainstream media consistently repeated Canada Post’s rhetoric that service reductions, and the lockout were the fault of the union.

News sources completely failed to point out that locked out workers received no pay from Canada Post. Postal workers, like all Canadians, have families and bills and responsibilities and were being prevented from working by their employers. What was the economic impact of 48,000 workers being locked out? How much did workers see in lost wages? What were workers doing to make up the lost wages? Did they borrowing more? Did they dipping into savings? Did bills being left unpaid?

Where is the corporate and mainstream media on all of these questions?

Deafeningly silent.

Kaley Kennedy is a member of the Halifax Media Co-op and is involved in Support Postal Workers, a campaign organised by people in Halifax to generate community support for postal workers.

postal workers.ottawa

Sincerely, the Working Class

Moira Peters — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 14:32:01 +0000

Postal workers supported across Canada

"We want this for all Canadians; that's what this should be about for people."

Nadine Kays, who worked for four years as a casual letter carrier part-time on the midnight shift before she moved up in the ranks at Canada Post, was talking about the strike action taken by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) early this month. The union's actions—insisting on fair, equitable and living wages for postal workers in Canada—are part of a larger labour movement in Canada.

Public criticism directed at the union for its insistence on maintaining a living wage for its workers, she said, is an unfortunate reflection of a society whose expectations as a workforce are too low.

"No-one should live paycheck-to-paycheck. What's wrong with making a living wage coming out of high school or university?" she said.

CUPW began a 24-hour strike in Winnipeg on June 3, rotating the strike to other locations.

In early June, CUPW National President Denis Lemelin said the union had been trying to get Canada Post to deal with service and health and safety problems for more than three years but management refused.

Consequently, the union was forced to bring these issues to the bargaining table.

“We have a dangerous workplace that needs to be fixed but Canada Post won’t listen to us,” said Lemelin in a press release.

“The strike's purpose is to create leverage in order to encourage Canada Post to abandon its dangerous approach to modernization and their many concessions. The goal is still the same. We want to negotiate solutions [but] we cannot accept unsafe and unfair conditions."

CUPW's attempts to negotiate on the issues of pensions, workplace health and safety and sick leave have been blocked by Canada Post. After eight months in negotiations, Canada Post has made no concessions.

On June 14, Canada Post locked out its nearly 50,000 urban postal operations employees after 12 days of rotating strikes organized by the union.

On June 20, Minister of Labour Lisa Raitt introduced back-to-work legislation to force locked-out Canada Post employees back to work.

All the while, community rallies, sit-ins, lock-outs and other public support actions have been organized across Canada in solidarity with postal workers' right to collective bargaining.

“[CUPW] stood next to me and my causes and beliefs in so many demonstrations” said Ottawa activist Kevin Donaghy explaining his presence at a local rally. “The public at large and the public sector is under attack. This is the beginning of the onslaught over the next four years with the Harper majority.”

Guy Laflamme of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) local 1979 said his union supports CUPW because it has been at the forefront of social justice struggles from maternity leave, to rights for gays and lesbians and rights for immigrant workers.

“This is the first big challenge for social and labour movements since the election of the Harper government. I think it is even more important that we be present and show that we will not let ourselves be trampled,” he said.

The base of public support across Canada for postal workers' right to strike is wide, as these images show. Canadians across the country stand with postal workers and their union's fundamental right to collectively negotiate the terms and conditions of employment on behalf of its 48,000 postal worker members.

The Dominion Editorial Collective, along with several other independent Canadian magazines, responded yesterday to a letter issued by Magazines Canada supporting Minister of Labour Lisa Raitt's introduction of back-to-work legislation. The Dominion is a member publication of Magazines Canada, a distributor of Canadian magazines.

For more breaking grassroots coverage of working class issues, visit the Media Co-op. For local coverage of postal workers' resistance to back-to-work legislation and public support for CUPW, visit the Halifax, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver Media Co-ops, as well as our sister organization, the NB Media Co-op.

Photo essay compiled by Moira Peters of the Dominion Editorial Collective, with files from Murray Bush, Sebastien Labelle and Melissa Albiani. Thanks to the artists who donated these images. moira@mediacoop.ca

postal workers.winnipeg

postal workers.jugglers

postal workers.sydney march

postal workers.halifax picket

postal workers.ottawa

postal workers.gatineau

postal workers.fredericton students

postal workers.halifax students

postal workers.edmonton stop

postal workers.montreal banner

postal workers.sydney slumber

postal workers.stu faculty

postal workers.edmonton

postal workers.Vancouver

postal workers.working class

"There Is No Neutral"

Tim McSorley — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 06:59:17 +0000

Striking Vale Inco workers push for local politicians, residents to back anti-scab legislation

SUDBURY—As the longest strike in Sudbury’s history rolls on, United Steelworkers union organizers are calling for an end to the use of replacement workers, blaming the practice for prolonging the strike.

“If there was anti-scab legislation in place, this strike would’ve been over months ago," Bernie Arsenault told The Dominion. Arsenault, a member of Steelworkers Local 6500, added that the use of replacement workers is new in the experience of the Steelworkers.

Three-thousand three-hundred Steelworkers from locals 6500 in Sudbury and 6200 in Port Colborne have been on strike against mining giant Vale Inco since July 13, 2009, in what has become the longest strike in the history of all three parties. Central issues in the contract bargaining process are pension plans, workers’ nickel bonuses, seniority transfer rights, the contracting out of jobs and the reinstatement of nine activists who were fired during the course of the strike.

To increase pressure, United Steelworkers Local 6500 declared May “anti-scab month,” distributing flyers to homes around the Sudbury area appealing to citizens to support proposed provincial anti-replacement worker legislation.

The Steelworkers union also convinced Sudbury city council to adopt a symbolic motion in support of anti-replacement worker legislation. At the end of May, 10 months and one week into the strike, the Local 6500 held a rally in front of Sudbury Member of Provincial Parliament Rick Bartolucci’s office, calling on him to end his neutrality on the subject of replacement workers.

“When you sit on the fence, your backside is facing somebody, and I think we all know who that somebody is,” rally organizer Jamie West said through a megaphone. “There is no neutral. When you’re silent, when you refuse to take a stand and you hold office, you automatically take the side that has the most money.”

A release from Bartolucci’s office stated "Mr. Bartolucci has and will continue to oppose the use of replacement workers.” Yet Bartolucci remained silent when the anti-replacement worker bill passed its first reading in provincial parliament.

Such legislation existed for a brief period in the 1990s after being introduced by Bob Rae's NDP government, but was scrapped by Mike Harris' Conservatives.

A group called CANARYS (Community Activists Need Answers Regarding Your Safety) formed in response to the strike, and has supported the push to end the practice of hiring replacement workers.

“Of course the scabs have a huge effect on the Sudbury community, from dividing the community to the implications that they will have on safety,” explains Laurie McGauley, a founder of CANARYS and long-time community activist.

“A lot of work has gone into making things safer at the mine over the decades, and the union has been intrinsic to this" continued McGauley. "Now we have people coming from other communities, who are not trained and who do not have experience with the mine, operating without a union that has experience in a mine, which is a very dangerous operation."

McGauley’s concern over safety mixes with her sobering vision of what a defeat of the strike could mean: “If [Vale Inco] manages to break this strike, that would have huge repercussions for all workers in Ontario, all over North America, because it would be a signal to everybody that replacement workers can be used to bust a union. To bust a historically-strong union like [United Steelworkers Local] 6500 is a huge symbolic loss for all unions in Canada as well as in north America.”

The proposed anti-replacement worker bill is expected to go through its second reading in November. In the meantime, intermittent talks between Vale Inco and Steelworker Locals 6500 and 6200 continue.

Shailagh Keaney is a writer and gardener living in occupied Atikameksheng Anishinawbek territory.

Steelworkers rally in Sudbury

Steelworker calls on Bartolucci

Thousands Protest Fee Hikes in Montreal

dru — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 17:23:52 +0000

Students, community groups, unions oppose privatization of pulic services

MONTREAL—Thousands took to the streets of downtown Montreal yesterday to protest the Quebec Liberal government's 2010 budget. Quebec's grassroots student union l'Association pour une solidarite syndicale etudiante (ASSE) joined forces with a wide coalition of community organizations, bringing forward a public critique of a budget that introduces fee hikes for cornerstones of the public sector, including health-care and education.

"This budget is bad because it attempts to introduce major changes to the public nature of Quebec society—a move towards people paying for public services," outlines Marie Blais, vice-President of the Federation nationale des enseignantes et enseignants du Quebec (FNEEQ). "Education and health-care are public rights, not products that we purchase as citizens."

Key to the critique of the Quebec budget is a proposed obligatory health-care fee for Quebec residents, fixed to increase annually toward a $200-per-year flat tax by 2012.

"Today's budget rests on the backs of the most vulnerable in Quebec," said Christian Dubois of political party Quebec Solidaire(QS). "The health-care tax is regressive, if you are making $15,000 per year, you will pay the same amount in tax as someone making $300,000 per year—a fundamentally unequal and unjust social equation."

Quebec's public health care infrastructure has faced increasingly tight budgets since the current Liberal government came to power. As waiting rooms in Quebec's major hospitals often remain jam-packed, the government has moved to increase the role of public-private health care partnerships, instead of increasing public spending.

Since coming to power in 2003, Quebec Premier Jean Charest has faced successive protests, the largest in 2005 when an estimated 100,000 students went on strike across the province, staging protests across Quebec and carrying out direct actions in Montreal. The strike marked a major victory for Quebec social movements, helping to end the government's plan to cut $103 million from the student loan and bursaries program.

A tradition of popular protest has played a key role in shaping government policy in Quebec. Social movements exercise street-level democracy rooted in extensive networks of community organizations, workers unions and student federations that that can be traced back to the massive social movements born in the 1960s and 1970s. These groups helped to build Quebec's strong public sector, which cushioned the blow of the recent world economic crisis.

"The economic crisis was created by the corporate sector and now Charest has placed the public sector into a corporate economic vision of privatization that created the global financial crisis," QS' Blais told The Dominion. "It is unacceptable to propose an economic plan that basically considers public institutions within a corporate model."

"We want to ensure accessibility, not privatization. It is simple that with higher fees fewer people in Quebec will go to university and access proper health care."

For more information, visit l'Association pour une solidarite syndicale etudiante (ASSE).

Stefan Christoff is a regular contributor to The Dominion and is on Twitter at @spirodon.

Students Demonstrate Against Charest Budget in Montreal

Seul la Lutte Paie

World Cup Knock-Out

Moira Peters — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 05:49:19 +0000

South Africa to score big public debt in 2010

Former South African President Thabo Mbeki wrote in his country’s 2004 bid to host the 2010 World Cup: “We want to ensure that one day, historians will reflect upon the 2010 World Cup as a moment when Africa stood tall and resolutely turned the tide on poverty and conflict.” Contrary to Mbeki’s professed aim of unity and economic development, it seems the legacy of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa will be limited to a handful of multinational and national corporations making massive profits on the backs of a reserve army of labour and through the generation of massive public debt.

VANCOUVER—While Canadian protesters throughout the 2010 Winter Olympic Games organized around the call, “Homes, Not Games!”, the same slogan could be shouted at the opposite end of the world, where this year South Africa will also be hosting a sport mega-event: the 2010 soccer World Cup.

In South Africa, over 13 per cent of the population lives in makeshift housing. In 2008—the year the food, energy, and financial crises simultaneously rocked the country—the rates of makeshift housing rose.

Twenty-nine per cent of the population of South Africa cannot afford to pay for water and almost eight per cent of households use bucket toilets, an apartheid leftover that successive democratic national governments have both pledged and failed to eradicate as an issue of immediate concern. According to Eddie Cottle, Coordinator of the Campaign for Decent Work Toward and Beyond 2010 in South Africa, the amount of South African public money being spent by the government on World Cup preparations “is equivalent to the amount the state spent on housing delivery over a ten-year period.”

Around the globe, the rhetoric employed by government leaders to exalt the potential of sport mega-events bears striking similarities. On October 30, 2009, British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell announced at the Olympic Torch Relay Celebration that “the Olympics bring us together.” In South Africa, the government has announced that the World Cup is an unprecedented “unique opportunity” to build “unity and pride amongst South Africans.” Not only do South African government leaders present the World Cup as an opportunity to unite South Africans but also to unite and develop the African continent as a whole and “celebrate Africa’s humanity.”

UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon stated the South African World Cup is a “time to present a different story of the African continent, a story of peace, democracy and investment.” His statement was met by a unanimous resolution passed in the UN General Assembly to endorse the World Cup in South Africa as a “platform for social development and peace across the African continent.”

Are these mega-sporting events really opportunities to bridge divides and build unity amongst citizens within and across nations?

For a country like South Africa, which is not only adjusting to globalization, but also dealing with massive socio-economic inequalities and ideological differences around issues of gender, race, class, and culture produced by the combined legacy of colonialism and apartheid, what impact can South Africa expect from hosting the World Cup?

As Cottle points out, the costs of sport mega-event infrastructure, such as stadia, are substantially higher in countries of the Global South than countries of the Global North, where the infrastructure to host these events is already in place. On its World Cup in 1994, the US spent less than US $30 million (US $50 million today). France spent less than US $500 million in 1998, and South Korea spent US $2 billion in 2002. The South African government will be spending at least US $4.1 billion by the end of the World Cup. Since 2004, when South Africa won the bid to host the World Cup, the cost to the South African public of building the stadia (and the necessary electricity, communications, roads, parking, water and sanitation infrastructure) to host the event—the most expensive item in the public’s World Cup expenditure—increased by over 750 per cent from the original budget.

Danny Jordaan, CEO of the South African World Cup Local Organizing Committee, claims the benefits of spending this $4.1 billion in public money will trickle down to South Africans through job creation and the development of public infrastructure.

While World Cup construction has created 22,000 jobs, 70-80 per cent of these jobs are subcontracted positions typically lasting three months. Building and Wood Workers International (BWI) research uncovered construction workers working for as little as US $1 per hour. The net wages of an average construction worker in 2008 was approximately US $2 per hour.

As Maytome Tachi, a construction worker at Ellis Park Stadium in Johannesburg notes: “the World Cup creates jobs, but not better working conditions.” Two construction workers have lost their lives at World Cup construction sites. Workers at one of the hallmark sites, Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban, embarked on an 11-day strike in 2007 in part due to unsafe working conditions.

The Durban strike was not unique. Throughout South Africa, World Cup stadia have been plagued not only by poor working conditions; they have also been sites of resistance for workers and their organizations, who have organized 26 strikes throughout the country since World Cup construction began. In July 2009, 70,000 workers embarked on a national strike—the first of its kind in a fragmented sector represented by different labour organizations—to demand a 13 per cent wage increase. In the end, because of inflation rates of 10-15 per cent, the subsequent agreement of 12 per cent did not amount to a substantial increase, let alone a living wage for the average construction worker.

If workers on World Cup projects are struggling to make a living and taxpayers are footing the cost of an ever-expanding bill, who is benefiting from this massive public expenditure?

According to BWI, “construction company annual reports for 2009 indicate mega-profits being made despite the downturn taking place internationally and in the local economy.” The largest South African construction companies report before-tax profits of 58 to 142 per cent. The average CEO of such a company contracted for the World Cup earns around 245 times the income of the average construction worker.

Whereas South African construction companies have been forced to address workers’ demands to a certain extent, as Cottle notes, Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) is guaranteed to make money, regardless of what happens in labour disputes. Thus, the biggest winner from South Africa’s hosting of the World Cup appears not to be a South African business or shareholder, but FIFA. The South African government passed legislation in 2006 treating FIFA and its subsidiaries “as diplomatic missions” and thereby creating a “tax-free bubble” around all their economic activities. With its tax-exempt status and before the World Cup has even begun, FIFA has already reported profits of US $3.2 billion from the 2010 World Cup– the largest profit it has ever made in pre-Cup economic activities.

While FIFA repatriates record profits from the World Cup, construction companies have secured the largest international venue to showcase their world-class stadia and thereby future opportunities for expansion. The South African public, however, will be left footing the bill for World Cup-related costs incurred even after 2010. According to Cottle, there is no way the stadia will generate enough revenue to be self-sustaining. The costs of sustaining them will therefore be offloaded onto municipalities, many of which are already cash-strapped and resorting to increasing fees for public services such as water and electricity.

As a result of its World Cup expenditures and its loss in revenue due to the world economic crisis, the South African government recently announced it is entering into deficit spending and will be borrowing over US $1 billion from international financial institutions. Meanwhile, predicting that World Cup-related travel will not reach the levels originally anticipated, FIFA’s official accommodation agent recently relinquished its rights to around half a million bed nights it had reserved at local hotels. South African corporate analysts then warned that the once-projected massive boost to the South African economy from the World Cup will be “muted.”

As public resources are diverted toward select national and transnational corporations that are profiting from the World Cup being hosted in South Africa, the very same South African public that will be indebted because of the event has had to be mobilized in support of it. Government and big business secured public support for the World Cup by promising that public revenue generated from the event would far exceed the costs of hosting it, and that over 500,000 jobs would be created. To guarantee this continued support, the South African government has spent over US$2.5 million in events to “mobilize communities and create awareness and enthusiasm for the World Cup.” And while the government mobilizes communities in the name of nation-building and “psychological readiness” for the event, it is spending close to US$100 million in security equipment and deploying a dedicated police force of 41,000 officers to contain the same public during the event.

Thus, while the government states it will “leave nothing to chance in securing the event,” it leaves the security of its citizens to chance as it bequeaths them with debt, and millions remain in need of stable housing, water, sanitation, and safe, secure jobs.

On opposite sides of the globe, 2010 in both Canada and South Africa has shown that hosting mega-sport events is actually widening the gap between rich and poor in host countries. The unifying potential of sport is ideologically employed, obscuring class tensions that these mega events in fact reproduce and exacerbate.

Rachel Elfenbein is a PhD student at SFU and Chair of the Teaching Support Staff Union. Before moving to Canada, she conducted popular education and research with civil society organizations in southern Africa. An original version of this article was published by the Vancouver Media Co-op.

SAfrica World Cup

Tiger's Fall from Grace

Moira Peters — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:34:56 +0000

Tiger Woods' self-imposed exile from golf is the most stunning—and stunningly rapid—fall from grace in the history of sports. Not since Shoeless Joe Jackson was banned from baseball after being dubiously blamed for helping throw the 1919 World Series have we seen such a supersonic transition from heroism to heel. And not since Michael Jordan retired from basketball in 1993, following the murder of his father, has a world-class athlete voluntarily taken himself out of his sport in his prime. Woods's exile may last three months or it may last three years. But one thing is certain: unlike the twenty-four-hour wall-to-wall sleaze that's dominated the airwaves since the initial revelations of Woods's infidelity, this is actual news. After 14 years of being protected by the press, the Tiger has become carrion. And now, the greatest golfer in history is walking away.

***

The jury is out on whether Woods’ retreat makes him more sympathetic. But years from now when we look back at this saga, I hope we remember Woods didn't choose to leave golf until his sponsors left him. Woods announced his departure December 11. He hadn't been on a prime time commercial since November 29, three days after the accident, according to the Nielson Company.

The "global consulting company" Accenture dropped Woods from the homepage of its website. AT&T told him not to call. Gillette said that they could find others to shave for the camera. Every part of Tiger Woods Inc. sized up his moment of desperate need and, instead of offering solidarity and support, ran for cover.

Only a couple of companies decided to stand by Woods. "Tiger has been part of Nike for more than a decade," the company said in a statement. "He is the best golfer in the world and one of the greatest athletes of his era. We look forward to his return to golf. He and his family have Nike's full support." This is hardly surprising. Woods has made Nike untold treasure—while resisting pressure to say word one about the abhorrent labor practices that define the company's profit margins.

Mohammad Juma Bu Amin, the chief executive officer of Golf in Dubai said in a direct statement to Woods: "We are with you in this difficult time and respect your request for family privacy. As and when you decide to return to the circuit, you can always count on us.... We will be more than delighted to welcome you to Dubai. Consider Dubai your second home."

So here is Woods in 2010: no tour, a busted marriage, and alone with nothing but his sweatshops to keep him warm.

This is what we call chickens roosting. The least attractive part of Woods's persona—including all recent peccadilloes—is his complete absence of conscience when it comes to peddling his billion-dollar brand. As The Nation has been writing for years, Tiger's partnership with the habitual toxic waste dumpers Chevron and the financial criminals in Dubai deserves far more scrutiny from the sports press than it's received (none).

Then there was the Philippines. As detailed in the documentary The Golf War, the Filipino government in conjunction with the military and developers, attempted in the late 90s to remove thousands of peasants from their land, known as Hacienda Looc, to build a golf course. They resisted and three movement leaders ended up dead. Where was Woods? He was brought in by the government to play in an exhibition match and sell golf (not explicitly the course, wink, wink), all for an undisclosed fee. The government called it "The Day of the Tiger" and followed his—assumedly G-rated—actions for twenty-four hours. The Golf War filmmakers show clips of Woods saying to kids, "I want all of you to learn and grow from this experience. Invariably you're gonna learn life, gonna learn about life because golf is a microcosm of life." Meanwhile the developers of the course were thrilled by the PR boost his appearance gave their project. Macky Maceda, a vice-president for Fil-Estate Land, Incorporated, the golf course developer in Hacienda Looc, commented, "Oh, I think it's going to be a great-picker upper for the entire country in general. Everybody's feeling kind of down with this economic crisis. And Tiger is just, I know it, he's going to give everybody a good feeling."

Romy Capulong, legal counsel for the Hacienda Looc farmers, had a different take: "Tiger Woods should be barred from entering this country, I think. If I can do something about it—I'll certainly do that—to bar him from entering this country and propagating golf."

Woods, with his global ethnic appeal, has been the sport's willing avatar, traveling the global South seeking new acres to conquer. The sports media has for years closed ranks around Woods, defending his right "to not be political."

But he has been political. It's the politics of using golf as a weapon to reap untold riches and all the other attendant privileges of fame. It's the politics of selling yourself as a trailblazing icon, while rolling your eyes at the struggles that made your ascendance possible. It's the politics of placing your brand above any and all other concerns. It's the politics of turning a blind eye to your corporate partners' malfeasance, when there is a buck to be made. This is the real teachable moment of this whole circus: if you front for the worst of the worst, don't expect anyone to have your back.

A version of this article was originally published by The Nation.

Tiger's Fall

Justice Served Cold

david parker — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 23:44:20 +0000

IMG_1191.JPG

Asaf Rashid, one of the four defendants, stands in front of the Nova Scotia Provincial Court. Photo: David Parker

HALIFAX - It was a cold winter's day nearing Christmas, and not much was stirring on the streets of Halifax. In front of the Provincial Court on Spring Garden Road, a group of people huddled together, entering the court for a long-awaited trial date. On December 22, 2008, four Haligonians took the stand and testified in front of a judge to a courtroom packed with supporters.

The defendants had been charged a year and a half earlier after hundreds took to the streets of downtown Halifax on June 15, 2007, to oppose a regional integration proposal known as Atlantica. Charges included carrying weapons, wearing masks with intent, unlawful assembly, and resisting arrest.

The Atlantica demonstrations numbered 400 protesters and included a militant tactic known as a black bloc that intended to shut down the conference.

Demonstrators were targeted by police and reported extreme police brutality, including being choked until unconscious, shocked with taser guns, and beaten by batons.

George Dalli was one of the defendants on trial. "I saw police hitting other people, pepper spraying, tasers were drawn: it was an intense and intimidating situation before the arrest. I told the officers 'I'm not resisting arrest, not trying to be violent.' I was rolled onto my stomach, hands behind my back. I was choked, fingers were jabbed into my neck, I said 'don't do this to me, I'm losing consciousness, don't do this to me', and I continued saying this until I lost consciousness."

The 21 individuals arrested that day spent the next three days in jail, the first 48 hours in lockdown.

Protesters Stage Sit-In at York University

Geordie — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 06:31:58 +0000

A sit-in at York University began Monday where CUPE 3903, the York University union local representing teaching assistants, contract faculty and graduate students has been on strike for 5 weeks.

With the union making a variety of strong demands and the University refusing to bargain further the strike has dragged on for 5 weeks and tensions have grown.

For-profit media has largely written anti-union pieces unilaterally in favour of the University. Many editors in the corporate sphere have suggested the government enact back to work legislation of a questionably legal nature.

In the meantime, 80 students in support of striking workers are occupying the University Presidents Office demanding to question the University President. Classes for the rest of 2008 are scheduled to be canceled today.

Xstrata Faces Strike and Credit Crunch

Geordie — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 05:48:56 +0000

Bad month for Xstrata, one of the worlds biggest mining groups.

First, CAW Local 599 goes on strike in Timmins, Ontario at the Copper Kidd Metallurgical mine.

Then it's pitch to take over Lonmin, an Anglo-African platinum mine company , fails because of the Credit Crisis.

Xstrata took over Canadian mining company Falconbridge in 2006.

Buzz Hargrove joins the NHL!

Geordie — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 02:51:32 +0000

Former labour leader Buzz Hargrove has ignored retirement and joined the advisory board of the NHL Players Association.

According to Hockeybuzz.com: "Buzz Hargrove (Toronto, Ontario) served as the national president of the Canadian Auto Workers Union since his acclamation in 1992 until he recently retired in September 2008. Hargrove has been one of Canada’s top labour leaders and has extensive collective bargaining experience."

Let's hope the players don't mysteriously lose the right to strike!

Free Trade will not Lift All Boats

Moira Peters — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:48:30 +0000

Trade deal with Colombia criticized by Canadian labour leaders

Paul Moist, the President of Canada's largest union, expressed concern about a free trade deal between Canada and Colombia during a recent meeting with Fabio Valencio, Colombia's Minister of the Interior.

"[Valencio] listed off the numbers of unionists murdered in Colombia like he was reading a report on the weather channel," said Moist, President of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). Since the beginning of 2008, 32 Colombian trade unionists have been assassinated.

Moist and three other Canadian labour leaders, representing some 1.1 million workers, returned to Canada on July 25 from a weeklong fact-finding mission in Colombia. They were tasked with examining the potential effects of a free trade deal inked on June 7 between the executive branches of the two countries.

"Our overwhelming conclusion is that a free trade agreement will not help the Colombian people," said the Canadian labour leaders in a statement.

According to the Colombian Network in Response to Free Trade (RECALCA), based on the precedent set with the Canada-Peru agreement, the Colombian government "calculates that overnight, the emaciated and already under-protected agricultural and industrial sectors in Colombia will be capable of competing with their Canadian counterparts." However, RECALCA notes that farmers as well as Colombian manufacturers of "textiles, footwear, plastic products, industrial metals, chemicals and paper as well as machinery and automotive equipment" are threatened by the ratification of the agreement.

The Canadian labour delegation met with various sectors of Colombian society, including government officials, the United Central of Workers (CUT) and other trade unions, opposition leaders, non-governmental organisations, groups representing indigenous and Afro-Colombian peoples as well as the Canadian ambassador. "Colombia continues to be the most dangerous country on earth for trade unions and civil society activists," they said upon return to Canada.

"From what we have learned, 95 per cent of Colombian workers do not have an enforceable collective agreement," Moist explained. "We cannot accept a free trade agreement until this changes."

While Colombia is a signatory to International Labour Organization (ILO) protocols, which should guarantee workers the right to organise independent trade unions, the protocols have not been codified into domestic legalisation, making them practically irrelevant.

"It is easier to form a paramilitary gang than it is to form a trade union in this country," CUT President Tarisco Mora told reporters at a press conference with his Canadian counterparts.

The CUT had 1.5 million members at its founding, Mora told the Canadians. Today it is down to 460,000 due to a combination of legal hurdles to unionisation and violence against union members.

Colombia's National Trade Union School documented 2,245 killings, 3,400 threats and 138 forced disappearances of trade unionists between January 1991 and December 2006. Broken down, that's one unionist killed every three days and one unionist forcibly disappeared every month, for 15 years.

According to a statement by David Emerson, Canada's foreign affairs minister, the deal will expand "trade and investment, and will help solidify ongoing efforts by the Government of Colombia to create a more prosperous, equitable and secure democracy."

Union leaders, including CUPE's Paul Moist, dispute these claims. "In Colombia's current climate, increased foreign investment will not lift all boats," said Moist, citing the case of sugar cane workers with whom he met.

Even a decade ago, most of Colombia's 22,000 cane workers were unionised, according to Moist. Today, the industry has been contracted out and workers receive less money per pound of cane than they did ten years ago.

These trends exist not only in the sugar sector, but across a rapidly industrializing and concentrated agricultural sector. Free Trade Agreements undermine small-scale producers and food sovereignty, encouraging the export of cash crops and increasing the likelihood of dumping by countries with highly subsidized agricultural sectors.

In 2007, two-way merchandise trade between Canada and Colombia amounted to 1.14 billion dollars.

Some analysts believe Colombia is seeking a deal with Canada to win a public relations battle in the US, rather than to increase trade flows.

"Colombia is offering Canada an FTA because it really wants the US Congress to reconsider its opposition to such a deal," wrote Pablo Heidrich, senior researcher at the North-South Institute, a development policy watchdog based in Canada. Congressional Democrats are stalling a similar deal between the US and Colombia because of human right concerns.

With the recent collapse of World Trade Organization talks in Japan due in no small part to opposition from the global south, developed countries are likely to pursue bilateral deals, such as the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, with renewed vigour.

It is unclear what happens now with the Canada-Colombia bilateral deal. Buoyed by high popular approval ratings, Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe has the necessary congressional support and political capital to enact the trade agreement.

The same cannot be said for Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who does not have the parliamentary majority needed to pass legislation without support from other parties.

Canadian opposition parities, including the Liberals and the New Democratic Party, have expressed concern about the deal, especially given the human rights situation in Colombia. "We are not clear where this legislation will go in Canada," Moist told The Dominion.

While opposition parties in both countries remain skeptical of the agreement, business lobby groups support the deal.

"Colombia imposes tariffs averaging 11 per cent on industrial goods, 17 per cent on agricultural and 15 to 20 per cent on cotton yarns and paper products," said Thomas d'Aquino, leader of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE) in a May presentation to a parliamentary committee. "The elimination of these tariffs would greatly benefit Canada," said d'Aquino.

In particular, politically influential Canadian mining firms want access to the vast natural wealth under Colombia's soil. "The proposed agreement would benefit companies and workers in a wide range of industries, including the automotive sector, steel, chemicals, public infrastructure development, oil drilling... mining and advanced manufacturing such as mining machinery and equipment," d'Aquino told Canadian politicians.

While a lack of collective bargaining rights may hurt average workers, foreign interests seem content with the current labour situation in Colombia, taking advantage of the inability of most workers to organize to demand fair pay for fear of extermination. "No Canadian mining operations are unionised in Colombia," says Moist.

A version of this article was previously published by Inter Press Service.

Canadian labour leaders in Bogotá

Workers Rising

hillarybain — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 13:22:36 +0000

Hotel union strikes, rallies and demands social change; gets contracts

“I feel great,” mused Abdul Husseini, a server at the Holiday Inn restaurant on Toronto’s airport strip. On July 15, he was in the middle of a hotel walkout, part of a series of spontaneous rolling strikes aimed at securing an agreement in three Toronto airport hotels. Two weeks and one strike later, tentative agreements had been reached at all three hotels.

Victory for Husseini’s union, UNITE HERE Local 75, was the result of an intense and aggressive campaign, targeting the remaining three member hotels without a contract: the Radisson, Holiday Inn and Fairmont Royal York. Most of the UNITE HERE hotels in Toronto had already settled with the Local 75 “standard contract,” according to Husseini, but Westmont Hospitality Group, who owns or operates these three hotels, had been holding out since 2007, leaving their staff some of the worst paid on the airport strip. “Cooks in my restaurant are paid $4 less than other hotels,” said Husseini.

Working standards in the hotel industry, where most workers are from immigrant communities, are not high to begin with. Heavy workloads, low job security and exploitation are rampant, according to union representatives. “Most days, I don't have time to take a break,” Radisson Suite Hotel room attendant Delsie Morgan was quoted as saying in the Toronto Star. Morgan was making
$13.17 an hour compared with $15 at other hotels.

At the same time, Toronto hotels are enjoying a period of strong economic growth. Westmont Hospitality Group, the Radisson Hotel, the Holiday Inn and the Greater Toronto Hotel Association did not return calls to the Dominion and publicly refused to comment on the strikes. However, speaking in the Toronto Star, Andrew Weir, Vice-president of Communications for Tourism Toronto stated that “hotel occupancy rates were up three per cent in May and another one per cent in June compared to last year.”

Even given the David and Goliath scenario, UNITE HERE’s July actions were unusually militant: spontaneous, rolling strikes are rare in the hospitality industry. More often strike-notice is used as a pressure tactic; it also gives the employer time to prepare for the possibility of a strike. Without notice, managers are left scrambling to cover positions, clean rooms and attempt to calm dissatisfied customers.

If tough tactics like these seem out of the ordinary for a hotel union, it’s not the only thing that UNITE HERE does differently. The seemingly quick victory in July is part of a long-term strategy to engage communities in making change.

Unique membership, leadership

When asked why he and his co-workers decided to organize with Local 75, Husseini says that “Local 75 is very well known in Toronto.” Husseini, who used to belong to the Steel Workers Union, says that UNITE HERE is much better than other unions when it comes to “dealing with communities.” “They provide services to their members: money for training, culture funds…they provide help for the young.”

Few unions have such a high proportion of immigrants as members. “We’re part of the movement for immigrant rights in Toronto and the hotel industry,” says J.J. Feuser, a researcher with UNITE HERE Local 75. “Seventy per cent of our workers are immigrants to Canada.” The union also says 48 per cent of members are women and 53 per cent are visible minorities.

“It’s sometimes an interesting challenge organizing people from different communities with low union density,” says Feuser. “We have to be good at making people absorb the fact that they have rights.

“Our focus is on developing leadership in the rank and file. In every case, workers sit on the negotiating committee at every level of negotiations. Our executive board and solidarity committee…works with the community and take on the role of organizer in the workplace,” says Feuser. This approach empowers the communities and individuals involved with the union, and according to UNITE HERE organizers, makes the union more powerful in the workplace and beyond. “Increasingly we can act on facing problems in the hotels, political fights, helping our members, etcetera,” says Feuser. “We can do that on a dime.”

One of the fights UNITE HERE locals in Canada and the US took on last year is the “Hotel Workers Rising” campaign. The aim of the campaign is to improve working conditions across the board, but most significantly, to have all hotel-worker contracts settled on the same calendar year: 2010.

Though contracts at unionized hotels are common, the fact that so many are now coming up for renewal in 2010 means that UNITE HERE workers are in position to undertake connected labour actions across the continent. A general strike or attempt to increase wages across Canada and the US could be in the works. “[This is] continent-wide: Boston, Honolulu, and Los Angeles,” says Feuser.

With 100,000 of UNITE HERE’s 450,000 North American members being exclusively hotel workers, settling all hotel workers' contracts by 2010 would be a significant accomplishment. According to Feuser, the union is already well on its way.

“Local 75 represents 40 hotels in Toronto. Thirty have been negotiated until 2010,” he says. “The goal is to have the other 10 negotiated to that date as well.”

“Broader issues defining the union”

Andrea van der Heever, an organizer with UNITE HERE based in New Haven, Connecticut, believes that the union’s forays into community activism are what most set it apart from other unions. “I think what distinguishes UNITE HERE is that…the union is not confined to conflicts at the workplace. The union has a role in where people live and in communities. Local 75 is at the forefront in transforming the way a lot of locals are looking at their communities. The broader issues are starting to define the union.”

In Toronto, these "broader issues" include fighting gentrification and demanding rights for immigrants.

Local 75 has begun influencing commercial developments in Rexdale, one of the poorest communities in Toronto. Guled Warsame, an organizer with the union, says that in December 2006 communities in Rexdale found out about an open-house for Woodbine Live: a major expansion of the local race track. "People started asking about local benefits,” says Warsame. “The first big meeting [of coalition partners] was in May 2007; over 600 people came.” Then the Community Organizing for Responsible Development (CORD) campaign was launched. UNITE HERE local 75, the Toronto Social Planning Council and other organizations signed on to support the campaign.

CORD’s goal is to obtain concessions for the Rexdale community. The campaign is modeled after one in the United States in which “everything that the neighbourhood wanted got written into the agreement,” including provisions for parking, housing, hospital debt, jobs, training and asthma reduction, says Van der Heever, who worked with the CORD initiative in New Haven.

When asked about the objectives of Toronto’s CORD campaign, Sima Sahar Zerehi, Communications Specialist with Local 75, says that the Rexdale community has similar goals. “We have a huge shopping list; it’s exhaustive. More jobs, better services, youth services, etc.”

Summer of hope

Beyond its participation in the CORD campaign in Rexdale, UNITE HERE has also joined the “Summer of Hope” campaign.

“The Summer of Hope is a campaign aimed at bringing together members across Toronto to fight for the rights of immigrant workers,” says Zerehi. Tactics have included the union job actions as well as a rally at City Hall on July 31 entitled, 'We Are the New Majority'.

Feuser believes that UNITE HERE’s bargaining tactics, community work and high immigrant membership will eventually gain the support of most workers in Toronto. “It’s in everyone’s interest that service industry jobs are good jobs. Manufacturing jobs are decreasing [in Ontario] and service sector jobs…these are the jobs that are going to be the jobs that stay.”

Unite Here

Unite Here 2

Hard Times Sold in Vending Machines

dru — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 18:48:30 +0000

Worker migration from Atlantic Canada to the tar sands

For Atlantic Canadians, the story of worker migration couldn't be more familiar. Leaving the region for the "boom town" of the day has practically been a rite of passage since the 1970s. The successive waves of worker migration from east to west have been many--the last Alberta energy boom in the seventies, the construction boom in Toronto in the '70s and '80s, the collapse of the cod fishery in Newfoundland, followed by the collapse of coal mining in Cape Breton--and have always resulted in a particular pull for young workers away from the region. This regional story was immortalized by Donald Shebib's classic 1970 film "Goin' Down the Road," which follows two men who leave Cape Breton in search of a better life in Toronto, only to end up bouncing from one poorly paid job to another. The shock of rural life colliding with urban poverty was aptly captured in Bruce Cockburn's song of the same name, which he wrote for the film: "I came to the city with the sun in my eyes/ My mouth full of laughter and dreams/ But all that I found was concrete and dust/ And hard times sold in vending machines."

Today, it is difficult to exaggerate the impact that worker migration to the Alberta Tar Sands has had for Atlantic Canada. Although credible estimates for numbers of workers who have been moving west are difficult to gauge, few doubt that they are in the tens of thousands. One would be hard pressed to find anyone in the region who does not know someone working out west.

But the move by thousands of Atlantic Canadians to Fort McMurray in recent years differs from past worker migrations.

"The key difference," says Reg Anstey, president of the Newfoundland Federation of Labour, "is that in the other outmigrations of significance, like when the fisheries shut down, a lot of people took pretty lousy jobs."

According to Anstey, unlike during other times of economic collapse in Newfoundland, when workers took jobs in fish or meat-packing plants in Atlantic Canada and Ontario, Newfoundland labour is now a much sought-after commodity.

"This is the first time where almost everyone who's working out there, their way up is paid and their way back is paid by the company," says Anstey.

As of 2006, the shortage of workers across the province was estimated by the Alberta government to be around 100,000 workers. Canadian National Resources Limited has begun offering three flights a week from Alberta to Newfoundland, while Air Canada has added a 'Fort McMurray Express.' The National Post reported in May that almost a third of the residents of Fort McMurray were believed to be from Newfoundland alone.

Anstey sees many advantages for Newfoundland from the oil boom. The province, like other regions of Atlantic Canada, is in the relatively early stages of developing its own oil and gas sector. Until the Lower Churchill Valley hydroelectric project and the Hebron offshore oil project are able to deliver high-paying jobs for Newfoundland's workforce, Anstey sees the migration of workers, whose return flights are likely booked in advance by their employers, as a method of training a generation of workers for these projects.

However, the pull of workers from the region is still somewhat alarming. The populations of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia are shrinking, according to Statistics Canada, while New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island registered the lowest population growth rate of all provinces in Canada between 2006 and 2007. Newfoundland in particular, with an economy that has not yet recovered from the collapse of the commercial fishery in the early 1990s, is now in a state of population decline, with more people dying than are being born. Regional papers frequently carry stories about labour shortages for local trucking companies and fish plants. This shortage, in a startling parallel to Alberta's own industry "solution" to its own tar sands-fueled labour shortage, is prompting increasing calls from east coast business leaders to fill these positions by importing Temporary Foreign Workers.

However, for Atlantic Canadian workers travelling to Fort McMurray, the effects of this migration may not be fully known for years to come.

Steve Gaul, a resident of Halifax, worked various stints in the oil fields for a total of three years, most recently as a roughneck on a rigging crew. When asked about conditions on the job, Gaul says he discovered that exposure to harmful chemical agents was frequent.

"There's lots of Benzene and substances that you're gonna come in contact with fairly frequently. These kinds of things are very unhealthy, they even [result in] birth defects," said Gaul.

Material Safety Data Sheets detailing information about the various chemicals with which workers might come in contact were "diligently provided" to workers, but Gaul says that workers are not given time to read them.

Despite this, Gaul is quick to point out that his contractor instituted a "safety bonus" each hour for crews who maintained the safety of all members. Overall, however, he notes that rigging work is "a dangerous job by nature."

The effects of such chemicals may appear long after a worker has left a job site. As pointed out in an April 2006 column by Alberta Federation of Labour researcher Jason Foster, cancer caused by workplace exposure to chemicals like benzene are not recognized, nor even recorded by the Alberta Workers' Compensation Board (WCB)or the Alberta government.

According to WCB statistics, the WCB accepted 29 new claims for work-related cancer and recognized 38 fatalities due to occupational cancer in 2005. However, the Alberta Cancer Board estimates that eight per cent of all cancers in Alberta are work-related. This means over 1,000 new cases of work-related cancer are diagnosed and more than 400 workers die of occupational cancer each year.

Fewer than one in 10 occupational cancer fatalities are recognized by the WCB.

In addition, Alberta currently has one of the highest rates of workplace deaths in the country, and the number of workplace accidents reported in the province in 2006 was 181,159--an increase of 7.4 per cent from the previous year.

Stories of injuries and close-calls are not hard to come by. George Marshall, a 26-year-old PEI resident worked only a few days in 2006 as a labourer but "almost died twice" on the job. The first close call, according to Marshall, was on account of a fall, while the second was due to "a piece of the rig [that] disconnected and came hurtling toward me."

Jason Fraser, a 24-year-old iron worker from Chester, Nova Scotia, recently spent six weeks working in Fort Mackay. During his last week on the job, there were two serious injuries at his worksite: a structural steel worker injured both heels after a fall and a platefitter sustained facial cuts from a piece of steel. He believes that some contractors deliberately undercount the number of workplace injuries.

Fraser had difficulty adjusting to life within the work camps, which he says resembled university dorms, aside from the fact that they "basically look like a bomb dropped [on them]." After work, there was little to do within the camps.

"I've had problems with alcoholism and I just drank every night for five weeks."

Fraser also had a number of moral qualms with his work, which he believes may have contributed to his drinking.

"Nobody ever thought about the environmental impact," he says. "I had a lot of moral repression. I felt really bad for what I was taking part in."

Gaul also points out that few workers showed regard to the ethics and sustainability of the oil projects, and recalls that the subject of climate change was laughed at by instructors and workers alike during one of his training courses. He also believes that the long hours of work, coupled with the boredom of camp life, often leads to a general feeling of isolation.

"As far as the social atmosphere in the camps, it's not really the most healthy environment. There's a lot of negativity and built-up misery being shared and communicated. There are a lot of people that are in the situation where they're spending way too much time away from their family to have any kind of semblance of regular family life."

It is likely due to these "quality of life" issues that many workers from Atlantic Canada view their positions in Alberta as being largely temporary. Fort McMurray, with its overwhelming growth rate and its infrastructural inability to cope with this growth, is an unlikely candidate for long-term settlement for Atlantic Canadian workers. East Coast workers, though perhaps as naive to the hazards of the oil industry as their predecessors were to the reality of life in Toronto in the 1970s, are by now no strangers to moving to where the work is. Many recognize the higher cost of living in the West, as well as the sky-high rate of inflation in Alberta and realize that their money will stretch further on the East Coast than it will in Alberta. Some, like Anstey, see the abundance of Atlantic Canadians in the Alberta oil patch as an interim gig, as workers tide themselves over in advance of the opening of the Hibernia and Lower Churchill Valley projects. These mega-projects are likely to yield their own environmental and social impacts as well in the years to come, as the East Coast as a whole shifts its economy towards the production of oil and gas resources for export.

Still, many expect to one day see a similar job boom in the east, one that they believe might break their diet of "hard times sold in vending machines."

Acadie en Alberta

Impacting Unimpaired

dru — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 03:36:25 +0000

New agreements like the SPP and TILMA are aimed directly at unimpeded extraction in the tar sands

Demonstrations against the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) began in the Summer of 2007, but several of the issues raised by anti-SPP organizers invoked déjà vu for many observers: informal agreements, secret talks, plans to do away with layers of national sovereignty in favour of corporate rules of engagement set to supersede labour organizing, environmental regulations or human rights. The laundry list of rule changes sounded a lot like debates of years past--the FTA, MAI, APEC, FTAA and NAFTA.

However, a deeper look at the driving force behind the new acronyms tells a different story, one of a world with new dynamics like peak oil, tar sands and the extreme measures that North American governments are attempting to use in the tar sands to keep an oil-dependent economy going.

Before the SPP became a larger issue nationally and continentally, the Trade, Investment & Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA) had already been passed in British Columbia and Alberta. The agreement, having passed as legislation and set to be "phased in" by April 2009, plays a role complementary to the SPP and continues to be similarly criticized by many organizers for the anti-democratic way it has been implemented.

According to an analysis published by the Canadian Union of Public Employees, TILMA "encompasses provincial and local governments, regional districts, school boards, health and social services.

"Nearly every action by a government, now and in the future, is potentially constrained unless expressly excluded in the agreement. Measures are defined broadly and include any legislation, regulation, standard, directive, requirement, guideline, program, policy, administrative practice, or other procedure."

CUPE also describes the SPP as "another attempt of corporate America, in partnership with their political and corporate allies in Canada and Mexico, to reduce the power of government to protect citizens from profit-hungry business.

"Their intention is to scale down government regulations and controls that try to protect our society, culture and environment. Specifically, the SPP will minimize controls in areas like immigration, food and agriculture, natural resource exploitation, public services and entertainment."

TILMA is a new set of limitations on government's ability to regulate and the SPP is the removal of a pre-existing set of regulations. Both TILMA and the SPP have specific aims that go beyond the usual attempt to enshrine investors' rights and protect corporations from government regulations.

Both agreements pave the way--in many cases literally--for the largest industrial project in history to move forward: a project that calls for the extraction of over 170 billion barrels of recoverable oil from the tar sands of Alberta's Athabasca, Peace and Cold Lake regions.

The SPP and TILMA have anticipated popular resistance and preemptively removed the ability of governments to control the massive supply of energy, land, water and labour needed in the tar sands. They similarly preempt governments' ability to regulate the destruction and pollution that the "gigaproject" will create.

The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers union (CEP) is concerned.

"As energy workers, we are compelled first of all to respond to the SPP energy agenda," the CEP said in a statement. "Through the SPP and the North American Energy Working Group, the governments of Mexico, United States and Canada have formed an unprecedented collaboration with energy corporations to promote the continental integration of our energy industries and infrastructures."

The result has surprisingly few benefits for Alberta or Canada. A massive, ecologically rich region will be reduced to an industrial sacrifice area. The synthetic crude that it renders will go south to the US. Royalties for Albertans and Canadians are minimal, and communities living in the vast area that will be strip-mined--Indigenous and settler alike--will be dismantled.

The "Oil Sands Experts Working Group," a part of the 2006 SPP meetings in Houston, calls the tar sands "a significant contributor to energy supply and security for the continent." According to the group, it was founded "when the three countries agreed to collaborate through the SPP on the sustainable development of the oil sands resources." The working group includes the US, Canadian and Alberta government representatives.

What does "sustainable development of the oil sands resources" consist of? The same SPP report says that it requires expanded "integrated long distance pipelines," plans for which are "already in place" to accommodate "the certain doubling of oil sands production to two million barrels per day by 2010.

"The five-fold expansion anticipated for oil sands products in a relatively short time span," the report says, "will represent many challenges for the pipeline industry."

To accomplish this, the report concludes, "Governments are encouraged to streamline the regulatory approval process and better manage the risk to both pipeline and energy projects.

"Canadian governments have already gone a long way to co-ordinating and streamlining the environmental and regulatory approvals, but more needs to be done."

TILMA sets up a free trade zone between Alberta and B.C. that "breaks down barriers" for all industries. April 2007 saw the official beginning of the TILMA agreement, sold as giving Alberta and B.C. a "competitive" way to deal with Ontario's vast size advantage. In reality, TILMA turns the provinces into locations where corporations can sue any person or entity that tries to legislate or otherwise invoke regulations that would make investment more "troublesome." The agreement bans measures which "impact or impair" investment and allows even an individual investor the right to sue governments to knock down such "impediments" and receive compensation for loss of revenue.

What can be seen as an impediment under TILMA is extensive. Under NAFTA, corporations can "challenge" legislation that affects their profits. A third party then rules on the "dispute" at hand. This has seen Canada paying to maintain some of its legislation around tobacco and environmental regulations, for example.

TILMA, however, starts on the assumption that the investor is correct. Unlike the resolution process seen in Chapter 11 of NAFTA, the current agreement includes an automatic up-to-$5 million penalty for a government body (at any level other than federal) that violates the rules of "free access" for capital. For example, if a city blocks the construction of a building for reasons of heritage, costing a corporation a projected $4 million, then the governing body that invokes the regulations "impacting or impairing" owes that corporation $4 million.

Article 3 of TILMA reads, in part: "Each Party shall ensure that its measures do not operate to restrict or impair trade between or through the territory of the Parties, or investment or labour mobility between the Parties." The agreement has specifically designed protocols for hearings to be held if one or more of the signatories are in breach of the agreement.

These secretive deals and agreements are taking place during the single largest energy policy shift in North America since the peaking of US domestic oil production in the seventies.

Internationally, the US is in a scramble for remaining oil reserves. Chinese demand for oil continues to grow. Disasters such as hurricanes and war--and the fact that only one barrel of oil is discovered for every nine that are used--have brought oil prices to record highs since the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003. With an economic and military structure that needs vast supplies of hydrocarbons everyday, North American energy concerns have found the oil "boom" in Northern Alberta that was expected in the aftermath of a regime change in Iraq.

In response to Chinese interest in the tar sands, US energy expert Irving Mintzer blurted out, "The problem with the Chinese is that they don't know that the Canadian oil is ours. And neither do the Canadians." In the same breath Mintzer noted, "One provocation for rethinking US energy policy will be when Chinese investment in Canadian tar sands and Venezuelan oil development make it increasingly difficult for us to get access to the resources."

That hypothetical situation has come about more quickly, since the Iraqi resistance has cut off access to "stable" flows of petroleum and Venezuela has reduced its contribution to US energy markets by one third. The US has shifted their boom from Baghdad and Kirkuk to Fort McMurray and Grand Prairie. Many Venezuelans who oppose their country's socialist government have re-settled in Alberta.

Whether led by Liberals or Conservatives, Canada has been more than willing to help this shift. Approvals for tar sands operations and newly designed agreements help to take Tar Sands development to unfathomable levels of expansion.

The industry that extracts bitumen and then crude oil from tar sands was once aiming to get to production levels of one million barrels per day (bpd) by 2012. Last year, the average already surpassed 1.3 million. The swiftly rising price of oil and the near-impossibility of a long term drop in price has suddenly allowed a major shift towards producing this oil, which is only profitable at a barrel price of at least $30.

The production process of the synthetic oil is unlike anything else: there are huge labour and energy needs currently unavailable to the producers, needs that are being drawn up and planned through TILMA and the SPP.

The US Department of Energy and Natural Resources Canada had another secret meeting, along with US energy corporations, in February 2006. Some details of the meeting were leaked earlier this year to the CBC. The agenda: to reduce labour and environmental rights in order to ramp up production from the Athabasca, Peace and Cold Lake tar sands to five million barrels per day.

The United States has reorganized their long-term plans for petroleum energy by setting a goal to get up to 25 per cent of their daily oil from tar sands based operations (in addition to Canada's conventional oil). In 2003, the US Department of Energy began declaring tar sands reserves part of their calculation of oil imported from Canada. This will include massive pipeline construction across territories within British Columbia, made nearly impossible to block by TILMA.

The SPP is setting the stage for the creation of a series of "super highways" that may extend from as far as Panama City north to Edmonton and branching off to the three "hot spots" of the Albertan Peace and Athabasca Regions and northeast British Columbia.

Along with the reduction in labour rights across both provinces through TILMA, the SPP will provide much-needed labour through the expansion of the "temporary foreign workers" program. The growth of Alberta's economy has already exceeded the available population of workers. Workers from the Maritimes are paid to fly to Fort McMurray from Moncton, Halifax or St. John's and work in camps in the tar sands.

The energy needs of production in the tar sands process--whether the strip-mining operations or the "in-situ" underground "Steam-assisted gravity Drainage" (Sag-D) procedure--are equal to almost a third of what is produced. (For comparison purposes, the crude in Iraqi reserves produces about 100 times the energy that is needed to pump it out.) Sag-D consumes more energy and water than strip-mining operations, setting the stage for the requisite equivalent of four to five billion cubic feet of natural gas per day required in tar sands operations if they become fully operational.

This reality is what is leading Energy Alberta to promote nuclear power for the Peace Region, where Sag-D has barely even begun to operate.

The two maps included show the plans for this vast expansion, both in terms of the importation of labour by highway and the construction of needed energy supplies by pipeline to get to the planned five million bpd.

The first one shows the flow of goods and labour. The aim of TILMA and the SPP is the immediate creation of far more labour inflow from places such as Mexico and China, most of it ultimately destined to work in the tar sands. Canadian Natural Resources Limited (CNRL) began using 500 Chinese labourers on a "guest worker" program at their Horizons Oilsands Project last year. The SPP is a cost-effective means of importing needed labour and keeping costs down at the same time, through enacting 'labour mobility' and allowing non-citizen workers to be exploited at rates currently unreported.

The Alberta Federation of Labour points out that 2006 was the first year that the number of people admitted into Alberta who were not even allowed to apply to become landed immigrants (let alone citizens) exceeded the number of new immigrants. With agreements like the SPP in place, this will increase sharply. With TILMA, every time a labour right is undermined, it becomes the new bottom line.

According to Gil McGowan of the Alberta Federation of Labour, "Employers are using temporary foreign workers as a way to suppress wages and working conditions and to avoid legitimate unions...we oppose the importation of hundreds of workers just to complete a job and then sending them back home. That is exploitation."

The truly daunting reality is that the production level being proposed will have no other option: the only way to keep up with projected production rates is to bring in people from outside.

The guest worker programs keep non-status workers in camps where they are not allowed visitations by any union. The only means by which such a "guest" will be allowed to stay beyond the term of their contract (up to 24 months) is if the employer applies, not the individual. Figures on pay and to whom it is delivered are not available and have not yet been obtained by organized labour in Alberta--we simply do not know how much migrant workers in the tar sands are being paid.

The "guest workers" may not end up only in the camps. The proposed size of tar sands expansion is such that constructing infrastructure for vast new energy "inputs" will take thousands of workers as well. Two pipelines of various gas are needed "in" to the tar sands for every pipeline going "out."

The energy needed to go into the tar sands are slated to come from the natural gas in such places as Alaska's north slope, coal-fired mega plants in Alberta, proposed nuclear reactors in the Peace Region and near Whitecourt, along with the industrialization of the Mackenzie Valley (and much more). The outward shipping of bitumen-sludge (later converted to mock oil) entails corridors across Saskatchewan and Manitoba, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas and more, all the way to Texas and Louisiana. These schemes, in particular the one known as the Keystone Pipeline headed by TransCanada, is already causing the AFL to warn of dire consequences for job loss and deregulation of currently union-run operations.

The other corridor for sending sludge to refineries is slated to be across British Columbia, over the lands of the Carrier, Gixtsan, Haisla, Tsimshian and other unceded nations to a yet-to-be-constructed port to operate out of Kitimat, where oil could theoretically be shipped to California, Japan and China. The same port would serve to import "diluent" from Russia, a kerosene-like substance used to make the thick mud of bitumen flow like oil in a pipe.

"Pipeline ruptures happen, they're inevitable," says Gerald Amos of the Haisla Nation from Gitamaat Village on the Coast of B.C., where the construction of a Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) port is being planned.

"We just don't know the location yet...All of the proponents of the Gateway project and all the other pipelines which would mean more tanker traffic here point out that we've had tanker traffic here, big ships coming in for about 40 to 50 years now. I think you are talking about a substantially different ball game when you talk about supertankers."

This project, the "Enbridge Gateway," is currently delayed due to lawsuits launched by seven First Nations, Indian Act-mandated governments and the China National Petroleum Company's withdrawal from the project.

Other pipelines heading southward are the Alberta Clipper Project and the Spearhead Expansion Project, also led by Enbridge, a self-described "leader in energy transportation." In June of this year, the first new refinery in the United States in decades was announced. The map shows only some of the refineries planning to receive tar sands bitumen.

Under the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board, every single project in the Athabasca, Cold Lake and Peace River tar sands region has been approved. TILMA will streamline the regulations in line with these projects across all of B.C. and Alberta. It will also mean the elimination of a long-time moratorium on oil and gas offshore tankers on the central coast of B.C.

Kitimat and Gitamaat Village, currently host to major Gray and Humpback whale migration, would see 330 super tankers of oil and gas a year migrating offshore, according to the Dogwood Initiative. Nations up and down the proposed corridor would see a loss of forest cover in areas where giant grizzlies still roam near ranchlands.

The oil and gas going to and from the tar sands would cross rivers and streams and the tankers will come near 1,000 salmon spawning areas. Upon completion, the entire 1,200-plus kilometre pipeline systems would provide 75 full-time jobs. Enbridge has quietly shifted gears towards building the infrastructure to send the current bump in oil production to Texas, promising to complete this project at a later date.

That later date may well coincide with the B.C. government's other "Pacific Gateway Strategy," designed to use TILMA, the SPP, the 2010 Olympics and vast tar sands export growth to make the West Coast of Canada a major hub of de-regulated trade with Asia.

It could soon be illegal and not 'merely' politically difficult to regulate how these constructions go ahead. Environmental regulation, revenue for nations who approve the use of their lands, taxation for reclamation purposes, requirements on unionization for the construction--all of these things are being legislated and signed away.

With TILMA, Alberta and B.C. have united to ensure that the oil dug out of the earth is sent south, at an incomprehensible rate. The primary legacy of the project will be run-away climate emissions, the second fastest rate of deforestation on earth, the dismantling of previously won workers' rights, a sacrifice area in Alberta the size of Florida and the removal of meaningful democratic oversight at the community level.

The usual critiques of the SPP and TILMA are not inaccurate. Placing new developments in a global context, however, changes our understanding of what is driving this latest set of deals. Instability around the planet, dwindling reserves of oil, a collapsing American dollar and more are exposing imperial economic structures to a level of insecurity unknown in a generation. By lurching headlong in 2003 towards the Albertan tar sands, the US has made the rising price of oil work to their advantage, rather than its opposite; when the price of oil goes up, those who invest heavily in expensive, unconventional oil gain a larger foothold in market share.

The SPP and TILMA have been drawn up to increase and integrate this into a decades-long strategy for North American economic stability, a strategy that does not address our dependence on oil. Understanding the true nature of these plans allows people to make informed decisions about what to do during the rapid changes in energy politics--changes that will affect the entire population of North America (and the planet) for decades to come.

SPP Tar Sands

NAFTA Trade Corridors