Centre for the Study of Education and Work – Update 25th November 2011

Work

CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF EDUCATION AND WORK – UPDATE 25th NOVEMBER 2011

EVENTS

CLiFF TORONTO (CANADIAN LABOUR INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL) – DAY 3 AND 4 (NOV. 26-27)

Imagine a world where thousands of films are made about workers and the conditions under which they live, work, fight, and succeed in their daily lives!

2009 marked the first-ever Canadian Labour International Film Festival (CLiFF). This also marked the first ever labour-oriented film festival in Canada.

See the 2011 CLiFF Toronto schedule here: http://labourfilms.ca/?page_id=2031

Just added!
Labour and the Occupy Movement
What is the connection between Labour and the Occupy Movement? Come and join a discussion at CLiFF Toronto with Jesse McLaren – doctor, socialist, and activist, who has been an active participant among the organizers at Occupy Toronto.

Saturday, November 26, 7:00 PM
Innis Town Hall
2 Sussex Avenue, Toronto
5 minutes south of St. George subway
(wheelchair accessible)

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BOOK LAUNCH – BRAVE NEW TEACHERS: DOING SOCIAL JUSTICE WORK IN NEO-LIBERAL TIMES

For 15 years York University’s Urban Diversity teacher education program has been training teachers with an equity, diversity and social justice focus. The founder of the program, Dr. Patrick Solomon, died in October, 2008. Before his death he saw the need for a study of the impact of the program on its graduates.  He carried out this study with a group of associates and the result is this book.

Book:  Brave New Teachers: Doing Social Justice Work in Neo-liberal Times
Authors:  Patrick Solomon, Jordan Singer, Arlene Campbell, and Andrew Allen
Publisher:  Canadian Scholars’ Press

When: December 1    5:30 – 8:00
Where: OISE Library
Panel: Jordan Singer, Andrew Allen, Sharron Rosen, Karen Murray
Moderator: John Portelli
Light refreshments

For more info: http://bit.ly/uffEZi

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OUR TIMES MAGAZINE 30TH ANNIVERSARY PARTY

Our Times, Canada’s independent, bi-monthly labour magazine, is 30 years old this year, and we’re throwing a party to celebrate three decades of stories about workers’ rights and social justice. Please join us on December 3 at the Steelworkers Hall ( 25 Cecil Street ) in Toronto. Doors open at 7 p.m.

The celebration will include a light buffet, cash bar, silent auction, and a whole lot of dancing.

Our guest speaker is NDP MP Rathika Sitsabaiesan.

Rabia Syed’s talented children “HHSB” will do a number about Our Times early in the evening. Don’t miss them! And Jojo Geronimo and company will present a brief but creative verdict from the recent People vs. Harper People’s Court.

To wrap things up before we dance the night away, members from Toronto’s beloved Common Thread Community Chorus will sing songs with us to raise the rafters, including “Carry It On” in honour of Jack Layton’s wish that we all retain our love, hope and optimism in the struggles ahead for justice and dignity for all.

ACTRA member Bryn McAuley (on the cover of the current issue of Our Times) will be MCing the event, along with Our Times advisory board member Jorge Garcia-Orgales. It’s going to be a blast!

Tickets $50. Available in advance. (For students, low-waged and unwaged there is a $20 or pay-what-you-can option.)

You can get your party invitation online at http://www.ourtimes.ca

For more information or to buy tickets send an email to staff@ourtimes.ca or call 416.703.7661. Toll-free: 1.800.648.6131.

Hope to see you there!

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NEWS AND VIEWS

NEW CCPA PUBLICATION – OUR SCHOOLS, OUR SELVES: INSTRUMENTS OF SOCIAL CHANGE

The fall 2011 issue of Our Schools/Our Selves asks: “If schools are truly to be instruments of social change, how we can ensure that the change we build together is inclusive, empathetic, just and empowering; that it serves students, educators and communities; that it broadens horizons rather than narrowing them; and finally, that its “strings” connect and engage rather than bind and limit?”

“The violin is a powerful image — strings and bridges evoke the act of making connections between students and their classrooms, and between schools and wider communities — and is a useful starting point into an exploration of what we must help schools do in order to build progress in a range of areas: gender equity; creating sustainable communities; media education and analysis; a school system that values experience, and cultural and social relevancy over standardization and evaluation; social justice, and accountable public institutions.”

For more info and to order: http://bit.ly/vPqNBE

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BEHIND THE NUMBERS

CCPA’s national blog, Behind the Numbers, delivers timely, progressive commentary on issues that affect Canadians, including the economy, poverty, inequality, climate change, budgets, taxes, public services, employment and much more. Go behind the numbers with these latest posts:

– Naomi Klein on Capitalism vs. the Climate, by Erika Shaker
– A Progressive Alternative to the Harper Agenda, by Andrew Jackson
– Challenging Capitalism: a 12-step program, by Marc Lee
– The Mowat Centre and Employment Insurance, by Andrew Jackson
– An Inconvenient Occupation, by Christopher Majka
– Who Occupies the Skies? by Marc Lee

Visit the blog: http://www.behindthenumbers.ca/

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THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT: A LESSON IN THE RISK OF INEQUALITY

Maytree Opinion, November 2011
By Alan Broadbent

The Occupy movement may be the harbinger of more serious discontent, writes Alan Broadbent in this month’s Maytree Opinion. The gap between society’s richest and poorest has indeed been growing. And in the developed world the middle class is all but disappearing. This inequality breeds instability which can have unpredictable outcomes. But we can find solutions in the work of think tanks such as Caledon, Mowat and others.

Read more: http://bit.ly/tjvVjQ
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ABOUT CSEW (CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF EDUCATION & WORK, OISE/UT):
Head: Peter Sawchuk
Co-ordinator: D’Arcy Martin

The Centre for the Study of Education and Work (CSEW) brings together educators from university, union, and community settings to understand and enrich the often-undervalued informal and formal learning of working people. We develop research and teaching programs at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (UofT) that strengthen feminist, anti-racist, labour movement, and working-class perspectives on learning and work.

Our major project is APCOL: Anti-Poverty Community Organizing and Learning. This five-year project (2009-2013), funded by SSHRC-CURA, brings academics and activists together in a collaborative effort to evaluate how organizations approach issues and campaigns and use popular education. For more information about this project, visit http://www.apcol.ca

For more information about CSEW, visit: http://www.csew.ca

 

 

**END**

 

‘I believe in the afterlife.

It starts tomorrow,

When I go to work’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Human Herbs’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h7tUq0HjIk (live)

 

‘Maximum levels of boredom

Disguised as maximum fun’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub, Bangor, north Wales)  

 

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a new song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Centre for the Study of Education and Work – Update 13th February 2011

World Crisis

CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF EDUCATION AND WORK – UPDATE 13th FEBRUARY 2011

EVENTS

LEFT FILM AND VIDEO – CULTURE FORUM ONE

Monday, February 21
7:30 pm.
The Regal Beagle (back room)
335 Bloor St West (near St George), Toronto

Left film and video: a discussion with Frank Saptel and other Board members of the Canadian Labour International Film Festival (CLIFF)

Performances by:
– Wally Brooker, saxophone
– Jerry Lee Miller, stand-up comedy
– Mike Constable, animation films
– plus short films by invited guests

Presented by the Culture Committee (Cultcom) of the Greater Toronto Workers Assembly

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WEBINAR – THE CO-OPERATIVE MODEL: A DURABLE AND SUSTAINABLE ENTERPRISE

Friday, February 18
12pm EST

Featured Speakers: Professor Ian MacPherson (Professor Emeritus University of Victoria and author of A Century of Co-operation) and David Bent (Author of Forthcoming book Determined to Prosper: The Story of Sussex Co-op, the Oldest Agricultural Society in the World, PhD Student in History, University of New Brunswick)

More info: http://www.cooperativedifference.coop/page/4-Events-Opportunities

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CLiFF (CANADIAN LABOUR INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL) CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS FOR 2011

The Selection Committee of the Canadian Labour International Film Festival (CLiFF) invites you to submit your film or video for possible screening during our second Festival to be held this November in Toronto, Ontario and in 50 communities across the country (and counting). Films are due 30 June, 2011.

CLiFF features film and video made by, for, and about the world of work and those who do it, in Canada and internationally. The films we showcase are about unionised workers, as well as those not represented by unions. We encourage projects regarding any and every aspect of work, as well as issues affecting work or workers.

The festival draws thousands of trade unionists, community members, youth, activists, students, educators, artists, and allies from across North America and one day, we hope, the world.

We are looking for films on a wide spectrum of issues. We seek films about privatization, youth, First Nations people, people of colour, immigrants, refugees, detainees, health and safety, resistance, art, poetry, women, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered people, taxi drivers, truck drivers, rickshaw drivers – anyone who does anything considered work.

We also encourage the widest possible variety of films: from documentaries to drama to poetry/poetic treatments to comedy and animation.

More info: http://labourfilms.ca/cliff/2011/02/08/2011-call-for-submission-now-available/

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FORUM – GLOBAL CRISIS, FISCAL RESTRAINT AND PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS

Thursday March 10, 2011
7pm
Ryerson University, Oakham Lounge, 2nd floor
63 Gould Street, Toronto

2011 Phyllis Clarke Memorial Lecture: John Loxley
Co-sponsored and supported by Ryerson’s CUPE Locals 233, 1281, 3904, Ontario Council of Hospital Unions/CUPE and the Department of Politics and Public Administration, Ryerson University

Dr. John Loxley is a professor in the Department of Economics, University of Manitoba. He specializes in International Money and Finance, International Development and Community Economic Development and has published extensively in these areas. He has researched public-private partnerships for almost fifteen years and recently published Public Service Private Profits: The Political Economy of Public-Private Sector Partnerships, with Salim J. Loxley, Fernwood Publishers, 2010.

For further information contact Bryan Evans at 416 979-5000 x4199 or e-mail: b1evans@ryerson.ca

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LUNCHBOX SPEAKERS’ SERIES – SOCIAL ECONOMY CENTRE (OISE/UT)

Community Foundations

Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Noon – 1:30 pm.
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Room 12-199, 252 Bloor St. West, Toronto

With Rosalyn Morrison, Community Initiatives, Toronto Community Foundation and Betsy Martin, Community Foundations Canada

Rosalyn Morrison will talk about how the Toronto Community Foundation mobilizes more than 300 individual and family donors, high-impact community organizations and cross-sector leaders to tackle complex, quality of life issues in creative and inspiring ways.

Betsy Martin will discuss how foundations in Canada can support social enterprise and how this is part of the evolution of the investment model of foundations around the world. She will give examples of what community foundations in Canada and the United States are doing, to give a sense of the potential for this kind of community foundation investing.

Moderator: Michael Hall, Primus

– Bring your lunch and a mug.  Water, coffee and tea will be provided.
– For more information, please contact Lisa White at: secspeakerseries@gmail.com
– This event will also be webcast live on the Internet.  Please see our website for detailed instructions: http://socialeconomy.utoronto.ca/english/webcast.php

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NEWS AND VIEWS

REPORT: WAL-MART ACTUALLY KILLS JOBS, CREATES TAXPAYER BURDENS

from The Raw Story

NEW YORK – Wal-Mart’s lengthy struggle to open in New York City has hit fresh problems — a controversial report that said America’s biggest discounter does not just sell cheap, it makes neighborhoods poorer.

The report concludes that Wal-Mart, the biggest U.S. private employer, kills jobs rather than creates them, drives down wages and is a tax burden because it does not give health and other benefits to many part-time employees, leaving a burden on Medicaid and other public programs.

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/10/walmart-draws-ire-poor-parts-brooklyn/

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MUBARAK’S FOLLY: THE RISING OF EGYPT’S WORKERS

by David McNally, The Bullet

Rarely do our rulers look more absurd than when faced with a popular upheaval. As fear and apathy are broken, ordinary people – housewives, students, sanitation workers, the unemployed – remake themselves. Having been objects of history, they become its agents. Marching in their millions, reclaiming public space, attending meetings and debating their society’s future, they discover in themselves capacities for organization and action they had never imagined. They arrest secret police, defend their communities and their rallies, organize the distribution of food, water and medical supplies. Exhilarated by new solidarities and empowered by the understanding that they are making history, they shed old habits of deference and passivity.

Read more: http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/460.php

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TAKE A STAND AGAINST WAGE THEFT

We work hard, but too often we don’t get paid.  

In December 2010, the Workers’ Action Centre recorded our experiences looking for work. Go to http://www.workersactioncentre.org to listen to the reality workers in Ontario face every day.

We are offered work for less than minimum wage, we don’t get overtime pay, we are charged fees to get work, we are told we have to be self-employed to get a job.

This is wage theft.

TAKE ACTION

We are taking action against wage theft and so can you.

–  Watch workers’ stories of wage theft and share with others. (http://cts.vresp.com/c/?WorkersActionCentre/0760994829/46f0beda64/0feed76c2b)

–  Email the Minister of Labour Charles Sousa on our Wage Theft Action page (http://www.workersactioncentre.org/campaigns_stopwagetheft.html)

–  Call our workers rights hotline at (416) 531-0778.  Report wage theft.

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CBC NEWS OTTAWA – UNION WASTE COLLECTORS SAVE OTTAWA MILLIONS

The City of Ottawa said Tuesday it saved close to $5 million, over four years, by using unionized employees to collect garbage in its downtown core.

The city said since the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 503 — the city’s largest union — won the garbage collection contract for Ottawa’s downtown area in 2005, it has delivered the services it promised for less money.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2011/02/08/ottawa-union-garbage-208.html

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PUBLIC-WORKER UNIONS SKIP ALBANY AD BLITZ FOR NEW TACTICS

by Nicholas Confessore, New York Times

ALBANY — The airwaves are virtually silent. The fiery criticism of years past has given way to conciliatory press releases. And the halls of the Capitol ring not with angry protests but with the quiet hum of lawmakers and lobbyists making their daily rounds.

Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, the New York City teachers’ union, said, “We think the ad wars make people feel disenfranchised from the process.”

Faced with devastating budget cuts from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and a deeply hostile electorate, New York’s most influential public-employee unions have unexpectedly shifted their strategy for defending cherished government programs and worker benefits. Put off for now are the angry denunciations and millions of dollars of advertisements, chiefly from hospitals and a health care union, that have traditionally begun haunting governors in early February.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/10/nyregion/10unions.html?ref=nyregion

(END)

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ABOUT CSEW (CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF EDUCATION & WORK, OISE/UT):

Head: Peter Sawchuk
Co-ordinator: D’Arcy Martin

The Centre for the Study of Education and Work (CSEW) brings together educators from university, union, and community settings to understand and enrich the often-undervalued informal and formal learning of working people. We develop research and teaching programs at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (UofT) that strengthen feminist, anti-racist, labour movement, and working-class perspectives on learning and work.

Our major project is APCOL: Anti-Poverty Community Organizing and Learning. This five-year project (2009-2013), funded by SSHRC-CURA, brings academics and activists together in a collaborative effort to evaluate how organizations approach issues and campaigns and use popular education.

For more information about CSEW, visit: http://www.csew.ca

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com