Action Speaks Louder

ACTION SPEAKS LOUDEROPIRG TORONTO’S FIELD MANUAL FOR THOSE WHO’VE HAD ENOUGH

IN THIS ISSUE: CUPE 3902 Steps Up to U of T Admin H Class Politics and Labour Struggles Today H Racism and the University H Divestment from Militarism H Occupy Toronto Redux H And More...

Your Campus Is A Battleground

True generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity.

—Paulo Freire (1970)

WINTER 2012

(December 21, 2011 / 09:41:36)

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ADD IT UP

THEN BREAK IT DOWN

Population of Canada in 2010: 34,108,752

Number of Canadian billionaires: 62

Number of Canadian billionaires based in Ontario: 30

Approximate combined value of Canada’s billionaires in dollars: 162,000,000,000

Value of David Thomson, Canada’s wealthiest billionaire, in dollars: 21,340,000,000

Approximate combined value of the 17 million least wealthy Canadians in dollars: 81,000,000,000

Approximate number of students enrolled in Canadian universities: 1,200,000

Percentage of Canadian university budgets funded by tuition fees in 1985: 17

Percentage of Canadian university budgets funded by tuition fees in 1985: 34

Percentage of all new jobs in Canada requiring an undergraduate degree: 70

Total value of student loans owed to the Government of Canada, in dollars: +13,500,000,000

Canadian military expenditures in 2010 in dollars: 20,164,000,000

Approximate number of prisoners in Canadian prisons: 13,000

Amount Harper government plans to spend on prison expansion over the next 5 years, in dollars: 2,000,000,000

Estimated number of barrels of oil in the Alberta tar sands: 1,700,000,000,000

Percentage of Earth’s entire fresh water reserves required to extract all oil from the tar sands using current methods: 10

Number of Canadian cities in which activists have participated in the “Occupy” movement: +20

Number of American cities in which activists have participated in the “Occupy” movement: +96

Number of cities worldwide in which activists have participated in the “Occupy” movement: +951

Approximate number of arrests incurred by the movement in North America since September 17, 2011: 5,546

Number of activists arrested during the Berkeley Free Speech Movement occupation of Sproul Hall in 1964: 773

Approximate number of Google hits for “Occupy” on December 18, 2011: 243,000,000

Approximate number of Google hits for “Britney Spears” on December 18, 2011: 323,000,000

Percentage of Canadian workers represented by unions in 1997: 33.5

Percentage of Canadian workers represented by unions today: 31.5

Percentage of Swedish workers represented by unions today: 78

Number of times back-to-work legislation has been passed in Canada since 1950: 33

Number of times such legislation has been used in the last five years: 6

SOURCES: Canadian Association of University Teachers, Canadian Business Magazine, Canadian Federation of Students, Encyclopedia of American Social Movements, Monthly Labor Review, cbc.ca, occupyarrests.com, Scapegoat: Architecture | Landscape | Political Economy, The Toronto Star, World Bank.

(December 21, 2011 / 09:41:38)



ACTIONSPEAKSLOUDER WINTER2012 1

ACTIONSPEAKSLOUDERWINTER2012

[email protected]

OPIRG-Toronto101-563SpadinaCres.Toronto,OntarioM5S2J7www.opirgtoronto.org

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PRODUCTIONClareO’ConnorAKThompson

EDITORIALCOLLECTIVESimoneAkyianuClareO’ConnorErinOldynskiSafaShahkhaliliAKThompson

CONTRIBUTORSRyanCulpepperBaolinhDang

VivienEndicott-DouglasLorenzoFioritoKatieMazerWillNakhidJamesNugentClareO’ConnorOPIRGBoardShaunShepherd

DESIGNAKThompson

COVERARTAKThompson

LAYOUTAKThompson&ClareO’Connor

PrintedatThistlePrinting,Toronto,ONbyUnionLabourProducedbyOPIRGStaff,proudmembersofCUPE1281

ActionSpeaksLouderisthebiannualnewsletteroftheOntarioPublicInterestResearchGroupattheUniversityofToronto.Wepublisharticlesaboutsocialandenvironmentaljusticeadvocacyandactivism,withspecificfocusonissuesthataffectmembersofthecampuscommunity.

If you want to work on an activist publication, write to us: [email protected]. ThenewslettercollectivewillbeginmeetinginMay2012tostartworkonourFall2012edition.Ifyouwouldratherjustwriteforus,submitapitch!ThepitchsubmissiondeadlinefortheFall2012issueisMonday,June4th,2012.Writeaboutcampaignsyou’reinvolvedin,oryourthoughtsonanypoliticalorsocialjusticeissue.Emailashortpitchtoactionspeaksloudertoronto@gmail.com.

TABLEOFMALCONTENTS BoardofDirectors OccupyingSpace:DynamicsofPrivilege 2 inLeftistOrganizing

OPIRGStaff AModestProposal 3

ActionGroupListings 3

ShaunShepherd AccessatWhatCost? 4

RyanCulpepper, STRIKE?! 5 KatieMazer,and JamesNugent

OPIRGetal. Pull-outCUPE3902SolidarityPoster 6

LorenzoFiorito TheWorkingClassisBack 9 VivienEndicott- LessonsinDeflection:WhyWeMustDivest 10 Douglas fromIsraeliApartheid

WilliamNakhid FacingReality:LeadersandMarshals 11 intheOccupyMovement

Resources 12

IT’STIMETOTAKEACTION

(December 21, 2011 / 09:44:35)

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2 ACTIONSPEAKSLOUDER WINTER2012

Over the past few months, we have witnessed the Occupy Wall Street movement spread to many sites across North

America, only to be forcefully evicted. The OPIRG Board of Directors has supported and continues to support the right of Occupy movements to inhabit space, in order to grow, to imagine, and to enact the imagined. We are against instances of spaces being claimed by a repressive state, and stand in soli-darity with those facing displacement by brutal police forces. But looking back, in an attempt to look forwards, we want to recognize that to give Occupy space demanded more generos-ity from some of us than others, simply because the movement did not seek to make space for us all.

The Occupy movements emerged at a particular historical juncture. We live in a moment marked by challenges to how the West has historically secured prosperity and stability for its “rightful” citizens. People who have historically benefitted from capitalist and other hierarchies are now being denied what they were once entitled to; systems that have never worked for others are now starting to not work for the privileged. The Occupy movements arose as white, middle-class bodies started to face threats of economic and social precariousness that have always been realities for darker and otherwise marked bodies. Make no mistake: those among the “99%” are still not equal. Capitalism interacts with racism, sexism, and other structures of distinction to ensure that certain bodies will rarely, if ever, experience the full brunt of injustices.

In Toronto, leftist discourse as well as broader main-stream rhetoric, have often exalted Occupy as unprecedented or newly revolutionary in its political potential – these sites are presented as unifying in a way that dismisses other forms of organizing as being “divisive.” This kind of rhetoric erases centuries of difficult struggle. Occupy has not been the only form of organizing happening in North America, nor should it be. Those who choose to struggle and resist in other spaces should be offered support and respect for the important work they are doing, rather than being asked to put it aside to be “included” in Occupy. That said, we do not mean to erase the presence and contribution of women, people of colour, and other “others” in Occupy spaces. We are humbled by the dif-ficulty of their work. We respect their work by keeping in mind the potential for Occupy movements to evolve through experi-ence and practice.

OCCUPYINGSPACEDYNAMICSOFPRIVILEGEINLEFTISTORGANIZING

GreetingsfromOPIRG’sBoardofDirectorsBut these critiques are also more widely applicable, pro-

viding an opportunity to reflect on other spaces and struggles as well. At OPIRG, we strive to identify how cycles of oppres-sion manifest themselves within our own circles of organiz-ing even as we try to confront them in larger contexts. If the left focuses on actions like Occupy, what kinds of struggles become dismissed as unworthy of attention, validation, or sup-port? When the left uses rhetoric of outreach and inclusion to extend into the spaces of other struggles, what kinds of politics do we (yet again) place at the centre, and what kinds at the margins?

What is the place of the University in all of this? Uni-versities have upheld wider patterns of marginalization; they have also hosted insurgent voices that uncovered and reversed mainstream erasures. Critiques articulated in universities have founded disciplines, tied livelihoods to radical knowledge pro-duction, inspired people to build community across the bound-aries of the university, deepened and widened fronts of strug-gle. In this context, the battle being waged by TAs through their CUPE 3902 union is also a fight to defend campus as a space that nourishes wider movements for justice. This labour struggle is part of a broader fight, one that demands coalition-building and attentive listening. For decades, OPIRG has stood at this interface of knowledge production and visible polit-ical action. As we face intensifying attacks on public education, how can we help to make campus a site for the founding and renewal of collective solidarity?

If you too are asking these questions or having these dis-cussions, then come and join us. This year is the 30th anniver-sary of OPIRG, marking decades of supporting various forms and sites of struggles across this campus and city. We look forward to continuing our work in solidarity with grassroots initiatives, to supporting our action groups’ important projects, collaborating with researchers, academics, authors and activists from across the city, and to providing the tools and space to continually improve the politics we practice.

In Solidarity,

Johanna, Juan Carlos, Safa, Simone, Will, Vivien, Zexi

(December 21, 2011 / 09:44:38)




OPIRGACTIONGROUPS Barriere Lake Solidarity Toronto

Disability Action Movement Now

Environmental Justice Toronto

L@tinas Canada

Marxist discussion club

Moyo Wa Africa

No One is Illegal Toronto

Progressive Filipino Canadians for Community Empowerment and Development (PFCCED)

R3: Roots Rhythms Resistance

Students Against Israeli Apartheid

Toronto Bolivia Solidarity

Toronto FreeSkool!

Action Groups are at the heart of OPIRG’s work. They are volunteer collectives that organize autonomously for social and environmental justice.

For more information, or to get involved, please check us out at

www.opirgtoronto.org

Recently, OPIRG came under fire from a radical fringe of the student body eager to hone their public persuasion skills.

How, they asked, could an organization fighting for social and environmental justice purport to speak for the “public interest”? It was a tepid attack and we responded with measure and grace. However, since then we’ve had a change of heart. Why should we ask students to support our work? And what is this thing called the “public interest” anyway? This line of questioning made us realize that our detractors were in fact far too cautious. Defund OPIRG? That’s nothing. Let’s extend the argument to its logical conclusions and go after the real culprits. Let’s follow the money and do away with the myth of the “public interest” once and for all.

In 2010, Stephen Harper demonstrated admirable leader-ship when he salvaged public funds that had been earmarked for special interest “feminist” initiatives. Most impressively, he managed to eliminate taxpayer funding to the National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC) – an organization that, for almost forty years, was publicly subsidized to advocate on partisan matters such as day care, birth control, maternity leave, family law, education and pensions. Harper’s careful man-euvering retrieved millions of taxpayer dollars. This success story demonstrates that – when politicians stay focused – it’s

possible to eliminate public funding for services that only some citizens use. After all, women constitute only half of the Can-adian population; of these, only some relied on the advocacy and services that NAC supported (shelters, sexual assault crisis centers, subsidized housing). Why, then, should all of us have to foot the bill?

The NAC success story reveals that, with persistence, user-fee systems can be established for so-called “public interest” groups. And although impoverished families and the newly unemployed might win support by exploiting the sympathies of bleeding heart liberals, we can get that money back if we pro-ceed with ruthless perseverance and a healthy disregard for real-ity. After all, why should people pay taxes to support those who have less money? And why would anyone invest in things that have no evident personal returns?

Think of all the services you fund but don’t use. Why do you pay for roads you’ll never drive on, or for parts of the sewage systems that will never guide your shit to sea? Why are you paying for schools you don’t attend, to educate students you don’t even know? And what if these kids – using your hard-earned tax dollars – finish school and become threats to your own financial and social stability? Maybe they’ll even outscore your own sallow children (now indistinguishable from somnam-bulists in their narcotized playstation stupor) and thereby get jobs that would otherwise support your family. To level the play-ing field, we should immediately begin the struggle to imple-ment a national user fee system for all schools.

Similar schemes should be considered for health care. Why should we take care of people who might not even be taking care of themselves? And why should we fund public transportation to save other people money to get to work? There’s nothing more suicidal than giving our opponents in this dog-eat-dog world a competitive advantage they clearly haven’t earned.

These changes need only be the beginning. Ultimately, there’s no need for a “public” at all, and any discussion of “public interest” is clearly at odds with our shared objective of winning the race to the bottom.

AMODESTPROPOSALOPIRGStaffEditorial

(December 21, 2011 / 09:44:40)




For almost everyone, post-secondary education in Ontario is marred by barriers. However, these barriers tend to be

worse for racialized communities. As a result, racialised stu-dents tend to be underrepresented on Ontario campuses. Because Ontario has the nation’s highest average tuition fees, income disparities faced by racialised communities become a significant barrier to accessible post-secondary education.

According to Employment Ontario, 70 percent of jobs in this province insist that employees have some form of post-secondary education. This number is likely to increase as Canada further entrenches itself as a “knowledge-based” economy. The impetus for students to acquire an education beyond high school is thus self-evident. Indeed, it has practically become a require-ment for participation in the job market.

Meanwhile, access to post-secondary education remains limited for many racialised students. Racialised communities that suffered the brunt of colonial economic plundering con-tinue to be burdened by economic disparities. People in lower income brackets are consistently members of racialised com-munities. And though education has been recognized as a con-crete means of overcoming the effects of colonialism, the cost of accessing such an education remains prohibitive in Ontario.

The provincial government of Ontario contributes public funding to educational institutions at a level far below the national average. Since the mid-1990s, student loans have replaced grants as the primary source of student aid. To date, students taking out loans in Ontario have incurred more than $7 billion dollars in debt. This sum amounts to nearly 50% of all loans owed to the federal government.

ACCESSShaunShepherd

ATWHATCOST?

JOIN THE MOVEMENT and participate in a National Day of Action. Students are calling on the government to increase access and affordability of our education. In January weekly coalition meetings will be held on Tuesdays at 5pm in Sidney Smith.

ALL OUT FEB.1ST

These changes have exacerbated issues of access for racialised communities. Meanwhile, our provincial and national legislatures have done little to address the underrepresentation of racialized communities in post-secondary education. During the provincial election in October 2011, the Liberal party was elected on the promise that they would implement a 30% tuition fee reduction for all post-secondary students. This policy would significantly improve access for all communities; however, the Liberal’s current plan falls far short of their initial promise.

Rather than a tuition fee reduction, the Liberals are cur-rently advocating yet another grant scheme.The tuition fee grant will only be available to a third of all undergraduate students, exempting students in professional and graduate programs. The grant will also be administered through the Ontario Student Loan Program, thus adding further restrictions to access.

If we are serious about improving access to post-second-ary education for racialised communities, we need to rethink the framework of educational funding. We’ve seen that grants, incentives, schemes, and corporatization are neither sustain-able nor effective options for overcoming financial barriers. We need real solutions that confront these barriers head on. The only effective solution is a tuition fee reduction and a res-toration of public funding. Fully funded post-secondary edu-cation would be a substantial step in overcoming the economic consequences of a colonial history. On February 1st, students across Ontario will participate in a national day of action call-ing on the government and on university administrators to work with students to make post-secondary education fully accessible. The vision is shared by many, and I hope to see racialised allies leading the rally.

Shaun is Vice-President External for the University of Toronto Students’ Union.

(December 21, 2011 / 09:44:42)




You’ve probably heard the buzz around campus: Members of CUPE 3902 are bargaining a new collective agree-

ment with our employer, the U of T. Maybe you’ve even heard rumours of an impending strike. Well, we are bargaining, and we might strike, and we’re here to tell you more about it.

WHO IS CUPE 3902?

CUPE 3902 is the union representing 7,000 sessional instruct-ors, TAs, and other contracted education workers at the U of T. The collective agreement for students who work as instructors and TAs expired on April 30, 2011, and we have been meeting regularly with U of T to negotiate a new collective agreement. At the end of November, to demonstrate our seriousness to our employer (who was stalling at the bargaining table), we held a strike vote. It was one of the strongest strike votes in the history of Canadian higher-education unions, with 91% of our mem-bers supporting a strike mandate. On December 5th, the Univer-sity walked away from the bargaining table and filed for concilia-tion. Because of the University’s intransigence, most of our key bargaining proposals have yet to be discussed at the table.

WHAT ARE WE BARGAINING FOR?

LEARN MUCH? The University of Toronto has some of the biggest classes in the country. To deal with these huge classes, the University has often hired TAs to run tutorials alongside lectures, giving students a chance to learn in smaller groups with knowledgeable instructors. In the sciences, TAs with the skills you’re trying to develop run labs to supplement

labs lectures. This is great. But what happens when tutorials begin to look more like lectures than discussions? Or when your lab demonstrator is so overexerted that you can’t get her to your lab station when you need her?

There is currently no limit to the size of labs or tutorials at this university. Almost half (42%) of tutorials at U of T have more than fifty students. Over one hundred tutorials on our campus have more than one hundred students. Good teaching becomes impossible with tutorials this big. Your TAs are often forced to work extra hours without pay in order to offer even the most minimal support. TAs and students have a shared stake in ending huge tutorials: If it’s a bad place for you to learn, it’s also a bad place for us to work.

STRIKE?!

Union: A democratic organization that uses its collective power to win better working conditions and compensation for its members.

Collective Bargaining: Negotiations between a union and an employer, aimed at establishing workplace standards like non-discrimination policies, wages, safety provisions, and benefits (health, childcare, etc).

Strike Vote: A vote asking union members whether they grant authority to union leaders to call a strike in the case that negotiating fails. A strong strike vote can pressure the employer to negotiate more seriously because it makes clear that the membership stands strongly behind the bargaining proposals.

Conciliation: When a union or employer asks for a government-appointed mediator to help them to reach a collective agreement. It is required that the negotiating parties go through a conciliation process before a legal strike or lockout can happen.

Strike: A workplace action in which workers stop working, the strike encourages an employer to listen to workers’ demands. By stopping production, strikes highlight that it’s really the workers who generate money for the employer. Strikes can be effective because they cause the employer to lose money or present them with a public relations disaster.

Lockout: Sometimes, rather than letting workers strike, an employer will lock them out. In most workplaces, this literally means that the doors are locked and workers cannot work. It also means they don’t get paid.G

LOSS

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CONTINUED ON PAGE 8>>

RyanCulpepper,CUPE3902BargainingTeamChair,KatieMazer,CUPE3902InternalLiaisonOfficer,&JamesNugent,CUPE3902BargainingTeamChiefSpokesperson

(December 21, 2011 / 09:44:45)



6 ACTIONSPEAKSLOUDER WINTER20126 ACTIONSPEAKSLOUDER WINTER2011

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(December 21, 2011 / 09:44:47)




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(December 21, 2011 / 09:44:49)




We’re proposing to reduce tutorial and lab sizes through a “cap” system. Under our proposal, tutorials would have a “soft cap” of twenty students. If a tutorial exceeds twenty, the Uni-versity would have to offer the TA extra paid hours for the extra work required. Absolutely no tutorials would be allowed to have more than 50 students. Labs would require one lab demonstrator for every 20 students, period.

So far, the University has just said “No” to our proposals. In fact, they’ve stated that they don’t think that tutorials at U of T are too big! Undergraduates should simply, in their words, “adjust their expectations.”

THINKING OF GOING TO GRADUATE SCHOOL? The U of T used to guarantee graduate students a minimum funding package composed partially of a fellowship for our research and partially of wages for our work as TAs. Now, the U of T is moving toward eliminating research fellowships entirely.

Our fellowships ensure that we have enough time to do the research that brought us to graduate school in the first place. Unfortunately, fellowships don’t satisfy the Administra-tion’s desire for measurable (i.e. profitable) “outputs.”

Although our funding packages are currently structured so that the total amount remains unchanged, a greater per-centage of the total amount comes from wages and a smaller percentage comes from fellowships each year. At this rate, we’ll eventually be teaching for 100% of our funding and have no fellowship—no compensation for our research—at all.

We are increasingly required to work more hours, often for as little as $12 an hour – on research tasks unrelated to our dissertations. The wages for this new kind of work are often calculated against our guaranteed funding, which means we do the work but never take home a dollar for it. Meanwhile, the funding we were promised for carrying out our research con-tinues to disappear.

This would be bad enough for any employee; however, it’s particularly bad for us because we’re trying to complete degrees while the funding clock is ticking. Most PhDs take about six and a half years to complete; at U of T, PhD students are funded for only four or five of these years. When we entered U of T, we were told that a guaranteed Doctoral Completion Grant would sustain us after the four to five years of guaranteed funding. Last year, the Administration eliminated that Grant without consult-ing or even informing us. Now, in the last years of our PhDs, we’re left with nothing. For the international students who make up 25% of our membership, it’s impossible to accept work off campus or even to take on loans. Without work or funding, these students face deportation.

CUPE 3902 members love our work. We just want to be given the tools to do it well. We also want U of T to live up to the funding commitment they made to us when we entered so that we can finish our degrees. We want graduate school to be a viable option—with meaningful work, reliable income, and

5 WAYS TO SUPPORT YOUR TAs & COURSE INSTRUCTORS

1. Talk to your friends about what you learned from this article!

2. Spread the word through Facebook, Twitter, and other social-media magic.

3. Write something for campus media.

4. Gather a few friends and go hand out flyers explaining our bargaining proposals.

5. Use your creativity: make stickers, speak in your classes, write letters. Don’t let our list hold you back!

For ongoing updates and more information visit: www.cupe3902.org

adequate support—for future students. If you’re thinking of going to graduate school, this means you.

We’ve proposed fixing the broken structure of graduate student funding. The U of T has refused even to discuss it.

WE DON’T WANT TO STRIKE BUT WE WILL

We have explained all of this to the Administration. We’ve made reasonable, common-sense proposals, and we’ve con-veyed the strength of our resolve with a 91% strike vote. The ball is now in their court. They have the power to get us to a new collective agreement in January.

If we strike, it will be because we have no other option. Just as students hate the academic disruptions caused by a strike, unions also hate being forced to strike. It disrupts our lives, too, and we’d rather be in the classroom.

Our strike will be in defence of good education, public services, and jobs for all. Our own livelihoods are under threat, but we don’t live in a vacuum. Conditions on our campus—the growing disparity, the attempts to squeeze more from workers while paying them less, and the demand that we “adjust our expectations” of public services—reflect broader trends. At the same time, our response reflects the broader global resolve to fight against austerity, unemployment, slashed wages, forced debt, rolled-back services, and increased fees. Our members have stated loud and clear: We don’t want to strike, but we will.

EUG

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>>CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5STRIKE?!

(December 21, 2011 / 09:44:51)




Why talk about class in the twenty-first century? Suppos-edly the organizations that workers created to defend

themselves against bosses, established labour unions today have adapted to capitalist oppression and then mouth abstract worker-friendly rhetoric while helping employers exploit actual workers. Historically, North American racial pogroms (like those in Vancouver in 1907) were often union-led: first they excluded non-White workers from membership, and then they went on the rampage, killing and beating the “scabs” they had created. Since the era of globalization, manufacturing jobs have been outsourced to the emerging economies, and the sector has shrunk dramatically. The service sector now accounts for three-quarters of the jobs and 71 percent of Canadian GDP, says the CIA World Factbook.

So why talk about class today? Does it really exist anymore? If it does, isn’t it a conservative force and not a progressive one?

At 11:59 PM on June 14, Canada Post Corporation locked out all postal workers across the country. According to the CBC, “Vancouver officials were more concerned with striking Canada Post workers than any potential violence in the hours leading up to the Stanley Cup riot, documents released by the city reveal.”

City staff met on the morning of June 15 to discuss con-cerns that Canada Post picketers might interfere with public areas set up for people to watch Game 7 of the Cup final….

Clearly, peacefully striking workers frightened the Harper government far more than did a large group of people seeking to express its repressed psychological anger. That should tell us something.

In October, the same Conservative government used legislative means to prevent airline attendants at Air Canada from taking strike action and thus interfered in the workings of the free market in favour of the employer. Clearly, class matters to the government, just as it matters to the employers that government represents.

The postal strike was preceded by months of unofficial job action in cities like Winnipeg and Edmonton. These actions were not sanctioned and sometimes were even discouraged by postal union officials. Union brass tried to restrain the airline workers from striking, too. But, “Two people who said they are junior flight attendants told CBC News that a petition is being circulated to remove union management.” CBC quoted one flight attendant who explained, “I don’t think they get us. I don’t think they get what we’re fighting for.”

So, class also matters to the people who work at these jobs. If labour has been a conservative force, this is not something that is eternally true: it’s the product of specific social and eco-nomic circumstances that are now changing. With these chan-ges come shifts in the behaviour of organized labour.

Really, the only people who need to be convinced that class exists and matters are those who have been socially isolated from struggles like the ones recounted above. These are the members of that much-talked-about middle class. It is therefore common to say that the middle class is not oppressed. Really, this is false. Their denial of class masks an inability to organize against the disappearance of their own livelihoods and professions, which were destroyed by people far more powerful than they. This lack of power is, in turn, an effect of the fragmentation, isolation, and competitive nature of middle-class life.

It’s true: the labour movement, and the radical organiza-tions and networks that seek to change society, are ridden with the social ills they claim to combat – racism, sexism, homo-phobia, and class prejudice. Nevertheless, working-class pol-itics are now more relevant than ever. This is not because of any inherent moral superiority of workers, but because the cre-ation of wealth depends on their activity.

As this never-ending global recession shows, if the social wealth is not redistributed, then Europe and North America will no longer be able to support the standard of living we’ve grown used to. These economies are in serious crisis, because the cap-italist class who currently manages the economy has proven incapable of doing its job. Meanwhile, as economies crumble, jobs disappear, and poverty increases, corporate heads actually continue to increase their own salaries. Why shouldn’t they? We haven’t yet done anything effective to stop them.

You can’t redistribute what you don’t own and control. Every strike is a lesson in how to take the power – and the money – from those who misuse them, and to put the product of our labour back into our own hands.

LorenzoFiorito

WORKINGCLASSBACK

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IS

After completing a BA in Political Science at the University of Alberta, Lorenzo Fiorito got a political education in the garment factories and machine shops of Montreal. Presently an editor with radical journal Upping the Anti, he has returned to studies at U of T, Scarborough.

(December 21, 2011 / 09:44:54)




In November 2011, the Graduate Students’ Union Council voted down a motion encouraging U of T to divest from

three of the world’s largest military manufacturers and one of the world’s largest information technology suppliers. In what follows, I consider the most common arguments advanced by the motion’s critics.

“This motion singles out Israel. Why shouldn’t we also target companies complicit in human rights violations in the United States, the DRC, Darfur, Haiti, Canada or Afghanistan?” Good question. The second clause of the GSU divestment motion explicitly demanded that the university divest from all companies in violation of international law. Never have I met a Palestine solidarity activist who would argue against an end to exploitation, occupation, and human rights violations worldwide. Israel’s supporters assume that if anti- apartheid activists don’t single out all guilty states, then there must be some reason that they single out Israel in particular. However, this position ignores the fact that the Canadian state, our polit-icians, and our university have already singled out Israel. Canada has now usurped the US as Israel’s top friend and is increasingly contributing to protecting its impunity. Recently, while discuss-ing a number of defense co-operation agreements with Israel, defense minister Peter Mackay made it clear that Israel “would not find a more supportive country on the planet.”

“The GSU is not a political body” and “this is a div-isive issue. Some members oppose it and therefore we shouldn’t accept it.” Fearing backlash and dissent, the GSU Councilors who advance this argument seem to believe that, by not supporting this divestment campaign, students can some-how “remain neutral” on the issue. However, claims to “impar-tiality” fail to recognize that even our inaction carries political implications. By investing in these companies and overlooking their complicity in crimes, the university becomes complicit in these same violations. By extension, as tuition-paying students, we too become invested and complicit, and the issue becomes

explicitly political. Are we going to continue to side with war profiteers and multinational corporations by choosing to main-tain the status quo, or are we going to support collective action in solidarity with those struggling against violence?

“Even if this motion does not include the phrase ‘Israeli Apartheid’, it’s put forth by Students Against Israeli Apart-heid and therefore implicates us in their campaign.” The term “apartheid” understandably strikes fear into the heart of anyone who grew up hearing about the horrors that took place in South Africa. Once the official apartheid regime in South Africa fell, international law defined apartheid as a crime against humanity. The term is used to describe situations exhibiting sim-ilar forms of racial segregation and discrimination to those prac-ticed in South Africa. According to the recent Russell Tribunal, Palestinians are “… subjected to a particularly aggravated form of apartheid.” Dismantling these policies, ending the occupa-tion, and recognizing the right of return for all Palestinians is the precondition for a level playing field between Palestine and Israel. Renowned individuals like celebrated intellectual Judith Butler, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and former US president Jimmy Carter have all written extensively on Israeli Apartheid and have contributed to the wide acceptance of this analysis. As the anti- South African apartheid struggles of twenty years ago make clear, student mobilizations have been important pieces of the overall struggle for change. Yet, it is a little known fact that the U of T was the last university in Canada to divest from the South African apartheid regime.

Today, the international community has once again been called upon to divest from corporations responsible for human right’s violations. And, as Palestinian academic Omar Barghouti has made clear, the international BDS campaign against apart-heid South Africa was “the straw that broke the camel’s back … without it you could not have ended apartheid.” Now, twenty years after the fact, these tactics remain more relevant than ever.

WHYWEMUSTDIVESTFROMISRAELIAPARTHEID

DEMAND THAT THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

1. Immediately divest from and refuse to reinvest in BAE Systems, Nor-throp Grumman, Hewlett Packard and Lockheed Martin

2. Refrain from investing in all companies involved in violations of international law and;

3. Work with students, faculty and staff to undergo a democratic and transparent process to ensure accountability to principles of social and economic justice.

VivienEndicott-Douglas

LESSONSINDEFLECTION

THE COMPANIES: BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin through their respective production of F-3 and F- 16 fighter jets, Longbow Hellfire 2 missiles, and Apache Helicopters (along with other weapons technologies) are all directly implicated in war crimes committed against the people of Gaza during the 2008/09 attacks that killed 1,400 Palestinians, a majority of whom were innocent civilians (300 of whom were children). Hewlett Packard contributes to the collec-tive punishment of Palestinians by developing, installing and maintaining monitoring systems used at checkpoints, managing the Israeli Navy’s IT infrastructure, supply-ing the Israeli military forces with PCs, servers, and virtualization systems, and out-sourcing IT services to its subsidiary, Matrix, which operates out of the illegal Israeli settlement Mdi’in Illit.

Vivien is a student of Equity, Drama and Film Studies at U of T.

(December 21, 2011 / 09:44:56)




Even before the first general assemblies in St. James Park, Occupy Toronto activists asserted that theirs was a leader-

less movement. At a general assembly during the early days of the occupation, someone made an announcement for facilita-tion committee meetings. Inviting us to the facilitation train-ing, the individual suggested that all of us could lead or facili-tate discussions. In the middle of their announcement, some-one participating in the general assembly interrupted by yelling “we have no leaders!” The sentiment was met with cheers and applause. In response, someone else in the crowd yelled back “we are all leaders!” which was met with even more cheers and applause. But was this true?

The idea of a leaderless movement is valuable. Striving to realize it can be rewarding and can help to create welcoming and safe-spaces for all peoples to participate and be empow-ered. But while a non-hierarchical structure is important, it takes more than shouting comments at a general assembly to make it a reality.

During Occupy Toronto, the distinction between the ideal of anti-authoritarianism and the strategy required to actualize it remained unclear. Anti-authoritarianism is not something we’re taught by our society. Making it a reality demands constant edu-cation, skill building, and skill sharing. These things take time, and are a lot of work. Creating a leaderless movement requires more work and attention from individual members than having a leader does. While chanting and shouting can be important, vocal appeals to movement ideals are not substitutes for creat-ing antiauthoritarian structure. An examination of responses to conflict at the occupy site clearly illustrate this distinction.

Throughout the initial General Assemblies onward, the movement trumpeted its commitment to non-violence; however, the idea remained undefined. Violence occurs in countless ways

LEADERSANDMARSHALLSINTHEOCCUPYMOVEMENT

and is committed by all kinds of individuals. Through the course of the occupation, it became clear that it would be practically impossible to make St. James Park completely violence free.

Although the movement had expressed commitments to non-violence and antiauthoritarian politics, it remained to be seen how these ideals would be realized in the nascent commun-ity in the park. One answer to this was marshalls. Marshalling took place at Occupy Toronto from day one. Trainings were set up, and marshalls moved through St. James Park 24 hours a day. However, it quickly became apparent that there was not a con-sensus about what marshalls should do or how they should do it. When problems arose, it was up to those present (marshalls or not) to figure out a solution. As a result, responses to issues of violence were often slow and marked by conflict.

Vocal proclamations that “we have no leaders” did not make it so. Leaders naturally emerged in situations where swift action was needed, as conflicts often require quick and timely responses in order to guarantee the safety of all. In the case of Occupy Toronto, there was little time for genuinely antiau-thoritarian responses to conflict to emerge. As a result, individ-uals stepped into leadership positions when things needed to get done – especially in response to violence.

One response to this dynamic was for people to assert that “we are all marshalls.” At one point, marshalls were even for-mally disbanded by the general assembly; however, the notion that “we are all be marshalls” reflects the same kind of think-ing as the idea that we can simply proclaim ourselves a “leader-less movement.” Abolishing marshalls by proclaiming all of us to be marshalls fails to acknowledge the actual work that would need to take place for marshalling to be done collect-ively. These idealistic proclamations often obscure the actual work required to create non-hierarchical responses to conflict.

Ideally, we should all be marshalls; however, thinking that we can collectively perform this role without training and group discussion repeats the tendency we see in proclamations like “I don’t see colour,” “our movement is inclusive because people of colour are here,” or “we have no leaders.” Vocally proclaiming ideas without doing the work to transform them into reality will never yield the intended results. Simply declaring a space to be free of sexism, racism, classism, ableism, and other oppressions does not make it so. To fight these forms of oppression, we need to take actions beyond making romantic declarations.

How can we create an environment where anti-authori-tarian responses to violence and safety are effective? Idealistic proclamations are important as expressions of values that can orient us toward our goals. However, unless we use them to inform our actions and strategy, they become mere slogans. By thinking critically about whether or not our proclamations are true, we’ve already taken the first step.

William Nakhid

FACINGREALITY

William organizes with the U of T General Assembly and spent many days at the Occupy Toronto site this past fall. He is an Equity Studies stu-dent and a member of OPIRG’s Board of Directors.

(December 21, 2011 / 09:44:58)




SPACESONANDAROUNDCAMPUS519CommunityCentre www.the519.orgBikePirates:DIYBicycleShop www.bikepirates.comCentreforSocialJustice www.socialjustice.orgCentreforWomenand womenscentre.sa.utoronto.caTransPeopleatUofTNativeCanadian www.ncct.on.caCentreofTorontoTorontoRapeCrisisCentre/ www.trccmwar.caMulticulturalWomenAgainstRapeTorontoWomen’sBookstore www.womensbookstore.com

NEWSANDANALYSISLOCAL

BASICSNewsletterToronto basicsnews.caNewSocialist www.newsocialist.orgRyersonFreePress www.ryersonfreepress.casubMedia.tv submedia.tvTheDominion www.thedominion.caTorontoMediaCo-op www.mediacoop.caUppingtheAnti:AJournal www.uppingtheanti.orgofTheoryandActionYorkUniversityFreePress www.yufreepress.org

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AlJazeera english.aljazeera.netDemocracyNow! www.democracynow.orgIndependentMediaCentre www.indymedia.orgInfoshopNews www.infoshop.orgRabble.ca www.rabble.caSocialistProject www.socialistproject.caZCommunications www.zcommunications.org

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CoalitionAgainstIsraeliApartheid www.caiaweb.orgLowIncomeFamilies www.lift.toTogether(LIFT)NoOneisIllegal-Toronto toronto.nooneisillegal.orgOntarioCoalitionAgainstPoverty www.ocap.caQueersAgainst www.queersagainstapartheid.orgIsraeliApartheidSikhActivistNetwork sikhactivist.netTorontoStoptheWarCoalition www.nowar.caTorontoVegetarianAssociation www.veg.caTorontoWorker’sAssembly www.workersassembly.caOPIRG-York www.opirgyork.ca

NATIONALANDGLOBAL

AnimalLiberationFront www.animalliberationfront.comAssaultedWomen’sHelpline www.awhl.orgAW@L peaceculture.orgCanadianHaiti www.canadahaitiaction.caActionNetworkCanadianTamilCongress www.canadiantamilcongress.caDefendersoftheLand www.defendersoftheland.orgINCITEWomenof www.incite-national.orgColorAgainstViolenceIndigenousEnvironmentalNetwork www.ienearth.orgJewsAgainsttheOccupation www.jatonyc.orgJusticefor www.justicia4migrantworkers.orgMigrantWorkersNorthEasternFederation www.nefac.orgofAnarchistCommunistsInternationalJewish www.ijsn.netAnti-ZionistNetworkPalestinianCampaignforthe www.pacbi.orgAcademicandCulturalBoycottofIsraelPrisonJusticeActionCommittee www.pjac.ca

RESOURCESU(December 21, 2011 / 09:45:01)



&&

& GET INVOLVED WITH OPIRG!

Come by the office! Please contact OPIRG for more information about our initiatives.

Ontario Public Interest Research Group - Toronto 563 Spadina Cres. Suite 101 g 416-978-7770 g www.opirgtoronto.org g [email protected]

2012 is OPIRG’s 30th Anniversary! We’re celebrating with a full year of research, education, and action for social and environmental justice. OPIRG provides students, workers, and members of the U of T community with opportunities to develop skills and analysis for effective advocacy against injustice and oppression.

JOIN AN ACTION GROUP! Action groups are the heart of OPIRG. These small groups undertake research and organize educational events, public lectures, film screenings, concerts, and demonstrations about anti-racism, Indigenous sovereignty, gender equity, free and accesible education, immigrant and refugee rights, labour rights, anti-war politics, anti-poverty activism, and environmental justice.

ATTEND A WORKSHOP! Tools for Change is an annual, free series of skill-building workshops on media strategy and journalism, public speaking, print making and design, research methods, community organizing strategies, facilitation, publishing, decision-making methods, rally organizing, and more!

SUBMIT TO OUR NEWSLETTER! Action Speaks Louder is OPIRG’s bi-annual newsletter. Authors analyze important and timely social and political issues, and reflect on their own activism. Pick up our latest issue!

USE OUR LIBRARY!The Dr. Chun Resource Library is a collaborative initiative between OPIRG and the Centre for Women and Transpeople.This free library allows for U of T students and community members to access factual, critical, and alternative books, tapes, zines, CDs and other resources.

(December 21, 2011 / 09:41:39)



TOOLS FOR CHANGE Activist Skills Workshops | January-May 2012

TOOLS for CHANGE is a series of free skills-sharing and skills-building workshops designed to help you gain the tools for doing research, education, and action for social and environmental justice. This series is collaboratively organized by the Ontario Public Interest Research Group, Earthroots, and Greenpeace.

To register for a workshop, please write to [email protected]. Most workshops take place in downtown Toronto. All venues are wheelchair accessible.

For more information, please contact [email protected].

JANuARy 19 >> Training for Trainers. 6:30 pmPlanning on leading a workshop in the future? Then this workshop is for you. This training will cover the basic principles of workshop design and delivery including how to create a comfortable learning en-vironment, manage workshop logistics, pay atten-tion to power and process, choose content that will fit your group’s different learning styles, and look after yourself in the role of facilitator. You’ll have the opportunity to create a simple workshop de-sign and get feedback, so please come prepared with something in mind.

JANuARy 22 >> Group Decision- Making Workshop.1:00 pmHow movement groups make decisions has a big impact on our politics, our effectiveness, and the quality of our activist experience. It can be a major challange to find the model that has the right mix of inclusiveness, accountability, and efficiency for your group. This workshop will explore different decision-making and organizational models used by activist and advocacy groups, such as consen-sus, voting, spokescouncils, and hybrid varieties. We will also use tools and exercises to help you identify and address solutions to some of the deci-sion-making challenges your group might be ex-periencing.

JANuARy 26 >> Avoiding Activist Burnout. 6:30 pmAn activist culture that emphasizes passion and unwavering commitment can be alienating to those members who have lost some of that initial spark. This workshop aims to break down the stigma sur-rounding activist burnout, offer some constructive solutions for how to get back from the brink of burnout, and tips how to prevent it in yourself and members of your group.

JANuARy 29 >> Self-Defense Politics and Practice. 1:00 pmOur experiences of violence impacts our lives, and our activism. To challenge patriarchy, colonialism and capitalism we need to be able to defend our-selves and our communities. Join us for a physi-cal self-defense workshop and a discussion about gender norms and the right to anger, to healthy aggression and to countering the pathologizing of women who fight back.

FEBRuARy 5 >> Web Research Skills for Activists and Independent Journalists. 1:00 pmThis workshop presents the skills and techniques that investigative journalists and private-eyes use to do deep digging research on the Internet. It show people how to use google in ways most peo-ple are unaware of and how to access the wealth of information on the Internet that Google can’t find. Jammed packed from edge to edge, this session will be a chance for novice and expert researchers alike to pick up skills they can use everyday. The last hour of this workshop will be tailored to us-ing Access to Information laws to get government records.

FEBRuARy 12 >> Grassroots Financial Management.1:00 pmIn the whirl of everyday demands, it’s easy to loose track of our finances. The consequences are bad enough when we mismanage personal money,and the stakes are just as high when we’re dealing with the limited budgets of grassroots activist organizations. Come learn about the basic steps you must take to manage your group’s fi-nances, including an introduction to bookkeeping.

MARCH 3 >> Great Meeting Facilitation.1:00 pmA major part of social change work is lots of meet-ings. Meetings can be inspiring, hellish, or some-where in between. The quality of a meeting de-pends a lot on good facilitation. Facilitators aren’t supposed to run the show, and they do more than keep track of who wants to speak. In this work-shop you’ll learn and practice some steps, tools, techniques and approaches that can help you ef-fectively facilitate meetings—and that includes those difficult meetings.

MARCH 17 >> Direct Action Workshop. 11:00 amDirect action has played an integral role in most movements for social change, from the civil rights era to the suffragettes, and from forest defense to worker justice movements. This workshop is for people who are newer to direct action and are interested in learning about different kinds of di-rect action, as well as the basics of when, why and how to integrate direct action into your campaigns. Topics to be covered include: campaign strategy, choosing an action that suits your goals, building your action team, common roles in a direct action, decision making at actions, basic safety consid-erations, and escalation and de-escalation during actions.

WWW.TOOLSFORCHANGE.NET

(December 21, 2011 / 09:41:40)



Documents

Action Speaks Louder