Flint water crisis | What's Left

Much of the news around Flint, Michigan's water issues are focusing on the terrible government management of their water systems, the slow response to the lead crisis affecting the city's citizens, and the donations being made by private bottled-water companies.

When employers seek to divide and conquer, our only defense is solidarity | What's Left

It was a bad week for media workers. Halifax-based newspaper The Chronicle Herald is getting scab-ready for a bargaining round in which they are hoping to lower wages, increase work hours, and layoff over a quarter of their sixty staff. The Toronto Star announced the closure of a Vaughan printing plant, meaning that 220 full-time and 60 part-time workers will lose their jobs. The industry is shifting, and workers are left wondering what tools they have to resist short-sighted profit-obsessed employers and present a vision of the future where integrity, sustainability, and quality journalism are at the heart of the industry.

What's Left 2016-01-17 Volume 41

It was a bad week for media workers. Halifax-based newspaper The Chronicle Herald is getting scab-ready for a bargaining round in which they are hoping to lower wages, increase work hours, and lay-off over a quarter of their sixty staff. The Toronto Star announced the closure of a Vaughan printing plant, meaning that 220 full-time and 60 part-time workers will lose their jobs. The industry is shifting, and workers are left wondering what tools they have to resist short-sighted profit-obsessed employers and present a vision of the future where integrity, sustainability, and quality journalism are at the heart of the industry.

Solidarity in the 'new' economy | Graham Cox

The labour dispute at the Halifax Chronicle Herald has again raised important questions of maintaining inter-generational solidarity. There are no easy solutions to the problems of the Herald as they are the result of economic models of publishing that are no longer sustainable (if they ever were). Unfortunately, the owners and managers of the Herald seem to think that this crisis is a good opportunity to target workers instead of finding a progressive solution that can work for the industry in the long-term.