Obligatory American election post

Dear American friends,

Good luck with your crappy electoral system and lack of genuine choice today. We had better not wake up to President Fucking Mittens tomorrow is all I'm saying.

love,
Soviet Socialist Canuckistan

Countering misinformation

As of tomorrow, Toronto secondary school teachers are on legal strike.

This is the list of actions that our union is having us take. Note that the strategy is to impact students as little as possible and to not put them in the middle of our dispute with the provincial government.

There's been a lot of flat-out lies floating around in the media that this is about a wage freeze (it isn't; the union's opening offer was a wage freeze), that we are cutting extracurriculars (no), that we're not talking to parents or sending out report cards (also no). We've all been doing our best to counter this misinformation, but I think there hasn't been enough of an attempt to get our demands and strategy out to the general public.

If you want to help: Spread this around, especially if you live in Ontario! If you are feeling particularly masochistic, troll the comments in the Toronto Star and counter the "lazy greedy teacher" rants. Talk to your friends, colleagues, and neighbours. We are the test case for an austerity attack on all workers in this province—and not just unionized workers, because when our wages, benefits, and job security are attacked, you can bet that private-sector workers will see their wages, benefits, and job security attacked too.

The longer the picket line, the shorter the strike!