Found at:
http://www.peoplesvoice.ca/articleprint/Manufacturing_jobs_vanishing_-_Editorial.html
Manufacturing
jobs vanishing - Editorial
(The
following article is from
the July 1-31,
2007
issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles
can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in
Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per
year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to:
People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St. Unit 502,
Hamilton,
ON, L8P 2H3.)
People's
Voice Editorial, July 1-31, 2007
Another
58,000 private sector
jobs disappeared in May, 12,000 in the manufacturing sector, according
to Statistics Canada. Under pressure from the rising Canadian dollar,
manufacturing has shed 64,000 jobs since January, and over 250,000 over
the past five years. This is a crisis with grave
implications. The
number of Canadians who wanted to work in May but did not have a job
stood at 1,083,600. The economy is losing higher-paying, full-time
jobs, forcing workers into lower-paying, insecure, part-time
employment, usually in sales and services. The declining quality of
work is affecting millions of Canadian families.
What are the
solutions to this
crisis? Speaking for the bosses, the Bank of Canada claims that the
economy is operating "above capacity," and plans to raise interest
rates. The federal government is expanding its temporary foreign worker
program. Both policies will increase the "reserve army of the
unemployed," with the goal of driving down wage levels to increase
corporate profits. Some in the labour movement argue for more
government subsidies to industry - a call for "more capitalism" to
address a crisis created by capitalism. Such handouts may bring
temporary benefits to certain sectors, but with a long term cost:
capitalists will always use higher profits to invest in new
labour-saving technologies.
The real
answer lies in a
combination of policies for immediate and long-term change, starting
with laws to prevent plant closures and protect workers' wages and
pensions, and a two-year notice of mass layoffs. We need expanded
public ownership of industries and resources (respecting Aboriginal
land claims), reversal of "continental integration" into the USA, and
reduction of foreign ownership levels.
Without such
policies, Canada
will inevitably be reduced to a supplier of raw materials for the US
imperialist war machine. But we are confident that a powerful struggle
for progressive change, led by the working class and its allies, can
turn Canada in a positive direction.