Thousands rally for locked-out
2011 2011-03Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 9 →
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United States Steel Corporation, following its purchase of Stelco in 2007 for $1 billion, reneged on its promise to retain jobs and benefit the local economy. Instead, workers have been treated to a vicious attack on their pensions, plus staff cuts. The bosses at U.S. Steel demand elimination of pension indexing (the provision that keeps pensions in pace with inflation) and insist that the existing pension plan be closed to new hires.
As in Sudbury, where Valle Inco forced nickel miners to strike for over a year against the company demand to turn pensions into a market investment rather than a guaranteed benefit, the corporate excuse for greed in Hamilton is the same: the Great Recession. Indeed, the attack on workers’ pensions, including the federal government’s refusal to enhance the grossly inadequate Canada Pension Plan for seniors, is a major element of the current capitalist austerity agenda.
This is a major issue for all workers. That is why thousands of autoworkers from Oshawa and Windsor, textile, construction, postal and mine workers, teachers and many others went to Hamilton to march on a very cold day in late January.
A number of community and socialist groups, including Socialist Action and Youth for Socialist Action, participated. Despite frigid temperatures and heavy snowfall, the atmosphere was electrifying. Thousands of people, in a sea of colourful flags and banners, came together to say to U.S. Steel that “you cannot take away workers’ rights, you cannot lie, cheat and steal from steel workers and expect to get away with it.”
The solidarity rally exceeded the capacity of the sound system; it was impossible to Fourth International: deserts” in the poor districts of cities in rich countries....
In 2009, greenhouse gas emissions amounted to a total of a little more the 48 billion tons. In order to keep global warming beneath the dangerous threshold of a 2°C rise, the peak of emissions must be reached in 2015 and emissions should diminish to 40-44 billion tons before 2020.
The climate plans of the developing countries are in line with the IPCC proposals but this is not the case for the rich developed countries! Japan, Russia, Canada are opposed to any extension of the Kyoto protocol beyond 2012.
The USA, which is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases per capita, and whose emissions increased by 30% between 1990 and 2005, has not adopted any plan for reductions. The “energy package” of the European Union is totally insufficient and continues to rely on market mechanisms, the promotion of agrofuels and nuclear energy, and the privatization of tropical forests.
Against the logic of speculation, privatization, and commodification of food, we must counterpose another logic—namely the defense of food sovereignty, regaining control over agricultural and food policies, keeping access to natural resources (water, seeds, land), and fighting against the multinationals and the international institutions as well as the governments who are their accomplices. ...
The members of the Fourth International will continue to work towards the building of a unitary mass campaign, together with the activists and the social movements, in the framework of the Climate and Social Justice campaign. This [is] in the perspective of the organization of counter-summits during the Durban (COP17) negotiations and at the summit of Rio 20+.
Only an ecosocialist and anti-capitalist alternative constitutes a real answer to this global crisis. n