–Socialist activists elected at the University of London Union.

“If anyone was voting yes to Vale Inco’s offer to settle the 10-month strike by United Steelworkers, they were not admitting it out loud in the halls, the basement and the parking lot of Caruso Club on Thursday morning and early afternoon. “

“On the eve of the latest strike the European Trade Union Confederation expressed its “whole solidarity” with Greece… The ETUC roundly condemned unelected EU institutions for “giving an entirely wrong message – speculators are not to be touched while workers and governments are pressed to cut wages, social benefits and public services.”"

See also CBC’s coverage (with photos).

“Rally for Steelworker Locals 6500 and 6200 on strike at Vale Inco in Sudbury, Port Colborne and Voisey’s Bay.

Three years ago, Vale – a giant multinational corporation, based in Brazil – bought Canada’s mining company Inco. Now it has forced 3,500 miners and smelter workers in Sudbury, Port Colborne and Voisey’s Bay out on strike. It’s demanding huge rollbacks in pensions, nickel bonus and seniority rights.”

-Video footage of the rally. “We know where the wealth comes from, and we know who it should belong to”. “When we bring the system down, she’ll be there to help it fall”. Some great quotes from the rally.

–National Graduate Caucus of the Canadian Federation of Students responds to Budget 2010.

–Canadian Federation of Students respond to Budget 2010.

–National Aboriginal Caucus of the Canadian Federation of Students’ response to Budget 2010.

–The CLC’s response to Budget 2010.

–National Union of Public and General Employees response to Budget 2010.

–Canadian Union of Public Employees response to Budget 2010.

–Support student strikes.

–It looks like the federal government is going to ramp-up the attack on our public services and our public services workers. We must defend the gains of the past by standing with the public service against cuts and roll-backs. Further, we must strive for the government to invest in the one area of the economy that benefits all Canadians.

–Brooklyn ACORN members cleared of any wrong-doing.

“Class resentment used to be the preserve of the left. That workers were too poor could be blamed on the fact that bosses were too wealthy. If governments needed money, the preferred solution – rhetorically at least – was to make the rich pay [...] Today, class resentments have been turned on their head. The focus of anger is not the silk-hatted capitalist but his unionized workers, with their job protection guarantees, their pension plans and their good wages.”

I think we can all agree that the fundamental problem was never that the bosses were too wealthy; it’s that there are bosses at all. Nevertheless, this article fairly accurately reports the ideological shift that occurred in Canada sometime in the 1980s, even if it does not adequately explain this shift.

–CUPE economist Toby Sanger takes the Conference Board of Canada’s latest report on public-private partnerships apart. The Conference Board was exposed last year as an extremely partisan and part of the neo-liberal quasi-think tank echo-chamber. The issue of P3s is of particular importance during the current economic slump as the government is desperate to find short-term fixes to their budget shortfalls without cancelling their tax-cuts to the wealthy. Once again, the Conference Board has obliged trying to state that P3s are not that bad. Nonsense, of-course, but it is good to see that CUPE is responding.

“Greece faces a growing fuel shortage as a customs workers’ strike halts the flow of petrol into the country.

The shortage was the first serious consequence of growing labour protests against the government’s emergency spending cuts programme.”

Adam Turl reviews a new book that tells the story of how Wal-Mart became the biggest–and meanest–employer in the U.S.

–Obviously, this is outrageous. The student movement in Venezuela continues to be lead by the right-wing.

“Turkish trade unionists are set to kick off a one-day general strike on Thursday in solidarity with workers hit by Ankara’s decision to sell 12 state-owned factories to British American Tobacco…. In December managers told employees that they would be redeployed on temporary contracts to other parts of the public sector, with watered-down employment rights and pay cuts of up to 40 per cent.

The workers would be obliged to join civil servant’s unions which do not have the right to strike or engage in collective bargaining.”

-about 2 million workers will be participating.

–The Canadian Federation of Students have put out a release highlighting new data on student debt by StatsCan.

From the Release:
According to the study well over a majority of students borrowed to finance their post-secondary education, up almost 10% from a decade earlier. The proportion of graduates with high debt loads (over $25,000) increased by more than 50% during the same period, from 17% to 27%. Recent graduates who borrowed to finance their education were significantly less likely to have savings and investments and to own their own homes. The study did not provide information on students who could not afford to complete their degrees.

Please read SAIA’s Israeli Apartheid Week Endorsement Proposal and distribute freely.

“This year Apartheid Week [March 01-06, 2010] is in its sixth annual and will take place concurrently in over 40 cities worldwide, including Toronto, Montreal, New York, Philadelphia, Bay Area, Chicago, Washington, London, Oxford, and cities in South Africa. For more information about Israeli Apartheid week, please visit our website … The success of Israeli Apartheid Week depends on the support we receive every year from various groups across the city and in universities. Please let us know if you would like to be listed as an endorser of Israeli Apartheid Week (email your endorsement to saia@riseup.net). We would also very much appreciate it if you could forward the schedule of the week’s events to your members when the time comes to distribute the week’s call-out.”

“The average pay packet of Canada’s 100 highest-paid CEOs hit more than $7.3 million in 2008, a new report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has found. The $7,352,895 figure is 174 times more than the average wage of the typical Canadian worker.”