Winner Labour Website Of The Year

Labour Website of the Year 2007: And the winner is

1. Solidarity - 872 votes. The winner this year is the South African union Solidarity. Solidarity placed second in last year's competition and this year won in a close race. Its highly professional website is fully bilingual (English and Afrikaans), you can join online "in under a minute", and the union has a mailing list of 30,000 email addresses. Its members are obviously enthusiastic and are proud of the effort their union is making online. Congratulatory messages may be sent to its Deputy General Secretary, Dirk Hermann - dirk@solidariteit.co.za

And I am pleased to see the IWW website came in fourth!!


4. IWW - 318 votes. The Industrial Workers of the World is a relatively small union with a very long history and an outstanding website (which won this competition 7 years ago). The more than 300 votes it received this year come not only from its members but from many who admire the effort the union is making to become increasingly relevant -- such as the extraordinary effort to organize Starbucks workers. For an example of a powerful open-source content management system being used by a union to promote community and solidarity, you couldn't do better than check out the IWW site.

And at least one Canadian site made it in the top ten. Only one that's terrible we have lots of good labour websites obviously not enough voters though.


9. HEU - 162 votes. The oldest and largest health care union in British Columbia is also this year's sole Canadian entry into the top ten. (Two years ago, four of the ten were Canadian unions.) HEU has some 40,000 members and is part of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), the only union to ever have won the Labour Website of the Year twice.


Unfortunately there is no listing of all the sites and runner ups posted yet.

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
LabourStart, Eric Lee, Labour Website of the Year, labour, labor, unions, union websites, union blogs, union bloggers, labour blogs, blogs, blogging, labor blogs

Troops In Our Cities

So the Harpocrites are now preparing to put Canadian Forces in 14 major Canadian cities in order to quell civil disturbances;

"The units would be designed to react to domestic emergencies such as natural disasters or a terrorist attack."

Or a General strike, mass protests, a Quebec referendum on Sovereignty or possibly a socialist revolution.

It's not like it hasn't happened before......

See

Soldiers In Our Streets

Paranoia and the Security State

Atlantic Canada Employment Strategy

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
fLQ,, Quebec,, Troops,, Canada,, Harper,, Conservatives,, Government,, Canadian armed forces,, troops in Canada's cities,, insurrection,, protests,, labour, protests,, srikes

John Baird In Exxons Pocket?

Is Harpers new Environment Minister, John Baird in the pocket of Exxon Mobil? After all their Canadian anti-Kyoto lobby is run by Barry Cooper part of the Calgary School which Harper is a graduate of. We will find out soon enough as he goes to Paris for the UN Climate Change Report.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has maintained any environmental plan for Canada must balance the need to reduce greenhouse gases with the need to profit from the country's vast energy resources.

See
Environment



ind blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Kyoto, Envrionment, carbon, carbon trading, emissions, greenhouse gas, climate change, global warming, Conservatives, Canada, Harper, John Baird,

Banks Profit From Job Cuts

From yesterdays Globe and Mail is this update on the BMO job cuts. Just doing what the other fellas do...And as usual the job cuts are the direct result of the falling rate of profit. The greedy want more and more....

Taking actions similar to those of new CEOs when they arrived at CIBC, Toronto-Dominion Bank and Royal Bank of Canada, BMO announced it will chop 3 per cent of its 35,000-strong work force through cuts "across all support functions."

BMO's stock market performance has lagged rivals in the past year, as revenue stalled and costs rose. In contrast, CIBC stock soared in part because of newly-named CEO Gerry McCaughey's took layers of management out of the organization, trimming 950 jobs and cutting expenses by more than $250-million a year.

RBC, another stock market leader, took a $192-million charge in 2004 when CEO Gordon Nixon reworked the way the bank was run and shed 1,600 head office jobs.

Analysts also said the cuts show that in the future, the Canadian banks face increasing challenges as they try to sustain double-digit profit growth. BMO's earnings grew 11-per-cent last year, to a record $2.7-billion.

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
CIBC,, Banks,, Canada,, jobs,, layoffs,, profits,, BMO,, Bank, of, Montreal,, workers,, bank, workers,,

Lumber Consolidation

Keta K has an interesting article on the consolidation of Abitibi and Bowater, two competitors in the lumber industry in Canada.

Once again confimring what Herr Dr. Marx had to say about the nature of centralization of competing capitals.

That production rests on the supreme rule of capital. The centralization of capital is essential to the existence of capital as an independent power. The destructive influence of that centralization upon the markets of the world does but reveal, in the most gigantic dimensions, the inherent organic laws of political economy now at work in every civilized town. Marx

And the merger of Abitibi and Bowater is only the begining of consolidation in the lumber industry in order to compete globally. Having been hewers of wood for America, the lumber industry in Canada failed to develop secondary and tertiary industries and markets that could meet global demand. It was easier to just sit back and sell to the Americans.

Watch for Canfor to be the next tree to fall in the M&A forest.

Newsprint maker Abitibi-Consolidated's merger with Bowater, announced Monday, may seem like the union of two dying elephants in a dying industry. A less cynical view would be that it continues a healthy trend. Domtar's big cross-border deal with Weyerhaeuser, set to close this month or next, will double the Montreal firm's sales. In B.C., West Fraser Timber forked out $325-million (U.S.), one-quarter of its market capitalization at the time, for 13 mills in the southern United States. There's more deal making to come because all of these companies are still too small, and for investors, one question lingers: Where's Canfor?

So why isn't Canfor larger already? For that matter, why doesn't any domestic forest company rank in the top 20 on PwC's global ranking? The Finns are there, as are the Japanese, the Aussies and the Singaporeans. Sweden's Svenska Cellulosa has a market cap of about $15-billion (Canadian) -- that's more than Canada's largest nine forestry companies put together.



Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Abitibi, Bowater, lumber, Canada, softwood, trade, globalization, mergers, Marx

Afghanistan Government Approves Of War Crimes

Canadian troops fighting and dying for a corrupt regime in Afghanistan, which even now continues to oppress women and girls, just as their Taliban counterparts do. Kettle, pot, black.

Afghanistan: Draft Law Grants Immunity to Warlords If approved by the Meshrano Jirga, or Afghan Senate, the bill would exempt the warlords from any kind of reprimand for their previous acts, like violations of human rights and other war crimes.

Outspoken female MP, Malalai Joya, was among the handful of Members of the Afghan Wolesi Jirga or Lower House, who voiced concern over the passage of a controversial bill supporting immunity for former warlords, mujahideen commanders and communist-era leaders. The 249-member Lower House introduced the bill on Wednesday in the wake of rising criticism from human rights groups, such as Human Rights Watch (HRW), demanding punishment for those complicit in war crimes after the expulsion of Soviet forces from this landlocked country, beginning in 1988. The bill, introduced and forcefully supported by pro-jihadi MPs, asks the Afghan government not to accept any internal or foreign pressure for trials of those involved in the civil strife. If approved by the Meshrano Jirga, or Afghan Senate, the bill would exempt the warlords, most of whom are now part of the Afghan government or sitting in either House of Parliament, from any kind of reprimand for their previous acts, like violations of human rights and other war crimes. Malalai Joya, the outspoken female MP from Afghanistan's western Farah province, however, ruffled the House as she launched into a tirade against the former warlords and communist-era leaders. The 28-year-old Joya was the first to speak out against these same warlords during the Constitutional Loya Jirga held in London in late 2003 as a constituent assembly for a future government in this insurgency-wracked country. Joya said the proposed law would excuse the warlords of the crimes they had committed, which, she said, would be an injustice against the Afghan people, who are the ultimate sufferers and victims of the previous conflict and the existing insurgency and unrest. She failed to be recognized, however, by House Speaker Yunus Qanuni, who himself is one of those appearing in the "war crimes" list of the HRW. Along with a few others, she staged a walk-out from the male-dominated Lower House.

See:

Schools In Afghanistan

Sir Robert Bond Idiot

Afghan Woman Speaks Out

The War For Women's Rights

Democracy In Afghanistan

Where Are The Women?

Afghanistan

Women





Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Afghanistan, NDP, liberals, War, Harper, Conservatives, Liberals, Canada, politics, military, NATO, peacekeeping, Karzai, Government, Politics, Malalai Joya, Men, mysogyny, women, Afghanistan, Canada, Harper, war, Taliban, Kabul, Karzai, Islam, fatewha, girls, school

Nail In The Coffin

This is the final nail in the coffin of so called 'socialism' in China. Which of course was not socialism but state capitalism. A form of capitalism that allows the state to act as the capitalist in an underdeveloped society. Now China will be free to have lots of capitalists, and capital, and to further challenge American Hegemony politically, militarily and economically.

China to Pass Landmark Property Law

China's parliament is set to discuss a landmark property law when it meets in March. Beijing is thus one step closer to approving the newest draft version of the legislation, which has been reworked seven times because of its apparent capitalistic penchant which conflicts with China's socialist orientation.

The law to protect private property has been a political hot potato in China where state ownership still dominates key parts of the economy.
Zhang Weiying, dean of Guanghua School of Management at Peking University, said he believes the bill would pass the parliament.

"The parliament will pass the law. That will be a very important signal," he said in a recent interview.

Zhang said passing the bill will "give more confidence" to China's rising entrepreneurs, who are "crucial" for China's economic development.

"When people have security, they will know what they will get. They will be more motivated to work, make more money and invest," he said.

Zhang said a well-adopted property law can be a tool for a value creation and wealth redistribution.

See

Outsourcing IT

Business As Usual

Sweatshop Secrets of Success

Japanese State Capitalism

New Asian Dragon

China Needs Free Unions

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Marx,, China,, capitalism,, state capitalism,, private property,, law,, business,, imperialism,, hegemony,,

Blogger Screws Up

Blogger is screwed this morning. You cannot read anyones articles only their front pages. So until this is fixed sorry all you will get to read is whats on this front page. #@@!$#%!!!

Hobbit Controversy

The scientific controversy around Our Lady of Flores, (Lady of Flowers), aka the hobbit, continues...

The hobbit is definitely a new species of human, related to but separate from Homo sapiens, concludes a study by a Florida State University team published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Neuro-paleontologist Dean Falk, the head researcher, says she is "absolutely convinced" the brain of LB1, as the hobbit is officially known, is not abnormal.

The discovery of Homo floresiensis makes it much more likely that stories of other mythical, human-like creatures are founded on grains of truth.

Homo floresiensis (Liang Bua Cave, Indonesia) and a modern human skull

Peter Brown

File under cryptozoology; Dwarves, fairies, picts, brownies, gnomes, little people.

For more cryptozoology news check out this blog; Cryptomundo.




Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Indonesia,, Our Lady of Flores,, Flores,, Homo floresiensis,, hominid,, humans,, evolution,, cryptozoology,,

Pagans Party

The discovery of an ancient village at Stonehenge proves what neo-pagans have known all along, we know how to party!

After 4,600 years, we still gather for festivals.

The discovery reconfigures the geometry of Stonehenge, indicating that it is not an isolated monument but part of a larger religious complex that may have encompassed the area. It also casts the people who built the monument in an unexpected light, indicating that they were not only the somber worshipers of Stonehenge but also a raucous, hard-partying group who gathered for regular festivals.

An earlier discovery found that the village at Stonehenge may have been a gathering place of pagans from across Europe.

This is demonstrated by the 'Amesbury Archer', recently found in a 4,000-year-old grave, one of Europe's richest, near Stonehenge.

He was surrounded by about 100 items, including golden hair ornaments - some of the earliest gold objects found in Britain.

But his teeth provided the real surprise. Tests on their enamel, formed in early childhood and which contains telltale chemical signatures from local soil and rocks, showed the archer came from the Alps while the ornaments found in his grave were traced to Spain and France.

This discovery suggests that metalworkers from the Continent had already begun to trade and work in tin, copper and other metals in Britain 4,000 years ago and may have played key roles in building Stonehenge. The monument appears to have been the centre of major activity by travellers roaming across Britain, Ireland and the Continent.

See

The Monument Builders

Here Comes The Sun

Pyramid in Ukraine

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
stonehenge,, pagans,, archaeology,, paganism,, magick,, occult,, witch,, witchcraft,, celts,, picts,, neo-pagans,, heathens