10 months ago I was privileged to go to British Columbia, Canada to do a week of training and speaking as the British Columbia labor movement geared up for provincial elections. I had the great fortune of meeting a young political leader named
Alexandre Boulerice. He is a Member of Parliament from a working district of Montreal and a rising star in the very real Canadian workers’ party, the New Democratic Party (NDP). He and and his staff have been a large part of the reason that the NDP is now the official opposition party in Parliament.
My friend Alexandre Boulerice is a passionate, brilliant, very witty advocate for workers rights in Canada and across the world.
In that role, he is one of the hosts and leader in Parliament for the visit of worker organizer Kalpona Akter. MP Boulerice introduced her in Parliament so she could talk about the horrible Bangladesh industrial tragedy at Rana Plaza where 1100 workers were killed and thousands more injured as they made textiles and apparel for retailing giants like Walmart.
While some of those retailers have made some restitution for the deaths, injuries, and working conditions they are responsible for, not surprisingly, Walmart Canada continues to refuse to make any restitution or take any responsibility for the horrible disaster at Rana Plaza.
Sister Akter went to work at the age of 12. Her brother was 10. Her life has been devoted to work, caring for her family, and organizing workers.
Sister Akter is one of those thousands of worker organizers and activists around the world who struggle against the evil greed of American-based retailers and European retailers who take advantage of terrible trade deals to hold workers in wage slavery.
The Rana Plaza disaster is the reason we must insist that the trade deals negotiated by our government in our names start with what is best for workers and the environment.
Photo: A relative holds a picture of a missing garment worker, who was working in the Rana Plaza building when it collapsed in Savar.
Photo source: Weronika on Flickr via Creative Commons License: Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
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