proudlyhopelesslyoptimistic

[proudlyhopelesslyoptimistic]

May Day: Bro. Doskoch reported that May Day celebrations are to be held May 2, at the Ukrainian Centre. The ‘Amaratos’ are supplying the music. The Chileans are perapring and selling the food. The Labour Council will sell the drinks and pay for the hall rental. The cost of the band will be split by the Chileans and the Labour Council.”

Edmonton District Labour Council Minutes, March 17 1981, file 20, box 1, Alberta Federation of Labour records, 1996.00153, Provincial Archives of Alberta.

[proudlyhopelesslyoptimistic]

it’s clear that when these gentlemen (politicians) speak of a national interest, they’re speaking for the people who own the nation, not for those who work and produce its wealth. No, it’s clear that in this country there are two nations – labour and capital – each with interests diametrically opposed to each other. Tri-partism will do nothing to  change this fact

Davidson, Ottawa 1977.

[proudlyhopelesslyoptimistic]

I think you have to be a bit of a dreamer to suggest that ‘big business’ and the government are going to voluntarily give up any power to labour. In any arrangement with  ‘big business’ and government, labour is certain to be a very junior partner. Why else would ‘big business’ have anything to do with tri-partism? They have all the power now and what could they possibly gain from treating labour as an equal? . . . “I’ve often been called an old-fashioned trade unionist and I know that at certain times I am an embarrassment to certain so-called responsible trade union leaders, but I fail to see what is old-fashioned about understanding the very basic fact that no employer is going to give away anything unless he is absolutely forced to do so or unless he expects to receive more in return.

Speech by Joe Davidson, Ottawa, April 15, 1977, file 19 CUPW campaign, box 1, AFL records, 1996.00153, Provincial Archives of Alberta.

[proudlyhopelesslyoptimistic]

[proudlyhopelesslyoptimistic]

Fast food workers in NY just won a $15/hr wage. I’m a paramedic. My job requires a broad set of skills: interpersonal, medical, and technical skills, as well as the crucial skill of performing under pressure. I often make decisions on my own, in seconds, under chaotic circumstances, that impact people’s health and lives. I make $15/hr. And these burger flippers think they deserve as much as me? Good for them. Look, if any job is going to take up someone’s life, it deserves a living wage. If a job exists and you have to hire someone to do it, they deserve a living wage. End of story. There’s a lot of talk going around my workplace along the lines of, “These guys with no education and no skills think they deserve as much as us? Fuck those guys.” And elsewhere on FB: “I’m a licensed electrician, I make $13/hr, fuck these burger flippers.” And that’s exactly what the bosses want! They want us fighting over who has the bigger pile of crumbs so we don’t realize they made off with almost the whole damn cake. Why are you angry about fast food workers making two bucks more an hour when your CEO makes four hundred TIMES what you do? It’s in the bosses’ interests to keep your anger directed downward, at the poor people who are just trying to get by, like you, rather than at the rich assholes who consume almost everything we produce and give next to nothing for it. My company, as they’re so fond of telling us in boosterist emails, cleared 1.3 billion dollars last year. They expect guys supporting families on 26-27k/year to applaud that. And that’s to say nothing of the techs and janitors and cashiers and bed pushers who make even less than us, but are as absolutely crucial to making a hospital work as the fucking CEO or the neurosurgeons. Can they pay us more? Absolutely. But why would they? No one’s making them. The workers in NY *made* them. They fought for and won a living wage. So how incredibly petty and counterproductive is it to fuss that their pile of crumbs is bigger than ours? Put that energy elsewhere. Organize. Fight. Win.

Jens Rushing (via accidentalambience)

[proudlyhopelesslyoptimistic]

In terms of primary migration, Alberta’s share of Canada’s total immigrant intake increased from approximately 5 per cent in 1963 to approximately 11 per cent in 1977. In terms of secondary migration, it is clear that Alberta’s viable economic climate attracts large numbers of immigrants from outside the Province. For example, even though only approximately 10 per cent of the Chileans under the special Chilean Refugee Program were originally destined for Alberta, because of secondary immigration, approximately one-third finally settled in the Province.

Draft of Proposed Alberta Position Paper on Immigration, May 1979

File 560-3, volume 11, Manpower Mobility: Immigration, GR1995.0024, PAA.

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[proudlyhopelesslyoptimistic]

Within the five general approaches outlined, there are some 52 types of approaches. One of these is reduced government intervention in the market place. Of course, this is contrary to the other 51, and for some reason, it is placed under the productivity problem and not the others.

Memorandum from Leigh Cormack, executive Assistant to the Deputy Minister (Labour) to Mr R. J. Johnson, Executive Director, Employment Development (Advanced Education and Manpower), re: Manpower Problems . . . . Report, February 8, 1979

File 540-17, volume 4, Alberta Manpower Committee, GR1985.0024, PAA

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Clearly the role of government in manpower matters is: i) to create an economic and social environment which will encourage the private sector to invest in employment creating activities, and ii) to react in a positive and constructive way in utilizing short-term, preplanned employment and training programs which will lessen the impact of local and seasonal employment variations and provide assistance to those least able to take advantage of employment opportunities.”

Memorandum from Mr R. G. McFarlane, Chief Deputy Minister, Alberta Transportation, to Dr. H. Kolesar, DM, Alberta Advanced Education and Manpower, June 9, 1978, re: Alberta Manpower Policy

File 540-17, volume 2, Alberta Manpower Committee. GR1995.0024

[proudlyhopelesslyoptimistic]

Public and Private Sector Roles – here the statements are in agreement: there is a role for both the public and private sectors. The private sector is to be the main source of job creation activity, while Government has two roles: encouraging the socio-economic climate so as to promote private investment activities which would create employment, and second, addressing problematic manpower issues when they arise. The Government should not interfere with the private sector, yet Government should play a leadership and advocacy role in those areas where the private sector is not involved or is not successful; government should avoid giving the impression that it has prime responsibility for job creation or for manipulating the labour force.

Memorandum from D. B. Ogaranko, Planner, Planning Secretariat Ministry of Advanced Education and Manpower) to D Johnson, Executive Director, Employment Development, June 29, 1978, re: Manpower Policy

File 540-17, volume 2, Alberta Manpower Committee. PAA GR1995.0024.

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As regards teachers, we are still awaiting the full results of our policy introduced last ear requiring post-secondary institutions to advertise among Canadians before hiring abroad. The advertising is occurring, but we do not yet have sufficient evidence to indicate whether more Canadians are being hired. For your information, during the first nine months of 1977, some 364 foreign teachers were admitted to Canada as immigrants and a further 1,876 were admitted on a temporary basis.

Notes for a Statement by the Minister of Employment and Immigration to the Joint Meeting of Provincial Ministers of Education and Manpower, Victoria, BC, January 17, 1978, 4 pm

File 540-9 volume 2 Meetings of Ministers of Manpower, Provincial Archives of Alberta, GR1995.0024

[proudlyhopelesslyoptimistic]

Total respect. 

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You put forward an argument that you’ve really worked on – to make sure it’s logically coherent – and you’re just faced with blank stares. It is as if you haven’t spoken. What you say is independent of what they say. You might as well have sung the Swedish national anthem – you’d have got the same reply. And that’s startling, for somebody who’s used to academic debate. … The other side always engages. Well there was no engagement at all. It was not even annoyance, it was as if one had not spoken.

Yanis Varoufakis, interview with Harry Lambert in The New Statesman, July 13, 2015.

This is profoundly depressing and distressing about how left alternatives to neoliberal austerity are actively silenced. 

http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/2015/07/yanis-varoufakis-full-transcript-our-battle-save-greece

[proudlyhopelesslyoptimistic]

L&L field

Section the Second: In which we explore the changes in the academy during the 1980s that meant some called for people to stop writing about class in the same way and some called for people to stop writing about class at all. Following that a rebuttal of the structural determinist Marxist strawmen the critics of working class history used to prove their points. Then, a defense of the Thompsonian tradition and even that boring Bercuson version of working class history.

[proudlyhopelesslyoptimistic]

[proudlyhopelesslyoptimistic]

L&L field

Section the First: In which the many failures of the working class to achieve revolution are documented, leading us to perhaps understand why the political and intellectual left abandoned the working class as the object of their focus.

[proudlyhopelesslyoptimistic]

Alberta: Ever a surprise

I really didn't think I would see the end of a 44 year dynasty today. I've never been so happy to be proven wrong. Congratulations NDP.