May Day Greetings to working people around the world, struggling for peace, jobs, economic and social justice, democracy, equality, sovereignty and socialism!
May Day Greetings to the workers in Greece, France, Ireland, the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe, and other countries who have organized mass political strikes against the national and transnational corporations and their governments, which are responsible for global depression, mass unemployment, hunger and misery.
May Day Greetings to the people of Cuba as they celebrate 50 years of working class power in 2009, and to the people of Vietnam, who survived decades of continuous war to defeat French, Japanese and finally US imperialism, to achieve working class power and to build socialism. Holding their own against the power of US imperialism, their example is helping to create a better world, where people’s needs trump corporate greed. Today, despite US aggression and the economic blockade, Cuba has become the most influential state in Latin America, a beacon to those struggling against imperialism and neocolonialism, and a support to countries embarking on a socialist path.
May Day Greetings to all those struggling against imperialism, for national liberation and self-determination, including the heroic Palestinian people, and the people of South Africa, led by the alliance of the ANC, COSATU and the SACP in their struggle for a non-racialized and socialist future.
May Day Greetings to all those fighting against war and reaction, in particular the US-led occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, where Canada is also deeply involved, to those campaigning for the abolition of nuclear weapons and for collective security; and to all those struggling to save our planet from environmental catastrophe caused by imperialism’s predatory exploitation of nature.
Imperialism’s Offensive Against Labour
The economic recession, which is rapidly descending into global Depression, was caused by the insatiable greed of the corporations, and by their governments, which adopted neo-liberal policies of free trade, privatization, deregulation, corporate tax cuts, and attacks on labour and democratic rights. The capitalist meltdown is devastating industries and communities across Canada, such as auto and steel in Ontario, and forestry in Quebec and British Columbia.
Deregulation has freed the transnational corporations of restraints, enabling them to trample over national and international laws, risking the health and security of nations and peoples around the world, with the objective of increasing their super-sized profits.
In Canada, this agenda led to the listeria outbreak and the Walkerton tragedy, which caused the deaths of 30 people and permanent injury to hundreds more. In the name of “cutting red tape”, key parts of the health care system, post-secondary education, child care, social programs and transportation have been privatized. The neo-liberal drive has paved the way for TILMA, giving corporations the right to strike down municipal and provincial laws protecting public assets and programs built up by labour over generations.
The attack on civil, human and democratic rights has gained momentum since the so-called “anti-terrorism” legislation of 2001, in Canada and in other countries, enabled police to seize people and hold them indefinitely, without divulging charges or evidence.
The economic crisis is now being used to attack labour rights like a sledgehammer. Corporations and their governments demand trade unions open collective agreements and accept deep cuts to wages, benefits, and pensions, under threat of bankruptcy and the loss of all jobs, pensions and benefits. This union busting is happening in all the capitalist countries, carried out jointly by governments and corporations. The aim is to break the back of opposition to the massive redistribution of wealth from the pockets of workers to the bank accounts of the global corporate/capitalist elite.
Hammer or Anvil?
In Canada, the front line of the attack on labour is in the manufacturing sector. The union on the line this spring is the Canadian Auto Workers, traditionally the most militant private sector union and still the most resistant to concessions. The CAW is also still outside the Ontario Federation of Labour, and therefore more vulnerable. Corporations and governments are trying to turn unorganized, lower-paid workers against organized workers, falsely blaming the relatively high wages of unionized auto workers for the crisis. This campaign aims to pit worker against worker, and to blur or erase the class divide between workers and bosses.
While the union is weakened by these factors, and also by a tendency (since the Auto Pact was struck down in 2001 by the WTO) to accept responsibility for the corporate bottom line, the CAW has refused to make any further concessions despite intense pressure from the Harper Tories, the McGuinty Liberals, Obama and the Democrats, the Big Three auto makers, and the unorganized auto makers including Toyota, Honda, and other Asian and European auto makers with plants in Canada.
This is the cause that all of labour must rally to, with the understanding that an injury to one, is an injury to all. But this won’t be just an injury. If the corporations and their governments break the CAW, they set the pattern that federal Labour Minister Tony Clement wants, a pattern that will break the back of the trade union movement across Canada. This cannot be allowed to happen. Labour and its allies must meet the challenge by mobilizing workers across Canada to take mass independent labour political action to protect free collective bargaining, which is what the CAW’s struggle now represents.
The ferocity of the attack on auto workers and the CAW, and through them on all unions and all workers, has exposed capitalism’s authoritarian nature. The gloves are off and the right to free collective bargaining, the right to organize and strike, and virtually all labour rights are on the line. Right-wing, authoritarian governments like the Harper Tories are quite willing follow the example set by “Iron Heel” Bennett in the Dirty Thirties, when he attacked workers, jailed their leaders, passed anti-labour and antidemocratic laws. Like RB Bennett, Harper is prepared to do whatever it takes to save capitalism and corporate profits.
Labour has always been the main target of this right-wing, reactionary, corporate agenda. They know that labour is at the core of the resistance to right wing policies, and is at the core of the counteroffensive to push forward a people’s agenda. Labour’s militant action in France, Greece and in Latin America and other places, has frightened the right, and made them more determined to break the labour movement in North America before it too takes militant political action including general strikes to fightback.
Organize! Educate! Resist!
There is a rich history of working class struggle in Canada, including the Winnipeg General Strike, which took place 90 years ago in 1919. In October 1976, labour again took to the streets in a general strike against wage controls. Labour in Ontario organized rotating political strikes against the Harris government in 199697, which were on the verge of becoming province-wide before being cut down by right-wing leadership in the trade union movement. Since then, sectoral struggles across the country, especially in the public sector, have become more militant, and more inclusive of labour’s friends and allies. The call by the Confederation of National Trade Unions in Quebec for widespread protests on May 1 to fight for jobs and access to Employment Insurance benefits is an important step in the right direction.
There is no room for complacency today. Instead of summit meetings with governments and employers, the CLC must call together its affiliates and labour’s friends and allies to determine a course of militant, collective and workplace action. This will open up a mass struggle against the corporate offensive, to demand a People’s Agenda: free collective bargaining, a Canadian auto industry and manufacturing sector, good jobs and wages for all, secure pensions, strong and universal Medicare, public and post-secondary education, social programs, and child care, massive investment in affordable housing construction, progressive tax reform to put the load on the greedy not the needy, fair trade not free trade, serious action to cut greenhouse gas emissions and protect the environment, withdrawal from NAFTA, and a foreign policy of peace and disarmament, including the immediate withdrawal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan, reducing the arms budget by 50% and redirecting to civilian spending.
The NDP would be a stronger and more effective opposition in Parliament were it to wholeheartedly adopt these demands as its own, and support mass action, including strikes and occupations by workers and unions, and the public, under attack.
For our part, Communists in the labour movement will continue to fight for a strong, united and militant trade union movement and for independent labour political action in defence of workers jobs, rights and standards.
The Communist Party will continue to work to build a strong and broad-based People’s Coalition, including the labour and democratic movements, Aboriginal peoples, the womens’, seniors’, youth and students’ movements, and all those forces opposed to the demolition of free collective bargaining, jobs, pensions, and living standards, and the social gains of decades of struggle. A People’s Coalition which includes labour, NDPers, progressive Greens, Quebec Solidaire, the Communist Party, and others committed to a People’s Agenda, can build a powerful front of resistance, and campaign for a different future for working people in Canada.
Mass independent labour political action in Europe and elsewhere is building up a strong and united resistance. But it will take international labour unity and solidarity to move labour and its allies onto the counteroffensive to turn back the corporate assault. More than ever the trade union movement in Quebec and English-speaking Canada need to raise the banner of unity in the world trade union movement, advancing a common program of action between the International Trade Union Confederation and the World Federation of Trade Unions in defence of workers rights and interests, and against war and reaction.
Unity, solidarity and struggle! That’s the job on May Day 2009.
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