Workers Issues in Canada
Unifor convention gives centre-stage to Trudeau, Freeland and the Liberal re-election campaign
By Roger Jordan and Carl Bronski, 24 August 2019
Unifor is spearheading a massive union drive to keep the big business, pro-austerity, pro-war Trudeau Liberal government in power.
Ontario teachers face threat of state repression, wage and job cuts in upcoming contract fight
By Carl Bronski, 23 August 2019
The role of the teacher unions has been to hand the initiative to the Ford government, allowing the Tories to unveil a sweeping assault on teachers’ wages and working conditions without their organizing any meaningful opposition.
“We are in a war with social injustice that cannot be reversed without an uprising”
Oshawa autoworker speaks on wildcat strikes, Unifor treachery
By Marcus Day, 9 August 2019
An autoworker at a supplier factory for GM’s Oshawa Assembly Plant in Canada, which is set to close later this year, spoke to the WSWS about last week’s wildcat strikes.
Canadian auto parts workers stage wildcat strike as Oshawa GM plant closure looms
By Carl Bronski, 7 August 2019
The short strike was organized by rank-and-file workers independently of the pro-company Unifor union, which spent the day telling workers to get back to work.
Quebec: A political balance sheet of the United Steelworkers’ betrayal of the ABI workers
By Laurent Lafrance, 5 August 2019
The United Steelworkers and Quebec Federation of Labour systematically isolated the ABI workers’ militant anti-concessions struggle after an 18-month lockout.
Two-day strike by Peruvian doctors
Workers Struggles: The Americas
23 July 2019
Doctors struck to press demands for increased funding for healthcare, salary increases and an end to supply shortages.
Ontario government writes off 2009 auto bailout loan to Chrysler
By Carl Bronski, 22 July 2019
The federal Conservative and Ontario Liberal governments handed $13.7 billion over to the auto bosses at General Motors and Chrysler, while extorting massive wage and benefit concessions from autoworkers.
British Columbia forestry workers strike enters third week
By Jean LaChance, 17 July 2019
The USW is determined to isolate the forest workers and reach a rotten compromise with WFP management.
Nurse shortages persist after UAW sellout of Mercy Health St. Vincent strike
By Shannon Jones, 17 July 2019
The fight by nursing staff in Toledo, Ohio has important lessons for the overall fight in defense of healthcare as well as for autoworkers facing demands for more health givebacks.
Argentine bus drivers carry out one-day strike, judge orders fines for American Airlines workers over protest actions
Workers Struggles: the Americas
16 July 2019
Bus drivers across Argentina carried out a one-day strike on July 11 to press wage demands.
Build rank-and-file committees to prepare a political general strike against Ontario's Doug Ford!
By the Socialist Equality Party (Canada), 15 July 2019
To prevail in this fight, workers must break free of the trade unions and NDP, and unify their struggles in a global working-class counter-offensive against capitalist austerity and war.
18-month lockout at aluminum plant ends
Quebec ABI workers’ struggle betrayed by United Steelworkers Union
By Laurent Lafrance, 11 July 2019
The unions isolated the workers at ABI and collaborated with the corporation to impose a defeat that will be used to attack working conditions throughout the industry.
Costa Rican public health workers strike over pay cut, government policies; truckers block highways
Workers Struggles: the Americas
9 July 2019
Three Costa Rican public health unions began strike action July 4 against government policies while Costa Rican truckers blockaded highways over imposition of a value added tax.
Quebec: Alcoa issues ultimatum to locked-out ABI workers
By Keith Jones, 2 July 2019
The United Steelworkers Union has refused to make any public comment on Alcoa’s ultimatum, let alone coupled an emphatic call for it to be rejected with an appeal for workers across North America to come to the ABI workers’ defence.
Ford announces 12,000 layoffs, five plant closures across Europe
By Will Morrow, 28 June 2019
A global restructuring is underway, with all the automakers relying on the trade unions to seek to suppress the seething and growing opposition of autoworkers.
Quebec: ABI lockout in its 18th month
By Laurent Lafrance, 27 June 2019
Having isolated the ABI workers and promoted the lie that Quebec’s right-wing premier would come to their aid, the union is now turning to Québec Solidaire to give it a “left” cover.
Whitewashing Canadian capitalism’s crimes:
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women’s inquiry issues final report
By Roger Jordan and Keith Jones, 21 June 2019
The MMIW report shifts the blame for the oppression of the native people from Canadian capitalism and its state to a racist “colonialist” mindset and “white society.”
Quebec premier denounces workers’ “high wages,” supports employer drive to extort concessions
By Laurent Lafrance, 12 June 2019
Quebec Premier François Legault and his right-wing populist Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government are on a collision course with the working class.
The global assault on jobs
By Jerry White, 5 June 2019
Job cuts by the Australian telecommunications company Telstra are part of a wave of international layoffs that urgently point to the need for a globally coordinated response by the working class.
Workers Struggles: The Americas
Mass demonstrations in defense of education in Brazil, Honduran educators and doctors strike
4 June 2019
Mass protests are continuing in Brazil against education cuts by the right-wing Bolsanaro administration while striking Honduran teachers and doctors held protests against privatization of healthcare and education.
Longshore union sabotages strike by 2,000 dockworkers in Vancouver, British Columbia
By Roger Jordan, 28 May 2019
Despite a 98 percent strike vote by dock workers, the president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada called off the strike just hours before it was to begin.
Chilean professors call for strike, teachers in Honduras begin nationwide walkout
Workers Struggles: The Americas
28 May 2019
Members of Chile’s College of Professors have set a June 3 strike date, meanwhile Honduran teachers declared a nationwide walkout over threats to privatize education.
Three-day strike by Mexican teachers against “education reforms”
Workers Struggles: the Americas
21 May 2019
Last week teachers all across Mexico took part in strikes and protests to oppose continuing attacks on public education being overseen by the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Canada’s government uses bogus “foreign interference” claims to expand censorship ahead of federal election
By Penny Smith and Roger Jordan, 17 May 2019
The government’s reactionary campaign has the twin aims of legitimizing censorship of social media and whipping up hostility against Russia and China, which Canadian imperialism views as its most dangerous rivals.
How Québec Solidaire abetted the rise of anti-Muslim chauvinism
By Richard Dufour, 15 May 2019
Québec Solidaire’s volte-face on discriminatory measures is to try to cover its tracks under conditions where it is increasingly being discredited as an accomplice of the far right.
One-day general strike in Colombia
Workers Struggles: The Americas
30 April 2019
Workers mobilized in opposition to the National Development plan being proposed by President Ivan Duque that would mean significant attacks on workers.
GM continues tax avoidance schemes while it slashes thousands of jobs
By George Kirby, 26 April 2019
General Motors has received billions of dollars in government tax benefits over the past decade even as it continues to cut jobs and extract concessions from workers.
Ontario Tory government intensifies assault on workers’ rights
By Penny Smith, 26 April 2019
Ford’s thinly veiled threat to criminalize teachers’ strikes must be taken as a serious warning: emboldened by the unions’ complicity, the Tories are escalating their class-war assault.
Workers Struggles: The Americas
Argentine newspaper and casino workers strike
23 April 2019
Workers at Clarín and sports daily Olé walked off the job April 17 over the firing of 56 of their colleagues while workers struck all Buenos Aires-area casinos for 48 hours over threatened closures.
Mexican teachers protest while DHL and Amazon pilots protest stalled talks
Workers Struggles: The Americas
16 April 2019
Workers in a number of towns in Chiapas are protesting education “reforms” under the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador while air cargo pilots protested outside Amazon’s offices in Florence, Kentucky.
Quebec premier backs ABI in extorting massive concessions from locked-out workers
By Laurent Lafrance, 12 April 2019
Legault’s pro-company bullying underscores the utter bankruptcy of the strategy of the USW, which has isolated the ABI workers while urging them to put their faith in appeals to Quebec right-wing CAQ government.
US independent trucker group calls for shutdown, protests in Argentina against austerity
Workers Struggles: The Americas
9 April 2019
A group of US owner-operator truckers has set April 12 for a protest over rates and regulatory issues, while tens of thousands in Argentina marched to protest the Macri government’s anti-worker economic policies.
“We are the future. Give us what we need!”
Thousands of Ontario students walk out to protest school cuts
By our reporters, 6 April 2019
The student-led initiative saw thousands rally across the province against the right-wing government of Doug Ford.
Ontario workers need an international socialist program to defend public education and fight austerity
By the Socialist Equality Party (Canada), 6 April 2019
If public education from kindergarten to university is to be defended, workers and students must launch a political struggle independently of the unions and in opposition to the entire political establishment.
Prioritizing of profit at root of fire that killed seven Syrian refugee children in Nova Scotia
By Frédéric Charlebois, 5 April 2019
The mandatory installation of automated sprinklers would save lives, but capitalist governments are loathe to diminish the profits of the construction industry.
Infighting in Canada’s government deepens with release of surreptitious SNC-Lavalin recording
By Roger Jordan, 2 April 2019
Revelations that the former justice minister secretly recorded a discussion with the country’s senior civil servant have intensified the Liberal government’s crisis.
Mexican paper workers strike, demand ousting of company union
Workers Struggles: The Americas
2 April 2019
Paperworkers in the state of Tamaulipas struck March 29 to demand the expulsion of the Fasim union, which they accuse of siding with their employer, Absormex.
Quebec: USW proposes further rollbacks, after locked-out ABI workers reject derisory company offer
By Laurent Lafrance, 30 March 2019
It is the Steelworkers’ systematic isolation of the ABI aluminum workers’ anti-concessions struggle that has emboldened Alcoa to repeatedly escalate its demands.
FCA Canada to cut third shift at Windsor Assembly
By Shannon Jones, 30 March 2019
The global assault on auto jobs is continuing with the announcement by Fiat Chrysler that it is eliminating a full shift, 1,500 jobs, at its plant in Windsor, Ontario.
Unifor announces bogus ‘job saving’ plan as GM moves to close Oshawa plant
By Carl Bronski, 22 March 2019
Unifor will suspend its Save Oshawa GM publicity campaign on the basis of nothing more than the possibility of a slight adjustment in the plant’s closing schedule.
Canada: Train derailment kills three, exposes terrible working conditions
By Penny Smith, 16 March 2019
CP Rail is lobbying Transport Canada to abandon a new rule it introduced following last month’s derailment, calling it too "time-consuming."
Argentina: Patagonian teachers vote to strike
Workers Struggles: The Americas
26 February 2019
Workers in the Patagonian province of Santa Cruz have voted to strike over pay increases and staffing shortages caused by the layoff of thousands of teachers.
Callous government policies lead to freezing death of homeless man in Edmonton, Alberta
By Riksen Stewart, 21 February 2019
The man’s death follows the city's decision to shut subway stations at night to prevent homeless people from sheltering inside during the cold.
Colombian teachers in 24-hour national strike over attacks on public education
Workers Struggles: The Americas
19 February 2019
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Series of regional strikes hit Argentina
Workers Struggles: The Americas
12 February 2019
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As Unifor escalates racist anti-Mexico campaign
Canadian union leader postures as supporter of Matamoros strikers
By Roger Jordan, 6 February 2019
Unifor’s near-total silence about the courageous struggle of the Matamoras workers is of a piece with their reactionary campaign attacking Mexican workers for GM’s job massacre.
Brazil service workers on strike, Ford workers end job action
Workers Struggles: the Americas
29 January 2019
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Unifor launches anti-Mexican boycott as diversion from fight over Oshawa closure
By Carl Bronski, 26 January 2019
Unifor President Dias has announced an anti-Mexican consumer boycott over the Oshawa closure as workers in Matamoros, Mexico, expand their struggle against sweatshop conditions.
Teachers protest in Venezuela, contract talks begin with US oil refiners
Workers Struggles: The Americas
22 January 2019
Teachers in Venezuela participated in strikes and protests last week over pay, which is being decimated by hyperinflation; some 30,000 US oil refinery workers face a February 1 contract deadline.
The working class must come to the defence of the Canada Post workers
By Laurent Lafrance, 18 January 2019
Having outlawed postal workers’ campaign of rotating strikes, the ruling class views the imposition of further concessions as crucial to their agenda of austerity and militarism.
Six-hour strike by Honduran public health workers over wage demand
Workers Struggles: The Americas
15 January 2019
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Following Oshawa GM sitdown protest, autoworkers fed poison of Canadian nationalism at Windsor rally
By Shannon Jones, 12 January 2019
Autoworkers attending a rally called by Unifor in Windsor, Ontario who were looking for a way to fight GM plant closures were instead hit with a strong dose of Canadian nationalism by union officials.
Unite Canadian, US and Mexican autoworkers!
Build rank-and-file committees to fight GM’s plant shutdowns in Oshawa and the US
By the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter, 11 January 2019
Unifor cannot be pressured or reformed. Workers must take the struggle to stop the plant closures into their own hands.
Chilean port workers resume protests over firings
Workers Struggles: The Americas
8 January 2019
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As one-year anniversary of lockout approaches
Alcoa intensifies attack on Quebec ABI workers
By Laurent Lafrance, 4 January 2019
The United Steelworkers’ systematic isolation of the ABI workers’ anti-concessions struggle has encouraged management to escalate its takeaway demands.
Workers Struggles: The Americas
Argentine teachers protest and strike over night school closures
3 January 2019
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Government-named arbitrator to dictate Canada Post workers’ contract
By Louis Girard, 29 December 2018
The criminalization of the postal workers’ strike campaign and the impending imposition of concessionary contracts constitute an attack on the entire working class.
UAW, Democrats seek to block struggle by workers against GM plant shutdowns
By Marcus Day, 28 December 2018
The UAW and the Democratic Party are seeking to whip up anti-Mexican sentiment and divert anger away from the auto corporations, which are attacking workers around the world.
Echoing Trump, Unifor pleads for GM to cut Mexican auto jobs
By Carl Bronski, 22 December 2018
For decades, Unifor and the UAW have pitted workers against each other, helping the automakers to whip-saw jobs, wages, pensions and benefits back and forth across borders in a never-ending race to the bottom.
Ontario Conservatives ban impending power workers’ strike
By Carl Bronski, 20 December 2018
The attack on the power workers comes just three weeks after the federal Liberal government outlawed a campaign of rotating strikes against Canada Post.
Ontario Tories to block power workers strike; Mexican teachers strike to demand bonus
Workers Struggles: The Americas
18 December 2018
Thousands of teachers in Baja California struck to demand payment of their year-end bonus last week while the Ontario Tory government has recalled the provincial legislature to illegalize a threatened strike by power workers.
Workers Struggles: The Americas
Chilean public workers and airline workers strike
11 December 2018
Public workers in Chile held a nationwide walkout December 6 to protest layoffs at the same time that airport workers for LATAM airline in Chile walked off the job in a pay dispute.
“A serious fightback will only develop through action initiated by the rank-and-file workers”
GM Oshawa workers speak out against plant closure
By A WSWS reporting team, 8 December 2018
WSWS reporters visited GM’s Oshawa plant in Ontario Wednesday to discuss the company’s plan to close the plant and how workers can fight back.
1937: When Canadian and US autoworkers fought together
By Roger Jordan, 6 December 2018
In the face of GM’s plans to shut down five plants in the US and Canada, we are reposting this article about the history of cross-border collaboration by workers originally published in October 2016.
GM, Ford, Bayer, Bombardier
Global investors demand escalation of class war on workers’ jobs and wages
By Jerry White, 5 December 2018
The plant closings and layoffs at GM are part of a broader assault on the working class throughout the world being directed by the most powerful corporate interests.
Police and courts enforce Trudeau’s law criminalizing Canada Post strike
By Roger Jordan, 4 December 2018
The further escalation of the state assault on postal workers underscores that to oppose precarious employment, unsafe working conditions and declining real wages they and the working class as a whole must mount a political struggle.
Locked-out ABI aluminum workers demonstrate in downtown Montreal
By our reporters, 1 December 2018
The steelworkers union has systematically isolated the struggle of the 1,030 locked-out ABI workers, while signaling its willingness to impose concessions and job cuts.
At ABI workers’ protest, USW officials accost and threaten WSWS supporters
By Laurent Lafrance, 1 December 2018
Flanked by other supporters of the Steelworker bureaucracy, Dominic Lemieux, the assistant to the Quebec USW director, accosted and slandered WSWS supporters.
Canadian and US autoworkers call for a united struggle against GM’s assault on jobs
By Will Morrow, 1 December 2018
The broad support for a united struggle by workers contrasts with the efforts by the UAW and Unifor to fan the flames of nationalism.
Greyhound axes bus service across Western Canada
By Penny Smith, 29 November 2018
Greyhound, North America’s largest transportation provider, has ceased services across Western Canada after operating there without interruption for nearly a century.
Trudeau government illegalizes Canada Post strike
By Roger Jordan and Keith Jones, 27 November 2018
The Liberal legislation illegalizing Canada Post workers’ campaign of rotating walkouts is only the latest in a battery of laws that have largely abolished the right-to-strike in Canada.
Chilean port workers strike over working conditions
Workers Struggles: The Americas
27 November 2018
Temporary port workers in Valparaíso, who are aptly called precarious, staged a November 22 walkout to press for better conditions including improvements in pay.
Canada Post workers need socialist strategy to defy and defeat Liberals’ back-to-work law
By Roger Jordan, 24 November 2018
Working people across Canada must come to the defence of the 50,000 Canada Post workers whose struggle is now being criminalized by the Liberal government.
Trudeau government introduces bill to outlaw Canada Post strike
By Keith Jones, 23 November 2018
If postal workers have been ambushed by the government, it is because CUPW has sought to blind them to the threat of a Liberal back-to-work law, while limiting and isolating their struggle.
Canada Post and Trudeau government conspire to break postal strike
By Keith Jones, 20 November 2018
While Canada Post mounts one provocation after another and the Liberals ready strikebreaking legislation, CUPW continues to straitjacket postal workers’ struggle.
Strike call in Dominican Republic over fuel price rise, crumbling infrastructure while nurses press demands
Workers Struggles: The Americas
20 November 2018
Social organizations in the Dominican Republic have called for a 24-hour strike November 27 over issues including fuel price increases and the decrepit state of infrastructure.
As Canada Post steps up provocations, union silent on back-to-work law threat
By Roger Jordan and Keith Jones, 17 November 2018
A government source told Canadian Press Friday evening that state intervention against postal workers could come as early as Sunday, adding, in a reference to Trudeau’s earlier threat, “‘all the options’ does include legislating.”
Canada Post union silent on Trudeau’s threat to outlaw strike
By Keith Jones, 14 November 2018
The CUPW’s silence must be taken as a warning that the union is preparing to bow before the government and torpedo the strike just as did it in 2011.
Quebec: Talks to resume in ABI lockout under threat of state-imposed concessions contract
By Laurent Lafrance, 13 November 2018
USW leaders have repeatedly proclaimed their readiness to make major concessions, and are now signaling they will collaborate with Alcoa in slashing jobs.
Workers Struggles: The Americas
13 November 2018
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Trudeau threatens to criminalize Canada Post strike
By Roger Jordan, 10 November 2018
The union leadership has done everything to limit postal workers’ job action, isolating it from the rest of the working class and allowing the government to go on the offensive.
Work stoppages by Argentine air cabin crew members lead to flight cancellations
Workers Struggles: The Americas
6 November 2018
A surprise walkout by workers at three airlines on November 2 over downsizing led to number of flight cancellations at Jorge Newbery terminal outside of Buenos Aires.
Canada Post workers’ rotating strike briefly extended to Montreal
By our reporters, 2 November 2018
The union’s rotating strike strategy is designed to dissipate workers’ energy, curtail Canada Post’s profits as little as possible, and avoid confrontation with the trade union-supported Liberal government.
To cheers from big business
Ontario slashes minimum wage, guts labour standards
By Keith Jones, 31 October 2018
In an applause-punctuated address to the Ontario Economic Summit, Ontario Premier Doug Ford made clear his government is bracing for mass working class opposition.
Workers Struggles: The Americas
Public workers protest in Venezuela; Canada Post workers continue rotating strikes
30 October 2018
Thousands of public sector workers rallied in Venezuela last week to protest falling living standards, while the Canadian Union of Postal Workers is continuing its strategy of impotent rotating one-day strikes in order to dissipate worker anger without seriously impacting mail delivery.
Canadian postal workers criticize ineffectual rotating walkouts
By our reporters, 26 October 2018
The CUPW leadership is holding workers on a tight leash, with the aim of preventing a clash with the big business Liberal government.
Canada: Postal union launches rotating walkout campaign
By Keith Jones, 23 October 2018
Due to privatization, speed-up, service cuts and the shift to parcel delivery, postal workers have experienced a huge erosion in their living standards and working conditions.
Mexican professors strike, Argentine teachers to hold one-day national strike
Workers Struggles: The Americas
23 October 2018
Professors at the Autonomous University of Morelos State and Zacatecas are continuing strike action while teachers in Argentina will hold a one-day strike and mobilization October 24.
Quebec: Nine-month lockout continues, as talks at Alcoa’s ABI smelter collapse
By Laurent Lafrance, 20 October 2018
Confident that the Steelworkers union will continue to leave the ABI workers to fight alone, the aluminum bosses have repeatedly upped their concession demands.
Workers Struggles: The Americas
16 October 2018
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Unions to “work with” Quebec’s new right-wing populist government
By Laurent Lafrance, 15 October 2018
After decades of suppressing working class opposition to Liberal and PQ-led austerity governments, the unions are now offering their services to François Legault and his right-wing populist CAQ government.
Canada: The unions’ suppression of the 1995-97 anti-Harris movement: Political lessons for today
Part 4: The SEP, the unions and the pseudo-left
By Carl Bronski and Roger Jordan, 12 October 2018
To defeat the social counter-revolution spearheaded by Ford, workers need to build new organizations of struggle in political and organizational opposition to the pro-capitalist unions and NDP.
PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE | PART FOUR
Canada: The unions’ suppression of the 1995-97 anti-Harris movement: Political lessons for today
Part 3: The 1997 Ontario teachers’ strike
By Carl Bronski and Roger Jordan, 10 October 2018
The unions scuttled the province-wide teachers’ strike not because of any lack of rank-and-file or public support, but because they feared that the teachers’ defiance would spark a wider working-class challenge to the Harris government.
Canada: Workers need a socialist program to fight the right-wing populist danger
By the Socialist Equality Party (Canada), 9 October 2018
It is the official “left” has created the conditions for right-wing populist forces to come to power exploiting popular disaffection with the traditional big business parties.
Chilean teachers in two-day national strike; BC forestry workers set to walk out
Workers Struggles: The Americas
9 October 2018
Tens of thousands of teachers struck across Chile on October 3 and 4 to press demands, including economic grievances, while 2,000 forestry workers in northern British Columbia in Canada are preparing to go on strike.
Canada: The unions’ suppression of the 1995–97 anti-Harris movement: Political lessons for today
Part 2: Unions work to diffuse swelling working-class opposition
By Carl Bronski and Roger Jordan, 8 October 2018
By organizing a series of regional “days of action” in smaller cities, the union bureaucracy sought to allow workers to let off steam, while pledging to uphold Harris’ “constitutional mandate” to govern.
Costa Rican public workers’ strike enters its fourth week
Workers Struggles: The Americas
2 October 2018
The striking workers are resisting government austerity measures in the teeth of savage state repression.
Workers Struggles: The Americas
Costa Rican workers and students protest fiscal “reforms;” Sun-Maid workers continue strike in California
18 September 2018
Costa Rican public sector workers, backed by students and others, protest anti-worker fiscal reforms last week; meanwhile 500 Sun-Maid workers are fighting management’s concession demands.
Canada’s trade unions deepen corporatist alliance with government during NAFTA talks
By Roger Jordan, 15 September 2018
While stoking reactionary Canadian nationalism and boasting of their role as official government advisers during the NAFTA talks, leading union bureaucrats are pulling out all the stops to prevent an eruption of class struggle.
Workers Struggles: The Americas
Teachers in Argentina vote for limited strike actions
11 September 2018
The World Socialist Web Site invites workers and other readers to contribute to this regular feature.
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