In the struggles which lie ahead workers everywhere are going to be told to abandon the fight for their own interests because the wider politico-economic situation of the “nation” (or some other euphemism for getting them to tie themselves to the coat tails of capital) is too serious to warrant “disruption”.

* From false co-management and cooperatives to the deceitful EPS, we present a balance of what has happened in Venezuela after at least 7 years of pretending to build a socialist economy, where the available data and verifiable facts belie the failure of the Chavez administration.

For a massive, public reinvestment in education

For a reinvestment, but not any old way !

We will converge on the Capital of Quebec, departure at Laval University.
Montreal: Free transport to and back.

Info here >>

* With a lot of rhetoric and propaganda the Chavez administration has advanced different examples of co-management which, they claim, demonstrate their desire to transform Venezuela’s relations of production. A compañero from Europe visited us recently and got to know two of the most celebrated cases: Alcasa and Invepal. Here is the report he prepared for El Libertario # 51 about the actual working conditions in the country’s most “important�? co-managed businesses.

By uniting with Gate Gourmet workers, the baggage handlers proved that while the class is united it is powerful. Along with other sections of the working class, BA workers facing future attacks can use this weapon to succeed.

Workers of the whole world, the issue is not to struggle for a charitable but impossible citizen's income, or for wages that will never ever be guaranteed, but to struggle to overthrow this society based on the exploitation of wage labour

 
Earlier today [ed: Thursday, March 31st] around 500 students swarmed into the Complexe Dejardins as part of CASSÉÉ's week of "economic disruptions". While inside, many students blocked entrances, clapping and cheering, while others went into the IGA supermarket and raided food, cheese, and wine.

 
On April 14, 2003, Quebecers witnessed the beginning of the Charest era.

"Re-engineering", "Public-Private Partnerships" (PPP's), and other rationalizations in the same vein made their appearance on the lips of politicians, journalists, image-makers and other lackeys of a neoliberal regime à la québecoise; pretty words to cover up for privatizations, subcontracting and budget cuts as far as the eye could see.

Some 19 months after the elections, moderates and radicals agree on one thing: the provincial Liberal Party is shamelessly tearing apart the social fabric of Quebec. Charest's golden scissors are now pointed squarely at the students and the poor.

Small wonder, then, that public order is also menaced..

On November 19th and 20th, the Anti-capitalist Convergence (CLAC) is preparing to DISRUPT the official congress of Quebec Liberal Party members in Montreal.

Also:

• November 18th and 19th, Cégep du Vieux-Montréal students will go on strike to participate in events organised by the CLAC and the Association pour une Solidarité Syndicale Étudiante (ASSÉ). See the strikers' list of activities!
• On November 20th at 11 AM, a demonstration organised by the Réseau de Vigilance (Vigilance Network) to demand the cancellation of the 'Loi 57' project (on social aid) will take place in front of the Palais des Congrès de Montréal.

 
There was only one promise left to break, and now the deed is done. Indeed, during his electoral campaign, Jean Charest promised that his party wouldn't touch the moratory on water exports, decreed in 1999. Now we are learning that Thomas Mulcair, the current minister for water in Quebec, is planning to break open this moratory by January 2005, and hence allow the bulk exportation of water. He is aiming to raise the issue at the public forums being held right this moment in 19 regions of Quebec. The exported water would doubtless go to the United States, which have been eyeing our water reserves for some time, while busily wasting their own!

...

(translated from French-language version by simms)

Montreal
April 15, 2004
Over a thousand angry protestors marched on Montreal’s posh St. James hotel yesterday, causing havoc and disrupting the tea-time of the idle rich. The protest was part of a province-wide day of action marking the one-year anniversary of the elections that brought Jean Charest and the Liberal Party to government in Quebec.

Join the Welcoming committee of the intimate business luncheon between Charest and the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal!

THURSDAY, March 18 2004
From 11h30 to 12h30, in front of the Queen Elizabeth, 900 René-Lévesque W.