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Friday 26 September 2014

Unite the Union solidarity with Canadian workers — and why it's relevant to the UK

From Pilgrim Tucker, Regional Organiser for Unite the Union Community Section

Hi, can you join us on Tuesday morning?
 
Tuesday 30th September 10am - 12 noon 
 
Solidarity action for workers at Crown packaging Canada 
 
at the Business Design Centre, 52 Upper Street, Islington, N1 0QH
 
Workers at Crown have been on strike  for almost twelve months over draconian pay cuts and the attempted elimination of the union’s physical presence from the workplace.
 
They have asked for our help and support so we plan to demonstrate outside a conference organised by their employers. More info on the dispute here: http://www.takebacksnomore.ca/
 
Hope to see you there, fares covered if you need them, but bring a receipt.
 
Pilgrim
07970 126249

Swheatie of the KUWG adds explanation of why this is relevant to people in the UK

 Abuses of bargaining power by global corporations have been more prevalent in the USA and Canada than in EU countries, becauase there have traditionally been better social protections for worker within the EU. But corporate lobbyists and EU commissioners seem keen to change that irrevocably, making the world the playing field of global corporations keen to shift production to where labour costs and workers' rights are less. That has been one of the major reasons that 'active labour market policies' such as Tory welfare reforms place far greater responsibility on workers and the 'reserve army of labour' than on employers. It is also leading to the negotiation of 'free trade' agreements between the EU and the USA (Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership — TTIP) and the EU and Canada (Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement — CETA).

By such agreements that the negotiators would love to have passed before the public wakes up to the contents that they have been left ignorant of by the BBC and other mainstream broadcasting channels and that the negotiators do not want our elected representatives in the European Parliament to know about, corporate lawyers would render democracy null and void. Mechanisms such as 'Investor to State Dispute Settlement' arrangements in TTIP and similar in CETA would be, as John Hilary of War on Want has said at a public meeting I attended some months ago now — "like a magic bullet." He said that it would be like the scene in one of the 'Indiana Jones' movies where the eponimous 'hero' is faced by a sword wielding tribesman wielding a sword in skilful display some distance away, takes out his pistol from its holster, and shoots the swordsman dead.

See previous posts on this blog about TTIP and CETA, and spread the word about Unite the Union's  

Tuesday 30th September 10am - 12 noon 
 
Solidarity action for workers at Crown packaging Canada 
 
at the Business Design Centre, 52 Upper Street, Islington, N1 0QH.

(KUWG activists will be largely elsewhere at that time by prior arrangement within the London Borough of Brent side of our Brent & Camden heartland, but it is still important to us to help get this word out, especially as viewing stats for this blog over the past week reveal that we have a truly global audience:

Pageviews by Countries

Graph of most popular countries among blog viewers
EntryPageviews
Ukraine
184
United Kingdom
155
United States
146
Germany
84
France
62
Russia
13
Indonesia
9
Brazil
6
China
6
Italy
5
)

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