–Support the public postal service.

–The CPI (Marxist) may leave the coalition it formed with Congress after the last election. Congress would be wise to yield to the communists’ demand of independent nuclear policy and rational economic policy.

–The TUAC has released its latest statement for the G8. For those interested in the way that international labour organizations interact with the groups like the G8, have a read.

–Great to see some solidarity among unions!

Two weeks after a new contract in which GM bosses promised no more layoffs and no more plant closures until 2011, in exchange for a wage freeze and other concessions, they have now announced closure! The profit motive is stronger than any rotten deal the union tops can broker with the bosses and they are prepared to break the law to do so. Workers will be drawing some bitter lessons from this experience.

–The violence will not stop until the government takes serious action to bring these criminals and murderers to justice.

–Columbia is not the only place that has attacks against trade unionists.

–The same solution that we (used to) use to fund our health care system will work to solve the environmental solution. Tax those that make a profit off of emissions and use that money to invest in green public infrastructure. We must not tax the poor and the working “middle class” to solve the problems caused by the rich. Carbon dioxide regulation needs to be sector specific, needs to be brought in progressively and aggressively, and need to make sure that the government can provide an alternative to the high emitters. Public investment in and socially own production facilities need to be built that have the input from the academic and union sectors to all flexibility for future changes and upgrade, but at the same time we need to be producing solutions now. We cannot wait for the market to fail once again. The risk has been born by the working class too long, it is time for those that profited off the exploitation of the environment to pay for the damages they have brought.

–University workers in the US are getting serious about fighting for their rights.

–Trade-unionists continue to be assassinated in Columbia with almost complete impunity.

–There is little question that there is exploitation on farms in BC. I was just their and saw the kind of anti-human, anti-worker practices one associates with Latin American immigrant exploitation in the South-Western US. We must stand with our farm workers and demand justice. More here: Harvest of Injustice: The Oppression of Migrant Workers on Canadian Farms

–Great news for all those that care about the wheat farmer. Independent farmers need the Wheat Board if they are going to survive in the face of the monopolies of the Agro-Corps.

–You are still a worker even if you work for an investment banking firm.

Where: Alden Nowlan House (The Grad House), 676 Windsor St., UNB Fredericton.

When: Saturday, June 21.

7:00 pm - Food and speeches on the political and human rights situation in Colombia by Maikel and Leyda Rodriguez, James Brittain, sociology professor at Acadia University, and others.
8:00 pm - Salsa Crash Course with Hernando and Sandra Gonzalez.
9:00pm - Latin Dancing.

Tickets: $10/person or $20/family. Tickets sold at the door or in advance at the Multicultural Association, Doodles Cafe or True Foods.

Funds raised go to the family of the late Adolfo Montes Gonzales. On March 22, 2008, Adolfo Montes Gonzales, a union leader at the Cerrejon coal mine, where NB Power sources its coal to generate approximately 16% of electricity in New Brunswick, was murdered at his residence, leaving behind his wife and four small children. Sponsors include the Fredericton Peace Coalition, Atlantic Regional Solidarity Network, the Canadian Labour Congress, the NB Federation of Labour, the NB Union and Project Ploughshares Fredericton. More sponsors and volunteers are welcome. To co-sponsor or volunteer, email info@frederictonpeace.org

For more info: info@frederictonpeace.org

–You can imagine my shock.

–Support the workers. They march for the future of the French way of life.

–The protests against Bush in Britain.

–Slowly, the neo-liberal reforms remove all the protections the working-class worked a century to get. An opt-out clause? How about a state responsibility clause where the state has the responsibility to make sure wages are high enough so that people do not have to work 65 hours a week to survive?

–The Irish are among the most highly educated in the world (mostly because education is free even at the post-secondary level). However, it also ranks among the highest in inequality in Europe because of the aggressive neo-liberal reforms its working class has suffered under. Oppressed and highly educated workers, and they have rejected a bad treaty for Europe. No surprise here. What is interesting is that the media seem to acknowledge that the treaty is anti-worker while, at the same time, praise it. The people of Europe reject the treaty almost every time they get to vote on it. The governments know this and have, up to now, not allowed referenda on the issue. It just goes to show the anti-democratic bent to the whole process of instituting neo-liberal reforms.

–More on why privatization is not an answer to better health care.

—-The US continues to slide in its protections for workers and pushes for lax labour laws around the world.

–This was posted at the link above on Lenin’s Tomb. Great clip.

–Environmentalists need some educating around economics and the realities of class. Workers and community environmental activists must work together against those that treat human life and the environment as “externalities”.

–BP is starting to have to answer questions for having one of the worst labour practices around.

–A move in the correct direction.

It’s clear SEIU, as it stands now, is a company union. Growth at the expense of democracy is not the way forward for any union.

–Venezuela is becoming the land of the worker.

Marcano blamed a labor dispute on “the capitalist system of exploitation,” the newspaper said. Earlier this year, Venezuela took over the Sidor steel mill after a protracted labor dispute, Correo del Caroni said.

–Governments in surplus but pensions are raided anyway. What else do you call it but theft?

–Labour Notes goes on the offensive against concession bargaining at the Big Three by the CAW.

As Mexico’s mining and metals industry ground to a halt yesterday with more than 20,000 workers staging a one-day strike, the union’s leader was calling the shots by cellphone from a secret location in Vancouver. Napoleon Gomez Urrutia has been leading the National Miners’ and Metalworkers’ Union of Mexico while in exile on Canada’s west coast for more than two years now, with help from modern technology.