The headline says it all: teachers in British Columbia have gone out on an illegal, province-wide strike, after refusing to accept a bad contract from the government. The latter are trying to witch-hunt union leaders as radicals, but, as a past-president of the local says,

"The leadership is undoubtedly more militant than the membership historically. Right now I think it is the membership that is telling the leadership that it wishes to pursue this course."

This is exactly what socialists are on about all the time. People's ideas change through struggle. You could argue with someone for hours about the morality or necessity of strikes - but when people's material circumstances change, often they're forced to act. Then all the usual negative ideas about striking get tossed aside. The strike has broad public support, and there's talk of general solidarity action.

Lest I sound too giddy, the risks are great. The B.C. labour movement has a long, ignoble history of scuttling workers' movements just when they're getting off the ground, by negotiating bad deals and telling its members to get back to work and vote NDP (social democratic). I don't know what kind of rank-and-file organizing is going on, or what the position of the leadership is. But for now, the news is very, very good.