Sunday, September 22, 2013

Made in the USA : Tim Hudak



Teahadist Tim Hudak, former Walmart manager and leader of the Ontario PC Con Party since 2009, doesn't much care for the term "right-to-work" laws, preferring instead "worker's choice reforms".  
Well, OK then - Workers' choice of the right to work for less money, reducing wages for union and non-union workers alike and pitting worker against worker.

On Friday, LauraK went to hear Chris Hedges in Toronto and provides an excellent overview of his talk on Syria, Chelsea Manning, the surveillance state, corporate and media ownership, the liberal class, and organized labour.
Laura's piece really worth a full read but here excerpted : Hedges :
"It's amazing. We do everything wrong in the United States, and 10 years later, Canada copies us.    Do you have 'right-to-work' laws here yet?" The audience answered that we do not.  And Hedges replied: "The minute Harper passes those laws, if you guys don't have a massive general strike, you're finished." He said, "You still have enough organized labour in Canada to mount a resistance."
Trapped in a Whirlpool : The Power of Irrationality 

And a reminder of Steve's 2011 bid for a Harper Hudak Ford "hat trick" :

.

5 comments:

West End Bob said...

Yeah, laura k's post with the Chris Hedges warning was a bit scary, huh, Alison?

And yet, the cretin keeps winning elections!

Very disappointing and not a comforting feeling for the future of Canada. It's going to be quite a bit different than the way we had it envisioned pre-harper . . . .

laura k said...

Thanks for the link, Alison. I live to see a general strike. It's one of my fondest dreams.

Hudak is scary, but the teachers' union was eviscerated under a Liberal government.

Alison said...

Laura : The BC Libs tore up the BC Teachers public service contract 11 years ago and they've been at war ever since. Six years ago the Supreme Court found against the Libs for violating teachers and health workers collective bargaining right but the Libs continue to whittle away at it.

Really want to thank you for your superlative coverage on Hedges' talk - pointed out to me by West End Bob above. Afaik no one else has covered it at all so far.

Also live to see a general strike - if only for some evidence that we care about Canada as much as Mexicans care about Mexico.

susansmith said...

Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne and Progressive Conservatives are teaming up with their corporate bking fellow Liberals to support Tory MPP Monte McNaughton’s private member’s bill to free the construction giant from an obscure 55-year-old working agreement requiring it to hire only unionized workers.
Or otherwise known as union busting. So the building trades may now relook their support for liberals as their friends.

laura k said...

Thank you for that, Alison.

Sad to say, it does seem that most Canadians are more concerned with Target stores coming to Canada and the possibility of lower cell phone rates than anything else. It's frustrating.

My earlier comment meant to say ^Ontario^ teachers' union, but it's no surprise that BC is in the same boat.

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