Image is of a large protest in the Ivory Coast, sourced from this article in People's Dispatch.
This week's megathread is based largely on a detailed article from People's Dispatch, featuring statements and analysis from Achy Ekessi, the General Secretary of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Ivory Coast (PCRCI), brought to my attention by @jack@hexbear.net's comment in the last megathread.
The president of Ivory Coast, the 83 year old Alassane Ouattara, is aiming for a fourth term in power while barring out much of the opposition. I can't really do the all the history of how the situation wound up this way justice in a preamble as it's fairly complicated (read the article if you are interested), but to summarize, Ouattara is currently the only coherent candidate for the French to support. Back in 2011, the French helped Ouattara overthrow the previous (pan-Africanist) president, Laurent Gbagbo, and then arrested him and sent him to the ICC, and he was then acquitted and released in 2021.
Gbagbo is now running against Ouattara, but his base, the working class, has large swathes that are not present on the voting rolls and so it would be unlikely for him to win. On the opposite side of the spectrum is Tidjane Thiam, a former CEO of the Swiss Bank Credit Suisse, whose base is in the richer strata of the Ivory Coast, which overlaps with Ouattara's base. He would be more likely to win, but would certainly maintain many Western imperialist relationships. Ouattara, however, has simplified the electoral situation by simply barring both of them from running in the election at all.
Ouattara has, on paper, delivered some amount of economic development to the Ivory Coast. But as expected, most of it is funnelled to the bourgeois, as well as to foreign corporations and governments, while the working class are swallowed by the cost of living crisis. There has been significant infrastructure projects, but these have not only generated massive debt, they also have only really addressed the damage caused by the 2011 civil war and intervention by the French.
The rest of Western Africa has either entirely exited the orbit of France (Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso), are wavering/unstable (Senegal, Benin, Guinea), are beginning to show doubts (Nigeria, Ghana), or are economically weak enough to not be a major blow for the French to lose (Togo, Guinea-Bissau). The loss of the Ivory Coast would be a major setback for French neocolonialism, and be a potent example to nearby countries.
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
Israel's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
This situation is interesting and has some potential consequences for Canadian labour.
First, it’s worth noting that the strike was only “illegal” because the federal government invoked section 107 of the Canada Labour Code, which allows the government to order the end of a work stoppage to "maintain or secure industrial peace." This is a very problematic policy for a number of reasons, but mainly because it allows the government to bypass having to pass back-to-work legislation in the house, where it can be debated and has to pass a vote. Obviously back-to-work legislation sucks, as well, but section 107 allows the labour minister to end a strike and send the issue to arbitration just by sending an email, which is far worse.
The government has been using section 107 in a pretty cavalier way lately, using it to quickly or even preemptively end strikes in a number of situations, to the point where employers are starting to assume that the government will always step in and force employees back to work before there’s any real disruption to operations, and so there’s no need to negotiate in good faith. Unions can do the same if they think there’s a benefit to going to arbitration instead of striking, but the reality is that it benefits the employer much more often than the unions.
However, the overly-broad application of this policy is being challenged, both legally and now practically. The policy wasn’t designed to be a magic button that lets the labour minister end strikes with an email. It was likely intended to be a “break glass in case of emergency” policy to resolve particularly sticky situations that involve critical infrastructure, but the purpose of a system is what it does and lately the government has been using it to play strike whack-a-mole.
They may have overplayed their hand this time, though. Air Canada probably assumed that the union would vote to strike, the government would invoke section 107, the issue would go to arbitration, they might have to give the union a better deal, but otherwise basically business as usual without any real pressure to bend to the union’s demands outside of an arbitration process. With the union ignoring the order to end the strike, they sent the ball back over to the government, who would then have to enforce section 107 (which they don’t really want to do because it would look very bad at this point). Air Canada likely didn’t want to be at the center of a big political issue, and so agreed to get on with taking the negotiations seriously (something they could have done at any time leading up to the strike).
It’s looking like the enforceability of section 107 is a bit of a question mark going forward. The union still needs to ratify the new agreement, but if they do, then the situation has resolved fairly cleanly and everyone can go back to business as usual. That said, it seems like the boundaries have been tested and the government doesn’t seem eager to throw union leaders in jail for disobeying a back-to-work order. They’re going to have to be a little more judicious in their application of section 107 if they want it to be taken seriously. That, and the more they use it, the more likely it is that some group will make a successful challenge on a constitutional basis and get it tossed out entirely as a violation of Charter rights.
In short, this strike action was technically unlawful, but the application of section 107 is also potentially unlawful, as well as being impractical to enforce. The government may have exposed itself as being a bit of a paper tiger on this issue, and it’ll be interesting to see what happens the next time there’s a big labour action.
Thank you for the writeup. I didn't know that about §107