LE GAUCHE REVUEEugene is a freelance writer, researcher, labour historian, activist and unabashed left-winger. This page contains links to his various articles he has posted on the web. As the title implies they are reviews/articles from the left. Eugene maintains Labour Net Canada, a national labour news and computer communications network for the labour movement as well as Canada and Alberta Labour News, daily news pages for trade union activists.
THE WORLD IS OUR PICKET LINE:
WORKERS ON THE WWW UNITE
As an education worker I am concerned about the right wing education reform lobby
that has gained power over the past ten years around the world to push for market based reforms to public education. Here are my articles on this issue.
TWO TIER EDUCATION IN EDMONTON PUBLIC
SCHOOLS JUNE 1999
EPCOR Winners and Losers by Eugene Plawiuk
The Privatization of Our Water
COMMENTARY-CITY NEWS
November 1996 (Eugene Plawiuk writing as Ron Harris) Edmonton has another first. How proud we are of being first in this case is questionable. We are the first Canadian
city to ‘sell’ the name of a public library. In changing the name of the downtown Centennial Public Library to the
Stan Milner Public Library, we have sold off another piece of the public trust.
Listed here are three articles on EdTel from 1995.
RISKY BUSINESS; THE ED TEL STORY
By Eugene W. Plawiuk
THE SELLING OF ED TEL.
By Eugene W. Plawiuk
PRESENTATION TO CITY COUNCIL ON EDTEL BY CUPE LOCAL 474
The Edmonton District Labour Council and Municipal Politics 1903-1906
CCF: The Original Western Canadian Reform Movement
The Origins and Traditions of Mayday
SYNDICALISM!
YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMMOROW.
The Wobblies Return
THE GENERAL STRIKE
Ten Days That Shook Alberta 1995
BOOK REVIEWS
Spain 1936
Land & Freedom
CARGILL:The Transnational Agribusiness Giant
THE NIKE BOYCOTT
SPREADS TO ALBERTA
My web page on Nike and anti-sweat shop/child labour campaigns. The first Canadian web site to cover Nike exclusively and has been, in no small way, responsible for heightening awareness about the Nike campaign. Or so some web savvy PR companies say:
In the Fall of 1996 the Edmonton Oilers hockey team, Nike, The City of Edmonton and the
Edmonton Public School Board announced a 'free' ball hockey program for inner city youth. The Canadian Union of Public
Employees (CUPE) Local 474, representing custodial workers in Edmonton Public Schools challenged their employer
and the city about Nike's use of sweatshops and child labour. The result was a controversy about the school boards policy,
or lack of policy, reagrding its corporate partners and their practises in developing countries.
My contribution to the debate on the collapse of social democracy and the New Democratic Party (NDP) of Canada.
ALBERTA NEW DEMOCRATS REAFFIRM ‘SOCIALISM’
AFTER CLOSE LEADERSHIP RACE
For the latest news on the New Democrats check out NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY LEFT OPPOSITION
1998 was celebrated as the 150th anniversery of the Communist Manifesto. As part of that celebration a diverse community of the left in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada came together for
two meetings. One was to discuss the Manifesto, the other was on the occasion of the Russian
Revolution.
Canada Day Communist Manifesto Conference A Success!
The Present Dominates The Past
The Communist Manifesto on the Eve of the Millennium
THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION AS ALLEGORY: THE STILL BIRTH OF MODERNISM
Wild Cat!The Saskatchewan Nurses Strike
Seeing the Forest For the Trees
Severely Normal Albertans or Old Fashioned Bigots
CLAC ATTACK: ITS TIME FOR LABOUR TO FIGHT BACK
RECENT WRITINGS BY EUGENE PLAWIUK:
This is a shameless plug for some of my articles that have appeared recently:
Theatre and Labour special issue
Running: Our Lives and Struggles on Stage
A view of labour and cultural workers collaborating on a play for the Edmonton Fringe.
This whole labour issue is hot and well worth getting it. It contains two labour play scripts:
Running and Rag, Tag and Bobtail. As well as articles by labour and popular theatre activists.
Latitude 53 society of Artists Vol 1 Issue 2
Email:latitude53@compusmart.ab.ca
Review of Eric Hobsbawms Behind the Times, the Decline and Fall of the 20th Century Avante Gardes.
THE BATTLES FOR EDUCATION:
Privatizing Schools in Canada
October 99 Special issue: Unions and International Solidarity
International Solidarity After 25 Years
November/December 99
Labour Celebrates the 80th Anniversary of the 1919 General Strikes
WORKERS OF THE WORLD WIDE WEB UNITE
Labour Uses the Internet to Challenge Globalization
by Eugene Plawiuk
published in the Parkland Post (Summer 1998)
Journal of the Parkland Institute
Labour News Article by Eugene Plawiuk, May 1996
Campaign opposing Dutch Refom Church Private religious schools being integrated into Edmonton Public Schools
THE PRIVATIZATION OF PUBLIC UTILITIES
This is the site of my cyber campaign opposing the privatization of the Edmonton, Alberta, municipal power and water company: EPCOR.
Before EPCOR our municipal telephone company:EDTEL, was Privatized in 1995, despite wide spread public opposition. Stories I have written on this
are posted here.
See Magazine Feb 25, 1999
March 99 Labour News
1995 Labour News Article/Edmonton District Labour Council Newsletter
1995 SEE magazine article.
LABOUR HISTORY
Click above for my index of labour history articles on the web.
Published 1995 Edmonton District Labour Council Newsletter.
Industrial Workers of the World Edmonton General Membership Branch Formed
Published in the May 1999 Labour News,
My web page which contains links to news and articles on modern as well as historical General Strikes around the world.
SPANISH REVOLUTION AND CIVIL WAR 1936-1939
The Forgotten War Remembered.
Original article written by Eugene W. Plawiuk, for the 60th Anniversery of the Spanish Civil War. With emphasis on the Canadian participation in the war.
My original promo & review article of Ken Loach's 1995 film on the Spanish Civil War.
TheEdmonton May Daycommittee sponsored the public showing of this great movie.
Links to other sites about Land and Freedom, including reviews, movie clips and stills.
I am a member of the Marxist Internet Archive Project, where my web page on the Spanish Revolution and Civil War 1936-1939 is mirrored.
CORPORATE RESEARCH/WEB ACTIVISM
This article was written as a backgrounder on Cargill, when workers, members of UFCW, at their High River Alberta beef processing plant went on strike in 1997.
I had created a Strike Solidarity web page for them. This article has been updated since that strike, and the web page is now an Alberta Stirke Solidarity page, with information on labour struggles in Alberta, as well as adovacy for a living wage campaign and an anti-scab legislation campaign.
"his is the "Boycott Nike" site,
and it is maintained by one lone warrior, labour activist Eugene Plawiuk. While
he may have had some financial assistance from the union movement, this page
has the look and feel of an independent effort, albeit a very comprehensive and
impressive one. This page focuses almost exclusively on accusations of Nike’s
alleged use of cheap, child or even forced labour in Asia to make its products.
In addition to the articles on labour issues, the site also contains links to articles
decrying Nike’s various marketing campaigns."
The Invigilator
Protecting Your Company's
Interests On-Line.
Read the full story here.
Nike buys out Canadian Hockey Equipment maker Bauer and sets itself up to dominate the hockey equipment and inline skate market (thanks to FTA & NAFTA).
In order to complete its monopoly
it began by closing of Bauer Canada's, Cambridge plant.
An article that links child labour with sexual exploitation,
both are traditional phenomena of capitalist development. Published in Labour News.
Whither Social Democracy?
Presented to the joint
Canadian Labour Congress CLC/NDP Renewal Committee in 1995.
Report on the Alberta New Democrat Convention November 1995
Included here are my announcement about the success of the first meeting as well as papers I presented at both meetings. A tentative third meeting dealing with working class art and culture is in the planning stages.
Hospital Workers Confront the Neo-liberal Agenda
published in the
June/July 1999 New Socialist
Thesis On The Kosovo Crisis
and the Crisis of Global Capitalism
with news links on the Kosovo Crisis.
Commentary by Eugene Plawiuk
Labour News Article, September 19998, written about the Christian Labour Association of Canada (CLAC), a bosses union, who attacked a web stie and server that was critical of them. With links to Terry Levebre's CLAC ATTACK web site.
"CLAC is not a real union. Their reputation is that they're
a company union, invited in by companies to create
sub-standard agreements that act as a shield to keep out
real unions."
Mary Rowles, Canadian Labour Congress
Nationalism, Chauvinism and the Quebec Referendum
TV OR NOT TO TV
Notes from the Wasteland - No World Series
RIGHT TO WORK
Reply to Fraser Institute Study of Right To Work
Right To Work? Abolish Work Poster #1
Right to Work? No thanks. Poster #2
Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) RTW Submission to Alberta Government
This is not an article by me but a good link none the less.
PLAWIUK PONTIFICATES: VOICE OF THE REBEL WORKER
Produced By Volunteer Union Labour
IU560
Page design © Copyright 1999 Eugene W. Plawiuk.
Contents are © Copyright the individual authors, or original sources that have been linked.