Ontario workers rally against concessions and lock-out

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Some 10,000 people, according to the Toronto Star, converged at London’s Victoria Park, two hours west of Toronto, on Jan. 21 to participate in the rally spon­ sored by the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) against the lock­ out of 500 workers.

The London workers are mem­ bers of the Canadian Auto Work­ ers Union at the Electro-Motive Canada plant (recently acquired by Caterpillar Inc.).

The lockout was imposed after the union refused to negotiate the outrageous concessions de­ for NDP manded by the company, includ­ ing a 50% reduction in wages, and savage cuts in benefits.

The company is threatening to move the work to the United States and to close the plant. The rally heard from a number of speakers, including OFL Presi­ dent Sid Ryan, NDP federal Lead­ er Nicole Turmel, and the mayor of London.

Unfortunately, more than half the crowd could not hear the speakers because the OFL—once again—failed to mount an ad­ equate sound system.

Following the rally a large num­ ber of the demonstrators trav­ Felled to the plant, a few kilome­ ters away, where they joined the CAW picket line.

Socialist Action members car­ ried a banner that read, “Nation­ alize Auto, Steel and the Banks— Under Workers’ Control! Make Capital Pay for the Crisis.”

After the rally, NDP Socialist Caucus activist and unionist John Orrett told this reporter, “In his speech Ryan said the OFL be­ lieves in a different model of capitalism, but of course they never spell this out. For them it is just capitalism with a happy face.

They never admit that there is no such thing.” n accommodation to the capitalist system and its vaunted institutions. They foster illusions in Ottawa’s foreign policy, covering up the reality of military intervention at the service of corporate power and profit.

And the party elite’s longstanding subordination of the aspirations of oppressed nations to the vice-grip of the bourgeois state makes it completely unsurprising that the NDP attracts liberal federalists in Quebec like St-Denis, who after surviving the shock of her election as MP, dis­ covered that she is more at “ease” in the Liberal Party caucus. The only good thing about this incident is that there will be one less advocate of merger with the Liberal Party inside the NDP federal caucus.

Until her departure, St-Denis was a strong supporter of Thomas Mulcair’s bid for NDP Leader. What does Mulcair think about his erstwhile fan’s act of treachery? And what say the other candidates for NDP Leader? The silence is deafening. What we see here is fundamentally a problem ... Local 21 victory!

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ing economic crisis that has cut deep into the fabric of American life, proved to be decisive in the decision of the ruling class, the one percent, to back off in order to seek to take their pound of flesh at another place and another time. The Obama administration chose not to risk a nationally publicized spectacle of thou­ sands, if not tens of thousands, of workers and their allies confronting a government scab-herding mili­ tary operation.

The Longview events will undoubtedly teach labor and social justice activists some important lessons:

First and foremost is that the labor movement—still based in critical points of manufacturing, transporta­ tion, construction, shipping, and many other decisive sectors of the capitalist system—retains the power to bring the system to a grinding halt and to win im­ portant gains, not to mention inspiring support from unexpected layers.

Equally important is the fact that the Longview 61 of which have declared their opposition to the project. It is therefore not surprising that 4300 people have asked to participate in the regulatory review to draw at­ tention to the pipeline’s threats. However, according to the Conservatives, a “radical ideological agenda” is at play, aided by “jet-setting celebrities,” which aims to “delay a project to the point it becomes economically unviable.”

This argument is a mix of misinformation, hysteria, and blatant hypocrisy, which has become Harper’s stan­ dard formula in attacking opponents. Undoubtedly, cer­ tain Canadian environmental groups do receive support from abroad—it is only normal that they would work with other groups who share their concern for protecting the planet. But the real threat is the corporate money that is being poured into the dirty business of extracting the tar sands. According to the Globe and Mail, such money is “welcome” in Harper’s Canada, even when it comes from disreputable anti-worker regimes such as China’s. In the midst of the manufactured hysteria, it bears not­ ing that, according to Environmental Defence, all of the environmental organizations intervening in the review are based in Canada, and 79 per cent of those registered to speak are B.C. residents. On the other hand, 10 of the 16 intervening oil companies have foreign-based head­ quarters.

Harper’s demonization of respected environmental organizations is a disgraceful tactic, deployed to ensure that the even more disgraceful business of extracting tarsands oil continues unabated. Socialists demand a halt to tar-sands extraction, and call for strong resistance to Harper’s belligerence against civil society groups, whose advocacy work represents an important expression of the exercise of democratic rights. n of class perspective. For what class programme does the NDP fight?

The ambiguity of the NDP’s stance underscores the need for NDP political education in the spirit of working-class independence from the system of exploitation, and from its state apparatus. So, when the NDP Socialist Caucus argues that, in order to survive, the NDP must turn sharply to the left, clearly it is no exaggeration. n battle demonstrated the absolute necessity of labor reaching out to all the oppressed and exploited—to the unemployed and youth, to the immigrant commu­ nities and oppressed nationalities. And it is essential to be on the alert for alliances with new movements that have been brought into being by virtue of a capi­ talist crisis for which there are no solutions other than deeper repression and incursions on working-class life.

History is replete with examples of workers finding these new allies and new forms of struggles, from the mass unemployment leagues of the 1930s and ’40s to the worker’s councils and assemblies that periodi­ cally rise up to provide new organizational forms to encompass all those who are driven to fight back in order to survive and to stand in solidarity with all others in the same situation.

The emerging Local 21 victory can only inspire even bolder and more conscious efforts. The first hard-fought victories after a long string of defeats are al­ ways among the most important and longest remem­ bered. They serve as an example to millions that a united labor movement in alliance with all its allies can win. n