Angry hospital workers wildcat in Edmonton

An old tradition in the workers’ movement came back to life in February in Edmonton – the wildcat strike. February 16 at 7 a.m., hundreds of angry service workers walked off the job at the Royal Alexandra Hospital. They were soon joined by workers at the University of Alberta Hospital and the Northeast Community Health Centre.

Topp and Mulcair – the apparatus man and the ex-Liberal

The late Jack Layton’s political presence in Canadian politics owed everything to the social movements. But when members of the party gather, March 24, 2012 to elect a replacement for Layton, the party is likely to be moved very far from this social movement experience. The implications of this need to be seriously thought through by those interested in progressive social change in Canada.

I fought the Google, and the Google won: the Genesis of PolEcon.net

Apologies to the Clash, the Bobby Fuller Four, and especially Sonny Curtis and The Crickets. • Since 2007, I’ve maintained a little blog, formerly known as PolEconAnalysis.org. It’s gone. You are at its successor, PolEcon.net. You’re reading this, so you’ve arrived here. Welcome. A little explanation is in order.

The impact of feminism – or songs you thought you knew

Sometimes it is hard to credit progress when it happens incrementally over decades. Watching "Mad Men" (whose long anticipated Season 5 is scheduled to begin in March, 2012) provides a jolt of noxious memories from the 1960s – the restrictions on abortion, and the casual sexism which dominated gender relations, to name just two. It provides a useful reminder that between the 1960s and today, there have been several waves of feminism which have profoundly improved modern society. Popular music provides another interesting marker of these changes. Here’s a little story about two songs which indicate the impact of several decades of feminism and the women’s movement.

Organizing against the austerity agenda

A little word with a big footprint – “austerity” has now become normalized as part of the political discourse. Governments everywhere are positioning themselves to transfer billions of dollars from pensions, social services and public sector wages, to pay off debt built up in part during the Great Recession of 2008-2009. A resource in the fight against austerity is the just published special issue of Socialist Studies, containing contemporary analyses and historical reflections on both the economics of the austerity agenda, and strategies by which it can be resisted.

‘!Obama, escucha! Estamos en la lucha!’

On a hot evening in July 2011, myself and a few other visitors from Canada, found ourselves in a cavernous meeting room in a hotel near a Chicago airport. A panel discussion in that room was set to begin at 7:30pm, and after a long day we wanted to arrive early and make sure we got good seats. What followed was unexpected, and extraordinary. A group of young people gathered in the centre of the room, stood on chairs, and in chorus began a chant. “!Obama, escucha! Estamos en la lucha!” This great slogan – “Listen up Obama! We are in struggle” – from the 2010 march for immigration reform in the United States,[1] was soon being joined by the voices of the 1,000 people packed into the hall. Young, old, Hispanic, African-American, white, male, female, straight, lesbian, gay, trans – the hall rocked to this and other chants – for abortion rights, against the death penalty, and for boycott, divestment and sanctions against apartheid in the state of Israel. These were the voices of activists from many struggles. The enthusiastic chanting delayed the meeting by almost half an hour, but no one cared. You had a sense that here, in the belly of the beast, there were movements of the left, willing to challenge capitalism and imperialism, whether fronted by George W. Bush or Barack Obama.

Debt crisis in the U.S. – the issue is warfare, not welfare

JULY 26, 2011 – As July came to an end, the United States central government had come up against its congressionally mandated debt ceiling. Without an agreement to raise that debt ceiling – last set at $14.3-trillion – the U.S. central government will be unable to borrow money to pay its bills. The consequences could be extremely serious – soaring interest rates, a collapse of the U.S. dollar, not to speak of social security stipends, pensions and salaries going unpaid.