Hiatus
I’ll be taking a little hiatus from this blog for the next period. Probably post a few things, but will be quiet for a while.
Cheers
Labour Day 2020
It’s Labour Day today. It’s been a statutory holiday in Canada since 1894, and although it grew out of earlier strikes and struggles, Labour Day itself was the result of lobbying by the labour federations of the day. Today, Labour Day is more associated with the last weekend of the summer cottage, and getting the kids ready for the start of school rather than any kind of struggle. This year, due to Covid, there is only a virtual parade and the kids don’t go back to school for another week. (the Canadian National Exhibition, another Toronto tradition was also cancelled, but that’s another story)
The slogan for this year’s action is “A Just Recovery for all.” To be honest, it reminds me of the old conservative labour slogan, “A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work.” And the fact that all of the mainstream political party leaders tweeted words of encouragement, praising the contributions of workers, makes me even more sceptical. (It did make me smile though when failed right-wing politician Maxime Bernier instead tweeted about how the United Nations was trying to impose communism on the world – when you’re alone in a room long enough you can talk yourself into just about anything I suppose)
A few weeks ago, Internationalist Perspective published an article on struggles in the United States with an introduction by IP. The article dealt with the struggles that arose after the murder of George Floyd, but asks “where next?”: Is it “A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work” or “The abolition of the wage system” and all the shit that goes with it? A vital question for today
Notes from Underground 
