Canadian revolutionaries speak

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SiNuter. UKKERS 11200974 Pierre Trudeau riding his Cruise Missile Peace Initiative.

Socialist Action May 1984 11 The following interview with Barry Weisleder and Bob Sherwood of the Socialist Workers Collective of Toronto, Canada, was conducted in Pittsburgh, Pa., on April 29 by Alan Benjamin.

Socialist Action: Could you describe the situation in Canada today?

Weisleder: For working people the economic situation is increasingly difficult. We're still in the midst of a significant economic depression. Over 14 percent of the workforce-two million people-are unemployed, according to government statistics. This is accompanied by vicious attacks on social expenditures and social programs, which most affect women, the poor, and those who recently lost their jobs and whose unemployment benefits are running out.

In most of the provincial jurisdictions and at the federal level you have enforced wage controls. Concessions have been wrung out of working people, including those in organized work places. But there is resistance. Two years ago the Chrysler workers prevented serious takebacks, and just this year the McDonnell Douglas workers in Toronto beat back the bosses' concessions attempt.

At the same time, we have seen a very big wave of union organizing in the retail and department store sector, as well as in the education sector. I'm personally involved in a major union organizing effort aimed at substitute teachers in a number of school boards in the greater metropolitan Toronto area and Southern Ontario.

This is accompanied by the growth of the part-time work force. In this layer of part-time workers and those driven down to a situation of structural underemployment, there's a significant rise in trade-union consciousness. The majority of these workers are women, many of them sole-support parents.

In terms of the main bastions of the labor movement, however, there have been some important setbacks: the defeat of the Quebec Common Front in the winter of 1983 and the setback in British Columbia in the fall of 1983.

Distributors of Socialist Action in Canada:

Socialist Workers Collective 412A College St.

Toronto, Ontario MST 1T3 Gauche Socialiste C. P. 152, succ. N Montreal H2X 3N4 Socialist Challenge P.O. Box 69756 Station "K"

Vancouver, B.C.

Socialist Challenge Box 12082 Edmonton, FTQ CORTE The rightwing Social Credit government of William Bennett in British Columbia launched an onslaught against trade union rights, including a challenge to basic seniority provisions. It threatened dismantling social welfare programs, rent controls, the Human Right Commission, and a number of other important gains of the past two generations.

A truly impressive coalition of trade union, community, feminist, immigrant, and consumer organizations came together. This led to a general strike of some 80,000. We were on the brink of an all-out general strike in British Columbia when the leadership of that coalition, Operation Solidarity, sold out the effort and settled for a limited government retreat.

So there was a betrayal of the potential of that massive coalition-unprecedented in Canadian history-which could have thrown out the rightwing Social Credit government and changed the relationship of forces, not only in British Columbia, but across the coun try. So it's a contradictory situation marked by concessions, some resistance, the capacity for the fightback to take on a political dynamic—but without this potential being realized.

Sherwood: I want to underscore the importance of Operation Solidarity, primarily because it represented a considerable mobilization that went beyond the labor movement itself into the ranks of women, minorities, students, etc. There were mobilizations upwards of 80,000 people. This represented an extremely high percentage of the population, and in a sense the Operation Solidarity, by putting forth a whole series of social demands, posed the question of power, even if it did so unconsciously.

This experience also demonstrated the difficulties with Canada's Labor Party, the New Democratic Party (NDP), which confined its efforts and opposition to the legislature. Also, I think what is significant and encouraging at this point in Ontario, in our own work, is the organizing drive among new sectors of workers—particularly in the department stores.

S. A.: Could you tell us more about the current state of the NDP?

Weisleder: The NDP, which is based on the trade union movement, is in disarray and retreat. It is now at its lowest point in terms of popular support in the opinion polls-some 11 percent across Canada. Its retreat is not just a function of a conservative popular response to the economic onslaught and the rulers' offensive. It's, in fact, significantly a reflection of the NDP's capitulation to the rulers' ideological offensive. Thé NDP leadership espouses protectionist policies. Its solution to the economic situation is a series of rather pallid tax reform proposals and bandaid job-creation policies.

In the one province where the NDP holds government power—in ManiCSN toba-the government is responsible for an attack on the feminist movement which has been fighting for legal free-standing abortion clinics. The government has brought in the cops and the courts in order to shut down those clinics. They have brought charges against the nurses and doctors involved in attempting to provide essential services to women.

Sherwood: I think it is important to note that much of the responsibility for the electoral decline of the NDP rests with the labor bureaucrats themselves. This is due to the formal distinction they make between the economic and political tasks. Even though the NDP may raise political questions within the legislatures and the federal parliament-from time to time in a sporadic manner-the labor leadership has never sought to link the economic mobilizations of the workers to the political tasks.

This was the case in British Columbia, in particular. Another problem of the NDP-its historic problem-has been its absolute lack of recognition of the national question of Quebec and of the right of self-determination of the people of Quebec. This has virtually made the NDP an English-only party. On the other hand, it would be wrong to say that the NDP is going to disappear from the map. It represents a considerable gain by the working class, and it exists and functions.

S. A.: Could you tell us something about Pierre Trudeau's Peace Initiative?

Weisleder: The Peace Initiative [a bilateral freeze proposal] is a reflection of the very wide and deep sentiment for disarmament among working people across Canada and around the world. But in the specific case of Trudeau and the Federal Liberal government, the initiative represents the height of hypocrisy. The government has signed an agreement—and has even carried out the provisions of the agreement—to test the Cruise Missile over Alberta. At the behest of the U.S. government and its NATO allies, the Trudeau government has, in fact, substantially increased the it's misleading in that sense as well.

Sherwood: One should always keep in mind that Canada remains part of NATO. At the same time, we should keep in mind that Canada has been a not-so-silent accomplice in the U.S efforts opposing revolutionary movements in Central America. One example is that when Mark MacGuigan was in Nicaragua, he refused to condemn the mining of the Nicaraguan harbors.

S. A.: Could you talk about the state of the revolutionary left in Canada?

Weisleder: It's a difficult situation. We are coming out of a period of decomposition and fragmentation of the revolutionary left. To begin with, the Maoist Left has completely disintegrated. Two rather large organizations that had their origins in Quebec have disappeared. The Communist Party is stagnant. The feminist movement is of increasingly working class and prosocialist character, but it is imbued with a strong anti-Leninist outlook.

The revolutionary movement has been significantly weakened by the conservatization and marginalization of the Revolutionary Workers League, the official section of the Fourth International in the Canadian state. But there is now more debate and discussion occurring on the left, with the perspective and possibility for bringing together likeminded socialists in the labor movement, the NDP, and the social protest movements. The Socialist Workers Collective, which is little more than a year old, is attempting to promote this objective, but we also endeavor to reach out to new forces coming around the major social protest movements.

The Socialist Workers Collective, which is in political solidarity with the Fourth International, is in contact with similar groups across the Canadian state. We have organizational relations with Gauche Socialiste in Quebec, with Socialist Challenge in British Columbia, and with pro-Fourth International "CRISE groupings and individuals in several cities across English Canada. The SWC is active in the labor movement, the NDP, the Grenada and Central America solidarity committees. It also participates in mobilizations of the feminist movement, particularly around the fight for freestanding legal abortion clinics.

We are also participating in a fight against the victimization and political frame-up of four Armenian socialist activists who have been jailed and siandered as terrorists, and have been falsely charged with conspiracy to commit murder. It's a sign of the backwardness of much of the left, including the so-called revolutionary organizations, that they have refused to respond to the need to defend these comrades against the frame-up and victimization tactics of the Canadian imperialist state. But a defense campaign is getting under way, in this case with the participation of members of the Armenian community and independent radical forces, and there are real prospects for a successful campaign.

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A Business Week survey of the top 500 U.S. corporations reports that profits in 1983—adjusted for inflation-increased 82 percent. Inflation has been significantly reduced, , and U.S. corporations are regaining their competitive edge in the world market. Major executives are receiving fat bonuses for achieving this dramatic turnaround.

But in reality the recovery is no mystery. Losing ground against their international competitors, U.S. capitalists have sought to strengthen their position in the world market by squeezing workers harder in this country. In 1982 one-third of all workers represented in contract negotiations were forced to accept wage freezes, while in 1983 one-half of the workers took cuts. wave that still stands as the largest strike action anywhere in the world.

Unable to prevent the massive organization of the workers, the employers sought to tame and housebreak the unions. Only by reinforcing a conservative union leadership could the bosses hope to restrain the labor militancy so forcefully expressed in the formation of the CIO.

The Democratic party under Roosevelt became the main vehicle for cementing an alliance between the labor misleaders and the ruling rich. This "labor-business partnership" is based on promoting the idea that what is good for business is good for the workers. This false notion led to a break in the class struggle methods used to build the CIO. The mass mobilization of the The continued expansion of the economy permitted small but regular increases in the standard of living of U.S. workers from 1950 to 1965. This allowed the rulers to establish a pattern of gradual enforcement of a multitude of anti-union legal decisions in preparation for the union-busting offensive that is now underway.

The relative prosperity in this period created the illusion among workers that clever bargaining accounted for the wage benefit increases. But the concessions given up by the union misleaders in exchange for wage increases has disarmed and undercut our ability to defend ourselves from the attacks we face today. Art Preis, in his book, Labor's Giant Step, aptly termed this practice of giving up a little bit of job a highly profitable operation, and the giants of the oil and auto industries, who are making super profits, is leading many workers to reexamine this notion.

Corporate plans to revitalize industry have been largely abandoned for more profitable investment ventures, as the recent flurry of "mega-mergers" indicate. During the 1970s two out of every three new Fortune 500 manufacturing plants were not "new" at all. They were simply acquired in mergers or purchases to increase monopoly control of the market. Thousands of jobs have been lost in the process. But the labor bureaucrats continue to insist that high corporate profits are good for the workers.

A Fightback Strategy

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WOMENS LEER TON POWER