01) LABOUR ON THE ROAD TO A BETTER WORLD

The 2008 Canadian Labour Congress Convention takes place in an environment of a prolonged and expanding assault on Canadian sovereignty, a struggle over control of our resources, the destruction of our manufacturing base and almost complete foreign control of transportation.

     When does a state stop being a sovereign body? When does government become an administrative tool for foreign capital and at war with the majority of the population it is supposed to represent and protect? These phenomena exist in degrees, but we are getting very close to the absolute, a political and economic meltdown. The instruments of our antagonists are encapsulated into capital letter abbreviations: NAFTA, TILMA, ATLANTICA. Their intent is more wordy: deep integration into the USA: integrated policing, integrated continental military and defence.

     The Canadian steel industry is now foreign owned, and that includes control of iron ore and other related resources. We will now produce ingots for manufacturing and refinement elsewhere, the export of jobs. Almost 500,000 jobs have been lost in manufacturing alone since the inception of NAFTA, with 14,900 in April alone bringing the twelve month total to 111,500. 29,000 of these lost jobs were in British Columbia, 13,000 in Quebec, and even Alberta lost 11,000. More than 30,000 woodland and related jobs and gone. The entire auto industry is hanging by a thread that could be cut at any time if the extortionists of Wall Street cannot extract concessions and government handouts. The two-faced champions of the so-called "Free Market System" hypocritically demand access to the public purse to finance and retool their places of exploitation. The governments cough up and starve our own social programs.

     The left, including the Communist Party, most NDPers and labour, predicted this situation almost exactly in the fight against free trade. Unfortunately Ed Broadbent, in the fateful 1988 election where Mulroney was selling free trade, put it as number 13 on his list of priorities; the militant and spirited labour campaign did not have an electoral expression, except for the Communist Party which they did not support.

     Since then, Labour has not found a way to effectively campaign for the repeal of NAFTA and the creation of protective measures for our jobs and future. In fact the Canadian Labour Congress and the Ontario Federation of Labour, where the biggest haemorrhage has taken place, seem to almost be in a state of blissful slumber throughout the carnage.

     The Labour movement is in a tough environment for negotiating, and the pressures are very intense. However, the dangerous experiments in concession bargaining, contracting out, contracting in, permanent part-time without pensions or benefits, and multi-tiered wage structures, could introduce terrible dangers to the existence of the movement.

     Contracting in workers who are not "core" or "production" who are excluded from union membership effectively puts an end to the closed shop that was fought for, suffered for by generations. Giving up union jobs to purchase a collective agreement or a vague promise of job security creates a jobs trust mentality that divides workers and takes the "collective" out of collective bargaining. It also abandons the youth who are vital to the replenishment of membership, vitality and leadership.

     But what is the alternative? What is to be done? How do you bargain in an environment of job loss and plant closures, of rapacious employers and hostile government? If that's all there is, you don't.

     But that is not all there is. This is why unity with the social justice movements, extra-parliamentary political action, winning of public support, and ultimately a parliamentary expression of what has been created at ground zero, are absolutely necessary. This will take time and effort, but the process itself creates an atmosphere where labour will grow both ideologically and in numbers, and a social movement conducive to organizing like the 1930's and 1940's.

     At the 2005 CLC Convention, Carol Wall ran for the presidency, calling for strategic leadership on building new solid relationships with the social justice and anti-poverty movements. Opposed by virtually every major union leadership, she won 38% of the votes from delegates who were ready for a change, for resistance and fight back. The message was clear but apparently fell on deaf ears.

     The CLC, the CNTU, the QFL, provincial bodies and local labour councils, have the potential to become catalysts for the resentment of social activists who are looking down a dark hallway, trying to fight local skirmishes against privatization and super-exploitation, trying to defend what we have created over the generations. Labour must be the catalyst and throw resources, leadership and experience into the struggle to save our country and its resources. Labour can unite the nations within Canada and all their democratic institutions, and it must.

     Labour itself is the main target of our exploiters, because they know how dangerous labour can be to their junior partner existence of selling us out to the neo-liberal agenda of global capital. For Labour to survive it must kick up the ante. Collective bargaining, the closed shop, better labour laws conducive to organizing and expansion can be won on the very streets where they were won before. The example of the International Longshore and Warehousing Union in their magnificent stand against the Iraq war and their solidarity with Iraqi workers demonstrates what labour can do. The militancy and spirit of Canadian workers has never been broken. It may get bent occasionally but we are resilient.

     There is a better world possible. The road that goes there is the labour and peoples movements. It is a road of innovative method and militant application, and there is no other road.

     People in Cuba are on that road, and so are the Venezuelans, but they are not alone. All over Latin America, Asia, Africa, Europe and North America, the skirmishes are being fought out and the movements inspired. There must be a better world. A world where we listen to the First Nations and protect Mother Earth, a world where all our children are fed from our wealth of food, where smiles replace tears, where the horrible and barbarous weapons of war are outlawed. A world where we fight the disease of poverty with good food, fresh safe water and universal healthcare. We think that is a world of socialism, but the discussion can take place along the road.

     Good luck and solidarity with the CLC delegates as they struggle with these vital matters!