Registration open for “Workers’ Struggles Amidst Neoliberal Globalization” conference
For immediate release June 19, 2012 Toronto, ON—The Congress of Progressive Filipino Canadians (CPFC) and its allies call on everyone to participate at the “Workers’ Struggles Amidst Neoliberal Globalization” national conference to be held on August 11th and 12th at the United Steelworkers Hall in Toronto. The conference will take place amidst the backdrop of the current capitalist crisis, at a time when workers faced all-out attacks on their lives and communities, expressed through draconian austerity measures, on-going cutbacks to essential public services and the incessant push to make work more temporary and to drive wages down. The heightening exploitation brought upon the capitalist crisis provides a fertile ground upon which to build solidarity and heighten our collective resistance as workers against capitalism’s all-out attacks on working peoples in Canada and beyond. Conference objectives To gain deeper understanding of the historic role of the working class in the process of social transformation and its relation to the socialist movement and to gain insights in the history of the workers movement in North America particularly in Canada and the [...]
Regressive reforms to Employment Insurance to drive and divide workers in Canada to greater insecurity and instability
National Statement June 18, 2012 Toronto, ON—SIKLAB Canada, a progressive Filipino Canadian workers organization, denounces the proposed reforms to the Employment Insurance system and the wage cuts for temporary foreign workers as yet another regressive manoeuvre by the Conservative government that will hit all workers in Canada and worsen the ailing economy. While otherwise promoted as a plan towards greater “economic growth and prosperity,” we must refuse to be misguided by this racist, divisive and anti-worker drive for lower wages and greater insecurity through the flexibilization and contractualization of labour. While the lives of the vast majority of workers continue to be wracked by the neoliberal agenda of globalization—as seen in cutbacks to healthcare, employment, education, housing and settlement programs—no greater insurance can be availed by workers in Canada than by exposing and opposing neoliberal globalization and by advancing our full participation and entitlement as workers in Canadian society. The changes, set to take effect in early 2013, will stream out-of-work Employment Insurance (EI) claimants to jobs that pay up to 30% less than their original wages, through [...]
National workers’ conference set to advance the role of workers as central to ongoing movements for social change
For immediate release June 11, 2012 Toronto,ON—The Congress of Progressive Filipino Canadians (CPFC) and its allies call on all to take action and participate in the national workers’ conference titled “Workers’ Struggles Amidst Neoliberal Globalization” set to take place inTorontoon August 11 and 12. As recent mobilizations on the local and global scale have shown—from the Quebec student strike to the Middle East—exposing neoliberal policies of prioritizing economic growth over basic equality and democracy have made an impact in showing that the possibilities of social change is heightening. The upcoming conference will bring out the necessity and centrality of workers’ roles in advancing the movement for social change. In this time when austerity measures signify attacks on the majority—from students, women, people of colour and workers—neoliberal policies and the global elites that support them have continued to push for these measures as a purported solution to the global economic crisis. Yet we have already seen the impacts of such policies on the lives and conditions of working people around the world. For instance, with the rise of tuition [...]
Popular education series to gear the community into action
For immediate release June 11, 2012 Magkaisa Centre’s Summer Program Toronto, ON—The Magkaisa Centre kicks off summer 2012 with a new round of its “Balik Ugat, Balik Komunidad/Back to the Roots, Back to the Community” (BUBK) workshop series under the general theme of Workers’ Struggles and Resistance. The workshop series will make headway into the upcoming North American conference “Workers’ Struggles amidst Neoliberal Globazation,” to be held in Toronto on August 11 and 12. Now the fifth of the Magkaisa Centre’s annual summer workshops, BUBK 2012 is a progression of the Centre’s critical education and analysis of issues affecting women, workers and youth in the Filipino Canadian community and beyond. Amidst the community’s intensifying marginalization in all aspects of Canadian society, BUBK will concretize the need to continue building a truly progressive movement that will blaze the path towards the community’s just and genuine settlement and integration in a country we now call home. With the ever-increasing attacks of the neoliberal agenda of globalization, workers’ lives in Canada and all over the world are becoming more unstable and [...]
Stop the tuition hikes: Filipino Canadian youth stand in solidarity with Quebec student strike
National statement May 24, 2012 Toronto, ON—With the Quebec student strike now into its third month, Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino Sa Canada/Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance—National (UKPC/FCYA) stand in solidarity with the student movement in Quebec and beyond by calling for an end to the ongoing assault against our access to education and to reject the tuition hikes and cuts against university education proposed by Quebec’s Liberal Party. For many youth across Canada today, alongside the over 200,000 strong who have mobilized in Quebec, the greatest disruption to our lives are not the wave of public protests and strikes that have sprung up throughout streets nationwide, but instead is the onslaught of the neoliberal agenda that denies us our entitlement to universally accessible public education and the basic right to determine our futures and to fully participate in Canadian society. As Quebec universities have some of the lowest tuition fees in Canada, it is easy to brush off the strike as being unnecessarily drawn out. With Charest and his government proposing ongoing increases that hike up fees to almost [...]
“Workers: Makers of History” exhibit celebrates and enriches workers’ history at Mayworks Festival
Workers: Makers of History, a set on Flickr. For immediate release May 18, 2012 Toronto, ON—A crowd of over 70 participants gathered to celebrate and enrich an unfolding history of workers’ resistance during the May 10th opening night for the “Workers: Makers of History” exhibit, part of the Mayworks Festival of Working People and the Arts. Hosted at the Beit Zatoun house in downtown Toronto, the exhibit featured community-based art pieces that both depicted and transformed the Filipino Canadian community’s experiences as a transnational community largely composed of workers. Aside from highlighting various personal and collective narratives of struggle as immigrants and temporary workers, the exhibit moreover became a testament to the transformative capacity of art and culture to expand that narrative into realizing the community’s vision of becoming genuinely settled and integrated within Canadian society. The exhibit is a culmination of a collaborative project between Marissa Largo, Toronto-based artist and educator, and the Maleta [Suitcase] Project. It featured pieces from both Largo’s “Maleta Stories” exhibit, which originally premiered in the world-renowned contemporary art event Nuit Blanche, and [...]
We will remember you Elenita “Tita” Ordonez
The passing away of Elenita Ordonez brings us great sadness as we recall the days when we were together with her partner, Elmer, in Montreal, Canada during the 1970s and 80s. The first time we met Elenita or “Tita,” as we called her, was during a Christmas carol fundraising campaign in January 1979 on behalf of political prisoners in the Philippines. At that time, martial law in the Philippines was entering its 7th year and Filipinos abroad had been campaigning for the release of political prisoners, the restoration of civil liberties and supporting the national democratic struggle. Tita, Elmer and members of the solidarity group came to our apartment to sing Christmas carols and progressive songs from the national democratic movement. This was the activity in Montreal that propelled us to join and be engaged in the support and solidarity movement for human rights and the restoration of civil liberties in the Philippines. Tita and Elmer were pioneers and leaders of this movement, which eventually spread across the country and continues today as part of the progressive movement [...]
Conference announcement: Switching up the neoliberal agenda by switching onto social change
Conference announcement April 24, 2012 Toronto, ON—Amidst the engulfing impacts of the economic crisis on workers’ lives, a national conference aims to spark up vital discussions towards generating a wave of resistance for genuine social change. The Congress of Progressive Filipino Canadians (CPFC), its member organizations and allies invite all to participate in “Workers Struggles Amidst Neoliberal Globalization,” to be held on August 11th and 12th at the United Steel Workers Hall in Toronto. As workers’ lives and conditions are being edged onto the precipice of society by the crisis of neoliberal globalization, the conference hopes to meet this critical moment by underscoring the important role that all workers have to play in addressing the challenges and opportunities at hand. We are at a current juncture whereby the impacts of neoliberal globalization can no longer be denied. The fragile state of the economy, otherwise touted as having reached a state of recovery, can instead be seen and felt clearly in the everyday struggles faced by multitudes of people at a global scale. Workers all over the world are [...]
Progressive Filipino Canadian workers organization announces new National Council
National Statement April 26, 2012 SIKLAB Canada, a progressive Filipino Canadian workers organization, announces its new national council for the year 2012. The council members include Cora Cadiz, National Chairperson; Yolyn Valenzuela, National Vice-Chairperson (East); Arlene Oropel, National Vice-Chairperson (West); and Bryan Taguba, Secretary General. Since October 2005, SIKLAB Canada has been steadfast in advancing and upholding the struggles of Filipino Canadian workers through their program of educating, organizing and mobilizing the community towards their just and genuine settlement and integration in Canadian society. In recognition of the need to build a genuine movement for social change achieved through nothing less than class struggle as workers, women and youth, the new composition of the National Council are taking SIKLAB Canada into greater heights with its involvement in the organizing for the upcoming conference titled “Workers’ Struggles Amidst Neoliberal Globalization,” to be held in 11th until the 12th of August in Toronto. This national conference aims to put forth a vital and critical discussion amongst progressive organizations, groups and individuals about our struggles and conditions as workers under the [...]
The “Maleta Project” to be featured at the 27th Annual Mayworks Festival of Working People and the Arts
For immediate release April 17, 2012 Toronto, ON—Once again, witness the Filipino Canadian community’s histories and experiences unfold as the “Maleta [Suitcase] Project” becomes featured at the 27th annual Mayworks Festival of Working People and the Arts. Titled “Workers: Makers of History,” this exhibition brings to the fore the struggles of the Filipino Canadian community, who now compose Canada’s largest source of immigrants and temporary foreign workers, as a pivotal part of the overall struggle of the working class in Canada. The exhibit will run from May 10th until the 13th, and will feature an opening night that will be accompanied by keynote speeches by artists and cultural performances. This exhibit will also be part of the “Workers’ Struggles Amidst Neoliberal Globalization” conference educational series. Featuring pieces from the Grand Maleta Art Exhibit that was originally held in October 2010, each collectively-produced art piece vividly depicts the struggles of a transnational community largely composed of workers—the majority of whom are relegated to low-wage, casualized and deskilling service sector jobs as Canada’s pool of cheap labour, whose vital contributions [...]
Standing in solidarity against strategies of corporate slashing: progressive Filipino Canadians support campus food service workers
For immediate release April1 17, 2012 Toronto, ON—The progressive Filipino Canadian community, alongside the member organizations of the Magkaisa Centre, sends its militant greetings and solidarity with the hundreds of campus food service workers across Toronto demanding their entitlement in calling for new work contracts that allow for better wages and benefits. Campus food workers from York University and the University of Toronto, along with the Unite Here Local 75 union, took to the streets of Toronto on April 16th to assert to corporations like Aramark and Compass that their anti-worker and anti-union tactics, such as locking workers into insufficient working contracts and creating strategic divisions amongst workers, will not keep them from organizing to obtain better wages and benefits. Rather than being immobilized by such practices, campus food workers across are exercising their pivotal role in advancing the rights and struggles of all Canadian workers. The conditions that have lead to workers demanding for new contracts include working full time hours on contractual and casual basis which lead to working without benefits, and earning poverty wages. In [...]