On this day in 1978, United Steelworkers union workers in Sudbury, Ontario voted to go on strike to fight proposed layoffs and pay cuts. The strike was the longest in Canadian history until the record was broken by Sudbury workers in 2009.

The layoffs and cuts to pay and benefits were at the multi-national company Inco, which cited low nickel prices as a justification.

According to filmmaker Martin Duckworth, workers voted to strike against the advice of the United Steelworkers hierarchy, and the strike enjoyed national support because Inco was a known polluter and one of the biggest multi-nationals in Canada.

Around 11,600 workers were involved in the strike, which affected the wages sustaining 43,000 people, or about 26% of the population of metropolitan Sudbury. By the end of the strike, nine months later, the company had been deprived of over twenty-two million hours of labor.

The workers won small wage increase and a pension package, however thousands of workers lost their homes and cars because of the length of the strike. According to journalist Amy Miller, since 1979, INCO has fired 20,000 employees from their staff and now have more people receiving payments from the pension roll than pay roll.

The role of women in the community during the strike was profiled in the 1980 documentary film A Wives' Tale (Une histoire de femmes).

All Out to Support Striking Vale Inco Workers!

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      • GaveUp [she/her]
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        edit-2
        1 year ago

        My hypothesis is that Twitch is unironically a third place for some

        The streamer is there to facilitate the event that's happening and also for a guaranteed backup para social relationship for those that don't want to/can't chat with the audience

        But even without the streamer there, it's still an effective online third space because everybody there knows they all have shared interests whether it's a video game, sense of humour, or being gay for Hasan

        • LeylaLove [she/her, love/loves]
          ·
          1 year ago

          This makes the most sense. People like Xqc and other such react content creators have always said they made content for lonely people. People who don't want to watch the thing alone.

    • Comp4
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      edit-2
      11 days ago

      deleted by creator