I’m afraid it’s nothing more than a sad attempt at allowing coaches and administrators to wrench back the control they lost when the old, unpaid-labor system collapsed.
Researchers have found that wolves brought to Isle Royale in 2018 are likely to survive but face challenges from inbreeding and isolation. The island had only two inbred wolves in 2016, so officials introduced 19 new wolves between 2018 and 2019. A study published in Conservation Science and Practice shows the wolf population has over an 80% chance of lasting 20 years. However, inbreeding remains a significant concern. The wolf population has increased since the study ended, but the moose population, a key food source, has sharply declined, raising additional concerns for the ecosystem. By Laura Herberg/Bridge Michigan via Associated Press Banner image: A 4-year-old female gray wolf emerges from her cage as she is released at Isle Royale National Park in Michigan. Image courtesy of the National Park Service. This article was originally published on Mongabay
When I first saw footage of Gaza doctor Munir al-Bursh and his family kneeling beside the white-shrouded body of his son, surrounded by mourners, I thought it was an old video. It was not.
My conclusion, however, was understandable. In December 2023, only months after the start of the Israeli genocide in Gaza, the al-Bursh family was targeted in an Israeli attack. Dr. Munir, director-general of Gaza’s Ministry of Health, was wounded. So were other members of his family. His daughter, Jinan, only 13, was killed.
That same day, Gaza’s beloved doctor was back at work, joining the many doctors across the Strip trying to save lives as Israel’s killing machine claimed them by the thousands.
Alas, the latest footage was not old footage resurfacing. It was a new coffin, a new funeral, another child buried by the same family. This time, the attack took place during what some in the media continue to call the ‘Gaza ceasefire.’
On September 19, an Israeli drone strike killed al-Bursh’s eldest son, Basir, outside a tent west of Jabaliya refugee camp.
“We were together side by side,” the grieving father recalled. Basir had warned him: “The Israelis are targeting both of us.” Moments later, his son stepped outside the tent and was killed.
One can be forgiven for confusing Gaza’s present with its recent past. The scenes emerging today are almost indistinguishable from those that preceded the so-called ceasefire of October 2025. The sequence repeats itself with terrible familiarity: Israeli strikes, shelling and sniping; Palestinians killed; the bereaved carrying their dead through Gaza’s destroyed streets, searching among the ruins for somewhere to bury them.
Al-Bursh’s story is part of this terrible continuum, but its significance extends beyond his personal loss. Throughout the genocide, he and other Palestinian doctors became Gaza’s de facto spokespeople. They counted the dead and wounded, documented hunger and destruction, and chronicled the collapse of the medical system from within its hospitals.
In the process, they became Gaza’s highest moral authority, more credible than politicians or self-proclaimed leaders.
And the world listened. Gaza’s doctors forged a bond with global civil society that no political institution could manufacture.
Perhaps that helps explain the staggering price Gaza’s medical community has been made to pay. According to the World Health Organization, more than 1,700 healthcare workers have been killed since 2023, amid at least 920 attacks on healthcare.
Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, like Dr. al-Bursh, became a symbol of that medical resistance. The director of Kamal Adwan Hospital remained at his post through siege and repeated Israeli attacks before Israeli forces detained him in December 2024. He remains imprisoned without charge or trial, amid reports from his lawyer of beatings and deteriorating health.
Dr. al-Bursh, meanwhile, remains steadfast despite repeated blows that would have broken many others. His wife, too, embodies sumud, the Palestinian tradition of steadfastness nurtured at home and passed from one generation to the next.
Even in the immediate aftermath of his son’s killing, al-Bursh continued warning about Gaza’s collapsing healthcare system. Indeed, hospitals have been forced to suspend scheduled surgeries and outpatient services, while severe shortages of fuel, medicines and equipment continue.
“The limited quantities of fuel reaching the enclave barely keep health facilities alive,” al-Bursh warned a day after his son’s murder.
His statement came as world leaders gathered thousands of miles away, in New York, for the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly.
And once again, Palestine echoed through speech after speech, though this time the language carried a new urgency.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez condemned “the genocide that Netanyahu continues to perpetrate in Gaza.” UN Secretary-General António Guterres described Israel’s mass extermination as involving “a scale of killing and destruction unlike anything I have witnessed” during his tenure. Even French President Emmanuel Macron called Gaza “a spectacle that shames us all,” asking: “What is our credibility worth if we remain inactive on Gaza?”
Then came Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Dozens of delegates walked out as he approached the podium, leaving row upon row of empty seats, while protests continued outside the UN. Netanyahu responded by calling those who departed “moral cowards.”
One might pause here and speak of tides turning, currents changing and a world slowly loosening the decades-long grip of Israel and its American benefactor.
But Gaza does not have the luxury of time. While the words reverberate through the halls of the United Nations, children are still killed in front of their families. Mass funerals remain part of Gaza’s daily rhythm.
Approximately 1.7 million people remain displaced, many under inadequate shelter, without sufficient clean water or sanitation. Hospitals remain crippled. And above this landscape of ruin, the drones still circle.
Between today and the next UN General Assembly lies an entire year—365 days in which those words can either acquire meaning or become yet another entry in the long archive of speeches on Palestine. However, there is time for rhetoric to become policy: for sanctions to be imposed, boycotts activated, meaningful aid delivered and those responsible for war crimes held accountable.
Until then, Dr. Munir al-Bursh and thousands of Gaza’s men and women will continue to hold the fort amid shattered hospitals, destroyed homes and an exhausted population.
Their resilience is extraordinary. But Gaza cannot be expected to endure simply because it has proved capable of enduring.
In New York, Palestine is spoken of from the podium. In Gaza, Palestinians are still being carried to their graves.
It is time to close the distance between words and action, once and for all.
Il debito pubblico europeo non è un'emergenza contabile, ma uno strumento tecnocratico per espropriare sovranità, comprimere i salari e distruggere le famiglie.
Bayview Village is entering a new era with the completion of its extensive interior renovation, designed by Antonio Tadrissi, more than 60 years after it opened as an open-air shopping centre.
Its transformation is going to be integrated into a mixed-use development led by QuadReal Property Group.
The renovation includes artisanal marble tile laid in chevron patterns, brass and copper detailing, custom infinity seating, and hand-troweled Venetian plaster ceilings, explains a release.
There is also a new “Big Bang” chandelier that anchors Centre Court, while the two-storey “Lady Flamingo” sculpture stands as an artistic installation within Bayview Village. Interior Ficus trees are integrated throughout the redesign.
Located at Bayview Avenue and Sheppard Avenue, the centre is home to over 90 luxury retailers, restaurants, boutiques and wellness concepts.
The completion of Bayview Village’s interior renovation marks a milestone in the reimagination of the broader 22-acre master plan, which will introduce new residential, retail and public realm offerings, the release adds.
Envisioned as two distinct, yet connected villages, the development will unfold in phases, with construction currently underway on the North Village, the first phase of the redevelopment.
An open-air retail promenade will become the social spine of the district, linking three new residential buildings to the reimagined shopping centre and a 40,000-square-foot public park at its edge.
A future phase along Sheppard Avenue, the South Village, will introduce a new pedestrian-centric district.
Once complete, the master plan will add more than one million square feet of residential space and more than 100,000 square feet of new retail.
PowerCo Canada has named EllisDon Corporation the general contractor for its $7 billion St. Thomas gigafactory, marking a key milestone as the project advances into its next phase of construction.
The project is now moving into the core infrastructure and structural phases that will support future production.
Work includes the production-building shell, mechanical, electrical and plumbing installations, energy and utility systems and supporting site services. Approximately 60 EllisDon workers are currently onsite, expected to ramp up to roughly 1,300 workers at peak, alongside additional personnel supporting parallel project activities, a release reads.
At 1.5-million-square-feet, the plant will be the size of 210 football fields just for the factory alone. The entire industrial park itself amounts to 1,500 acres, or an area of 850 football fields.
“The PowerCo facility represents a transformative investment in Canada’s industrial future, and EllisDon is proud to play a role in its delivery,” said Max Mantha, president, construction at EllisDon in a statement. “As a Canadian-headquartered, employee-owned company, we are committed to building the infrastructure that will help support Canada’s growing electric vehicle and battery manufacturing sector. This project will create opportunities for skilled tradespeople, local businesses, and communities across southwestern Ontario, and we look forward to working with PowerCo and our partners on this landmark development.”
Ground was broken in 2025 on the project, with Magil Construction Canada leading foundation construction for three major buildings and Steelcon Group of Companies fabricating and erecting structural steel components.
PowerCo has stated it is also aligning the project’s timeline and product strategy “with evolving market demand, technological advancements and the Volkswagen Group’s long-term strategy.”
St. Thomas is now expected to begin operations in 2029. PowerCo had previously said initial battery production was targeted for 2027.
“The St. Thomas gigafactory remains a cornerstone of our North American strategy,” said Joel Karlsberg, chief procurement officer with PowerCo Canada.
“We are continuing to build now while determining how and when the facility scales over time. This is about getting the pacing right — not stepping back — to protect our long-term investment, support regional jobs, and position Canada, Ontario and St. Thomas to benefit in a dynamic and evolving market.”
Pandering to Israel partisans above the needs of other New Yorkers, NY mayor increases security funding for synagogues, will focus on folding Jewish history into public school education, and pledges to highlight important Jewish cultural and religious sites in the mayor’s day-to-day governance of the city
The Ontario government has announced it is kicking off its fifth annual Level Up! skilled trades career fairs to introduce students, families and jobseekers to in-demand careers in the skilled trades.
Through multi‑day events planned in 12 communities, the 2026 fairs are expected to reach more than 60,000 people and will include open house sessions and interactive exhibitions that will inspire the next generation of workers, a release reads.
The fairs showcase dozens of Ontario’s 144 skilled trades through hands-on demonstrations, exhibits and conversations with employers, unions and training providers.
All open houses are free and run from 3 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the following locations:
Kingston — September 29
Barrie — October 6
Timmins — October 14
Thunder Bay — October 21
Sudbury — October 28
Hamilton — November 3
Windsor — November 11
London — November 17
Ottawa — November 24
Oshawa — December 1
Mississauga — December 8
Ontario now has more than 94,000 active apprentices, the highest number in more than a decade, as more people choose careers in the skilled trades. By 2035, about one in six job openings in Ontario is expected to be in a skilled trades-related occupation.
O empresário e benemérito luso-americano John Negreiro Guedes (segundo a contar da direita), acompanhado por representantes da Primrose Companies e dos Bombeiros Voluntários de Vidago, durante a sua mais recente visita à alde. Créditos: DR.
One of the most striking expressions of the Portuguese presence in the world is found in the entrepreneurial spirit and achievement-oriented drive of so many compatriots who, far from their land of origin, built paths of recognized professional, business, and civic success. Among these examples of determination, merit, and a constant connection to one’s roots, John Negreiro Guedes stands out as a prominent businessman, architect, and leading benefactor within the Luso-American community.
Born in the village of Vilas Boas, in the municipality of Chaves, João Negreiro Guedes emigrated to the United States of America in the early 1960s at just ten years old, during a period marked by the socioeconomic hardships that affected the Transmontano interior under the Estado Novo. In the United States, he earned a degree in Architecture from Norwalk State College in Connecticut and subsequently built a distinguished business career that led him, in the late 1970s, to found Primrose Companies. Headquartered in Bridgeport, this architecture and construction firm specializes in commercial, multi-family residential, and medical unit projects across the states of Connecticut and New York.
Over more than four decades of professional activity, the Luso-American architect has been tied to numerous notable projects, including the Birmingham Apartments in Shelton, the Federal Arms Apartments in Bridgeport, the Twin Brooks Village Homes in Trumbull, the Post Road Professional Center in Westport, and the Easton Community Center in Easton.
Currently, under John Negreiro Guedes’ leadership, Primrose Companies has four major developments under construction in the state of Connecticut, representing a total investment of approximately $110 million. Among these projects are a new apartment building in Bridgeport featuring 88 residential units and a parking garage, as well as a mixed-use building in Fairfield with 50 apartments, ground-floor commercial spaces, and a two-story parking garage. In addition to these developments, four more projects are in the pre-construction phase with an overall budget of around $150 million, illustrating the scale achieved by the company and its significance within the U.S. construction and real estate development sector.
However, his success on American soil never distanced John Negreiro Guedes from his roots in Trás-os-Montes. On the contrary, his connection to his homeland remained a constant throughout his life, translating into a remarkable spirit of solidarity and commitment toward his communities of origin.
In Vilas Boas, a village to which he returns regularly, he has supported various sports, cultural, and recreational initiatives. Among his contributions are the acquisition of land for the local soccer field and financial support for building the headquarters of the local cultural association—gestures that testify to a close relationship and sense of responsibility toward the community where his roots were born.
This spirit of solidarity extends equally to several institutions in the municipality of Chaves, taking on special meaning through the support provided to the Humanitarian Association of the Volunteer Firefighters of Vidago, where John Negreiro Guedes has become one of the most vital benefactors over recent decades.
Among his numerous contributions to the humanitarian department, a key highlight in 2007 was the donation of a vital signs monitor. The following year, the Luso-American benefactor donated a fully equipped emergency ambulance, valued at approximately €60,000. In 2017, he made a significant donation that allowed the entire active department to be equipped with No. 2 uniforms. Early in 2023, he played another key role by contributing to the acquisition of a command vehicle and two non-emergency patient transport vehicles.
During the most recent holiday season, John Negreiro Guedes once again demonstrated his commitment to the Vidago Volunteer Firefighters by making a substantial contribution toward purchasing a new emergency ambulance (ABSC). This is an essential asset for reinforcing the department’s operational capacity, whose coverage area spans roughly 100.27 km² and serves approximately 5,300 residents across a territory defined by dense forestry, commercial and industrial sites, and an extensive road network.
Recognition of his contributions to the cause of Portuguese firefighters extended beyond local borders. The League of Portuguese Firefighters honored John Negreiro Guedes with the Gold Badge (Crachá de Ouro), one of the institution’s highest honors, awarded to individuals who have carried out actions and provided services of recognized importance in dignifying the firefighters’ cause. Furthermore, the Humanitarian Association of the Volunteer Firefighters of Vidago awarded him the department’s Silver Medal and, in 2022, memorialized his tribute by unveiling a bust at the “Peace Soldiers” headquarters.
More than a story of business success, John Negreiro Guedes’ journey is also a story of belonging, memory, and solidarity. Between America, where he built his professional career, and Vilas Boas, where his roots remain, he embodies the ability of so many Portuguese people to build a new life far from their native land without severing ties to their origins—transforming that bond into concrete support for local communities and institutions.
Luso-American businessman and benefactor John Negreiro Guedes (second from the right), accompanied by representatives from Primrose Companies and the Vidago Volunteer Firefighters, during his most recent visit to the village of Vilas Boas in late September.
Daniel Bastos/MS
The content on the Milénio Stadium website is automatically translated using Google Translate.
Johnny Depp says it’s time to expose the worst crimes of the Hollywood elite. And he’s starting with the man he swears is America’s worst child serial killer. Tom Hanks. He says Hanks has a [...]
Those who promise too much without a proven track record may be fooling the people.
My dear friends and readers, I have always heard that it is with feet under the table that the best friendships and the best business deals are often made. But it is also at the table, over good conversation, that we often get to truly know a person.
I, as many of you already know, do not hesitate to speak my mind. I may not always be right, but I try to pay attention to what I hear and, above all, to understand well what is being said to me.
Recently, I had the pleasure of meeting someone with a profile many would wish to have: upfront, simple, cautious with words, possessing a broad vision, and deeply attentive to the interests of the people and public accounts.
We spoke about poverty, employment, and the responsibilities of those who govern. One idea became crystal clear: you cannot promise everything to everyone without first thinking about who will pay for it and where the money will come from. The role of those who govern must also be to create the right conditions so that people can work, progress, and build their own future.
We also discussed employment. The reality is that difficulties exist, but there are also sectors lacking labor where greater investment in training, preparation, and the willingness to work is needed. We cannot build a society where everything is presented as a right without also talking about individual duties and responsibilities.
My friends, all this to say once again that politics cannot just be a race to make promises. Any day now, we’ll hear someone claim that we all have a right to win the lottery. Or better yet, that we deserve to win and that someone has an obligation to hand us the winning ticket.
Great leaders aren’t necessarily those who promise the most. They are those who know how to explain what is possible to achieve, how it can be done, and, above all, who is going to pay for it.
During our conversation, I even mentioned to him with a bit of humor that, despite being elected by a left-leaning party, some of his ideas seemed closer to social democracy. And he smiled.
Above all, I saw a person who is very careful with spending, concerned with balancing the accounts, and committed to ensuring quality of life for his residents. A person who seems to understand that quantity is not quality, and that governing cannot simply be about handing things out without thought for the next day.
I particularly liked one point he made: in politics, not anything goes. Those who govern must also remember that, all too often, some run up the debts while others are left with the responsibility of paying them off.
And this isn’t just about politics. It’s a reality we all recognize, whether in a family, a business, an association, or a country. We cannot spend today without thinking about the consequences tomorrow.
My dear readers, are you curious to know who this person is that I had the privilege to meet?
His name is Eng. Frederico Furtado de Sousa, Mayor of Lagoa, in the Azores.
It was a pleasure meeting him. I found a humble, intelligent, straightforward, and measured person, but above all, someone who conveyed to me the idea that, in politics, party colors should never stand above the responsibility of governing.
Mr. Mayor, I hope you continue to be the person the people of Lagoa chose to manage the future of their municipality, with calmness and without euphoria. You came to Toronto and, perhaps without even intending to, ended up giving many of us a little lesson: there are rights, but there are also duties; there is support that is necessary, but there are also responsibilities; and public money is not bottomless.
It was a conversation over a meal, with feet under the table, but it left me with one certainty: sometimes, you need to know the person before you judge the politician.
Now you know who this person is that I met with feet under the table.
Look up and listen to the Mesa Redonda program from September 25th, and see what a good politician truly looks like.
I am a human being:I consider nothing human alien to me. — Publius Terentius Afer, 195 BC
Advances in medicine and widespread access to healthcare have led to an increase in longevity in recent years. On the other hand, birth control and the individual choice not to have children have resulted in declining birth rates. As a consequence, we are now faced with increasingly aging population pyramids. We are, therefore, confronting a reality in which the disparity between the number of elderly people and children is striking.
However, growing old—despite representing an achievement and reflecting a long journey in combating certain diseases—is not always synonymous with quality of life. Recently, journalist Luís Osório dedicated one of his daily columns to aging: “To be sure, reaching old age means unexpected aches, joints on strike, and bone spurs, but it is also the possibility of being in less of a hurry, of seeking depth, of rediscovering slowness.” It is above all this slowness that is least understood by younger generations, who lack the patience to deal with the pace of lost youth, because—and to continue with Luís Osório—“Aging is muscles emptying, acquiring the fear of crossing the street, of falling in the bathtub, of being hospitalized, but it is also arguing less, sacrificing the madness of ambition for well-being.”
The crux of the matter lies in the kind of well-being each person desires, especially when we are so often confronted with the number of care homes shutting down due to degrading conditions, and the terrifying number of elderly people living in vulnerable situations without any support. Some are denied their most basic rights when unscrupulous entities, under the cover of the law, evict them without pity or mercy from the homes where they spent their entire lives.
In recent days, we watched live what happened in neighboring Spain with Maria del Carmen, who mobilized an entire population in a protest against the glaring injustice committed through the insensitivity of those who still view old age as a distant milestone. Maria del Carmen Abascal, better known as Maricarmen, is 87 years old and had lived in a rented house since 1956 in the Retiro neighborhood of Madrid. In other words, for 70 years, she knew no other place than the one where she grew up and grew old. The lease agreement had been signed by her father; after his death, it passed directly to her mother, and in 2005, to the daughter, subject to rent adjustments. Meanwhile, the property was acquired by an investment fund, Urbagestion, which legally contested this final transfer. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the company, thereby allowing it to exercise its right to evict her. The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights had asked the Spanish state last June to guarantee Maricarmen a housing solution tailored to her situation. She was offered an emergency spot in a care home, which Maricarmen declined. Consequently, the company felt entitled to proceed with the court-ordered eviction. On the day it took place, we could see her, lucid, being carried out on a stretcher, while hundreds of people gathered in a protest outside the building to try to prevent it, seeing their efforts completely thwarted.
Some might argue that the company acted with the backing of a judicial ruling. True! However, the question we must ask ourselves is: to what extent is such a decision just? Because a home is not made of walls, but of the people, the objects, the environments that embrace us, and, above all, the memories we lived in them, where every corner reminds us of moments from our lives.
Forcing someone to turn their back on 70 years of a life is an act of atrocious violence. And it does not dignify us as human beings.
Aida Batista/MS
The content on the Milénio Stadium website is automatically translated using Google Translate.
Earth’s orbital environment is a finite resource. That being the case, some Earth orbits are so crowded and carry deadly, high-velocity pieces of defunct satellite litter and rocket stages they jeopardize humanity’s future in space. Today’s scenery in space is not a pretty picture. And that’s the output from experts at the European Space Agency […]
US Africa Command said in a press release on Wednesday that its forces launched two more airstrikes in Somalia as the Trump administration continues its record-shattering bombing campaign in the country, a war that’s ignored by US media despite AFRICOM announcing its strikes. The command said both strikes were launched on September 25, and that […]
In cooperation with the Centre for Palestine Studies at SOAS University London and Friends of Palestinian Universities, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) has released a new report, “Scholasticide and Genocide in Gaza: Assessment, Testimonial and Legal Analysis,” documenting Israel’s systematic destruction of Gaza’s educational system and examining how this policy forms an integral part of Israel’s ongoing three-year genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
The report demonstrates that Israel’s attacks on education in Gaza, including on UNRWA educational faciltiies and staff, go far beyond the destruction of schools and universities or the killing of Palestinian teachers. They constitute a comprehensive policy aimed at dismantling the educational, intellectual, social and cultural foundations necessary for the continued existence and development of Palestinian society.
Drawing on dozens of testimonies and affidavits collectd by PCHR field researchers and lawyers in Gaza, alongside PCHR’s extensive documentation, open-source material, United Nations reports, academic research and relevant international jurisprudence, the report identifies five interconnected patterns of scholasticide: the killing of students, teachers and academics; causing serious bodily and mental harm to them; destroying of educational facilities; obstructing the establishment alternative educational structures; and imposing genocidal conditions that prevent students from accessing education.
By July 2026, PCHR had documented the killing of approximately 20,051 students, more than 830 teachers and educational staff, and over 194 scholars, academics and researchers. Nearly the entire educational infrastructure in in Gaza has been extensively damaged or destroyed, while hundreds of thousands of students have endured prolonged interruption of their education amid displacement, starvation, bombardment, loss of family members, destruction of homes, lack of electricity and internet access, and the collapse of essential services.
PCHR’s report finds that certain acts committed within Israel’s campaign of scholasticide constitute genocidal acts under Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, including killing members of the protected group, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
The report further highlights the long-term impact on Palestinian children and young Palestinians, including psychological harm, educational loss, diminished future opportunities and intergenerational trauma. Israel’s erasure of the educational infrastructure and broader civilian life in Gaza does not only constitute an attack on the rights of the present generation but also on the future generations.
Education has historically played a central role in sustaining Palestinian identity, knowledge, social cohesion and cultural continuity, particularly in the context of prolonged displacement and occupation. Israel’s destruction of universities, schools, libraries, academic records and cultural institutions therefore carries consequences far beyond the loss of physical infrastructure. It seeks to sever Palestinians from their history and intellectual life, diminish their capacity to rebuild their society, and deprive future generations of the means to learn, develop and participate fully in their community.
PCHR stresses that the destruction of Gaza’s education system did not begin on 7 October 2023. For decades, Palestinian schools, universities and educational institutions have been subjected to attacks, restrictions and destruction during successive Israeli military operations. The unprecedented scale of destruction since October 2023 however represents the culmination and intensification of this longstanding pattern.
PCHR calls on the international community, particularly States Parties to the Genocide Convention, to:
Take immediate and effective measures to bring Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza to an end, including its policy of scholasticide.
Ensure full compliance with the three provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice in the case of South Africa v. Israel.
Impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel and halt all military, financial and other assistance that may contribute to the commission of international crimes.
Support international accountability mechanisms, including the International Criminal Court, and ensure that those responsible for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity are investigated and prosecuted.
Take concrete measures to protect Palestinian students, teachers, academics and educational institutions and guarantee the restoration of the right to education in Gaza.
Provide sustained support for the reconstruction of Gaza’s schools, universities, libraries and educational infrastructure, while ensuring that reconstruction does not substitute for accountability.
Address the long-term psychological, educational and developmental consequences suffered by Palestinian children and young people and ensure their access to rehabilitation, mental-health support and inclusive education.
L'Europa procede verso una guerra inevitabile con la Russia. Un'analisi geopolitica ed economica sulle conseguenze dell'escalation e del disarmo europeo.
US President Donald Trump has launched "America", an AI chatbot designed as a digital portal for US government information. But its responses appear to be changing. The chatbot initially challenged several of Trump's claims, including on the 2020 election and inflation, providing evidence and links. More recently, it has refused to answer some of the same questions. Other responses still contradict Trump, while some echo his views. Vedika Bahl tests the chatbot and its varying answers in Truth or Fake.
Frog release days always start early, at about 4 a.m., so that staff can get up to the site before the day gets too hot, said Erin Lundy, manager of conservation initiatives at the Aquarium of the Pacific in the U.S. The first challenge is catching the frogs. A newly morphed southern mountain yellow-legged frog (Rana muscosa) is about an inch long, fast, and very good at squeezing into cracks, Lundy said. It can take a couple of hours for staff to scoop them all up from the tanks. Lundy prefers grabbing them with gloved hands, though others use nets. The aquarium has been rearing southern mountain yellow-legged frogs since 2021, as part of a multi-agency, 20-plus-year conservation effort for the species, a Southern California amphibian listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List. Head-starting the frogs by ushering them through metamorphosis in captivity boosts their odds of survive, Lundy said. This year’s cohort arrived at the aquarium late last summer as 2-month-old tadpoles from the Los Angeles Zoo, where they were bred. Through winter and into spring, aquarium staff watched as their limbs erupted and tails slowly reabsorbed. By August, most were ready for life in the wild. (Metamorphosis for this species takes from one to five years in the wild, and is highly variable in captivity. Those that did not fully metamorphosize by the release date will be held back and released as larger adults next summer). Developing southern mountain yellow-legged frog (Rana muscosa) embryos inside eggs at…This article was originally published on Mongabay
“We are living in a pivotal moment in labor history,” Cole Rockarts writes in their new book Fired Up About Unions. “At a time when corporations have more power, profit, and political influence than ever before, workers are leading inspiring union organizing campaigns and taking on bosses to win big… Their struggles reveal that everyday people can unite, change their conditions, and build better workplaces and a better world.” In this episode of Working People, we speak with a panel of labor organizers across the USA and Canada about why labor unions are more important now than ever, and how workers organizing collectively can change their workplaces, their lives, and the world.
Panelists include: Hassan Husseini of the Public Service Alliance of Canada and Labor for Palestine – Canada; Tina Oh of SEIU Local 2 in Hallifax, Canada; Alex Raymond of Teamsters 322 in Virginia, USA, and Cole Rockarts, veteran labor educator and organizer and author of the new book Fired Up About Unions.
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Maximillian Alvarez:
All right. Welcome everyone to Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today. My name is Maximillian Alvarez, and today we are talking about labor unions, why they are important, why they have always been important for working people, and why they are more important now than ever, and why you should be part of one. In their new book, Fired Up About Unions, veteran labor educator, organizer, and writer Cole Rockharts writes, “We are living in a pivotal moment in labor history. At a time when corporations have more power, profit, and political influence than ever before, workers are leading inspiring union organizing campaigns and taking on bosses to win big. These workers are fighting not just for themselves, but for their communities too. Their struggles reveal that everyday people can unite, change their conditions, and build better workplaces and a better world.” So this is what we’re going to be talking about today, and we’re really basing this conversation on Cole Rockhart’s great new book, which everyone should go read.
You can find it using the links in the show notes for this episode. And I’m really grateful to have Cole Rockarts themselves joining us on the show today. So Cole, welcome. Congratulations on this important book. Could you tell our listeners a little bit about the book and where it came from?
Cole Rockarts:
Absolutely. Thanks, Maximillian. It’s really exciting also to hear someone else read it because it’s just been in the ether for such a long time, so thanks for that. It’s very cool. So Fired Up About Unions, which again, you can get at BTL between the lines in Canada or AK Press in the US or your local library, give it an order there, really examines what unions are, demystifies the myths around unions, that we don’t need them, that they’re outdated, that young workers can’t be organized or different types of workers can’t be organized, and really lays the groundwork of why unions have become so weak in our respective countries in Canada and the US, and talks about why young people can be the antidote to all of the problems facing work and really unions themselves. Unions aren’t perfect, but if we take the view that unions are made up of people and we recognize that our coworkers are just regular people and we all ultimately want the same things, and that’s higher wages, protections at work, health and safety on the job, and better, that’s the great place where we can start to come together and change not only our individual situations, but as I say in the book, our communities and even beyond.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Hell yeah. And we’re going to be talking about how to do that, how to do better, get better, and fight better from the shop floor and beyond. And I’m so grateful with Cole’s help that we’ve pulled together an incredible panel of folks here, union organizers and members from across Canada and the US. And we’re going to dig into all this now, but first I wanted to ask if y’all could introduce yourselves to our listeners.
Hassan Husseini:
My name is Hassan Husseini. My day job is a national negotiator with the Public Service Alliance of Canada, which is the largest federal public sector union in Canada. As such, I’m also unionized member of Unifor Local 2025. Unifor is a merger of a couple of private sector unions in Canada, one of them being the Canadian Auto Workers that split from the American Auto Workers Union back in the 80s. And I am also a member of the National Steering Committee of Labor for Palestine Canada. I’ve been active in social justice and labor movement for 30 plus, maybe more years. Happy to be here. Thank you.
Tina Oh:
Hi folks. My name is Tina Oh. My pronouns are she/her. I’m joining in from Halifax, Nova Scotia here in Eastern Canada. My role is organizing coordinator with Service Employees International Union Local two. We’re the only national SEIU division in Canada, but I also have a role as vice president for Eastern Canada. So the region is all of Atlanta, Canada, Newfoundland, PI, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. Really happy to be here.
Alex Raymond:
Hey y’all, I’m Alex Raymond. I am a mental health worker out of Richmond, Virginia, United States, and I am just a regular worker organizer, very new to the labor space, but very fired up to be here.
Cole Rockarts:
My name is Cole Rocker. My pronouns are they/them, and I am a longtime union staffer, although the veteran brand doesn’t sit well when Hassan’s in the room. I’ve been working for labor unions for the past 10 years, and that’s been in Canada and the US. And I’m now a labor educator at a healthcare union in Los Angeles. And I am the author of the forthcoming book, Fired Up About Unions, which is about why young people can change the working world and the labor movement.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Oh yeah. So maybe we need an updated taxonomy. We got veterans here and then we got legends with Hassan. So we got the full spectrum here, baby. And I’m so grateful to have all of you on and to hear all of your perspectives on this important subject. So I want to dive right in and ask y’all, what have unions meant to you over your lifetime? What did you know or not know about unions before being part of one? And I’m asking that as someone who does a labor show now, but knew jack shit about unions for most of my life.
Alex Raymond:
I kind of want to just directly responding to that, that was sort of my experience, that labor organizing in mental health, that’s really not a thing. But over the years that I’ve been in this industry, almost 15 years coming up this November, we just see wages decrease the amount of patients or clients that we are responsible for increase expectations going up while benefits go down. And a lot of us just silently accept that. We get into this line of work because we care and it almost feels like a betrayal to the work that we’re so committed to, to even think that better is possible. But it had always been a discussion. And growing up, my dad, he was an organizer with SEIU in Boston during his residency, and he would always tell me this story when he was laid off for labor organizing, that it was just the proudest moment of his professional life when all of his coworkers came to his shitty Boston apartment and they essentially shut the hospital down.
There was a lot of anxiety about what that would do to patients, but there was a lot of camaraderie and that’s something that’s missing nowadays. We’re struggling to get by and we deserve better. And I think that sort of bubbled up over the last couple of years. And a group of us got together a couple years back and we started organizing from the ground up, literally Googling how to make union. And we came into contact with a lot of people that have a lot of expertise and thank God because we needed all the help we can get. And we went from zero union density to more than zero and growing each and every month. And we formed a union here in Richmond, Virginia with Teamsters Local 322. And now there are unions with United Automotive Workers within our industry as well as National Union of Healthcare Workers and United Food and Commercial Workers.
And we’ve had to learn what all those acronyms mean and what they can mean for people in our field. And it’s been a huge thing. But from my perspective growing up, I’d always thought that was such an important thing to do, but just never really knew how to go about doing it.
Hassan Husseini:
From my experience way back when I first became unionized, and I think it’s still with us today, the thinking about unions is that it’s only about money. It’s only going to put more money in your pocket by increasing your wages from what you had before you were unionized. And to me, the thing that struck me, and I think it’s still with me today and in the organizing campaigns that I was involved in, it is really important for us to recognize and talk to workers about the fact that it’s about increasing your power in the workplace. It is about working class empowerment, and it is about some of the things that Cole just rhymed off with respect to health and safety, with respect to being valued in the workplace, giving your voice on so many different committees, and taking away the power, the exclusive power that bosses have without a union.
So I didn’t know that at the beginning. I came in, I though, okay, my wage will go up a little bit, not knowing that it’s going to give me so much more empowerment both individually and as a collective within the workplace. And that is something that opened my eyes to huge possibilities for that particular workplace I was in, but for the working class generally. And that lesson is still with me up to this point. I think things are getting even worse in terms of capitalist bosses propaganda that we can give you a little bit of a bump in your wages. You don’t have to go to unions because they know that when you unionize, you have more power in the workplace and that’s what scares the shit out of them.
Tina Oh:
Hasan, I’m just going to piggyback off that because I think that last point you just mentioned about how non-union workers are still gaining and benefiting off the winds of union workers is so relevant and I think that’s how I want to answer this question. It’s going to take me a second to get there, but I’ll get there. So my family moved to Edmonton, Alberta when I was two years old. My sister was five and it was just my mom and my dad. There was no other kind of family support systems that my parents had in Canada nor in Edmonton. So that like many non-economic migrants, that meant working traditionally low wage service jobs.
My parents have never worked a union job in their working careers in this country. And one of my dad’s longest held jobs was as a housekeeper and a janitor at the Western Hotel, and that was a non-union job. But the reason why that’s relevant is that that job, even though it was non-union, it was the first job that my dad had that gave us health benefits. It was the job that ended up getting us permanent residency so that we could stay in the country. And the reason why, of course, that connects to unions is because the work of the private sector hotel unions that have raised the industry standards to the point that these non-union hotels cannot recruit workers without offering health benefits, without offering them a pathway to permanent residency. And so I think about that job, especially now that I work for a janitor’s union, SEIU Local two, half of our membership is janitors, private sector contracted out janitors.
And now that I’m in this role and I think back to my childhood and the horrors really that my parents had to face in their working careers, I know absolutely without a doubt in my mind that our lives would’ve been better had my dad had a union at that hotel or any union really. And at the same time, I also can see how our lives still greatly benefited from the wins of the working class that have progressed the labor movement to the point where non-union jobs are still offering health benefits and whatnot. So I just wanted to leave that there.
Cole Rockarts:
I think for me, it’s a bit of a combination of all these things. As my co-podcasters have just said, a union can be the difference between having healthcare or not, having benefits or not. When I was younger, I didn’t realize that my mom was unionized. She was a teacher for many years before she retired, and it wasn’t until I started getting involved in my student movement. And in Canada, the student union system is quite different than in the US, and I think the US should absolutely steal this idea from Canada. But many of our student organizations that fight for lower tuition fees or free tuition or more rights for international students or different campaigns of equity on campuses are unionized. So my first foray into having a union was starting to work at the student union and run all these campaigns as a student organizer.
And so it wasn’t until I started getting involved that I had this conversation with my mom about, “Oh, there’s this union.” And I was told to go to a meeting because there’s free pizza and I wanted free pizza. And she said, “Oh yeah, I’ve been involved in my union. I was a shop steward.” I was like, “What the hell is a shop steward? What does that even mean? And it’s essentially the person that represents the workplace while they’re actually working in there, and you can go to them with questions about your contract or different issues you’re having.” And I said, “What? You were a shop steward?” She was like, “Yeah, I used to carry the book and the book is the contract.” And I said, “I didn’t know that.” She said, “Yeah, I’ve been out on strike. I’ve been on the picket line.” And so it was years later that I realized like, “Oh my God, my parent has been a union member, has fought for these things, and it’s because of her that I have the life that I have.”
Maximillian Alvarez:
It’s always so fascinating to me to hear stories like yours and the stories that folks have shared with me on this show for the past nine seasons. I always tell folks that I am endlessly fascinated in the stories of our fellow workers who take that step to do something, to change their conditions, because I lived most of my life not knowing that that was an option. Like most people in this country, I’m talking about the US here, when I had crappy jobs, whether they were in service or factories, warehouses, retail, I thought I only had two options. If the job sucked, I could either just stay, grin and bear it, or leave and try to find something better. I didn’t know there was a secret third thing you could do and band together with your coworkers and fight back and stay and fight to improve things.
And so to me, anyone who takes that step, especially in a country where working people are so routinely reminded and conditioned to believe that we are powerless, anyone who says otherwise and does otherwise to me is a hero. And not just that, but the way it changes your perspective on things to take that step, to organize, to bring your boss to the bargaining table, that really changes a lot of the ways that you look at the world and yourself and the work that you do. And I wanted to turn that into a question for y’all. You talked about this a bit in the first round, but I wanted to ask if you could go a little deeper and say how it changes your life at work and beyond when you become part of a union or join a union drive. Did it change the way that you guys all look at your own work in life when you did that?
Tina Oh:
For me as a young person that started labor work, I think I was 21 at the time when I first got my union job. And of course, previous to that, I was part of the student union like Cole was. And we’re living in a time where obviously we can talk about all these crises that are happening, global crises to mention that, and union work really helped make the world make more sense, if that makes sense. And I think a lot of young people, and when I reflect back to what I was thinking through when I was 21, and I’m not saying obviously I’ve got it all figured out now, certainly don’t, but I think a lot of young people are probably really confused and puzzled by all these kind of disparate crises when obviously they’re all interconnected. And maybe we could even say that they are interconnected, but it wasn’t really until I really immersed myself and understood how power works and the history of the gains that workers have made to really push the needle to where we are today.
Things really just started to click. And now when a new crisis happens in the world, it’s just less confusing for me. And I think that’s relevant because that feeling of hopelessness I think really gets reined in when you are in a fighting union because that fighting union is then about solutions and it’s about optimism and it’s about hope. And it’s also about, yeah, we might lose, but we’re just going to get back up the next day and fight again. And so that clarity really became clear when I was part of a union drive and helping workers form unions at their workplace. And seeing the transformation happen to them was so transformative for me because I’m seeing it in real time, ordinary people coming together to do extraordinary things.
Alex Raymond:
Yeah. Tina, hearing you say that, especially that piece about hopelessness was something that was deeply more so than I think I’ve even been aware of in my personal experience of work and working up until the idea that there could be something better came up in my working with this organizing that we’ve done recently. Meeting people across the country that are fighting for change and are in the exact same position. We are inexperienced, we are outnumbered, we are dealing with a very effectively organized managerial group that wants nothing more than to see us lose. And then seeing people like Sean and Noah out in Massachusetts, workers out in California coming together, Jane and Colin out in Marilyn, all these different people that I would not have met had not been for this organizing work changed a lot of that hopelessness into a deep sense of optimism that’s going to be really, really hard to lose.
And that I think is the most important way my life has changed since participating in organizing. And I see it at home, at work. We have this current style of people coming in and out of care work and healthcare, and it’s hard on us. We’re job hopping a lot, but it’s really, really hard on the clients that we serve. We work predominantly for little kids and somebody comes in, they build a relationship with you, and then you can’t afford to work the job anymore, you get burned out. And that’s devastating for those young people, and we want to change that. And since we’ve started organizing, we’re seeing turnover rates decrease. These people believe that better is possible and that possibility is brought into existence through our collective action. We alone can’t formulate what a solution might look like, but collectively we’ve found answers and we’ve put them into practice, not just in one location, but in lots of other locations.
And we’re seeing people pick up the banner with us, and it’s just been one of the most inspiring, if not the most profound experiences of my life. And hearing you speak on that just reminds me why I’m part of this fight.
Hassan Husseini:
This is a really good segue because most of you have done the organizing part, which is the hard part to organize workers into unions. My role as a national negotiator is that I come in to work with these newly organized group of workers to get in place a first collective agreement, which is challenging in and of its own, but it’s during the negotiations for a collective agreement. Well, actually it is during the organizing drive that you see their power and a recognition of the power that they have really come into fruition. But it is also a different kind of a very, very rewarding process when you’re working collectively with workers, trying to get a new collective agreement and seeing the bosses push back to put language in collective agreements that gives them more rights, more powers, more protections, more provisions. This is where you see that they are solidifying their power in the workplace and there’s nothing like it because at times when we’re negotiating new terms, and I’ve negotiated terms in the new collective agreement in the university sector, in the gaming industry, right now I have a group of firefighters in an indigenous community in Southwestern Ontario that I just came back from starting negotiations with them.
And you’ll see that their questions is that, “What do you mean we can put language in the collective agreement that is better than the minimum standards?” It’s like, yes, you are organized in order to do that. Minimum standards, you’re protected by it anyway, but your collective agreement, it relies on your power in the workplace, your power in the community, and you’ll see the relationship with their coworkers, their relationship with the boss, their relationship within the community completely changes. It gives them the confidence, it gives them the power, it gives them the power that comes with the fact that when they’re sitting at the bargaining table, no matter what, they’re equals to that boss. And of course, when the boss goes back to the workplace, they try to play games, but you cannot put back, what is that expression, the genie in a bottle or something?
They’ve recognized their power and they’re willing to take that extra steps in order to keep building on it and to demonstrate it in the workplace and outside the workplace. And there’s nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing like it when work is recognized, I want to go Tina’s original point, recognize the power that they have in the workplace and in the community. And I’m privileged, I feel, that I get to work with workers to try to put together collective agreements that give them that extra power.
Cole Rockarts:
Yeah, I’ll just pick up on something Hassan said in his current negotiations about raising the minimum standards. And as organizers and workers, we talk about expectations a lot and great folks have written about raising expectations, so I won’t go into too much of that. But when people realize that not only can they raise the floor at their job, like Alex said, that he could change the mental healthcare industry and the ability for him to have consistency with his clients, with the kids that he’s trying to serve, that’s very mission-driven work. And we see all the time workers in organizing drives, particularly in healthcare, but lots of places, education where they say, “Well, I don’t know if I could do this because I would put the kids or the patients or whoever it is at risk.” But a lot of these campaigns are about connecting, “Well, this would actually make things way more sustainable for the work that I’m trying to do.
This would make me stay. This would help raise my wage so I can provide for my family.” All of these things go back to that question of power. And so when I think about how it changed the way I look at work and life, particularly now coming from Canada and the US, there is an entire industry that is dedicated to crushing workers’ ability to do this. And it has a lot of money behind it. It has a lot of politicians behind it. I mean, the US, we look at right to work states. We look at what is going on in Alberta, Canada right now and the attacks on trying to privatize our healthcare, which is a big no-no in Canada.
We workers, workers historically fought for all these things to get a public healthcare system to get funding. And so I think this’ll go to a little bit about the power that we’re up against, but we also talk about how we don’t have, and it’s because of people crushing unions, we don’t have a lot of money. We don’t have the ability to match dollar for dollar what our bosses are doing, but what we do have is people power. And so I think I was lucky enough to get into it at 20, but since moving here, even in the past few years, I’ve completely changed the way that I see power and what workers are up against as well.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Yeah, man. I mean, in the good old US of A, I mean, we have many rights on paper, but not in reality. And I’m constantly telling folks that you have a right to be a part of and form a union and collectively bargain in your workplace in this country. But in this country, that’s basically saying that Frodo Baggins has a right to go into Mordor, right? I mean, the opposition that you’re going to face, the pain that you’re going to be put through, the system that’s going to chew you up and spit you out just for exercising that right is going to take a lot from you and your coworkers, and you need to be prepared for that. And that’s what I wanted to talk about here in this round. Let’s talk about the hard stuff because we’ve seen over the past few years, over the course of me doing this show, I’ve heard it in the stories we’ve reported, this boom in energy around new labor organizing from the Starbucks workers to the Amazon workers, to the independent union movements, to the revivals within the established unions like the UAW, the Teamsters, some of the historic strikes that have happened in Canada in the past five years.
A lot is clearly happening, but at the same time, I think a lot of folks who got swept up in that energy over the past five years have also come to the hard kind of realities of unions aren’t perfect. Labor law is stacked against you. There’s going to be a whole lot of crap that you’re going to have to go through, but it is worth it. And so I want to talk about that with you guys and sort of address head on these real issues that folks have had or will face when trying to organize. So let’s talk about what people are really going to be up against when they try to unionize today in the US or Canada. And if someone’s listening to this, what do they do when their union sucks or union officials break their heart and screw them over?
Hassan Husseini:
You’re right. There are a lot of unions that, to put it in your words, can break your heart. But I always say having a union, even a shitty union is better than not having a union at all. Because even with a shitty union, there are mechanisms that you can do internally within your union in order to challenge those leaderships that are not willing to fight a good fight on your behalf, but collectively on behalf of all the workers and the community. So definitely I think we’re all on the same page or should be on the same page that unions are better than no unions whatsoever. But we also need to recognize that there are a lot of sellout unions or leaderships within unions that are no longer willing to fight a good fight. They’ve become part of the institutionalized capitalist system. They’ve lost the vision and they don’t advance anything more than protecting their careers.
And they have forgotten that unions are, after all, also political organizations of the working class. And they’ve lost that. And that’s where you see some unions or some leadership within unions making decisions that end up harming workers that they’re supposed to represent. But it’s not the end of the world because I always say that what you need to do as workers, the union is yourself. So you organize internally, you organize in order to bring democracy back into your union and your workplace. And you organize to take over, to take back those unions from those careerist elements within the union movement. Those who are willing to and understand and have class consciousness and they are fighting a class war to go back to the classics. This is the reality of it. And they’re not going to advance a lot of workers if they compromise with the employer on some fundamental issues.
And so our work is premised on the fact that we believe in the power of workers, but we also need to be very realistic about what kind of unions we’re dealing with. And also in my work in organizing in solidarity with the Palestinian liberation struggle and Palestinian workers, I’ve realized that the connection between those unions who are taking better positions in solidarity with international workers around the world is very much connected to how much they’re willing to fight for their own members and for the working class in Canada or the US. And those who have sold out when it comes to the class struggle in their own workplaces and communities and in Canada and the US, you find them that they’re not willing to actually be in solidarity internationally. They may pay lip service, but they don’t do anything concretely to honor that global picket line of the Palestinian people.
And as it was before, the people of South Africa that fought against apartheid. So they’re connected. Good fighting working class unions that have clarity of purpose are also clear on the local, on the national and on the international issues. And we have no choice but to continue to fight a good fight internally to make sure that they stay on the straight path or the left path rather.
Tina Oh:
I want to hear from you, Alex.
Alex Raymond:
Yeah, I’m itching to jump in on this one. So what you’re up against, you hear, especially when you’re new to this, “Hey, there’s the NLRB, you have these rights and the NLRB will adjudicate if there’s any unfair action taken against you by your employer.” But my boss, Lindsay Thompson straight up fired me in writing for labor organizing and that’s still in NLRB hell. And we’re expecting a ruling any decade now, probably 2035, 2045, my grandkids will get a decision passed down. So I mean that’s the reality of it. And I’ve got some comrades that have similarly experienced pretty nefarious dealings from their employer because who’s going to stop them? They fire you, you’re kind of done for. And then on the heels of that, my union internally was going through a little bit of drama precisely when I got fired. And that happened to create a really perfect storm that weakened our bargaining unit and set us up for a lot of trouble going into 2026.
But what is the solution? To quote the adage, don’t mourn, organize. And I remind myself that these things, these institutions that exist today were built by the literal blood of people that were massacred and organizing in significantly more difficult conditions today. I lost a job, I got a new job. I wasn’t brutalized in the ways that you encounter in the history book. So not discounting the struggles that people are facing today, it’s just that the solution remains the same, which is you organize. And my union, we organize internally, brought it up to the local president. They got it fixed. He’s out there on the line with us, every opportunity he’s got. And they’ve done an incredible amount to organize with us. And not just Brian Payton with Teamsters Local 322 and a huge chunk of amazing UPS workers, Jennifer Hancock, those folks coming out, making sure that we’re all right and that this group of workers gets represented fairly.
But the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, especially their caucus of rank and file electrical workers, it’s an internal caucus that has come together and shown up for workers in Richmond and across the country in really profound ways. If there’s a worker struggle in town, there’s going to be hard hats there. And I think it’s that kind of ethos that we need to really embrace. One worker’s struggle is my struggle and it’s been really hard. There was an understandable amount of almost desperation when we did everything right and the employer is just able to break every rule and get away with it. But I think it taught us a very valuable lesson, which is that you don’t just win a vote and then you’re all done. You organize not just to win a contract, but then to enforce it and then to be able to have the capacity to show up for other workers because there’s not just one fight and then you’re done.
This is a global fight. The cause of every member of the working class is our cause. So this is the fight of a lifetime, not just for a contract or a vote or some particular grievance. So I think it’s been hard, but we’ve learned a lot of lessons and we’re continuing to learn. And a lot of that is because of the very cool people that are on this panel today. So shout out to y’all.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Well, and obviously the fact that we have such an incredible panel of folks from Canada and the US, and Cole, you came from Canada to the US. I was wondering if you could also wrap into this question the differences of the situations and the things that folks are going to face in the US versus Canada while we’re answering this question.
Cole Rockarts:
Absolutely. I think I have two different parts to this answer. The first is that I think in Canada we have a different history when it comes to not only our labor movement, but our political parties. I think in the US, you folks are locked into the two party hell, that is the Democrats and the Republicans. Our system in Canada is multi-party and we had a labor movement that formed a political party that became the new Democratic Party, the NDP. And those were the folks I mentioned earlier that led to Medicare, healthcare being public in this country. And I say that not to give a knighthood to politicians because we know that everything that we’ve won in any country has come from workers pushing for that and pressuring that and always will be, always has been. And so I think that’s one of the big differences.
And obviously in the negotiation realm, when you don’t have to think about Medicare or healthcare being part of the contract and you can instead think about the things in Canada that haven’t gotten into that system like drug care, prescriptions, it changes the negotiation landscape for sure. I think the other big difference is the matter of density. And I mentioned the word density earlier, but that is how many workers percentage-wise are unionized within a given population. So in Canada, that is much, much higher. In the US, it’s brutal and it shows all of the things that have –
Maximillian Alvarez:
We’re below 10% now, I believe. That’s
Cole Rockarts:
Correct. And I’ll just say to your listeners, the Economic Policy Institute put out this amazing report about what would change if union density in the US was higher. And the reality is we would have healthcare. We would have about, give or take, 7,000 extra dollars a year in your pocket. And I don’t know about anyone else on this call, but I think people could use 7,000 plus dollars a year.
Maximillian Alvarez:
And that’s $7,000 a year that you would get in your contract versus the kind of fantastical fake $5,000 that President Trump is promising you if you just believe him and vote the way he wants in the midterms.
Cole Rockarts:
Exactly. And I’ll just say quickly on that, studies have shown that in countries where there are strong labor movements, there are more democracies. Even if we look at the US, we see that in right-to-work states, there are more attacks right now on the voting system than there are in states with higher union density. And so that’s kind of the first part of the answer to my question. But the second part is how is Canada and the US different? They’re not. Workers in Canada and workers in the US coming from both places, they’re not that different. They want the same things. They want higher wages, they want benefits, they want good jobs, and they want clean air and for the AI overlords to not ruin the planet and put a data center in their backyard. And so same as it ever was, workers, no matter the country, if they can get enough power, they can change things and make things better.
Tina Oh:
Everything yes, that Cole just said, a thousand percent. I just want to say genuinely, SEIU, it’s a giant of a union, one of the biggest in the US. And so when I look at my comrades in the US, not just in SEIU, but US unions in general, I really don’t have a problem in saying, I genuinely think it is harder to organize in the US than it is in Canada. And I don’t mean to say that as good or bad, as simple as that. But I think where in Canada workers have made gains like card check, which is a one-step unionization system. All you have to do is sign a union card. There’s no vote. Where there’s successor rights in the three biggest provinces of our country. So Quebec, Ontario, BC, the most populated provinces have successor rates. That means contracted workers when there’s contract flip that the new employer has to hire them on and keep their contract.
Those are two really sizable, genuinely… Those are huge wins, legislative wins that workers have made in this country. And it has, for maybe a less sophisticated word, I think it does actually produce some lazy organizing when I compare it to my comrades in the US who have to strike for recognition or right to work states where the dues aren’t guaranteed. And part of that lazy organizing is it can get dangerous, of course, because we know, just as Cole said, the bosses are the same. The power that they have will absolutely crush us. Our dollars can’t compete. Our legal can’t compete. And so when organizers on the ground, whether it’s a member organizer, worker organizer, staff organizer, is taking these shortcuts, we know we’re going to get hit by those shortcuts down the road because a fight is coming guys. A fight is always coming. And so I think it’s a really important, I think, moment for Canada-based organizers where even though we’ve made those gains like card check-in successor, that we do the right thing, which is to develop and recruit the best leaders we can in our organizations and keep it a fighting organization.
And that means yes, there might be shortcuts, but we’re actually going to do the really rigorous spade work that is required to build a fighting union.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Hell yeah. I thought that was all beautifully and powerfully put, y’all. And it bears mentioning that you could say the same thing about unions here just a little farther back in our history. I mean, the union density in this country at its height was around 30% or a little over. I mean, unions built the middle class, they gave us the weekends. We know all the talking points, but then that middle class gave up on the struggle. They cared more about their middle class existence, their specific contracts. They lost that sense of working class solidarity. And here we are 40, 30 years later with the results. Union density below 10%, wages have been stagnant or declining, cost of living has been going up, power has been shifting to the top away from the bottom. So I think the real takeaway message from Canada to the US to everywhere is don’t get complacent.
The struggle has to continue, and I could genuinely talk to you guys for hours about how to continue that struggle. And I’m so grateful for the conversation that we’ve had, but I know we have to wrap up here. And so I wanted to finish with a big picture question that y’all have touched on in this conversation, but for folks who are listening to this right now and saying, “Yeah, that all sounds great, but why should I care about unions now in the year of our Lord 2026 when the world is on fire and everything sucks and these oligarch nut jobs are taking over everything and destroying the planet?” So what would you say to folks in closing who are still in that head space?
Alex Raymond:
Yeah, what I would say is why you should care about a union now is because things have already gotten to a point where we’re feeling the everyday economic ramifications of those decisions. And whatever inertia is kind of keeping us moving in this direction, if we can overcome that, if we can come together, we can identify any solutions that need to be found and start putting them into practice so that we can build a future that we want to be part of. And I know that sounds like fanciful language, but every small step in the right direction is also a step we’re not taking in the wrong direction. And it feels difficult. It feels impossible. It feels exhausting when you think about it individual terms, but you’re not alone. People like me don’t know a ton. I’m sitting on a panel today with Hassan, Cole, Tina, and you, Max, and there’s a lot of expertise out there and you’re not alone.
So nothing weaker than the feeble strength of one. We got this together.
Hassan Husseini:
Very briefly, I think that for all the reasons that you spoke about Maximilian, it’s for all these reasons, because the world is run by not oligarchs, it’s for the reason that they’re destroying the planet, the reason that we have Trump in the White House and Mark Carney in Ottawa that are governing on behalf of banks and corporations and the super rich. It’s for all these reasons that we need unions if for nothing else to equalize things, to make sure that they fight for working people on the shop floor, but also they continue to fight for better society, for all the working class. And also they continue to make sure that international solidarity is not just a performative thing, but a real element of the work of unions. And without unions and without organizing and without that kind of mass democratic organizations that we value so much, that we will fall back even more.
And so from that perspective and because of that, unions are a lot more critical today than in my opinion, they were 50 years ago or 60 or 70 years ago. And we finish on the adage again that an injury to one is an injury to all. So this is not about individual protection, it’s about a collective work, a collective organizing and collective protection and collective empowerment.
Tina Oh:
I think a good union organizer knows how to answer any question with the answer being union. And so to me, it’s why should people care about unions? Well, it’s less about why people should care about unions, more about do you want a better life for you and your family and your loved ones? If so, the only answer is union. And I believe that. We just talked about the trickle down effects of increasing union density is that we live in a better society. There’s healthcare improvements, education improvements, life expectancy, I’m sure. And so I think that question that Cole talked about, workers in US, Canada, across any border, they want a better life for themselves and their families. I don’t know a single ordinary working person that doesn’t. And the answer to that question is going to be union.
Cole Rockarts:
Couldn’t agree more. I think the answer is unions. If we look at the world being on fire, what’s going to protect workers that are going out in increasingly record-breaking heat working outside if they’re postal worker, construction laborer, what is going to do that? Is the boss going to say, “Oh, I’m recognizing it’s a bit hot and unsafe out there. This doesn’t need to get built today. This work doesn’t need to get done.” No, bosses are going to continue to try and extract as much as they can. So that’s one example. If we look at this mass global movement in many countries, unionized dock workers have stopped the ports and refused to unload Israeli cargo.
The struggle of the anti-war movement, the struggle for basic protections of not dying on the job, and yes, the individual and materialistic thing of wanting more money in your bank account so you can pay your rent, so you can buy food, so you can get the basic necessities, all comes from having a strong resourced infrastructure. And the only thing that working people have in this country right now is a union. And so that would be my answer. Why should you care about unions now? It is literally the only thing that working people have on our side. And that’s not big you union, that’s you and your coworkers coming together to push for more and to fight the boss and to hopefully win.
Maximillian Alvarez:
All right, gang, that’s going to wrap things up for us today. I want to thank our guests, Hassan Husseini of the Public Service Alliance of Canada and Labor for Palestine Canada, Tina Oh of SEIU Local two in Halifax, Canada, Alex Raymond of Teamsters Local 322 in Virginia, and Cole Rockhart’s veteran labor educator and organizer and author of the excellent new book, Fired Up About Unions, which everyone should go read. And you can learn more about the book using the links that we provided in the show notes for this episode. And of course, I want to thank you all for listening, and I want to thank you for caring about this. We do this work for you, but we cannot do it without you. Working People is brought to you in partnership with In These Times Magazine and the Real News Network. This show is produced by the great Jules Taylor and is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network.
We’ll see y’all back here next time for another episode of Working People. And in the meantime, go explore all the great work that we’re doing weekly at the Real News Network, where we do grassroots reporting that lifts up the voices and stories of people on the front lines of struggle around the US and across the world. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. Check out our great podcasts like Under the Shadow and The Marc Steiner Show, and connect with us on social media and get updates on our reporting there and help us do more work like this by going to therealnews.com/donate and becoming a supporter today. It really, really makes a difference. I’m Maximillian Alvarez. Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Solidarity forever.
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