(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2009, 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.)

PV Ontario Bureau

Hamilton - A massive rally and march down the main streets here on March 21 launched the CLC's Canada-wide campaign to Fix Employment Insurance. The focus was on 1500 workers at US Steel in Hamilton and Lake Erie who will be seeking EI and new jobs after the indefinite closure of the mills which have been continuously producing for over 100 years - until now.

     Opening the rally of more than 2,000 at the Hamilton Convention Centre, Steelworkers' Local 1005 President Rolf Gerstenberger said the economic crisis "demands a response equal in scale" to the wrecking underway, and demanded action from Ottawa and Queen's Park to keep Stelco mills producing.

     Gerstenberger called for emergency measures "to legislate public control over the wholesale trade in steel to guarantee a viable self-reliant Canadian steel industry with stable wholesale market prices that reflect the price of steel production, (legislate to) guarantee the solvency of all Canadian steelworkers' pension funds, and (legislate to) reinvest steel value added back into existing steel plants" and expand to build new plants across Canada. He said the government should take over foreign owned steel operations and assume responsibility for pension and benefit obligations if these companies refuse to comply.   

     "(People's) needs cannot wait for `the market to improve' as the CEO of US Steel John Surma so very casually declares, a man who last year personally took over $11 million from the production of steelworkers," said Gerstenberger. 

     CLC Vice President Hassan Youssuff pounded the federal government for its theft of EI funds, used by Liberal and Tory governments to pay down the deficit and fund corporate tax cuts. Now, fewer than 25% of contributors across Canada are able to collect EI when they need it, he said, adding that women contributors have even less access, and women of colour even less than that. The CLC is demanding a reduction in the hours required to qualify, elimination of the two-week waiting period, extension of benefit payouts to 52 weeks, and a substantially increased benefit payout.

     The CAW's Peggy Nash attacked Chrysler for its threat to pull out of Canada if the CAW didn't agree to more layoffs, pay cuts, and concessions.

     "If they want to go, let them go - but the plants and equipment stay here," she said to thunderous applause. In exchange, the government would take over the Big Three pension and benefit obligations, and build cars.

     "We need EI and we need severance, but what we really need and want is jobs", Nash said to more applause.

     CUPE President Paul Moist talked about the attack on social programs and the public sector, and called for all‑out unity between private and public sector workers against right wing governments and the corporations they represent. Again, the hall erupted in thunderous applause.

     The speaker's line‑up included a woman from the Lake Erie Works who had just received her layoff notice; she spoke about the dignity and security that her job provided for more than a decade to herself and her four children, one of whom is severely disabled.

     A Local 1005 steelworker and poet put into words the anger and pain of laid-off workers at the company and governments responsible. The young daughter of another laid-off steelworker spoke of family and community solidarity in the uncertain future.

     After a boisterous rally, thousands marched through the city and finished up with speeches from ONDP leader Andrea Horwath and NDP MP Christopherson, who railed at the companies but did not reference the calls for public takeovers. "Buy Canadian" said Horwath, advocating the NDP's main policy plank dealing with the economic crisis.

     The Communist Party was also active at the rally, handing out a special message to Steelworkers, and the CPC's new campaign leaflet calling for broad unity and mass action to beat back the corporate offensive. 

     Bob Mann, a CPC spokesperson in Hamilton and longtime steelworker at the Hilton Works, said "federal and provincial governments must act to protect jobs and this community, and they have to act in the interests of Canada for a national steel industry. All of the infrastructure programs in the world can't be delivered, without a basic steel industry. Governments in Canada have to guarantee this, and the labour and its community allies have to make them do it."

     CPC (Ontario) leader Liz Rowley said Investment Canada's decision to allow the sale of Stelco to US Steel just over a year ago shows that the Harper government is a barker for US based transnational corporations to buy up what's left of Canadian owned industry. 

     "Clearly, US Steel is closing the Hamilton mills, at a cost of millions of dollars, with the aim of gutting collective agreements and slashing jobs and wages, just like they've done in the States.  They'll re‑open here in Hamilton if they can do it, or keep it closed if they can't - it's that simple," said Rowley.

     "Local 1005 is quite right to call for public ownership and democratic control of the Hilton and Lake Erie Works if US Steel won't keep the mills working. There is no other choice except to bow down, and that's no choice at all," she said.

     "Between US Steel and the Big Three US automakers, there is every reason for the federal and provincial governments to nationalize the Canadian operations of these companies, and take over their pension and benefit obligations as payment. These operations are at the very heart of Canada's manufacturing and secondary industry, and are the engine of the Canadian economy. 

     "Let's operate them in the interests of Canadians, putting Canada back to work in good unionized jobs with good pay and pensions, producing steel and steel products that can be used to build affordable social housing, public hospitals and clinics, public schools and post‑secondary institutions, a universal quality child care system, municipally owned clean water and sewage plants, roads and bridges, a Canadian car that's small, affordable, fuel efficient and environmentally sustainable along with mass rapid transit and light rail and intercity transit. 

     "The sky's the limit when we're talking about a new made‑in‑Canada industrial strategy that addresses the long and short‑term needs of Canada and Canadian workers", said Rowley. "We need to build up a powerful movement for this kind of future for Canada. The corporate option of plant closures or wage cuts (or both), is based on greed, the same greed that brought the world into deep recession. Another world is possible, and urgent."