Labour Wikipedia Initiative

My suggested trade union initiative to ensure an accurate representation of the labour movement on Wikipedia has gotten a bit of attention.  Not likely much action, but a bit of chat and who knows?


Here's the original article as it appears on the Our Times website right HERE.  And HERE is  what ACORN founder Wade Rathke has to say on his Chief Organizers Blog.

The right, especially in the US, seems also to have glommed onto the proposal.  See HERE and HERE.

Death Factories in Pakistan

Last week 314 (and counting) garment workers died horribly in two factory fires in Pakistan.  They were making the clothes and the shoes that any one of us can buy, that many of us wear - branded with the names of familiar designers.  The majority of the dead were young women who died trying to use doors and windows that had been blocked by their employer.

By putting pressure on the Pakistani government and the labels that contract with these factories we, you and I, can help make a difference.  We can help make certain that no worker, no matter where they work or what they do, ever gets killed by their job.

Start HERE.  Take 30 seconds and send a protest message in memory of those who have died, in solidarity with their families, and to fight for safety of the still living.

Send your message HERE.

Celebrate Labour Day With a Little Solidarity and a Free Book!

Enjoy the long weekend for sure, but if you can, take a few minutes to send protest and solidarity messages to the workers around the world whose unions have asked for our help.  Links to all of LabourStart’s active campaigns can be found HERE.

As a kind of digital thank-you, LabourStart Canada would like to make it easy for you to get some great Labour Day reading.  Cory Doctorow’s For the Win (sub-titled ‘Online or offline, you’ve got to organize to survive’) is a great novel about digital economy workers organizing the world’s first truly global union.  The book is available in hard- and soft-cover in your local bookstore, but Cory is a fan of Creative Commons licencing and so he has made For the Win available online for downloading HERE.  The download is free, but if you like the book (and you will), then consider a contribution or just buy a few paper copies for birthdays and such.

If you take a break from your reading and attend a Labour Day picnic, march or other union-sponsored event, take a few photos and send them to us at Canada@LabourStart.org for possible use as our Photo of the Week.

And if after all that you’re really filled with the spirit of Labour Day, consider joining LabourStart as a volunteer correspondent.  Our volunteers collect the links to labour news that make LabourStart the site where trade unionists start their day.  For more information or to sign on just go HERE or respond to this message.

Thanks for your time and attention, get out there and enjoy the long weekend as soon as you can!

Revolutionizing Retail (Work)

Kendra Coulter, a labour studies professor at Brock University, has launched a new site dedicated to improving retail work and retail workers’ lives. 

Revolutionizing Retail is a vibrant online compilation of helpful resources for retail workers and all those who care about the future of work. 

The site brings together timely articles, important insights on retail workers’ rights, key data on the realities of retail, and discussions of the unions and other organizations working to improve retail around the world – all in one place. This site is a valuable resource in the struggle for retail workers’ rights and greater social and economic justice.

Visit Revoluntionizing Retail HERE.


Sortable The Rise of the Slacktivist

A Message From LabourStart

In the last couple of hours, tens of thousands of you received our appeal for help for Colombian public sector workers. Thousands of you responded to that appeal - and were greeted by error messages and blank screens.

What happened, as far as we can tell, is that the Colombian government began to block a couple of the email addresses we were targetting. This generated a large number of error messages which returned to our server.

Our web hosting company -- without consulting us -- decided that we were sending out spam messages. And they then proceeded to shut down the entire LabourStart website. We have now explained what happened, and they have restored our site -- including our Colombia campaign.

Their decision could not have come at worse time, as so many of you were eager to support that campaign.

I apologize to all of you for the inconvenience and hope that you will try again -- because our messages are getting through to other addresses in Colombia, including the union which needs to know that they are not alone, that people all over the world support them.

Thanks again.