News and views from SA Canada Toronto Mayor Rob Ford — Cracked but still on track

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Heinz to close Leamington ketchup plant — Nationalize it under workers’ control! 8 SOCIALIST ACTION DECEMBER 2013 Too much ink already has been spilled to expose the antics of Toronto’s crack smoking, drunk driving, seri­ al lying, gangster-linked mayor. The butt of late-night comedy TV, Rob Ford is merely the unvarnished ver­ sion of the establishment hardware.

But behind the ongoing Rob Ford soap opera are a few noteworthy points:

The bourgeoisie in Canada’s biggest city is far from infallible. They committed a whopping error of judge­ ment. By backing Ford, as some high rollers did, to channel popular resentment against the liberal-social democratic David Miller City Hall regime, and for fail­ ing to stop Ford (despite his well known fatal flaws)

prior to the 2010 municipal election, the corporate elite got much more instability than they bargained for.

When embarrassed and beset by the eccentric, bel­ ligerent and obstinate Ford brothers (suburban city councillors Doug and Rob), the city fathers didn’t stand on ceremony. They wielded, twisted and re-pur­ posed the rules to strip Rob Ford of his mayoral pow­ ers to appoint and initiate. But be very certain of this:

in the event that Toronto ever elects a socialist mayor, the agents of Capital will use the same select punitive procedures to hobble an insurgent left. Ergo the need to base a Labour City Hall on mobilized workers out­ side the stately edifice.

Unaffected, and perhaps abetted by the tantrums, abject apologies and woozy spectacles of distraction, are the policies that keep the burden of funding To­ ronto’s crumbling infrastructure on cash-strapped workers, seniors, and the poor, while minimizing the taxation of the super-rich. While the business media declared war on the Fords, there is no business war being waged against poverty, homelessness, traffic gridlock, inadequate childcare, and environmental The H.J. Heinz Company, the largest employer in Leamington, Ontario, plans to shut the doors on its century-old food processing plant in June 2014. The plant, which is Heinz’s second largest facility in the world, manufactures processed foods. It employs 740 full-time positions and up to 500 seasonal positions, all members of the United Food and Com­ mercial Workers (UFCW) Local 459.

The closure will also impact local farm­ ers who have grown tomatoes for gener­ ations in southwestern Ontario. It is one of Canada’s warmest areas, with one of the longest growing seasons, known lo­ cally as the “Sun Parlor.” The facility was originally built in the area also due to the sandy soil and light rains that provide excellent conditions for growing field to­ matoes.

The plan to close the Heinz plant coin­ cides with closures in South Carolina and Indiana, reducing the workforce by 1350 positions. This move follows the axing of 600 office jobs last summer after a $28 billion takeover by Warren Buffet’s Berk­ shire Hathaway Inc. and the hedge fund 3G Capital, a Brazilian investment firm. Heinz claims that sales in its North Amer­ ican division dropped by 1.4 per cent, or $46 million (U.S.), to $3.2 billion in the last fiscal year.

The company claims that it has too much manufacturing capacity to meet the demand for ketchup, sauces, baby food, and other products. Production will be shifted to their lower wage facility in Ohio, which will add 250 positions and invest $28 million to expand the plant.

Heinz has contracts with more than 40 area farms to buy 40 per cent of Ontario’s 500,000-tonne tomato crop. Now farm­ ers are asking for compensation from Heinz for the cancellation of their con­ tracts and for work they have already put into next year’s crops.

The farmers who were under contract to supply Heinz with tomatoes are left trying to find a new crop to plant in the spring, and some way to replace the busi­ ness that has kept their farms busy and profitable for generations. The closure will have a major negative impact on an entire region.

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne claims that the Ontario government “did everything we could” to prevent closure of the plant. The Liberal leader has of­ fered $200,000 to, as she says, “help” the community of Leamington identify and pursue new opportunities for growth. This pittance of $160 per full-time, part-time, and seasonal position has under­ standably enraged workers who depend on these jobs.

The hands-off approach of the Bay Street parties is no surprise. NDP MPP Taras Natyshak (Essex) criticized the government for not heeding warnings of the closure months in advance and pointed out the hypocrisy of the ruling Liberals, saying, “Your Liberal govern­ ment keeps talking about local food … but stands idly by as processing facilities degradation. The only war we see is on workers, like garbage collectors, bus drivers, and rec centre staff. If City Hall pushed progressive change at the speed pipelines will move hazardous bitumen though Can­ ada’s most densely populated urban corridor, a new day would truly be dawning. The question is why lead­ ers of the unions and the NDP, and all the so-called “progressives” currently on Toronto city council, have not seized on the Ford debacle to trash the corporate agenda and set the stage for transformative action on inequality and urban decay?

Of course, that would require a break with higher user fees and putting a halt to pandering to big busi­ ness as practiced by the David Miller/Joe Pantalone regime. Instead, Toronto’s labour leadership is taking workers down the primrose path of liberal, middle class politics towards the October 2014 municipal shut their doors and devastate communi­ ties.” Wynne’s response was to attack the NDP for attempting to “control the pri­ vate sector,” something that she said she would not do.

The NDP should be calling for the gov­ ernment to force Heinz to compensate the farmers for all costs to date and hon­ our their contracts. The Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association is on record since 2010 (when other process­ ing companies were failing) with its de­ mand that the government create a Farm Financial Protection Program (similar to that for beef farmers) for horticulture producers. Such legislation should be introduced immediately to protect all farmers from corporate failures.

Tim Hudak, leader of the Provincial Progressive Conservative Party, claimed that the plant closed due to high corpo­ rate taxes—a cruel joke considering that Ontario has some of the lowest corporate tax rates in North America.

On Nov. 26 the Ontario Federation of Labour Convention adopted a resolution with no teeth, submitted by the UFCW Canada National Council. It calls on the provincial government “to take what­ ever action is necessary to support con­ tinued production at the facility.” A del­ egate who spoke to this issue urged the labour body to look at social struggles in Argentina and Bolivia that advanced the idea of workers’ control of closed plants, supported by government financial aid, as examples of what should be done in Leamington. Party across Toronto and York Region to adopt poli­ cies and to select candidates to fight for a Labour City Hall, we witness a relapse to the tactics that utterly failed in 2010.

The “Municipal Political Action Conference,” spon­ sored by Toronto and York Region Labour Council on Nov. 16, was “designed for everyone who plans to get involved in the 2014 Municipal/School Board elec­ tions.” That meant it didn’t matter what one’s poli­ cies what one’s links to big business parties, like the Liberal Party, might be. Ignored is the reality that the Liberals share responsibility for cutbacks, privatizing public services, giving tax breaks to the rich, and cur­ tailing the right to strike.

Quite revealing was the fact that the conference “Guest Speaker” was Jeremy Bird, former national field director for the 2012 re-election campaign of President Barack Obama. Bird, readers will recall, was the target of a high-profile protest that forced him to cut short his speech at the NDP federal convention in Montreal in April 2013. It is shameful, and sadly in­ dicative, that Toronto and York Region Labour Coun­ cil officials would invite this “field director” for the pro-austerity, pro-big business bail-out, drone-wars regime in Washington.

The lessons of the failed David Miller mayorship, and the feckless 2010 “labour” municipal campaign, are glaring. The situation cries out for a political al­ ternative.

Instead of a multi-class, liberal smorgasbord of can­ didates and policies, labour needs an election team that demands: a free and greatly expanded rapid transit system, reversal of the cutbacks and privatiza­ tions, the mass construction of quality social housing to curb homelessness and poverty, a big expansion of quality childcare, and much greater support for the arts, parkland, and community sports facilities. To fund this agenda it is necessary to heavily tax the big land developers, property speculators, big business­ es, the banks, religious institutions, and the rich.

The corporate elite is scrambling to find their “unity” candidate for mayor. Perhaps it will be former provin­ cial Conservative leader John Tory, or a right wing city councillor like Denzil Minnan-Wong or Karen Stintz.

So now is the time for the left to seize the opportuni­ ty. Ford’s fall from grace, and the momentary disarray of the right wing on city council is just the occasion to convene a real Labour Political Action Conference aimed at choosing policies and candidates to fight for, and to win a Workers’ Government at Toronto City Hall in 2014. n A leader of the UFCW stated, “Today’s announcement is another example of a transnational private equity firm swoop­ ing into a Canadian community and suck­ ing up the hard-earned value of an op­ eration that was built by generations of hard-working Canadian and their fami­ lies.”

Paul Meinema, president of the UFCW Canada National Council, said, “This lat­ est closure is another strong example of why our federal government desperately needs to review and reform existing for­ eign investment legislation, and to intro­ duce a new approach that finally puts Canadians and the well-being of their communities first.”

However, efforts to protect jobs and benefits for workers need to take a class approach. Canadian nationalism ben­ efits only the bosses. It deflects attention away from the real problem, capitalism. The maximization of private profits, a driving force of the global capitalist sys­ tem, is the culprit in this drama.

The corporate attack on the workers and farmers in Leamington will devas­ tate the region’s economy, a region al­ ready reeling from closures in the manu­ facturing sector in nearby Windsor, On­ tario (just across the river from Detroit). Workers and farmers have power if they unite. In this case, workers in Leaming­ ton should occupy the factory, take con­ trol of the machinery, and operate the equipment for food processing—a so­ cially useful function.

Only through public ownership and democratic control of the food industry can workers and farmers continue their vital work and sustainably provide a variety of locally grown and locally pro­ cessed foods to a vast region. n