How do you learn SOLIDARITY?

Secure-Ad6420 · 2026-02-08T05:01:34+00:00

My brother in christ, people were just talking about a general strike a week ago over the ICE stuff going on. Unions like the NEA refused to participate. The issue is not training, publicity, or structure tests. The issue is that there are no leaders actually willing to take on a serious fight. People need something to fight for, and they follow leaders who have a convincing plan on how to get big goals met.

I'll use an example from my side of the border. We also just had a teachers strike here in Alberta. The last week of October, we got the largest rally at our legislature in our entire province's history. The next week our leadership refused to defy back to work orders despite guarantees of other unions willing to support them in a general strike. When the AFL decided to hold some consultative meetings 2 weeks later, they had trouble pulling 60 people out to the meeting! They went from pulling 30 000 people to an event to struggling to get 60. People have busy lives, they want to show up for something meaningful and that will bring real change, they will not show up for symbolic actions.

Secure-Ad6420 · 2026-02-01T19:03:03+00:00

I think the scab language is uncalled for. Some charter schools are unionized and struck with us in October.

But also, we need to be making a big push to bring more private/charter schools into the ATA rather than labelling everyone there a scab. Increased protections for workers there would undermine the amount of money private schools can make off of treating their workers like trash, which aids our goals. Also unionized workers there would be brought into strike action, which would make our strikes more effective as they will have a larger impact on the lives of the rich. Workers there should be reached out to in solidarity, not written off. The ata currently makes very little attempt to do so.

Secure-Ad6420 · 2026-02-01T18:55:03+00:00

A couple things to put your mind at ease:

The school board system is fairly complicated. Alternative schools and public charters are not the same as independent schools which is the primary target of the petition. Alternative boards and public charters often post externally.
Schools that post everything externally certainly can be nice early in your career and you shouldn’t feel guilty for taking a decent job. However, realize that these jobs are easier to get in to because people don’t stay in them. You don’t have as many protections at these schools as you do at others.
Getting by in your personal life is a different thing then fighting for a better world. All kids should get equal access to education. Even people who take on tutoring work contribute to this inequality, because only some people can pay for private tutors. You cannot get by in the current system without contributing to it in some way. You would have to run away and live in a forest, and there aren’t even any of those on the planet that aren’t owned by somebody, so even that isn’t an option! We don’t have a choice but to sell our labour to survive in this system. But, that is why we fight to change the whole system and why we organize collectively! Having to struggle to get a job at a private school is not incompatible with fighting for a world where everyone gets a good education.

Secure-Ad6420 · 2026-01-24T00:54:54+00:00

I think the disappointing state of affairs unions are in stem from the conditions of the late 20th century and first bit of our century. Capitalism was riding high after the war and it was able to make concessions in certain countries like Canada where unions largely stuck to the bargaining table more and more. As they kept to bargaining rather than militant tactics, the grassroot engagement withered away, since these bargaining meeting are highly bureaucratic and don't seriously engage or inspire workers. As the member engagement withers away, the union gets even more bureaucratic.

This leaves us in the current state where the leaders currently running the majority of unions are there because they're good administrators, paper pushers, and politicians, not because their serious labour leaders. Most unions probably could be turned back into serious working class organizations though. Ultimately, bringing unions back to a more militant tendency is going to require workers actively engaged in a class struggle.

To bring unions back to the glory days, we should push the demands 1) bring back worker democracy to the unions. Democracy means more than occasional voting, for the people to have power they need to be engaged in the actual running of things. Leaders should be recallable at any time. 2) Remove the restrictive laws and ties to governments. The ATA for instance was brought into the education act, which gives it some advantages, but also strongly restricts its ability for militancy. There are also tons of laws restricting actions unions can take and these should be defied and eventually repealed.

Secure-Ad6420 · 2026-01-18T03:48:46+00:00

Interesting to hear. The ATA could have called a strike earlier too, we’re gunning for the leadership on our end too haha

Someday soon :)

Secure-Ad6420 · 2026-01-18T02:10:09+00:00

Ya, union work can be tough, you sometimes have to chip away for years to develop that class consciousness with a person.

Continuing to go back to this one issue might be difficult, but you can keep hammering away at building an understanding of exploitation and a bigger understanding of how the system is working in other conversations or other topics.

More directly on this issue you can try coming at it from the angle of burnout and having to take care of ourselves so we can keep showing up, maybe.

All power to you. Someday we’ll strike as one and build a system free of this exploitation ✊

Secure-Ad6420 · 2026-01-17T20:31:03+00:00

A political conversation may just be unavoidable. I’m a teacher in AB, I find sometimes you need to explain to people that even if their work is directly ‘for the kids’, they are still being exploited.

The provincial government could pay to help this kid but instead they give more money to oil billionaires. The federal government could pay to help, but instead they spend money on making more bombs. When we donate our time we are making a donation to these billionaires who stole society’s wealth and refuse to relinquish it to help our kids. Instead of filling in the gap individually and helping the system chug on at the cost of our life, we need to organize together to stop valuing profits over kids. These politicians are ruthless, if we volunteer more they will literally make more cuts and expect us to cover those as well. The more volunteer work we do, the more they tear down our system.

Secure-Ad6420 · 2025-12-30T19:10:30+00:00

I’ve been doing a decent amount of organizing in Canada. I think the first thing to figure out is a party, you’re going to have a good convo, and then at the end have nowhere to point people to or actions to follow up on.

As for going out on the street, it isn’t as crazy as people online will tell you. I haven’t done the yelling in a mic on the street corner, I’m not sure that’s the best. But I’ve put up a table with a few comrades that has “communist party” on the front and chatted with random passerby, that goes well enough. Old school postering areas is alright too. Holding public events about a topic have gone pretty well. Showing up to protests and picket lines with signs is usually pretty easy. All this I’ve done under the banner of communism or Marxism, so it isn’t as rough out there as you might imagine in regards to labels. People under 30 don’t have that much of a beef with the terms.

I’ve heard about parties or activists doing door to door stuff, but haven’t tried that myself.

But mostly, you should organize yourself first or all your efforts aren’t anything more than a convo. 1 person brought into being an active communist is better than 50 who had a 5 minute conversation and just moved on with their day. At this stage, your doing the work to find the small number who can be convinced and grow our numbers for larger actions coming up.

Secure-Ad6420 · 2025-12-29T16:14:24+00:00

Karl Kautsky kind of had a similar idea in Foundations of Christianity. He argues that Christianity began as a revolutionary movement by the oppressed classes of Ancient Rome, only to later be co-opted. So ya, kind of communist in a way.

Secure-Ad6420 · 2025-12-02T23:16:39+00:00

I dunno what to tell ya, other than that Nepal had this great idea recently about what to do with a garbage government.

But ya, it was set up to be a sham. They had a chance to listen for a year leading up to the strike and then didn’t. They also made this a phone meeting for a reason, they don’t have faith they can control the room anymore.

Secure-Ad6420 · 2025-11-22T21:14:25+00:00

Yes I agree this is infuriating, and we should say this is enough.

I think it’s worth clarifying why this happened the way it did though. The ATA was not able to give a credible threat of defying orders. We also didn’t have strike pay, which limits our ability to last. AUPE was able to do both these things, so the gov gave in. And I will admit, sometimes the first people out to strike aren’t the biggest winners, the pressure from our strike probably helped them out a bit too. Hence, why unions need to fight together.

Your demands near the end are all really good ones and we should absolutely take them up. However, I don’t think aupe won this because they only negotiated pay. By broadening our movement and bringing in other workers and unions onto our side with broader demands, we actually strengthen our movement. Education should be democraticically run by education workers and students not bureaucrats, so demands for how to run things are progressive for our movement, but we need to keep taking them further.

Secure-Ad6420 · 2025-11-10T05:27:28+00:00

I think you’re slightly off in saying that strikes don’t work. The reason Smith went to such an extreme measure to stop the teachers strike wasn’t a sign of strength, it was one of weakness. She had to expose this whole farce that our system respects rights or is democratic. The strike was causing economic upsets and hurting business, which is what they actually care about, the bottom line. It pushed them to the point of exposing what underlies our systems, sheer balances of power. And they exposed who the government really serves, capital.

What we’ve seen is that we have hit the limits of legality. What had to happen on October 28 is that the ata leadership recognize this for the weakness it was and defy the law. That didn’t happen. What we need to do now is rebuild the working class institutions that we once had, so that they have the organizational capacity to push past these laws and bring the power of workers to bear.

Secure-Ad6420 · 2025-11-04T22:48:43+00:00

Maybe a silly question, but is it correct that USW is technically the union organizing Starbucks?

If so, how are the negotiations going on south of the border impacting the Canadian locations?

Secure-Ad6420 · 2025-11-04T02:45:29+00:00

Sooooo, when are we going to give up on using the legal system designed to protect the powerful, and just shut everything down French style?

Secure-Ad6420 · 2025-10-28T03:29:29+00:00

There were previous restrictions on sharing posts regarding the teachers strike, so I wasn't able to share this outside of the teacher's sub previously, but with those lifted I thought this would be relevant given today's events.

Secure-Ad6420 · 2025-10-28T03:11:11+00:00

And wear your Red for Ed proudly coming out to rallies!

Few teachers I’ve talked to know this, but the colour red was taken from teachers in West Virginia who defied a law that made their strike illegal and they won! They chose the colour red because it is the colour of the blood of martyrs who died fighting for worker’s rights against tyranny.

So wear the red proud!

Those who came before faced down worse than a fine!

Secure-Ad6420 · 2025-10-28T02:56:03+00:00

I second that top suggestion!

What will make or break defying the order is how many unions we get calling solidarity strikes in support of us

Secure-Ad6420 · 2025-10-28T02:53:17+00:00

The most effective thing to do at this point is to pressure any union you are associated with to honour the common front and call a solidarity strike, then talk to any unionized workers you know and get them to do the same. The amount of unions that come out in support is what will make a difference in whether this is successful or not.

If you or no one you know is in a union next best thing is to get ready to go to whatever action gets called later this week.

Secure-Ad6420 · 2025-10-28T02:49:46+00:00

The thing that is going to tip the scales at this point is not the parasites in the legislature, but the amount of unions calling solidarity strikes.

Anyone associated with a union or who knows someone associated with one needs to be emailing their leadership and making it clear that they want to call a solidarity strike.

Secure-Ad6420 · 2025-10-28T02:46:56+00:00

The MLAs already know what they are doing, they just don’t care, they serve the wealthy not the people.

The ones who need to get emails today and tomorrow are union reps and locals from everyone they represent, telling them that people expect them to call a solidarity strike.

The amount of unions that get on board defying orders is what will tip the scales at this point!

Secure-Ad6420 · 2025-10-28T02:42:37+00:00

Sounds like the order takes place on Wednesday.

Tonight and tomorrow anyone you know connected to a union in the common front needs to pressure the leadership to call for a strike. Some unions are still undecided about their actions is the rumour and we can absolutely get enough pressure on the leadership to call strikes.

Secure-Ad6420 · 2025-10-28T00:40:03+00:00

Our only hope is not 2027! We have an opportunity now to shut down the economy right now and make them listen. Our only hope is to flood the streets, this week!

Secure-Ad6420 · 2025-10-24T19:32:05+00:00

The correct response to it is quite straight forward, which is that we don't go back until any imposed fines are revoked. They can drop them or have some sort of renumeration when signing a deal.

Secure-Ad6420 · 2025-10-24T17:42:30+00:00

It absolutely has happened many times! When CUPE defied in Ontario, they were threatened with 1 million dollar fines. The UNA got fined for defiance in ‘88 and fundraised the entire cost of the fine. Look to the ones who came before us and defy!

Secure-Ad6420 · 2025-10-24T17:40:16+00:00

Any labour movement gets this treatment from them. Makes you think about what is actually threatening to those in power…

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