Sam Gindin was research director of the Canadian Auto Workers from 1974–2000. He is coauthor (with Leo Panitch) of The Making of Global Capitalism (Verso), and coauthor with Leo Panitch and Steve Maher of The Socialist Challenge Today (Haymarket).
Key Canadian industries like auto are currently on the brink of extinction under assault from Donald Trump. Escaping this impasse requires confronting Canada’s subordinate relationship to its juggernaut neighbor to the south.
By substantively rebuilding its national sovereignty, Canada can de-link itself from US economic and political domination.
The 2024 holiday season Amazon strike seemed driven more by a desire for media attention than the development of the deep worker base fundamental to forcing the company to accept a union.
Amazon claims it has markedly improved workplace safety at its notoriously dangerous warehouses in recent years. A closer look at the data for the corporation’s workplaces in the US and Canada shows Amazon still boasts abysmal injury rates.
The Biden administration has made some prolabor gestures and moves toward more state direction of investment. But the policies, emphasizing subsidies to business, will do little to reverse working-class disorganization or meaningfully address climate change.
Members of the Teamsters just voted to ratify a new contract at UPS. The union made big gains — but in opting not to strike over demands beyond wages, the Teamsters may have passed up a transformative opportunity for the labor movement.
In November, education workers in Ontario staged a massive walkout and threatened a general strike, forcing premier Doug Ford to back down on repressive anti-labor legislation. Here’s how they did it.
The seemingly spontaneous upsurges at companies like Starbucks and Amazon are an inspiring sign of life within the workers’ movement. But spontaneity is nowhere near enough to turn labor’s dismal fortunes around.
The working class in capitalism is not a coherent class but a fragmented one — an amalgam of individuals trying to survive. It’ll take politics to change that.
Leo Panitch saw no other option than to act as if socialism and a world free of exploitation could be won in the here and now, his longtime collaborator Sam Gindin writes. Despite knowing that socialism was unlikely to emerge in his lifetime, Panitch devoted himself fully to a project that could liberate generations of people to come.
Despite some promising signs, Canada's auto industry is not experiencing a full rebirth. Any revitalization of the industry, and any transition to green manufacturing, will always be unstable under capitalism, because private auto corporations don't make decisions with workers and the planet in mind.
It’s not enough to make class the subject of our politics. We need to develop our political demands from a ferment that is rooted in class organizing and union density.
Coronavirus has exposed capitalism as unable to meet our most basic needs, but that has never been enough for the Left. We need to develop democratic organizations and build our social power, even in the middle of a pandemic, to win.
Jane McAlevey believes in the potential of working people to unite across divisions, develop their collective potentials into a creative social force, and change the world. Her new book offers concrete tactics and practices for how workers can win more battles — and prepare for the larger wars to come.
The GM strike was a reminder of two old lessons: rank-and-file militancy is the foundation of working-class struggle. But to win, we need a broader socialist politics that can both support worker organizing and push it further.
Socialists have to wrestle with the tricky questions about the nuts and bolts of socialism. We need to put forward a credible vision of a future socialist society. Here’s what that society could look like.
Socialists can't wave away concerns about the feasibility of a future socialist society — we need to offer people credible answers.
What can workers and communities do when the company pulls the plug on an entire workplace? Tariffs and boycotts won’t cut it — the only answer is democratic planning.
Canadian union organizer and leader Bob White was committed to charting an independent and democratic course for workers.
The response to Bernie showed that a socialist party in the United States is possible. But there is no shortcut to building power.