Sep 182016
 

Gabriel Enxuga of Solidarity Halifax is running for City Council in Dartmouth Centre – District 5.

Visit GabrielEnxuga.ca to donate and receive updates on the campaign!

Across our community, people are struggling. Our neighbours are choosing between feeding their families and heating their homes. Many in our community have no access to safe and affordable housing, cannot find work, and cannot afford to access key services like transit and child care.

• Let’s build a city where public transit and recreation programs are free.

• Let’s build a city with fair wages for workers.

• Let’s build a city where rent control ensures safe and affordable housing for all.

• Let’s build a city where racism and sexism are actively challenged.

• Let’s build a city dedicated to addressing climate change and building a sustainable economy.

Longtime anti-poverty advocate Gabriel Enxuga is running to be the next Councillor for Dartmouth Centre – District 5.

Gabriel has worked with Dartmouth residents to advocate for more affordable housing, the elimination of predatory lending in our city, and access to public transit for people living on social assistance. Gabriel has also been an advocate for trans healthcare and organized for better working conditions for low-income workers through Baristas Rise Up.

canvass

Sep 162016
 

Great news, the Halifax-Dartmouth & District Labour Council has endorsed Gabriel Enxuga as the progressive candidate for District 5, Dartmouth Center!

-Let’s build a city with fair wage for workers.
-Let’s build a city where public transit and recreation programs are free.
-Let’s build a city where racism and sexism are actively challenged.
-Let’s build a city dedicated to addressing climate change and building a sustainable economy.
-Let’s build a city where rent control ensures sage and affordable housing for all.

Gabriel’s candidacy is part of a municipal campaign, Dartmouth Solidarity, that is dedicated to creating a city that is a pioneer in the fight against social inequality and climate change.

lc4gabe

Sep 092016
 

Dear Friends and Comrades,

Solidarity Halifax decided a year ago to run a candidate in the upcoming elections to the Halifax Regional Council, which will take place on 15 October.  Solidarity Halifax member, Gabriel Enxuga, will be our candidate to represent District 5, Dartmouth Center.

Our decision to run formally in municipal politics was not taken lightly.  As leftists, we insist of the indispensability of building working-class power outside of state structures and are wary of the co-optative pitfalls of elections.

That being said, it is also our position that to be completely divorced from electoral politics is to be completely divorced from the day to day struggles of working, poor and oppressed peoples.   Elections are not an alternative to revolutionary politics but they do provide opportunities to draw people into the struggle.

Solidarity Halifax is running-to-win; this is no name-on-ballot campaign and we are not shying-away from our revolutionary aspirations.  Our candidate, Gabriel Enxuga, is a veteran union organizer who was baptized by fire in the Baristas Rise Up campaign, which ended with the successful organization of Coburg Coffee and Just Us Café but also with his dismissal. Gabriel then went on to work as a tenants’ rights and welfare rights organizer for Nova Scotia ACORN.  He is also an outspoken advocate for trans healthcare and is the first openly trans candidate for elected office in Nova Scotia.

Solidarity Halifax needs your help to put this campaign over the top.  Please consider donating to our campaign.  Whatever amount you can give will help us agitate, educate, and organize.

Three ways to donate;

1.       Go to solidarityhalifax.ca and click on the pay pal button.  Write down “for Gabriel Enxuga’s campaign” in the notes of the donations.

2.       E-transfer money to Solidarity Halifax at finance@solidarityhalifax.ca. Write down “for Gabriel Enxuga’s campaign” in the notes of the email.

3.       Mail a cheque to “Solidarity Halifax” at #13-1041 Tower Road, B3H 2Y6, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Write down “for Gabriel Enxuga’s campaign” in the memo field of the cheque.

·         Let’s build a city where public transit and recreation programs are free

·         Let’s build a city with fair wages for municipal workers

·         Let’s build a city where rent control ensures safe and affordable housing for all

·         Let’s build a city where racism and sexism are actively challenged

·         Let’s build a city dedicated to addressing climate change and building a sustainable economy

In gratitude and solidarity,

Sep 062016
 

As a candidate for HRM’s Municipal Council in Dartmouth Centre (District 5), I stand firmly and solidly in support of the members of CUPE Local 108, the Halifax Civic Workers’ Union, in their ongoing struggle to achieve a fair negotiated Collective Agreement with our municipal government that doesn’t attack the pension benefits they have worked so hard to obtain and need to support themselves and their families in retirement.

 

The city of Halifax has a duty to provide services and infrastructure that make our communities safe, accessible, affordable and healthy.

 
Members of the Halifax Civic Workers’ union perform many of the daily tasks that fulfill these duties.  Members of CUPE Local 108 work at recreation facilities like the Halifax Forum, the Sackville Stadium, the Dartmouth Sportsplex and the other rinks and recreation facilities in our city. Their members include mechanics, carpenters, cleaners and plumbers that work for the City of Halifax. These union members maintain and inspect our playgrounds and sportsfields, they repair our roads and our sidewalks. They include gardeners who work all around our City making Halifax beautiful with flower arrangements and plants. They work in our major parks like Point Pleasant Park, the Halifax Public Gardens and Shubie Park.

 

If you call the City to complain about a pothole, or a falling tree or a dead animal on the roadway, these are the workers who respond to those calls and take care of those things for us. In the Winter months, their primary job is to clean our streets of snow and ice, although the City has outsourced and contracted out that work in many parts of our city to contractors who are ill-equipped to handle that work.

 

We cannot have a safe and healthy community if the workers are not treated with fairness and good faith at the bargaining table. A decent pension to ensure security and dignity in retirement should be a baseline, and it’s unacceptable that the City is threatening to lock out workers while pushing drastic concessions on the pension plan.

 

Every four years, our voting public elects a mayor and council, and entrusts them with serving the public interest. They need to direct the city’s negotiators to stop threatening a lockout and work with the union to come up with a fair deal. They need to tell the City’s negotiators to get back to the bargaining table and bargain a fair agreement with these workers.

 

These workers don’t have “gold plated” pension plans. Their current pensions allow them to retire with basic dignity, with the majority of workers receiving pensions of about $20 thousand each year after many years of work and service to our City.

 

We need to all stand together and say to our current Mayor and Councilors that it is time for them to step up and ensure that their workers are treated fairly, and that the city’s negotiators are reigned-in from their mandate to attack these workers pensions and benefits through threats of lockout.

 

Our city can be a fairer and more just place.

 

We can start with our own employees.