CONTENTS
CALLS TO ACTION
Hilton: Hotel Rooms Should Be Cleaned Every Day
Hotel rooms should be cleaned every day. That’s what hotel guests have come to expect and love. But as tourism comes roaring back, Hilton wants to end this standard and eliminate housekeepers’ jobs.Guests and health experts want more cleaning – not less – but Hilton recently announced the end of automatic daily housekeeping, a drastic cut to cleaning services when they have never been more important.
But it’s not inevitable. Hotel guests and housekeepers worldwide are joining forces and taking action, telling Hilton that hotel rooms should be cleaned every day. Together, we can protect jobs and the traveling experience.
actionnetwork.org/petitions
EVENTS
TPFF 2021
When: September 22-26Since its inception, TPFF has pushed the boundaries of storytelling year after year. Our 2021 hybrid program is our latest contribution and confirmation of our commitment to the Palestinian arts community. Featuring film, panels, an art show, talks with groundbreakers, special events, and performances, you can join us wherever you are in the world for an inspiring, engaging, and powerful five days of the best in Palestinian arts, cinema, and culture. #TPFF2021
tpff.ca | Facebook event
After the Occupation
When: September 23rd, 6pmArtists Respond to the Crisis in Afghanistan, featuring Shaista Latif, Ariel Nasr and Rahul Varma.
Join Teesri Duniya Theatre for a panel discussion to bring awareness to the evolving crisis facing Afghanistan.
With the departure and abandonment of US, Canadian and international presence, Afghanistan is being made to confront a cycle of violent uprisings and resistance. The illegal occupation of Afghanistan by the international community during the past 20+ years has failed to bring peace or an end to terrorism in the region. It has only served to bring a deeper period of instability and corruption while placing the lives of women, children, and marginalized peoples such as the Hazara communities at severe risk.
In light of recent events, it is clear more than ever that Afghanistan’s fight for sovereignty must be recognized and advocated for. In this period of time, we are once again seeing a mass exodus of Afghans as a repeated history brought forth by the impacts of imperialism, colonization, and Taliban rule.
playwrightsguild.ca zoom.us
What do you think so far of the Durham-Scarborough Bus Rapid Transit project?
When: Thursday, September 23rd, 6:30pm@Metrolinx is hosting a virtual open house for the Ellesmere Community on Thursday, September 23rd, 2021 at 6:30pm about the #DSBRT project.
To register for the event, please complete the form.
Global Strike for Climate Justice
When: September 24th, 12:30pmWhere: Queen’s Park (110 Wellesley St. W.)
Due to inaction by our leaders, we must mobilize and organize again! Two years after Toronto saw its largest climate strike, let’s gather again to demand real and immediate climate action.
This is the third-annual climate rally. The theme of this action is #UprootTheSystem, which recognizes the intersections of climate and socio-economic causes including racism, sexism, ableism, class inequality, and more. This focus on uprooting the system acknowledges that our struggles are interconnected and that we require a united front for true liberation.
COVID-19 safety protocols will be in effect, so please bring your mask and adhere to social distancing.
fridaysforfutureto.org | Facebook event
Global Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice
When: Septemebr 25-30thGlobal Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice: A free, 6-day, gender-diverse public forum including 20 panels, climate justice leaders, keynotes, and the arts, to take place virtually September 25-30, 2021 from 1:00pm – 5:30pm ET, East Coast USA Time in parallel to the UN General Assembly to push a climate justice agenda in the lead-up to COP 26 and beyond. Zoom interpretation in 4 languages. Live-streamed globally.
zoom.us
RBC Stop Funding Our Destruction!
When: September 25, 12pmWhere: 200 Bay Street
Extinction Rebellion GTA will be blocking the intersection near the Royal Bank Plaza in Toronto in protest of RBC’s continued funding of fossil fuels.
RBC is the “worst in Canada” in terms of fossil fuel financing according to Rainforest Action Network’s Banking on Climate Chaos report, spending $160 Billion USD since the Paris Agreement. We must stop the flow of dollars from banks, like RBC, that enable the devastation of ecosystems, violations of Indigenous rights, and the continued destruction of our planet’s climate by the fossil fuel industry.
Bring signs, noise makers, musical instruments, and friends!
We ask that everyone brings a mask and respects COVID-19 guidelines.
Facebook event
Mothers’ Peace Walk
When: September 25th, 3pmWhere: Assemble at Yonge and Bloor and walk to Dundas Square
Come out in unity and solidarity as mothers who have lost their children to gun violence honour them on National Day of Remembrence for Homicide Victims.
Come and walk in peace and love as we say, “Enough is Enough!” It is time to unite our communities.
Facebook picture
Systemic housing issues in the GTA
When: September 28th, 5pmThe fourth workshop in our series Claiming the Right to Housing in the GTA will provide an overview of the legal frameworks that protect renters’ right to adequate housing by ensuring that housing is habitable and in a good state of repair.
eventbrite.ca
What Happens When Recovery Benefit Runs Out?
When: Tuesday, September 28th, 6pmWhere: Zoom (signup required)
COVID 19 put a lot of strain on our lives and our social networks, not to mention the financial stress. When the federal government introduced Canada Emergency Relief Benefit(CERB), Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB), Canada Recovery Caregiving Benefit (CRCB) and Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit (CRSB), these programs were lifesaving for so many. However, these benefits are set to end on October 23.
The Labour Community Advocate Training program (LCAT) invites you to attend a free workshop about what we can expect as these programs are concluded. Please reserve your spot by contacting LCAT program coordinator Najib Soufian at 416-445-5819 (ext 26) or nsoufian@labourcommunityservices.ca.
ARTICLES
Healthcare Reform in a Post-Pandemic World
By Mark DudzicThe industrialized world’s most unequal and inefficient healthcare system underwent a stress test this past pandemic year and failed miserably. Here are just a few of the indicators: the world’s highest number of infections and deaths; massive shortages of workers, supplies, and equipment; uncoordinated response and treatment; botched vaccine rollout; and egregious profiteering. Many other nations had significant shortfalls in their pandemic response, but only the United States performed so dismally along nearly all parameters.
Source: The Bullet No. 2460
Call for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty
The Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative is spurring international cooperation to end new development of fossil fuels, phase out existing production within the agreed climate limit of 1.5°C and develop plans to support workers, communities and countries dependent on fossil fuels to create secure and healthy livelihoods. Cities such as Vancouver and Barcelona have already endorsed the Treaty with more considering motions to endorse. Hundreds of organizations representing thousands more individuals join the call for world leaders to stop fossil fuel expansion.Source: The Bullet No. 2461
Slave or Protagonist? The Worker in Capital
By Michael A. LebowitzThink of the worker in Marx’s Capital. He sells his capacity to work as a commodity to the capitalist. In the relation of “supremacy and subordination” of capital over wage-labourers that results from this transaction, the capitalist is able to gain absolute surplus value by lengthening and intensifying the workday as well as relative surplus value by increasing the proportion of the workday that accrues to the capitalist. The latter is possible because the value of labour-power is “determined, as in the case of every other commodity, by the labour-time necessary for the production, and consequently also the reproduction, of this specific article,” and this falls with increases in productivity in the production of the use-values that enter into the standard of necessity of the worker.
Source: The Bullet No. 2462
Norway Turns Left
By Farooq SulehriaIt was evident by about midnight on Monday, September 13, that the Left bloc, spearheaded by the Labour Party (Arbeiderpartiet), was comfortably bagging an important victory in Norway’s parliamentary elections. The eight-year-long right-wing government, headed by conservative Prime Minister, Erna Solberg, was finally defeated. Flanked by the Socialist Left (SV) and Centre Party (SP), Labour won 89 (52%) parliamentary seats in a house of 169. Rødt (The Red Party) – the Marxists – may be considered the biggest winner, however. They not only crossed the 4% minimum vote threshold to enter the parliament, but their tally of seats went from one in the outgoing parliament to eight in the incoming house.
Source: The Bullet No. 2463
Social Justice Must Include Arts Funding
By April M. ShortThe United States is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, with an enormous wealth gap. There is currently no place in America where “a full-time, minimum-wage worker” can afford to pay rent. The inequities are seemingly boundless in America, and there are countless social and racial justice ramifications of having a profit-centered economy – from increasing homelessness, to hunger, to climate crises (all of which have been worsened to some degree by the global pandemic). Instead of the government agencies or large organizations coming up with viable solutions to these problems, it is often the people experiencing the worst of these inequities who come up with the most innovative, effective strategies to cope and to address the many deficiencies embedded in the system. The people already living on the margins – where the systemic problems are already amplified – are the ones who are offering means to relocalize supply chains, strengthen mutual aid efforts, create community-led and owned housing and build what is often called the solidarity economy.
Source: The Bullet No. 2464
EMPLOYMENT
Free Online Classes
Classes conducted over zoom.Intro to Smartphones and Tablets: Sept 27-29, 10am to 12pm
Smartphone and Tablet Basics: Oct. 5 – Dec. 7, 1:30pm to 3pm
Facebook poster | laboureducation.org