(The following articles are from the May 1-15, 2008, 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.)

Commentary by Sam Hammond, Chair of the Central Labour Commission, Communist Party of Canada

International May Day was born out of the conflict between capital and labour, a conflict that is unfinished. The very nature of an unfinished conflict demands reflection, analyses and planning, a global overview which includes phenomena that are a result of the class struggle which propels and dominates other world-wide, national and local developments.
     May Day is the day we took for ourselves, a day of our martyrs, a day of our achievements and our dreams. It is so reflective of the struggle for emancipation of the toiling masses that the evidence and proportion of its celebration is almost a measuring rod of the fightback by labour or social justice movements in a given time or place. In progressive states, it is a reflection of the revolution, and in some places of repression it is almost covert. In all places its reflective and analytical nature is not passive but alive and vibrant, a promise for us and a warning for our exploiters.

     In Canada this past year, we have witnessed the continuing spectre of de-industrialization, the massive loss of manufacturing jobs, the escalation of resource sellouts and exports of energy.

     The unfettered globalized movement of capital has imported the international neoliberal agenda, the so-called market economy which is played out in the co-operation and competition of imperialist states, with the Canadian ruling elite as junior partners. It is logical that this condition will develop and escalate as imperialism reaches more terrible levels of barbarism, environmental destruction and war in their competition for global resource and market domination.

     It is also logical and necessary that the forces of peace and socialism develop to higher degrees as the only known antidote. The defining factor will be to what extent forces can be brought together on minimum programs of resistance that, no matter how transient, have the unifying qualities of common purpose and the potential to escalate the fight-back and inject new hope and purpose into the class struggle. Canadian labour doesn't have to re-invent the wheel, but unless the decline of effectiveness is halted, the percentages of attrition are reversed, and a new social movement is inspired, labour as we know it could fall into a very diminished role.

     Canadian labour has learned to do many things very well. It   has learned to litigate and advocate and to strike and struggle. But these things come in degrees; whether they are in the stage of growth or ebb is the barometer. The labour movement is the most important weapon, instrument or vehicle of the working people. It is our hope and our movement that we fought for, so we have the right to worry over its possible lethargy, its absence from the streets where we live and the hearts of our youth. If labour doesn't exist in the passion and consciousness of our youth, it exists only in the present.

     The percentage of Canadian workers organized is between 30 and 33%. Only 12% of young workers between 16 and 24 are organized. With the massive loss of better paying manufacturing jobs, these youth are being stratified and attached permanently to low-paid, part-time service jobs. For generations labour has abandoned workers in small enterprises as too expensive to organize, not a viable dues base. With the technological revolution and decentralization of production, these enterprises employ almost 70% of the total Canadian workforce. De-industrialization has not changed the figures, but merely shifted them from industrial production to service and retail jobs. With an almost entirely unorganized workforce, the small enterprises have been able to set the pace, operating without the organized resistance that might have put up a fight against NAFTA and neo-liberalism.

     One of the measuring sticks, a definitive point in labour relations, is contracting out of jobs and other "exceptions" within a collective agreement. The value of a collective agreement is that its universality ends competition and discrimination between workers, forging unity in a workplace. Departures from equality and universality are measurements of how far a union leadership or membership has been penetrated by the agenda of the employers. The idea of giving up union jobs to outside non-union contractors as a trade-off for keeping a plant open or saving the employer money recruits workers into a jobs-trust mentality, a collaboration with employers against other members of our own class, our own children.

     The argument that these are not concessions because they will take place by attrition, and not cause layoffs of existing workers, only reinforces the mentality of a jobs trust. Outsiders don't matter. How will the union workers in Ford and GM will look to young janitors or loading dock workers who will not be allowed to join their union, who are second-class? Should the workers abandoned by labour be expected to fight for labour? Do we have the right to demand their loyalty when they are not in the fold and will never be?

     The serious challenges of job protection and maintenance of standards in a hostile environment are staggering. The response in most areas has been militant and admirable, like the "no two tier wage" stands of the CAW and CEP. There have also been some less than admirable retreats elsewhere. These dual roles might puzzle some, but they are completely in line with a movement that has not made up its mind to throw in the towel, but is not sure how to fight.

     Only one approach can save the day. Organize, renew ties with the social justice and fight-back movements, build new relationships with every street level group grappling with the effects of poverty and exploitation. Set up massive campaigns for housing and full employment, shorter work weeks and longer holidays.    

     But most of all, organize the un-organized. Re-learn how to talk to the working poor in their own language with their own recruits, and if they cannot support the present dues base, better analyse what to do about this. There are more workers, not less. Despite NAFTA, deep integration, Atlantica, TILMA, the attack on education, and a minimum wage that doesn't provide a minimum life, our numbers continue to grow. Organize the un-organized and they will sustain labour into a new social movement; continue to ignore them and labour will perish or become an ineffective corporate partner, part of the establishment helping to control our own rebellious children.

     No real trade unionist would stand idly by and watch this happen. Later this month, the Canadian Labour Congress convention in Toronto will grapple with this challenge. We are confident that the delegates, the elected representatives of our movement and our class, will use their abilities to find the ways to fight for our future.

     May Day Greetings! Solidarity, peace and socialism!