“In any situation, a 97% strike mandate vote is extraordinarily high, though the workers at Loblaw are dealing with very exceptional conditions. Loblaw’s contract offer includes a proposed 25% cut to workers’ wages, increased waiting time for benefits eligibility, a reduction in full-time jobs, and the imposition of availability-for-work rules on part-time workers that would make it almost impossible for them to hold another job or attend school while working for Loblaw. Loblaw says that these concessions, as well as the greater “operational flexibility” resulting from the reduction in full-time jobs and the imposition of availability-for-work rules for part-time workers, are necessary for them to compete in an industry in which the majority of workers are no longer unionized. In an e-mail to the Toronto Star, Julija Hunter, Vice-President of Public Relations for Loblaw, justified the wage concessions and the greater job instability the company is asking their workers to accept by claiming that Loblaw pays “10 percent more than competitors and have 15 percent less flexibility.” She claims that this situation creates “a real competitive disadvantage” for the company and is “not sustainable.” Loblaw president Allan Leighton claims that Loblaw is at a disadvantage because most of its rivals are non-unionized, pay their employees less, and have more “flexibility.” Leighton has said, “This is a watershed period in our industry. It’s time for a change.” This shows the much broader importance of the battle currently being waged by Loblaw workers.”

“A UN anti-racism panel has demanded that France stop rounding up and expelling Roma people and slammed the increasingly “racist and xenophobic tone” of top politicians.”

By Patrick Cockburn | CounterPunch

rabble.ca | By Frances Russell | The tone of political discourse, already shifted sharply right with the advent of Conrad Black’s National Post in 1998, is about to leap further down that road. The signs are numerous and ominous.

“Mother nature will have the last word. Mad cow disease was a warning. Swine flu was a warning. MRSA was a warning. The egg recall was a warning. But we haven’t hit the big one yet.” | By Russel Mokhiber

“As a class conscious young worker, and a committed communist, Volodya was naturally opposed to capitalist restoration, but he was also critical of the corrupt bureaucracy that had undermined the gains of the October Revolution and, in most cases, gone over to capitalism. Looking for a radical alternative to the bureaucracy and capitalism, he first joined a small pro-Albanian Stalinist Party. He was present at the founding congress of the Russian Communist Workers’ Party (RKRP). But in the early 1990s, when Russia was plunged into a maelstrom by the capitalist counterrevolution, Volodya began to study the works of Trotsky. Through experience and discussion, he broke with Stalinism and wholeheartedly embraced the ideas of Leon Trotsky, the genuine continuer of Bolshevism-Leninism.”

“The findings counter the reports by a joint industry-government panel that the pollutant levels are due to natural sources rather than human development.

Mercury, thallium and other pollutants accumulated in higher concentrations in snowpacks and waterways near and downstream from oilsands development than in more remote areas, said a study to be published Monday afternoon in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences…

The study led by Erin Kelly and David Schindler of the University of Alberta also found that levels of the pollutants cadmium, copper, lead, mercury, nickel, silver and zinc exceeded federal and provincial guidelines for the protection of aquatic life in melted snow or water collected near or downstream from oilsands mining.”
- “Action to protect the environment: Only public ownership of the land, major industries, oil, mining and logging companies, energy and transport, can form the basis of a genuine socialist approach to the environment. Environmental plans would be measured in generations, not fiscal quarters.” –From the Fightback Programme

–More money for the wrong things.

Comments seen as signal to voters not to choose left-leaning Ed Miliband as new leader | guardian.co.uk
Militants need to get active in the Labour Party to make it once again the party of socialism in the UK.

By Roger Rashi | rabble.ca | Moving to the right means the Parti Québecois’s social democratic veneer is in tatters, with labour support becoming muted and activists casting an eye towards Québec solidaire.

By Murray Dobbin | rabble.ca | The Harper government promises a coming political season that looks depressingly like the old. Ignatieff is missing in action. Now is the chance for the NDP to step into the leadership void.

-featuring Noam Chomsky and Thomas Fergson, author of ‘Golden Rule: the Investment Theory of Party Competition’

“The approximately 100 workers are members of the United Steelworkers. The union represents Delta Brunswick hotel housekeepers and kitchen staff, as well as maintenance workers in the Brunswick Square mall and parking lot attendants in the attached garage.

The strike issues include union representation during meetings, as well as workload.

Union representative Mario Fortunato said hotel room cleaners are typically responsible for 14 rooms a day, but managers are asking for more.

“What the union wants and what the workers want is something that’s sustainable, because after a while it becomes leverage against the workers,” he said. “If you’re not a favourite or if you cause a stir, suddenly you’re cleaning 16 double rooms or you’re cleaning 16 suites and they can’t sustain it.” Some workers are getting tendinitis, he said.”

Finally, mainstream Israeli dissent over the country’s continual occupation of Palestinian land.

“Five leading Israeli theatres were facing a mounting political row yesterday after a pledge by 60 of the country’s most prominent actors, writers and directors to boycott the companies’ planned performances in a Jewish West Bank settlement. … Mr Netanyahu raised the artists’ protest at the weekly meeting of his cabinet and declared that Israel was facing a campaign from “elements” abroad to “delegitimise” Israel. “The last thing we need at this time, while under such an attack, is an attempt for boycotts from within,” he said. “I don’t want to revoke every artist’s right to a political opinion, but we as a government should not fund boycotts against Israel’s citizens.”

“An influential Israeli rabbi has said God should strike the Palestinians and their leader with a plague, calling for their death in a fiery sermon before Middle East peace talks set to begin next week.”

Also see: Erekat: Israeli religious figure urging genocide of Palestinians | Ha’aretz

“The 89-year-old is a respected religious scholar but is also known for vitriolic comments about Arabs, secular Jews, liberals, women and gays, among others.”

Evidence is mounting in favour of the decriminalization of drugs such as marijuana | G&M editorial

“At roughly 21 square miles (54 square kilometers), the ice chunk that broke free from the Ward Hunt was much smaller than the ice island that calved from Greenland’s Petermann Glacier a few weeks earlier.”

“This treatment of Islam as the permanent “other” is not unrelated to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but the attitude is as wrong as the anti-Semitism that ignited prejudice and genocide during the first half of the 20th century. A million Iraqis dead since the occupation: Who cares? Afghan civilians dying every day: It’s their own fault. Pakistani engulfed in floodwaters. Indifference. That is undoubtedly one reason for the lack of response. Another is home-grown. Many citizens of Pakistani origin I have spoken to in recent weeks are reluctant to send money because they fear it will end up in the huge pockets of the corrupt leaders who govern the country.”

Al Jazeera: floods have destroyed hectares of cotton and caused the country to lose billions of dollars.

In January of this year, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the interrogation of [Omar] Khadr constituted “state conduct that violates the principles of fundamental justice” and “offends the most basic Canadian standards about the treatment of detained youth suspects.” According to the Toronto Star, the Court instructed the government to “shape a response that reconciled its foreign policy imperatives with its constitutional obligations to Khadr,” but the puppet prime minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, ignored the Court and permitted the US government to proceed with its lawless abuse of a Canadian citizen. | Paul Craig Roberts

If Beck’s hijacking provokes some honesty among the left in general about King and about black leadership today, then Beck will have performed a useful service. Too late now to organize the obvious, a huge counter demonstration to call Beck to accounts and run him and Palin off. The left is too weak for that, having now given up gluten which has given us leavened bread for 5,000 years. | Alexander Cockburn | CounterPunch

Despite grim financial realities, tight race kicks off in a flurry of photo-op retail politics | G&M