LENIN'S TOMB

Monday, January 16, 2012

Austerity in Canada: Canadian Labour at the Crossroads posted by Richard Seymour

Guest post by Doug Nesbitt:

A wage cut of fifty percent. An elimination of pensions. Cuts to benefits.

These demands have inevitably led to a major showdown at a locomotive factory in London, Ontario between the 700 unionized workers of Electro-Motive Diesel and Caterpillar, a massive US-based corporation. The workers, members of Canadian Auto Workers Local 27, responded to the employer’s demands with a positive strike vote of 97 percent. The employer, Progress Rail, a subsidiary of Caterpillar, locked the workers out on New Year’s Day.

In addition to facing down a notorious anti-union employer who hammered the American United Auto Workers in the 1990s, there are plenty of rumours about Caterpillar closing the London plant and moving operations to Muncie, Indiana. EMD workers in London make $CDN 36/hour while their counterparts in Muncie are paid only $CDN 12.50-14.50. Indiana is also on the cusp of becoming the first rust-belt state to introduce a "Right to Work" law, a notorious form of anti-union legislation made possible by the even more infamous Taft-Hartley law of 1947, the long-standing crown jewel of American anti-union legislation.

The response of organized labour to the lock out has been swift. The Ontario Federation of Labour is coordinating a mass rally in London on January 21 with buses coming in from numerous cities across the province and as far away as Sudbury and Ottawa. The OFL is anticipating at least ten thousand protesters.

Mainstream media coverage has also been extensive and the shocking nature of Caterpillar’s demands have so far ensured that coverage has been neutral and even supportive of the workers. The story is being covered by all major Canadian dailies, prime-time news hours on CBC and CTV, and has received coverage in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and now the European and Australian press.

Not surprisingly, the federal government has stayed silent. Since they won their first majority government in May, the Tories have gone to war with organized labour. In June, postal workers were locked out by Canada Post, the state-owned crown corporation. The Tories responded with back-to-work legislation which called for pay increases lower than the employer’s last offer.

Federal Labour Minister Lisa Raitt went further, twice threatening to legislate Air Canada flight attendants back-to-work, even though Air Canada was privatized in 1988. From a party espousing government non-intervention in the economy, Raitt’s reasoning behind intervening in the private sector was that Air Canada was essential to the economy. This absurdity was repeated in October when Raitt floated the idea of defining the “economy” as an “essential service”, thus providing some pseudo-legal justification for further interventions.

The government’s hypocrisy goes further. In March 2008, on the very shop floor of EMD London, Prime Minister Harper announced a billion dollar tax break to industry in 2008, $5 million of which went to EMD London. Two years later, EMD London was purchased by Caterpillar.

Despite its record high revenue and profits in 2011, stemming from sales of its machinery to a booming resource sector (tar sands, mining), Caterpillar is attempting to destroy a union. In addition to their anti-union stance, the threat of roughly two thousand jobs being lost in London, and their profiting off environmental disasters like the tar sands and mining operations around the world, Caterpillar supplies Israel the bulldozers it uses to carry out house demolitions in occupied Palestine.

This leaves labour – and all the political allies of labour – at a crossroads in this high profile, high stakes clash between workers and state-blessed corporate power. The implications for other workers – such as Toronto municipal workers, the locked steelworkers of Alma, Quebec, the York Region Transit workers, and all other workers, union and non-union – couldn’t be greater. Since the Tory victory in May, employers, public and private, have received the message loud and clear: the federal government is siding with them in a sustained attempt to hold down wages and benefits, slash them where possible, and break the ability of workers to resist these moves by breaking their only means of defence: unions.

Is labour up to the challenge? The OFL has already moved the rally’s location from the picket lines outside the factory, to downtown London’s Victoria Park eight kilometres away. The move is explained by the OFL as ten thousand being too many for it to be “safe” on the picket line. What nonsense is this? Fifteen thousand pickets peacefully shut down the Port of Oakland last November in an Occupy-initiated general strike.

Holding the rally in Victoria Park will ensure that is a symbolic display of opposition and nothing more. Only a few hundred of the ten thousand will likely take up Local 27’s invite to the picket lines after the rally. Thousands of protesters will be boarding buses after the downtown rally to head back home and won’t have time to make it to the picket lines.

If you’re having deja vu, you’re not alone. Last year, ten thousand people from across Ontario attended the Hamilton Day of Action against US Steel held January 29, 2011. On the steps of Hamilton City Hall, union leaders and labour politicians denounced the lockout and backed the steelworkers refusing to see their pensions gutted by US Steel. A short march made it around a few cold and deserted downtown blocks before returning to City Hall. As one of the hundreds who lined up for union-sponsored buses back to their respective hometowns, I later that we had marched past the old Stelco building, US Steel’s Hamilton office, without even stopping to do anything.

The days of action in Hamilton and London may boost the spirits of locked out workers, but what will it accomplish beyond this? In the wake of Occupy as well as the Capitol Building occupation in Wisconsin last year against the stripping of public sector bargaining rights, the time seems ripe for bolder action. Bold action could galvanize thousands of Canadians angry at the Tories and the one percent, could overturn the limited range of Canada’s political debates, and maybe just put employers and the Tories on the back foot for once.

The battle at EMD might be lost, but it could still be a turning point for labour by showing a new determination to take more controversial but increasingly necessary actions to counter the “race to the bottom” overseen by an entrenched federal government keen on hammering workers and dismantling hard-won social programs.

Drawing on the Occupy movement, the Spanish Indignados, and the Republic Windows and Doors occupation in Chicago from late 2008, occupying EMD London should be on labour’s agenda. In this sense, moving ten thousand pickets away from the factory is a lost opportunity for initiating the occupation. If this sounds too radical, Egypt and Occupy have changed what’s possible – an occupation could be a galvanizing moment for Canadians and become a worldwide beacon of resistance. And the story of EMD London exposes so clearly the intertwined problems of corporate greed and tax breaks, the war against workers, failing democratic institutions, environmental destruction and imperialism. And what better union than the Canadian Auto Workers, founded on the plant occupations in Flint and Oshawa in 1936 and 1937, to carry this out?

Even if an occupation doesn’t happen but the demand is shouted loud enough – “Occupy EMD!” – it normalizes the idea among networks of workers and activists and lays the groundwork for occupations taking place in inevitable future labour disputes.

The decision to occupy will have to be taken by EMD London workers themselves. But solidarity actions can be carried out across Ontario and beyond. Caterpillar owns Battlefield Equipment Rentals with over 30 locations in Ontario, two in Manitoba and five in Newfoundland. The activist networks built up by the Occupy movement could link up even more with trade unionists to spread the resistance to Caterpillar far beyond London itself. This is what Americans did last August when dozens of Verizon Wireless stores across the country were picketed in solidarity with the communication workers strike against Verizon. The union, Communications Workers of America, even launched an “adopt-a-store” campaign for local activists to show their support, leading to many weekly pickets of Verizon Wireless stores.

Where Battlefield Equipment Rentals can’t be found, pressure can be put on the 166 Tory MPs riding offices in every province, highlighting government complicity with the corporate tax breaks to EMD London. Ottawa labour activists already showed this could be done when they occupied John Baird’s riding office during the postal worker lockout.

In short, the Canadian labour movement needs to reinvent itself and abandon the long-standing attitude towards conciliatory relations with employers, hopeless appeals for government intervention, and a general neglect of the wider, non-union working-class. The lockout in London makes this reinvention both necessary and possible. London could be the place where the labour movement – or at least a substantial minority of activists, union and non-union – recovers a tradition of militancy on behalf of the whole working class and sees itself as a collective force for economic and political justice and transformation.

About the Author

Doug Nesbitt is Co-Chief Steward of PSAC 901 representing Queen’s University Teaching Assistants and Fellows. He was born and raised in London, Ontario and now lives in Kingston pursuing a PhD in History at Queen’s. He also co-hosts Rank and File Radio, a weekly labour news program on CFRC 101.9FM.

Labels: austerity, canada, capitalism, class struggle, labour, liberals, occupy wall street, tories, trade unions, working class

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Israeli consulate occupied posted by Richard Seymour

A group of Jewish women have occupied the Israel consulate in Toronto:

A diverse group of Jewish Canadian women are currently occupying the Israeli consulate at 180 Bloor Street West in Toronto. This action is in protest against the on-going Israeli assault on the people of Gaza.

The group is carrying out this occupation in solidarity with the 1.5 million people of Gaza and to ensure that Jewish voices against the massacre in Gaza are being heard. They are demanding that Israel end its military assault and lift the 18-month siege on the Gaza Strip to allow humanitarian aid into the territory.

This sort of thing is liable to give people ideas.

Labels: air strikes, canada, gaza, hamas, Israel, occupation, palestine, protest

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Afghanistan: accentuating the positive. posted by Richard Seymour

Guest post by redbedhead:

Don't worry, everything is rolling along as planned in Afghanistan. Our troops are winning hearts and minds, they¹re rebuilding, they're defeating the insurgency. Well, there¹s the small matter of Canadian soldiers beating the hell out of Afghan detainees, then covering it up and then, once it's discovered, of stalling the investigation for more than a year. And then there¹s those massive bombings. As was noted by Amir Attaran, an Ottawa law professor who blew the whistle on the abuse, "When the military is investigating the military, which is inconvenient for the military, is it any wonder that the military rags the puck?"

In fact the investigation took so long to get started that they can¹t even track down the detainees any longer. And the Afghan they hired to do so was assassinated by insurgents. Probably nobody else will be applying for his job. Nor can they go to the medical records of the detainees, many of whom were treated by Canadian doctors. Why? Oops, it seems that the medical records from that time period, well, they just disappeared. Can you believe these guys?

Well, then, no wonder the Tories don¹t see the big deal in handing detainees over to the Afghan authorities. The Tories don¹t discriminate hell, if torture and abuse are good enough for us, well, it ought to be good enough for the Afghans police. Small problem though, Kandahar¹s head torture master, Governor Asadullah Khaled, just fired somewhere between 100-250 police for corruption. Or, maybe it has something to the assassination attempt on his life and the growing power of the Taliban in and around Kandahar. The firing was done without notice, even to Canadian troops, who found out by surprise. If it was an attempt to eliminate a Taliban base inside the police then it failed to dampen the vigour of the insurgent movement. Within a two day spread two enormous suicide bombs killed a total of perhaps 150 people, including the "auxiliary police commander", ie. warlord, of Kandahar along with 35 of his men who were watching a dog fight. With potentially 125 people dead, this was the largest suicide bomb attack in Afghan history.

The Taliban have been having a lot of success in recent months eliminating important political figures inside Afghanistan, it seems. Then on Monday, insurgents struck again, with a suicide car bomb attack on Canadian troops that killed 35 civilians. The Canadians, it seems, were warned that there was a suicide plot afoot and that they should stay on their base until local police rounded up the attacker. But the Canadians refused to heed the warnings six of them, in fact - and now the governor, Khaled, is none too happy with the Canucks. Tory Defense Minister, Peter MacKay, has responded with the usual Tory line that everything is good and that the Taliban are on the run, saying that the bombings didn't indicate any increase in Taliban activity. He better hope not because last year was already a record year for suicide bombings in Afghanistan.

Labels: 'war on terror', afghanistan, canada, occupation

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Canadian Tories cock up their war posted by Richard Seymour

Guest post by redbedhead:

You’d think that the knuckle-draggers and mouth-breathers who presently run the Government of Canada would be able to run the war in Afghanistan. After all, war is what these jokers are all about and Afghanistan is the “good war” in the War on Terror. Well, it warms the cockles of the heart to see that, in fact, sometimes even a PR budget bigger than the budget for reconstruction isn’t enough to cover up corruption and brutality.

Let’s start with the good news – good news for the Tories, that is. Former Liberal Foreign Minister, John Manley, did the Tories a good service when he released his government commissioned report on Afghanistan. No surprise, he basically rubber-stamped the mission in Afghanistan and called for Canadian troops to stay after the 2009 mission deadline, if NATO ponies up another 1,000 troops. The Harper Tories, with the support of the media and the pliant and confused Liberals – including NDP turncoat and present Foreign Affairs critic Bob Rae – pumped the report as a lifesaver for the increasingly unpopular mission. Of course, the only real “critical” suggestion in the report, besides the NATO troop boost call, is that the Tories need better propaganda to sell the war.

The good news for the Tories ends exactly there.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the printers for the intellectually light-weight report – that couldn’t manage a single footnote to back-up its claims. It seems that big chunks of the report were written prior to the panel having been struck by Mr. Manley. Canadian blogger, The Scott Ross compared the report to an article written by Manley last October in a Magazine called Policy Options. What did he find whole chunks were identical. A related article in Maclean’s Magazine added the point that the only thing Manley seemed to have changed was to downplay the corruption of the Karzai governent in Kabul. So far the media’s given Manley a pretty easy ride on this obvious plagiarism – and therefore big waste of Canadian taxpayers’ cash. But already other aspects of the war were coming unraveled before the Tories could even pop the champagne corks on their coup of getting a highly placed Liberal to back them.

The big one is, of course, the ongoing farrago known as the “detainees scandal”. Doug over at The Proles has good coverage of the history of this whole mess. Basically the scandal can be summed up as a series of revelations that our “democratic” partners in Afghanistan systematically torture their prisoners and the Canadian government has systematically tried to cover it up. It’s remarkable how many times the Harper Tories have been caught lying and stuffing documents down their pants. What’s more remarkable is that the media still takes anything they say seriously.

In any case, on January 22 the whole issue exploded again when a spokesperson for the Prime Minister claimed that the military hadn’t informed the government that they had stopped transferring detainees to Afghan authorities. The head of Canadian forces, General Rick Hillier, sitting on a beach in the Dominican, shit his pants and called up the Prime Minister to give him a piece of his mind. The Prime Minister’s office had to retract the claim the next day. Oops.

And it got still worse.

A few days later it was revealed that the Tories and the military were covering up allegations of involvement by the governor of Kandahar, Asadullah Khalid, in torture. Now, just to make this clear, the allegations aren’t just that he endorses or permits torture, it’s that he himself engages in it. He’s a hands-on kind of guy, apparently, and keeps a personal prison in his compound. Now, of course, he denies it and the report by Canadian diplomats that the Tories and the military have worked hard to suppress. Trouble is, it was after a meeting between Khalid and Tory Defence Minister Peter MacKay that the decision was taken to stop detainee transfers. Of course, the Tories are doing what they always to and are deflecting and denying. MacKay now says that since the detainee who made the specific allegations wasn’t a Canadian transferred detainee, it’s not our issue. Besides, Khalid is an appointed governor, we have no right to investigate him.

Interesting logic. Suppose we were to say that about the Taliban – they were a sovereign government, their treatment of prisoners and everyone else was an internal matter and we had no jurisdiction there. Of course, we invaded Afghanistan and put in place a regime that we approved of, with personnel we approved of, to achieve policy goals we approved of. So, Khalid, as an appointee of our man in Kabul, is also our man. If he’s torturing people, then that is an expression of our policy and we are responsible. But, what’s more, what are we doing participating in a civil war to back appointed governors, corrupt officials, and torturers? What are we doing there if the regime we’ve put in place is identical to the one we overthrew in every way, except that it supports our policy? But then, the question contains the answer, doesn’t it?

Labels: 'war on terror', afghanistan, canada, NATO

Friday, September 28, 2007

"Death to Canada" posted by Richard Seymour

I've been waiting for somebody to say that.

Labels: afghanistan, canada, occupation

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Canada votes against troop withdrawal ... or does it? posted by Richard Seymour

Canada's parliament has voted against a motion for limited troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, despite solid public backing for the troops to be home at least by the deadline proposed by the Liberals (which was February 2009). However, all that is not quite as it appears. First of all, it is important to bear in mind how this happened. The NDP, a Labour Party equivalent with a broadly left-wing base and a right-wing leadership, holds the balance of power in Canada's parliament with 29 seats - a result of their popular antiwar stance among other things. The vote was defeated by only 16 votes, with the NDP voting alongside the Conservatives against the motion. This was, on the face of it, because they demanded immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan, not another year of torture.

Was this a genuinely principled stance? Doug Nesbitt wrote about the NDP's position a couple of weeks ago:

Today, the Liberals are presenting a motion to end Canada's involvement in Afghanistan by February 2009 - the end date of the current two year mission which started last month (and was narrowly authorized 149-145 last May with the support of thirty Liberal MPs). The motion was put forward by Liberal defence critic, Denis Coderre. He is stating that he will not compromise on the matter, such as having the mission moved to a less tumultuous region of Afghanistan or reassigned as "peacekeeping." But the motion actually says nothing about withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, but rather withdrawal from southern Afghanistan - it's in fact the proposal of Gerard Kennedy - "let's withdraw to Kabul!" The motion is in fact a step backwards from the vote last May where the Liberals were actually split on whether to continue the mission past February 2007. Now they are supporting it up until 2009.

The NDP has decided it will caucus before this motion. Why? Will they suddenly oppose the motion with a "troops out now" stance. It would be unlikely for them to do so after months of back-tracking towards a "change the mission" position like Kennedy.

Ideally, the NDP should call for immediate withdrawal. But the point is, they've been beaten to the punch by the Liberals, trying to win points off the recent deaths in Afghanistan, and using the media's complete incompetence to get the pro-war motion spun as an anti-war motion - just check out the headline from this Globe & Mail article. In the past six months, the Liberals have seemingly positioned themselves on the left of the NDP on the two main issues of the day: the environment and the war. Once again, the NDP leadership have been caught with their pants down in the cookie jar (yes, it's that bad). It seems the only party in Canada not doing anything is the NDP. And now they've allowed the Liberals this opening and an attempt to reframe the question of withdrawal.

So, we had a motion for withdrawal that was not a motion for withdrawal. We consequently had a vote that misleadingly placed the Liberals in the 'antiwar' camp. At the same time the NDP has tried to recoup some of the initiative and momentum that it has lost by inflicting a defeat on a pro-occupation motion that is nevertheless interpreted as a mandate for the continued occupation.

Labels: 'war on terror', afghanistan, anti-war, canada, labour, ndp