(The following article is from theSeptember 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: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers and  overseas readers - $50 per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

Labour Day Statement from the Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada

     We are approaching the first anniversary of the greatest financial crisis the capitalist system has given us since the 1930s. The 46% of the hundreds of thousands of unemployed who qualified for Employment Insurance will soon join the 54% who were outright cheated of entitlement. The time for an angry and militant movement for redress is long overdue. It is quite possible that their anger will be the only source of heat some Canadian families will have this winter.

     The great depression of the 1930s spawned the growth of a new militancy and maturity, which gave birth to the CIO and the rise of industrial labour battles fought out into the 1960s and only checked by the imposition of McCarthyism and anti‑communism.

     The second largest crisis, in which we are deeply involved, may well be the beginning of a perhaps even larger "great depression." After almost eight decades, this time with an established labour movement representing about 32% of the Canadian working class, we are on the threshold of major struggle. The need for this struggle has been thrust upon us not only by the inborn contradictions of a social system that has matured in its imperialist stage into social rigor mortis, but by three decades of relentless neo‑liberal attack, reduced social programs and stagnating wages.

     Big business was forced to yield some important concessions to labour's economic and social demands following WWII, both because they could afford it due to high and relatively uninterrupted growth, and out of fear that the social programs in the socialist world were attracting support for socialism among workers in the "West". But when growth inevitably slowed and the rate of profit plunged, capital launched a counter‑offensive against labour and intensified its Cold War against the socialist states.

     Across the 60's and 70's, Canada was one of the world's leaders in production hours lost due to strike action. Capitalism answered with the neo‑liberal agenda of Reagan and Thatcher. This meant deregulated markets and workplaces, sweeping privatization, imposed fiscal austerity, trade agreements to allow unfettered capital flow across borders, and erosion of sovereignty in second rate capitalist states and the third world. The super-profits accumulated in this transfer of wealth were less and less reinvested into the real economy, which was already suffering from surplus production and shrinking consumer markets caused by rising unemployment and diminishing wages. Instead, the super-profits were pumped into the casino world of financial adventurism where money itself became a commodity, as did its flip side, debt. This aggravated the built‑in cyclical crisis into a major implosion that has created a hemorrhage of job loss, industrial destruction, and shrinking domestic markets.

     Canadian Labour has been wrestling with the offensive for decades. So far, the score card between resistance and compliance is heavily weighted towards compliance, with some notable exceptions, mainly from the public sector. Under the guise of "labour flexibility" (speed‑up and increased output), the pressure of mounting unemployment (cheap or desperate labour reserves), transfer of production to third world cheap wage zones (NAFTA, IMF), the demand for two‑tier bargaining and defined contribution pension plans, the labour movement in the private (and especially industrial) sector quietly slipped into concession bargaining. It was minimal at first but quickly accelerated into a real threat once the corporations got a taste of blood. There were also co-management schemes to help employers compete more effectively against our own brothers and sisters employed elsewhere, and "voluntary recognition agreements" to gain members by giving up the right to strike.

     Concurrently during the same period were the Ontario Days of Action, the Ontario teachers strike, the BC Health Workers militant struggles, and the BC Teachers strike that compelled the Campbell Liberals to negotiate. The workers at CN Rail mounted a very militant strike that was inconclusive due to weak leadership and a raid by the Teamsters. There were other smaller struggles across Canada and Quebec. The workers were far from passive. The CAW experimented with concessions, but was also the most militant in the "Days of Action" and other street level solidarity and resistance skirmishes.

     Since the advent of the financial crisis, the attack has escalated. The Harper Tories have injected massive amounts of capital into the banks and auto companies while joining the corporations to demand major give‑backs from the embattled CAW as a condition for the capital injection. While fighting a weighted media battle to point out that the workers were not responsible for the crisis, the CAW was left to face their antagonists almost alone. The attack on the CAW was the "softening up" formula for application against organized labour everywhere, witness the attack on CUPE in the recent Windsor and Toronto civic strikes, and the attack on Steelworkers in Sudbury, Voisey's Bay and Port Colborne.

     The demands being made on workers will negatively affect their future quality of life for generations. Summed up they are: if you want to eke out an existence today you must sell out the youth and the future. Two tier wages, benefits, pensions, contracting out, and individual contracts instead of collective bargaining. After wringing these take‑backs out of the workers, the bosses say "for this, we promise nothing." It is painfully and increasingly clear that traditional strategies and tactics in collective bargaining are inadequate.

     The assault on the anti‑capitalist left carried out after the Second World War and throughout the remaining 20th century was precisely to set the stage for the disorientation of labour. There has not been the urgency or anger from the leadership of the trade unions that one would expect when hundreds of thousands of working people are being disenfranchised and impoverished. The anger of industrial workers could be seen in Oshawa and Windsor and in many small strikes across the land, but disorientation has been there also. That is perhaps inevitable for a short time because of the immensity of the attack and the shock of not having a "Plan B." Such a plan must recognize the cause of our misery - the "for profit only" imperialist system - and the need to control and destroy it. Imperialism is just capitalism in its old age. It has lived far too long and has nothing to offer working people but more of the same. Those who want to patch the system up and make it work are really helping it to exploit us, and aiding its ability to wage war and extract plunder.

     There is a need to redevelop the labour left and recapture the ideology of resistance. But it does not necessarily follow that there should be an attack on leadership or abandonment of the need for labour unity. In fact, the struggle for labour unity is a struggle to turn leadership in the direction of resistance, to support the best elements and develop allies for them. This is a struggle to turn leadership away from business trade unionism, with its raiding, deal making, collaboration and narrow social vision. If leadership refuses to struggle on behalf of its own members, and to take up the fight for the people on a broader front, selflessly representing our entire class, then they should step aside and let others lead. The role of the left is to fight for unity in action around the concrete needs of people, to show how this is a historical struggle that requires scientific analyses and practical experience, looking for any and all possibilities to forge unity and gain experience. The struggle itself will expose sellout and opportunism within our ranks by those who would make unity impossible by the pursuit of their own selfish agendas.

     A resurgence of the left, expressed in a renewed labour fightback, will of necessity reach out to the social justice movements and make serious demands on politicians and their parties. There must be the election of more progressive representatives to Parliament, including Communists. The fight must be taken from the streets, the farms and the workplaces into Parliament, into the very instrument of the capitalist class. There can be no peace without justice and no justice without struggle. This litmus test should be rigorously applied to political parties claiming to be "friends" of Labour, such as the New Democrats and the Liberals. Let all parties and their representatives be viewed and judged by the people. Let us see who owns democracy in Canada.

     There is a world of difference between sellout and making mistakes, so we should choose our words wisely. Making mistakes is not a crime. Repeating them endlessly is. We need a strong debate in the working class and in particular in organized labour. Sharp debate, unity in action and uncompromising dedication are needed. We admire this in Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, who live amongst us. We make legends of our deceased heroes and heroines for these qualities. Why not look around us, why not look in our workplaces, our unions and our families? Why not look at ourselves. We can do this. Are we lesser than our parents and grandparents?