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Articles by Herman Rosenfeld
‘Many vs the Money’ Counter-Summit and the ‘Anti-CEO Summit’ Counter-Protest: Old Patterns or New Opening
Social Movements • October 16, 2026 • The weekend of September 11-14th marked an important step toward building a movement against Prime Minister Mark Carney’s neoliberal agenda, with its anti-worker, extractivist, export-oriented, pro-business model of development. A number of left and social movement groups collaborated to organize a weekend of panels, educational sessions, teach-ins, and demonstrations against Carney’s Toronto summit of the largest financial titans of capitalism.
Solidarity is Strength: From the Ontario Days of Action To Building the Fight Against Ford
Social Movements • September 20, 2026 • and We are living in a moment where working people are under attack in various ways: Trump’s tariffs, Prime Minister Carney’s military investments, pipelines, cuts to social spending, the sell-off of Canadian resources to wealthy investors, businesses laying off workers, and the increasing cost of living. In Ontario, the Ford government is seeking to maintain austerity and has been attacking public services and the workers who staff them.
Booklaunch: Out of the Impasse?
This launch of Herman Rosenfeld’s writings provides a vital record of socialist analysis rooted in the lived experiences of Canadian labour. Drawing on his background as a shop floor worker at General Motors in Scarborough and in the education department of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW, now Unifor), this selection examines how a constantly changing capitalism seeks to reorganise workplace practices.
Out of the Impasse
Labour • July 9, 2026 • This collection of Herman Rosenfeld’s writings provides a vital record of socialist analysis rooted in the lived experiences of Canadian labour. Drawing on his background as a shop floor worker at General Motors in Scarborough and in the education department of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW, now Unifor), this selection examines how a constantly changing capitalism seeks to reorganise workplace practices.
Contested legacies, possible futures
Red flags flying in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China. Photo by Victoria Reay/Flickr. David Camfield Fernwood, 2025 David Camfield’s latest book, Red Flags: A Reckoning with Communism for the Future of the Left, is an interesting and ambitious effort to critically evaluate the experiences and political legacies of what Camfield calls “already existing socialism” (AES) and present an alternative tradition, one with which he identifies.
Complex Challenges Require Radical Responses
Economy • November 14, 2025 • Robert Chernomas and Fred Wilson, in their SP Bullet of October 24th, “Beyond the ‘Elbows Up’ Response to the Tariff War,” call for a “national industrial policy” strategy to respond to the economic challenges posed by the tariffs imposed on Canada by US President Donald Trump. They argue for a set of policies to challenge the integration and dependence on the US in ways that also address some of the impacts of neoliberalism.
The Conflicted Transformation of CAW-Unifor: A Review of Shifting Gears
Labour • December 8, 2024 • Recent commentaries on the political trajectory of the major private sector union in Canada, CAW-Unifor, have often had a rather simplistic and problematic perspective.
Lean Production Is Not a Solution
Matt Vidal’s recent Catalyst article “The Politics of Lean Production”1 is a reminder of a disturbing trend among labor leaders and certain segments of the Left: the tendency to address current weakness and defeats by clinging to the coattails of management and employer programs — and projects seeking to enhance the latter’s competitive interests — rather than taking on the difficult task of building worker power in workplaces and communities.
The Canadian Labour Movement Responding to Israel’s Attacks on Gaza
Labour • November 14, 2023 • Since Israel began its brutal siege of the Gaza Strip on October 7, Canada’s labour unions have largely come out in vocal support of the Palestinians.
How is the Canadian labour movement responding to Israel’s attacks on Gaza?
Since Israel began its brutal siege of the Gaza Strip on October 7, Canada’s labour unions have largely come out in vocal support of the Palestinians. Ranging from calls for an immediate ceasefire, to opposition to Canadian arms sales to Israel, and statements opposing violence “on both sides,” unions have increasingly lined up to call out Israel’s genocidal attacks on Gaza and the West Bank (see Adam D.K. King’s recent survey of statements and commitments from Canadian labour in The Maple).
Similar Challenges, Different Narratives: A Tale of Two Unions
The 2023 auto bargaining between the auto unions and the Detroit “Big 3” is shaking out to be different in a way that few of us could have imagined. The objective conditions favour an environment of working-class gains, with some countervailing factors. Job markets favour workers, despite a post-COVID inflationary period and high interest rates used to force neoliberal levels of inflation.
Similar Challenges, Different Narratives: A Tale of Two Unions
Labour • October 11, 2023 • The 2023 auto bargaining between the auto unions and the Detroit “Big 3” is shaking out to be different in a way that few of us could have imagined. The objective conditions favour an environment of working-class gains, with some countervailing factors. Job markets favour workers, despite a post-COVID inflationary period and high interest rates used to force neoliberal levels of inflation.
Building a labour movement to take on the billionaire class
Class Struggle Unionism Joe Burns Haymarket, 2022 Joe Burns’ new book, Class Struggle Unionism, reads like pamphlet, with a clear call to transform the union movement in the US (although it is still applicable to Canada).
A first post-pandemic political victory-hardly a ‘general strike that could have been’
The following article is a response to “The general strike that could have been” by Martin Schoots-McAlpine, published in Canadian Dimension on November 10, 2022. In the face of the Ford government’s equivalent of a nuclear attack on a 55,000-member CUPE local made up of cleaners, lunchroom supervisors, librarians, early childhood educators, cafeteria workers, safety monitors, education assistants, and social and maintenance workers, the union stood firm.
‘To Liberate Ourselves, We Must Reinvent Work’
Mike Yates is a long-time Marxist and socialist writer and analyst, one of the editors of Monthly Review. Over the years he has written extensively about capitalism, with particular emphasis on the working class, its life, potential, and role in transforming society.
Ontario’s Premier, Doug Ford, Wants to Privatize Canadian Health Care
When it comes to gutting state capacity and services, the Right never misses the opportunity to exploit a crisis — or to engineer one. It’s a reliable strategy from an old playbook. First, ensure a disaster in state services by starving it of funds. Afterward, complain about the inefficiency of state provision and clamor for a system overhaul in the name of free-market orthodoxy.
Debating the Avi Lewis Impact
We asked NDPers, current and former, to weigh in on the state of social democracy in Canada, and on Avi Lewis’s recent decision to pursue the party’s nomination in West Vancouver–Sunshine Coast–Sea to Sky Country. This is the first component of our coverage in advance of the upcoming federal election in fall 2021.
Shaking up the status quo in the NDP
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh announces the 2019 election platform in Ottawa. Still image from YouTube/CBC. This article is part of a series in which CD editors asked NDPers, current and former, to weigh in on the state of social democracy in Canada, and on Avi Lewis’s recent decision to pursue the party’s nomination in West Vancouver–Sunshine Coast–Sea to Sky Country. This is the first component of our coverage in advance of the upcoming federal election in fall 2021.
US election: What could it mean for Canada and the Canadian left?
US President Donald Trump speaking with supporters at a “Keep America Great” rally at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, Arizona, February 19, 2020. Photo by Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons. United States President Trump represents a danger to working people, in particular those most marginalized, and a threat to relatively impoverished but critically important liberal democratic institutions and practices.
Pensions and the Detroit Bankruptcy
Detroit from above. Photo by y P.S.Lu/Flickr. Municipal workers across the United States—and especially those already retired—were dealt a warning shot in mid-July when the city of Detroit filed for bankruptcy.
Challenges and Openings for the Free Transit Movement in Toronto
Toronto’s public transit system is the third largest in North America, after New York City and Mexico City, but it is chronically underfunded. Photo from Needpix. Toronto is Canada’s largest city, with a population of 2.7 million (and over 6 million in the Greater Toronto Area). Its public transit system is the third largest in North America, after New York City and Mexico City. It is made up of four subway lines, 11 streetcar routes; and over 140 bus routes.
Reform and Transform: Police Abolitionism and Sloppy Thinking
RCMP officers assemble in Burnaby Mountain Park in response to a citizen’s protest rally against oil giant Kinder Morgan, Thursday, November 20th, 2014. Photo by Mark Klotz/Flickr. This article is a response to “Abolishing the police is the only reasonable response to Winnipeg Police Killings” by James Wilt, published in Canadian Dimension on April 12, 2020. I will start with a disclaimer: I am no expert on policing, criminal justice, the sociology of Winnipeg or police and community relations.
Free public transit is key to any Green New Deal worthy of the name
One of the few identifiable issues raised in the Canadian election campaign so far is the need to address the climate crisis. The concept of a Green New Deal has been raised by the left and environmental movements across the continent, in Canada through Greenpeace’s Pact for a Green New Deal and obliquely through the NDP ("A New Deal for Climate Action and Good Jobs"), and the Greens ("Green Climate Action Plan").
Canada in the Age of Working-Class Power
A review of The Constant Liberal: Pierre Trudeau, Organized Labour and the Canadian Social Democratic Left by Christo Aivalis (University of British Columbia Press, 2018) Both at home and abroad, Pierre Elliott Trudeau has often been seen as a figure of the left.
Stopping the GM Shutdowns
The once unimaginable – the end of GM Oshawa in Canada – seems on the verge of becoming the new reality. If there is any lesson to be learned here it is that overturning this imposed reality can’t be achieved by traditional protest and traditional alternatives.
Stopping the GM Shutdowns
The once unimaginable – the end of GM Oshawa – seems on the verge of becoming the new reality. If there is any lesson to be learned here it is that overturning this imposed reality can’t be achieved by traditional protest and traditional alternatives.
GM Layoffs - Solidarity | Working People on Patreon
2018: On the Monday after Thanksgiving, General Motors workers in the U.S. and Canada learned of the company's announcement that it would be idling five plants and cutting around 14,000 jobs. In this urgent, multi-episode series, we will be talking to workers at plants in Ohio, Michigan, and Canada.
The Communist Party vs. China’s Labor Laws
Chinese president Xi Jinping presents himself as a man of the people, attuned to the needs and aspirations of those who have been left behind by China’s economic miracle.
The Fate of Honduras
Part of the problem is that we don’t have transparency about who’s actually receiving that money. There is very little accountability to either Congress or to the American people on where the $750 million is flowing. So I can’t even tell you where most of it is going. It’s not even clear how much of that money is even flowing at all, because of congressional challenges. You asked about the tri-national, anti-gang force that has been recently publicized in Central America.
The Cybersyn Revolution
Our spring issue , looking at the democratic revolts of 1968, is out now! Subscribe or renew today. While we’re often told that the past holds lessons for how to approach the present, we rarely look to older technologies for inspiration.
The Democratic Precedent
The issue of US border control policies suddenly flared up last week, as things tend to do when it comes out that a government has lost nearly 1,500 children and sent some of them into the arms of human traffickers.
Women and the Nation
In early August 2017, two women in the Turkish city of Izmir sought help from police after being harassed on the street by a motorcyclist. One officer responded to the women’s plea by informing them: “That’s what they deserved, considering the outfits they had on.” When the shocked and angered women said he no right to question their clothing, officers beat the victims. It was hardly an isolated incident.
Against “Buy American”
Interview by Chris Brooks Backed by a huge banner reading “Buy American — Hire American,” President Trump declared in March that his administration would make the United States the “car capital of the world” again. “For decades, I have raised the alarm over unfair foreign trade practices that have robbed communities of their wealth and robbed our people of their ability to provide for their families,” Trump said.
The Crisis in the ATU: Labour Shoots Itself in the Foot
The Crisis in the ATU: Labour Shoots Itself in the Foot A sign of the tragic disarray of the Canadian labour movement is the extent to which its misadventures keep piling up. As the turmoil within the union representing the Ontario government's unionized employees (Ontario Public Service Employees Union – OPSEU) hits the press, the chaos continues in Local 113 of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU).
The Crisis in the ATU: Labour Shoots Itself in the Foot | The Bullet No. 1382
The Crisis in the ATU: Labour Shoots Itself in the Foot A sign of the tragic disarray of the Canadian labour movement is the extent to which its misadventures keep piling up. As the turmoil within the union representing the Ontario government's unionized employees (Ontario Public Service Employees Union – OPSEU) hits the press, the chaos continues in Local 113 of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU).
Ford Unifor Agreement Ratified - Voted Down at Oakville Unit, Local 707
As bargaining between Unifor and the Canadian branches of the Detroit Three automakers came down to the last company, Ford, the signs were pointing to an emerging resistance to decades of concessions. Amid general opposition on the shop floor, leaders at the biggest Ford local were openly opposing the pattern the union had bargained with General Motors and Fiat Chrysler (FCA). But at the October 31st deadline, the Unifor locals reached a tentative agreement with Ford, based on the pattern.
Beyond the NDP
If the polls are to be believed, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have lost ground since the start of the long campaign and are headed for defeat. If these trends continue, Canadian workers might get a respite from a neoliberal offensive that has been unrelenting and far-reaching. And if Harper loses, there would be a potential opening to begin to undo the dramatic right-wing shift that so many on the Left and center of Canadian politics predicted would never happen here.
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