期刊名称：Just Labour : A Canadian Journal of Work and Society
电子版ISSN：1705-1436
出版年度：2012
卷号：17&18
出版社：York University
摘要：The past several years have not been good for the working class, and 2011 has been no exception. The push at Toronto City Hall to slash and privatize core public services, recast as "gravy" by those who would eliminate them, the nearly unprecedented assault on public sector unions across North America and Europe, a legal landscape which continues to be shaped largely by the Harris-era Ontario Labour Relations Act of 1995, and the federal Conservatives' anti-union disposition have undermined worker power locally and nationally. The summer of 2011 alone saw workers' bargaining and strike power undermined by Ontario employers' use of replacement workers at places such as Infinity Rubber in Mississauga and the federal Parliament's premature use of back-to work legislation against workers at Canada Post and Air Canada. Conversely, strikes and lockouts in the private sector, whether at Vale-Inco in Sudbury or at US Steel in Hamilton, continue endlessly as employers refuse to bargain with unions in a calculated strategy to wear workers down. In the face of these challenges, workers and their allies have been organizing through innovative union campaigns such as SEIU's Justice for Janitors and UNITE HERE's Hotel Workers Rising, community-based activism, and political action. Through such efforts, workers seek to halt and reverse the decline in working-class power, protect the social fabric of the welfare state, and reduce the widening gap between the rich and poor
