Centre for Social Justice -» Community

Dec 13, 2013 - Pension Funds, Unions, and Working Class Strategies

Pension Forum

We are pleased to invite participation in an open workshop series focused on the role of Canadian workers’ pension funds in the larger national and global economy.

One of the key features of the continuing deep economic crisis facing Canadian workers is the attack on long established pension and retirement benefits, which are now dismissed as a costly frill that only benefits a shrinking minority of the workforce. The defence of these benefits by trade unions is becoming more difficult and divisive – it risks appearing self-serving in a context where the older notion that private, employer-based plans might serve as a positive step toward a universal system of full coverage for all workers is no longer credible.

Workshop Coordinators:
• Convenor: Kevin Skerrett (Canadian Union of Public Employees), kevin.skerrett@gmail.com
• Greg Albo (Centre for Social Justice), albo@yorku.ca

Proposed Series Schedule and Details:
Each of the six workshops will be held on Friday afternoons from 3:30pm – 6:00pm, every other week. (We will skip November 8th, and use November 15th in its place)

Registration not required for the last two sessions -- open to all.

• September 27: From Pension Fund Socialism to Pension Fund Capitalism?
• October 11: Trade union and ‘progressive’ strategies: The Responsible Investment, Capital Stewardship, and ‘pension fund activism’ movements
• October 25: Fiduciary Duty – A legal shield for corporate capitalism?
• November 15: Pension funds and privatization: P3s and pension-financed privatization
• December 6: The Rise of Finance – What role for trade unions & pension funds? With Michael Rafferty, John Peters and Aidan Conway.
• December 13: Trade unions, pensions, corporations, and the state. With Doug Henwood and Sam Gindin.

Location and Time: Sessions will be held on Fridays from 3:30-6:00 in the ING Room, ground level, at the Centre for Social Innovation, 720 Bathurst Street (one block south of Bloor).

This workshop is co-sponsored by the Centre for Social Justice, Global Labour Research Centre (York University), Canada Research Chair in Political Economy (York University) and Socialist Project | PDF flyer | Facebook event

Dec 10, 2013 - Forum: End Racial Profiling Now

When: Tuesday December 10 -- 5pm
Where: Toronto City Hall - 100 Queen Street East (Committee Room 3)

Join human rights lawyers Geri Sanson and Michelle Mulgrave, Toronto Star Reporter Jim Rankin, Action for Neighbourhood Change, Breaking the Cycle and others to learn about racial profiling and what you can do about it.

* What's the latest with racial profiling cases?
* Have you been racially profiled?
* Find out what to do and who to call.

www.urbanalliance.ca | www.hrlsc.on.ca

Dec 10, 2013 - New doc on Quebec's Maple Spring

When: Tuesday, Dec. 10 -- 6:15 pm
Where: Bloor Hot Docs Cinema, 506 Bloor Street West
Cost: Suggested donation $2-10

INSURGENCE
A collective interpretation of Quebec's Maple Spring, this super-charged doc will have you reaching for your red square and gas mask.

www.cinemapolitica.org

Dec 14, 2013 - Get on the bus! End Immigration Detention!

Solidarity with Migrant Strike

Call for 24hour solidarity fast with immigration detainees: In response to our call for a demonstration on the outside, immigration detainees in Lindsay will be initiating their own 24hr fast inside on December 14th, 2013. Because of this, we are now calling for a 24hr global solidarity fast to accompany the protest at Lindsay Jail.

On September 17th, 2013, 191 migrant detainees began a hunger strike in Lindsay, Ontario’s Central East Correctional Centre. This was the largest immigrant detainee hunger strike in Canadian history. Representing 600 or more people held by Canada immigration on a given day, and representing up to a hundred or more held on a long-term basis, these men began fighting back. Demanding that they either be removed or released within 90 days of being detained, they inspired people on the outside to create the End Indefinite Immigration Detention Network. The detainees are also demanding an end to maximum-security incarceration and an overhaul in the detention adjudication process. Join us on December 14th in Lindsay, ON to support these calls - buses depart from all over Ontario.

Get on the bus! Confirm your spot (snacks available for people that aren't fasting)

Join the 24hr solidarity fast, 12:01am - 11:59pm, Sat Dec 14. Take a photo committing to participate in advance and email it to migrantstrike@gmail.com. See the website for photos!

BUS DETAILS
Toronto: Depart 11am, return 4:30pm from Christie Pits Park
Kitchener: Depart 9am. Location TBA.
Guelph: Depart 9:45am, return 4:30pm from City Hall

The fences that surround these detainees are dividing them from their communities, their families and their lives. It is time for these fences to come down.

Most countries in the world have a limit to how long they can hold someone in order to remove them, including the United States and the entire European Union. However, Canada is a rogue nation. Despite the United Nations directive stating that every country must have such a limit, Canada continues to hold migrants in jail for as long as ten years! Detainees are separated from their families, children and communities with no release in sight.

For more information on the strike and detention of migrants in Canada, see www.endimmigrationdetention.com | Facebook event