Labour Day 2007 Message from the Central Trade Union Commission, Communist Party of Canada

This Labour Day, 2007, the non-corporate strata of the Canadian population, most of whom are working class, are poised on the cusp of a social haemorrhage potentially more terrible than the Depression and suffering of the 1930s. The emerging blueprints for social plunder on the drafting boards of neo-cons, inspired by  US imperial corporate agendas and served by aspiring neo-pawns in Mexico and Canada, are a dire threat to our sovereignty, our jobs, our social programs and world peace. The over 250,000 manufacturing jobs lost since NAFTA (50,000 since January this year), and the loss of more than 20,000 forest-related BC jobs in the last twenty years, are merely an indicator, the tip of the iceberg of the social blood-letting on the agenda if the corporate plans are not derailed.

     The Canadian Labour Congress, the Canadian Autoworkers, United Steelworkers the Teachers, CUPE, Canadian Energy and Paperworkers and others have launched a Manufacturing Jobs Campaign in response to this crisis as it plays out. After years of rest, this is an inspiring effort that brought over 40,000 into the streets of Windsor and several thousand to Parliament Hill, and numerous smaller local protests. But the very nature of the campaign, its impetus, begs for escalation, for a renewed militancy, unity and new responses. This poses the essential challenge to labour in the next few years; the response will be the decisive factor determining the future of labour in Canada, and even the future of the Canadian state.

     The leaders of the CAW have repeated over and over that the ills of the Auto industry cannot be resolved at the bargaining table. This can be expanded to the challenges facing the entire working class in this country. The problem is not cyclical, not the old traditional treadmill of up and down, boom and bust. The intrinsic crisis of the capitalist system at this stage is so acute that even their own economists are warning of problems so large they are dangerous for them - but tragic and life-threatening for us. Their modus operandi has always been to download the repair bill on workers. War, famine disease and ecological disaster is the cost we pay for their global life-style. Will we do this forever? As Frederick Engels said so many generations back, "you can be the hammer or the anvil."

     The Canadian economy has been steadily growing for 25 years, and labour productivity has risen in the last twenty years by over 50%. Yet a steadily growing economy with rising labour productivity has provided to the working people only stagnation of real wages for thirty years, and corporate profits never seen before in history. The unemployment figures in this new scenario do not tell the story. The indicators to watch are losses in manufacturing, the de-industrialisation of the country, the shift to energy and raw materials for export, and the transfer of jobs to low-paying non-unionized service sectors. This why the growth of poverty parallels the growth of the economy and of labour productivity. This is essentially the capitalist system; anyone who loves it better be prepared to starve for it, to slave for it and deliver the next generation to it.

     The dangers are apparent and escalating. These dangers wear different cloaks depending on the geographic, political or industrial sector: woodlands, extraction, manufacturing, engineering or service, public or private, the attack is on. But these cloaks are woven from a common cloth. This is the fabric of NAFTA, of Deep Integration, the North American Union, the Security and Prosperity Partnership, the fabric of the US corporate imperial agenda for the Americas. The Manifest Destiny of Imperialism.

     These cloaks in our country are worn by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives - mostly representatives of Lockheed Martin, Wal-Mart, General Motors, Home Depot, Shell, Canfor, Suncor and others. Some Canadians, eh? Add to this the local quislings appointed by the Tory Cabinet, and they can accurately be labelled the in-house reps of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization. Their job is to eliminate borders and install a common security blanket complete with its own continental passport, military and policing apparatus around North America. This is to eliminate any impediment whatsoever to the ability of capital to move freely, plunder at will and extract the most profit from our resources and our labour. Not one of them are elected, and not once has this been discussed openly in our Parliament.

     By the time this is read the summit at Montebello of Stephen Harper, George Bush and Felipe Calderon will be history. The Security and Prosperity Partnership will be more advanced, and the executioner's axe will hang closer over our quality of life, our national cultures and our sovereignty.

     Where can we turn but to our working class and social institutions? If the Communist Party of Canada, the social democrats, the progressive forces of Québec, various left formations and the First Nations have not found common ground, can we allow this to continue?

     If many of our best young social activists have searched for expression and fight-back outside the ranks of organized labour, because to them, rightly or wrongly, labour appeared to be asleep, can we allow this to continue? Labour must recruit youth. It must stop turning its back on young workers because they work in small poorly paid enterprises and don't provide enough dues income. Young people must defend labour because it is the instrument of struggle and resource they need. This sword has two edges, and both need to be sharp. This is one family, and at our working class table our children should eat whether they are profitable or not.

     There is no question about the ability of the Canadian working class to fight. We have per capita the most hours lost to strikes in the industrialized countries. Rarely, perhaps not at all since the 1930s, has there been a major strike lost because the workers have exhausted their ability to fight. The losses have been from poor leadership, poor ideology, a misunderstanding of the issues or outright collaboration.

     If we want to mend our movement we must look to where it is broken. The labour movement is the heart and soul of the working class, the organized and most advanced section. We cannot allow divisions in labour to neutralize the fighting potential of its membership. Labour must struggle for the unity that is needed, especially restoring partnership with the social justice movements and the First Nations struggle, escalating its anti-war agenda, and creating a dynamic that will attract the best of our youth. Under these conditions the unorganized will seek labour out and demand entry like they did in the '30s and '40s. This is how we can rebuff the corporate agenda, reach out for unity with our sisters and brothers abroad, and start the movement for the kind of society we want and need!