Written by Adam Fulsom
Source: Fightback
Wednesday, 16 April 2008
Ontario can now be considered to be in the middle of a manufacturing crisis. Over 300,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost in just a few short years; decent jobs that people can build lives, families and communities on. Those living in the Ottawa valley and Thousand Islands area felt the harsh impact of the so called Free Trade Agreement, with huge plant closures and job losses in the early 90's. Now round two is upon us.
Brockville, Ontario, is what an outside observer might call a quaint little community of around 30,000. A beautiful and historic downtown on the shores of the St Laurence, with many nice parks and large mansions – a great place to raise a family. What a passer-by might not notice, however, is the very large class divide which is growing ever wider. Unemployment and social assistance claims in Leeds-Grenville are some of the highest in Ontario. Ever since the 1990's, decent jobs have been hard to come by in the area and many people are left without. For those who manage to find work in the area, things are not at all easy. Most new jobs in the area are usually quite low paying, unstable and or seasonal. To make matters worse, the new manufacturing crisis is now hitting the area, threatening those few decent jobs that remain and the whole community.
Sherwood Packaging, a large employer in Brockville, has announced its planned closure. Why exactly is it they are closing? They cite the decline in domestic demand for their packaging as their primary reason. However, the reality is that they simply want to shift work to low wage countries in South America and China instead of paying the workers in Brockville a decent wage. On March 20th, around the same time as the announced closure of the Brockville plant, the company opened a new plant near Shanghai China. The Brockville plant is not in financial crisis and could easily shift to packaging new materials or diversifying outwards. However, these capitalists do not wish to invest in the Brockville plant, which has been a very productive facility, they would rather just shut the whole plant down and open a new one somewhere else where they can get a better bang for their buck. Now, because of capitalism and its law of putting profit above people, 250 people in Brockville will lose their jobs and either be unemployed, be forced to move from the community, or take a new job in the area which will in all likelihood be lower paying and much less secure.
The closure of the Hershey plant in nearby Smith Falls and the devastating impact it has had on the whole community is still fresh in the minds of Leeds-Grenvillers. The community tried to rally behind the workers and demand the plant stay open, but unfortunately the movement lacked a solid leadership that was willing to do what it takes to fight back against big business and capitalism. This resulted in the closure of the plant and despair. However, what we are seeing now is that it is possible to fight back against these plant closures. Workers in Mississauga and elsewhere have recently occupied their closing workplaces and demanded compensation, and WON! This proves that brave, radical action is effective and is in fact the only tactic that workers and the community can take when faced with closures and layoffs. However, we must also think beyond the immediate, and begin to demand quality jobs for all, not simply a temporary hand out. We want save jobs and communities and the only way we can do that is through militancy, like the workers struggles in our grandparents time which won us so many of the things we now enjoy. We must get rid of this system that puts profits over people. A plant like Shorewood should be nationalized to save the jobs that are essential for the community. It could be run by the workers themselves, who would democratically run the plant in cooperation with the community. It is not a pipe dream, but actually being done in such countries like Venezuela where, amongst others, the paper and cardboard production plant Venepal was nationalized in 2005. However, we can only achieve such things through hard fought struggle, nationalization under workers control and democratic socialist planning. In order to save jobs and communities we must unite together and renew the struggle for a just society, a socialist society. This is the only real future for Brockville, its workers and its people.
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