The Joseph Mairs Memorial Committee founder and chair, Alastair Haythornthwaite spoke to ‘Our Common Condition’, both with the striking miners of 1913 and with workers across the nation.
http://josephmairs.ca/2012_pages/pdf/Alastair_address_22.01.2012.pdf

Our keynote speaker was Dr. Ingo Schmidt who spoke to “The Class Language of Economics”. Drawing on his personal experience as the son of working class parents growing up in Germany, Dr. Schmidt exploered how class distiction is both denied and recogonised by all in society.

Here is a gallery of the afternoon event:

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=xajy_fNWdKY

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL_7c1pm5Iw

www.youtube.com/watch?v=f19X4E6ev_U

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The Joseph Mairs Memorial Committee welcomes everyone to the 10th Annual Joseph Mairs Memorial at St. Mary’s Catholic Church Hall, 1135 4th Ave Ladysmith at 1:00 pm, Sunday, January 22nd, 2012. 

Come and join with other working people to honour Our Labour Martyr, Joseph Mairs. As always, our general theme for the day is ‘Our Common Condition’. 

We are very pleased and proud to have with us for this day Dr. Ingo Schmidt who will address “The Class Language of Economics”. 

Ingo is an economist and Coordinator of the Labour Studies Program at Athabasca University. He earned his PhD from the University of Göttingen and wrote a doctoral thesis on trade unions and Keynesianism. Ingo has taught at different universities in Germany and Canada and was staff economist with the metal workers union, IG Metall, in Germany. He has co-authored and edited a number of books, most recently a volume on Varieties of Neoliberalism (in German) and is finishing, with Bryan Evans, a volume on Social Democracy After the Cold War (in English). His works have appeared in a number of German and English language journals, including Monthly Review and Labour/Le Travail Studies in Political Economy. Ingo is also the economics columnist of the monthly paper and a co-editor of Göttinger Betriebsexpress, a local labour paper. 

After the talk, Dr. Schmidt will lead a floor discussion which will focus on issues arising from the debt crisis and the urgency for an accurate analysis and response to the agenda of the rich. 

During the discussion we will include all our guests in the conversation. 

Again, this year we will enjoy live music by local musicians linked to the Labour Movement (Art Farquarson and friends, Beverley McKeenand Martyn Jones and Charlie Fox – our splendidly talented family).

After the indoor programme, we will form a procession behind our long time piper Frank Nichols and walk to the cemetery to place flowers at the graveside of Joseph Mairs. 

Joseph Mairs was a trade unionist and a coal miner. He died in 1914, a month short of his 22nd birthday, after being arrested by government troops during the Occupation of Ladysmith. 

This strike which coal miners on Vancouver Island waged was for the eight hour day, health and safety regulations and union recognition. 

Joseph rests in the Ladysmith Cemetery beneath a cairn his fellow miners erected in his honour with the inspiring inscription 

“A Martyr to a Noble Cause – The Emancipation of His Fellow Men”. 

For more information contact:
Alastair Haythornthwaite
250 889 8903 /250 748 3274
josephmairs@shaw.ca
facebook: Honour Our Labour Martyr Joseph Mairs

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