In December 2018, BC taxi driver Manoj Bhangu was physically assaulted at a workplace Christmas party by two of his co-workers when a business dispute got out of control. In the course of the assault, the two men attacked Bhangu not just with fists but with slurs. These slurs were not racist, nor LGBTQ-phobic, nor […]
Continue Reading
BC’s NDP government recently announced a $12 million budget increase to the Employment Standards Branch (ESB) — an 85 percent boost! This is a win for BC workers, who depend on the ESB to enforce their rights: without it, they are often at the mercy of their bosses, who profit from exploiting them. And this […]
Continue Reading
This article first appeared in the Tyee. Jean Swanson is a lifelong campaigner for renters and the working class. She was a Vancouver Councillor from 2018 to 2022. Although Jean is not a member of Socialist Alternative, we energetically supported her successful election in 2018 and worked hard trying to get her re-elected in 2022. […]
Continue Reading
Tell the NDP to Enforce Employment Standards! Socialist Alternative, alongside groups like the Worker Solidarity Network, recently waged a campaign in BC for ten paid sick days per year for workers in the face of the ongoing COVID pandemic, in the end, winning five. This partial victory represents an incremental step toward a truly fair […]
Continue Reading
On Saturday, January 14, members of Socialist Alternative joined four hundred supporters of Drag Queen Story Time at Coquitlam Public Library. All were there to reject discrimination and in favour of choice. This was the second time the library hosted a Drag Story Time event in support of accessible, diverse, and culturally-inclusive family programming. However, […]
Continue Reading
In early November, as BC’s southern interior got cold enough to be life threatening, a group of community service organizations operating shelters sent a joint letter to municipal officials, Interior Health, and BC Housing essentially withdrawing their services. The letter calls BC’s response to the homelessness crisis “an exercise in futility, at best” and went […]
Continue Reading
Are we here for a good time, Dave Barrett the new Premier asked at his first cabinet meeting. The answer was yes! Fifty years ago in the fall of 1972, the first NDP government in BC set to work on a powerful program of change to improve life for most in BC. A Landslide Victory […]
Continue Reading
The New Democratic Party (and its pre-1961 predecessor, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation) was once a party with relatively healthy internal democracy and a relatively active membership. While never more than a social-democratic party, it kept its base engaged through riding association meetings, workplace activity through unions, and literal kitchen-table talks in big cities and small […]
Continue Reading
Written by BC Public Sector workers. Only a slim majority of BCGEU’s members voted to ratify the recent agreement with the BC government. According to the union, 71 percent of the 32,600 members voted and only 53.4 percent voted Yes. The difference between the number of yes and no votes is around 1,500 members. This […]
Continue Reading
What started out as a very confusing election ended up with a clear result. A triumph for a new right-wing party – ABC. ABC’s mayoral candidate, Ken Sim, won an absolute majority of the votes cast, 51 percent, 85,732 votes compared to former Mayor Stewart’s 49,593 votes. All ABC’s seven council candidates were elected, as […]
Continue Reading