ACLA strongly endorses this important upcoming event:

ACLA endorses $10 minimum wage campaign

To download the petition click on link:

Minimum Wage Petition

New member joins

Elizabeth Ha of MPAC has joined ACLA. She Vice-chair of OPSEU's Workers of Colour Caucus.


This is a photo from the caucus webpage at: OPSEU website

Their mandate is "to provide representation and support to our brothers, sisters and youth of colour to participate in the future of our union." For more information contact OPSEU’s equity unit: sroe@opseu.org (1-800-268-7376 x 790); Caucus Chair: Peter Thompson at thompspe@mpac.ca (1-877-517-7408 Ext. 218); Caucus Vice-chair: Elizabeth Ha at elizabethhaha@yahoo.com (1-877-517-7408 Ext. 245).

CCNC-TO AGM

CCNCTO's Annual General Meeting: "A Living Wage for a Prosperous Community" with special guest speakers, Cheri DiNovo and Rowena Santos (Saturday March 31, 2007). The AGM was very well attended this year and a new board was successfully elected. Those in attendance included many ACLA members.


ACLA members in attendence: Mike Ma, Victoria Shen, Gloria David, and Frank Saptel.


The new 2007-08 CCNC-TO board members.


Doug Hum (ACLA member) attends the CCNC-TO AGM.


This member has dutifully attended the last 10 consecutive AGMs!!!


Phillip Tsui with special guest speakers, Cheri DiNovo and Rowena Santos.

ACLA endorses: May Day of Action for Status for All
Saturday, May 5
12pm
Bloor and Christie (Christie Pitts Park)
*********************************************
No One Is Illegal-Toronto calls on all allies and supporters to endorse and help organise towards the next May Day of Action for Status for All on Saturday, May 5th.

Last May, millions of immigrants and allies across North America took to the streets to demand justice for immigrants and refugees and status for all. In Toronto, workers, students, trade unionists, activists and members of faith communities among others participated in a series of strong and vibrant immigrant rights demonstrations including the May 27th National Day of Action for Status for All.

Anti-Scab Bill C-257 is defeated.

"Disgusting," say Vancouver Elementary Teachers to the defeat of Bill C-257

VANCOUVER, March 22 /CNW/ - "I'm sorry to hear that Bill C-257 was defeated in the House of Commons," says Glen Hansman, President of the Vancouver Elementary School Teachers' Association.

Bill C-257 was a federal bill to ban the use of scabs in labour disputes that fall under federal jurisdiction. It was defeated Wednesday in the House of Commons by a vote of 177 - 122, after already being previously approved in principle on second reading.

"It's disgusting that a federal bill like this would be defeated, and that Stephane Dion sided with Stephen Harper to make it happen," says Glen Hansman. "Bill C-257 mirrors laws already in existance in Quebec and British Columbia to protect workers jobs and collective bargaining rights."

"Thank you to the NDP MPs and other MPs that supported this Bill," says Glen Hansman. "Hopefully it won't be the last we see of it, and that the fear-mongering by big business won't override worker's rights."

PanAsian Network Against Racism Roundtables

The upcoming PanAsian Network Against Racism roundtables will take place in Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto. All are invited.

Calgary Roundtable

Dec 8^th, 2006 Agenda: " Is Racial Profiling a Human Rights Issue?"

Regional meeting 2:00-4:00 pm

Human Rights event on Racial Profiling 4:30-7:30 pm

Dinner at 8:00 pm

please RSVP info@ecccalgary.com 263-9900

Toronto Roundtable

Thursday December 14, 2006, 2:30 PM

At CCNC National Office

302 Spadina Ave, Suite 507

Please RSVP Karen Sun at karen@ccnctoronto.ca

Vancouver Roundtable

Media Production and Amplification on the Cheap

Location: Britannia Community Centre (1661 Napier) (corner Napier/Commercial)

*Wednesday, December 6^th, 2006: 7 to 9pm

(Finishing any material left and how to effectively access community television/media in Vancouver) Facilitated by Sid Tan

Please RSVP Sid Tan at sidchowtan@gmail.com

Also, please check out the website at www.freewebs.com/panasian2

For colleagues in Toronto:

CCNC National is also co-hosting an International Human Rights Day event on December 7, 2006 at 5pm at CCNC National Office

302 Spadina Ave, Suite 507 with Urban Alliance on Race Relations, NARCC, CCNCTO and Community Labour Services.

Please RSVP Yumei Lin yumei@urbanalliance.ca 416-703-6607 x 5

Greetings,

ACLA and the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists met yesterday with 5
candidates for the municipal election. We are planning to work jointly to
support progressive black and asian candidates in the election. The ACLA
executive has endorsed Rowena Santos in Ward 14
(http://www.rowenasantos.ca/).

In addition to Rowena, we also met with Andre Lucas (Ward 1), Cadigia
Ali (Ward 2), Sandra Anthony (Ward 7) and Keith Sweeney (Ward 12). All are
running for councillor in their ward.

In Solidarity,

Joe Chang
ACLA Co-Chair
416.539.0780

Upcoming Events:

August
6 Toronto & York Region Labour Council Delegates Meeting
7:30 pm 15 Gervais Dr.
11-13 AIDS Forum 2006 - First global meeting of trade unionists on AIDS
(http://canadianlabour.ca/index.php/aidsforum)
19 OFL Family and Community Picnic
12-6pm in High Park, Area 15 (southeast of the baseball diamonds)
RSVP to Margaret Law (mlaw@ofl.ca or 416.443.7656)
20 Rowena Santos Campaign BBQ, Sorauren Park (more info to come)

September
4 Labour Day Parade
7 Toronto & York Region Labour Council Delegates Meeting
7:30 pm 15 Gervais Dr.
22-23 Beating the Odds - Training Seminar on UI/EI
9am-4:30pm, OFL Building Auditorium

October
Women's Luncheon with David Miller

ACLA supports Justicia for Migrant Workers

ACLA is a firm supporter of Justicia! Brother Chris Ramsaroop is a long-time member. He says, "justicia for migrant workers is a non profit political advocacy organization that fights with seasonal agricultural workers for changes to the working and living conditions of farm workers in canada!" For more info on Justicia go to: http://www.justicia4migrantworkers.org/. For more pics go to: http://johnb.smugmug.com/gallery/554983

Annual General Meeting - May 27th, 2006

Various attendees at AGM. For more pics: http://www.johnmaclennan.ca/06acla/index.htm 

Annual General Meeting - May 27th, 2006

Frank Saptel (IAMAW), Keynote - Victoria Shen (CCNC-TO C0-President), Jenny Ahn (CAW). For more pics: http://www.johnmaclennan.ca/06acla/index.htm 

Many ACLA members went to the No One is Illegal rally and march before the AGM. The rally was at OISE and the march went down bloor street to Dufferin Grove park. For more pics: http://gallery.cmaq.net/may27montreal or http://johnb.smugmug.com/gallery/1499669 

ACLA AGM

Dear Sisters & Brothers,

The ACLA agm was held this past weekend on May 27th, 2006 at the CAW local 40 office between 2-5pm. Eventhough it was scheduled at the same time as the No One is Illegal March, it was rather well attended. We had Victoria Shen from CCNC-TO and Tam Goossen as our keynote speakers. And a group of Filipino youth performed a fun folk dance to open our AGM.

Vitoria made some very thoughtful remarks concerning learning from labour and community organizing. And Tam's presentation helped jump start a lively discussion around the need to continue fighting for recognition and ethno-racial rights.

We also held our elections for the new executive. Everyone was acclaimed and we didn't have to pull out the ballots. A big thanks to Sister Gogi Bhandal, Canadian Labour Congress for helping us conduct our elections.

The new executive is as follows:

NEW ACLA EXECUTIVE

Jenny Ahn, Co-President
Joe Chang, Co-President

Anna Liu, Vice-President
Chris Ramsaroop, Vice-President

Gloria David, Treasurer
Leonard Yeung, Recording Secretary

Patricia Chong, Organising Co-ordinator
Mike Ma, Communications Co-ordinator

Evelina Pan, Trustee
Winnie Ng, Trustee
Jojo Geronimo, Trustee

Victoria Shen, Member-at-Large
Patrick Ramcharitar, Member-at-Large
Dhruv Jain, Member-at-Large

We also showed an amazing new documentary-poem by Mink Sook Lee, called _Borderless_. It was introduced by brother Chris Ramsaroop.

Gein Wong performed some spoken word for us. And I ended the day's event by appropriately talking about "Political Exhaustion."

We kind of ran over time, and so we tabled our action planning for the next ACLA meeting.

A brother was taking some photos of the event, and I hope to post these here as soon as I get a hold of them.

And most importantly, lots of food was made available by the past executive. Actually too much! And so we had to cart home lots of leftovers!

In Solidarity,
Mike