People's Voice April 1-15, 2006

The Ontario College faculty strike `(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2006 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)` By Sam Hammond THERE IS A STRANGE, sad and typical political struggle being played out in Ontario. The McGuinty government, through its inept henchman Chris Bentley, Minister of Colleges, has twisted the hopes aspirations and futures of 150,000 college students at 24 community colleges into an instrument for higher tuitions and declining quality of education. They have done this by forcing - and let's repeat forcing - 9,100 faculty members into a strike that is 100% over quality of education. This scenario has become the standard first act of so many labour disputes in this country that it hard to keep track of them. Remember the political strike of the elementary and secondary school teachers against the Harris Tories in Ontario? Quality of education. Remember the glorious resistance of British Columbia teachers that shoved law and legal contempt back into the maw of the Campbell Liberals? Quality of education. The resistance of the Quebec teachers to the Quebec Liberals? Quality of education. Concurrent with the faculty strike in Ontario, there are faculty members on strike at the University of Prince Edward Island. Quality of education. So when the agents of government, the cut and slash committees that assign themselves impressive names like "College Compensation and Appointments Council", rise up from feasting on the educational system and feign innocence of their own machinations, is this hypocrisy? The OPSEU (Ontario Public Service Employees Union) faculty contract expired last August 31. That agreement had a duration during which one would assume college budget committees, the Ministry of Colleges, and the Ontario Cabinet would have considered that since the world doesn't end at the finish of each semester, some future plans must be made for administering education and paying teachers. Well, they did. They took the $6.2 billion that Premier McGuinty has promised over the next four years and decided to invest in real estate (structure) and student services (housing?), while increased class sizes, a climbing student-teacher ratio and serious overcrowding push the quality of education downward. They went into negotiations with no money for quality of education, no money to hire more teachers, no money to upgrade the numerous part-time staff to full time. Negotiations were spun out into a mockery that created a March 7 strike. Did they have an agenda? Of course. The strike was and is their agenda. Pit the students and their fragile financial and job environment against the teachers, and try to recruit the public in an anti-union, anti-teacher agenda. As this article is written on March 23, students have been out of the classrooms for 16 days. The Management Bargaining Team, headed by an accomplice called Joy Warkentin, says a "Semester Completion Strategy" is in place. Isn't English a wonderful language? The fact is that the only "Semester Completion Strategy" worth anything is a regular and normal course completion. Ted Montgomery, the head negotiator for the OPSEU team, says that the semester credits won't be worth the paper they are written on. He is right. This newspaper is unashamedly pro-labour and partisan on behalf of working people. It is not hard to be so when labour goes into action and its interests are the interests of the majority of the people. OPSEU has been patient in the extreme, trying to negotiate well into 2006 a contract that should have been settled in August 2005. Meanwhile, management have made a series of offers, each a bigger insult than the previous, to provoke a strike. OPSEU has proposed "Voluntary Binding Arbitration" to try to get students back into the classroom while arbitration proceeds and the teachers teach. The management team rejects this responsible offer and counters with a "Final Offer Selection", where each side makes a final offer and a single appointee selects one or the other. This idiotic and suicidal ploy guarantees the continuation of the strike. The Canadian Federation of Students are not fooled. They have come down in support of the union's position. They know who are their friends and allies in the struggle for affordable quality education. The Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) has also endorsed the OPSEU positions and agrees that the issue is quality of education. The shadow of privatisation hangs over every public institution we have built. The vultures of private greed are circling overhead. Is it possible that investing $6.2 billion primarily in structure and services is a way of fattening up the cow before it is handed over? Invested in smaller class sizes and better wages for an expanded teaching force, these funds would then depart in the minds of students and the pockets of educational workers, lost to the vultures forever, but certainly enriching the community that supplied the investment in the first place. Something to think about. When all the hogwash slithers into the gutter, when all the committees with intricate names and the so-called strategies they espouse have crumbled, McGuinty and his Minister of Colleges will be seen as the orchestrators of mayhem, lies and hypocrisy, the tools of neo-liberalism. The faculty and their union will be the same as before, guardians of the public trust, educators of our youth. UPDATE: Late in the evening of Friday, March 24, the OPSEU bargaining team finally won agreement from the management to implement "Voluntary Binding Arbitration," so the students can return to classes while a settlement is worked out. The next morning, management made another attempt to prolong the strike by re-introducing issues already agreed to, which killed the deal. By noon, fearing the public backlash, management regained sanity long enough to agree with the union, so students will return to classes March 27-28. There is no settlement yet but the Binding Arbitration can now begin. (Contents) (Home) Protests force Winnipeg Summit cancellation `(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2006 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)` By Darrell Rankin THE HIGH COSTS of spying on anti-globalization activists and other "security" costs have forced the Manitoba government to cancel a three-day North American free trade summit in Winnipeg. The $8 million cost of security was the reason cited by organizers to pull the plug on the May 31-June 2 event. Local media reports cite senior police officers who were preparing to have a visible police presence at events, "but also to do behind-the-scenes pre-emptive surveillance work to identify possible threats. That included gathering intelligence on protest groups who were likely to show up." Participants in the protest groups are elated with the news, but concerned to learn that people attending their meetings were police agents. The meeting was expected to attract close to 500 business and government leaders and would have looked at ways to "improve" the North American Free Trade Agreement. A chief organizer of North American Summit Hemispheria 2006, Donne Flanagan, said it was called off because the province couldn't rationalize spending $8 million on security for dignitaries from Canada, the United States and Mexico. "At the end of the day, we can't justify $8 million of taxpayers' money on security for one conference," Flanagan said. "It's a rational decision based on financial reality." Flanagan said the cost was determined by senior officers in the Winnipeg Police Service. Police told provincial organizers that officers would have to be called in from across Canada to help achieve the security commitment of up to 1,500 officers. The Winnipeg police force only has a complement of 1,200. Premier Gary Doer and Mayor Sam Katz attended the first conference and offered up Winnipeg as the next host city. "We want to ensure talks aren't just between Ottawa, Washington and Mexico City," Doer said a year ago. Doer and Mexican President Vicente Fox were keynote speakers at the first summit. Doer said at the time that bringing so many influential people to the province would help Manitoba keep its profile up. (Contents) (Home) Shareholders to "wake up" Weyerhauser `(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2006 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)` Special to PV ONE HUNDRED TOP INVESTORS in Weyerhaeuser, the world's largest lumber company, have begun receiving letters demanding action to improve its social and environmental performance. A coalition of shareholder activists and groups ranging from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters to environmental organizations (Boreal Forest Network, Rainforest Action Network) and First Nations are calling on the lumber giant to adopt "best practices" on governance, the environment, and human rights. Under growing public pressure, some corporations in the forestry and paper sectors are moving towards "sustainability" policies. But Weyerhaeuser still operates under a forestry practices policy originally developed in 1971. Now, some shareholders want the company to adopt independent Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification, to respect the rights of indigenous communities, and to adopt a comprehensive policy to protect endangered forests. The alliance of shareholder activists is gearing up for the company's annual meeting on April 20. A March 16, 2006 letter encourages investors to vote yes on resolutions filed by Calvert Group and the Teamsters. Calvert's resolution requests that Weyerhaeuser move to gain FSC certification for its forestlands and manufacturing facilities by Nov. 1, 2006. FSC standards provide independent, third party certification to ensure strong protection of forest ecosystems, workers' rights, and the rights of indigenous peoples to free, prior and informed consent for industrial activities on their traditional territory. The Teamsters have filed a resolution requiring "an independent leader to ensure that management acts strictly in the best interests of the Company..." Citing a 2005 $457.8 million judgment against the company for contract violations and recent plant closures which have left at least 700 Canadian Weyerhaeuser employees jobless, the Teamsters' resolution asks for an independent Board of Directors that represents the best interests of shareholders. Steve Rogel, the current CEO and Chairman of the Board, is being challenged by Bonnie Swain, a member of the Grassy Narrows First Nation. Her northern Ontario community, like the Haida Gwaii and Hupacasath First Nations, asserts that Weyerhaeuser has logged on their land without permission. Lawsuits, public protests, and logging blockades have been mounted to stop Weyerhaeuser from destroying forests on their traditional territories. Other candidates for the board include Michael Brune of Rainforest Action Network, who specializes in developing new corporate practices; and Lynne Barker, a "green-building" specialist. Grassy Narrows First Nation representatives recently sent warned the chief executives of Weyerhaeuser to "immediately cease and desist from all logging and industrial resource extraction on our territory" or face a "fierce international campaign." The letter followed a decade of failed negotiations, lawsuits, environmental assessment requests, public protests, and a three-year logging blockade, the longest in Canadian history. Last year, representatives from Haida Gwaii First Nation spoke outside Weyerhaeuser's AGM, while checkpoints blocked Weyerhaeuser logging on their territory. The checkpoints shut down all logging on Haida Gwaii for a month and the community seized $50 million worth of logs. The campaign and resulted in an agreement with the Canadian government granting the people of Haida Gwaii more control over their traditional territory. Every year, Weyerhaeuser harvests over 10 million cubic metres of timber in the Boreal Forest, which stretches from Alaska to the Atlantic Ocean, areas that have not been FSC certified. The Boreal comprises 25 percent of the planet's remaining ancient forest, playing a key role in regulating global climate, cleaning the air, purifying water, and preserving life forms. Less than eight percent of the Boreal is protected, and approximately half has been designated for resource extraction by the Canadian government. For more information visit http://www.RAN.org/Weyerhaeuser or http://www.FreeGrassy.org. (Contents) (Home) Obey and lose, or resist and win? The CEP quandary at Brabant `(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2006 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)` By Sam Hammond WE WHO GREW UP in Hamilton, Ontario, in the 1940' have lived with the memory of the tough labour war fought in this city by our parents and older relatives. That was a historic turning point in Hamilton labour history and an important part of the post-war labour struggles that swept the country. Perhaps because of the dominance of social democratic ideology which became strongly embedded in the Steelworkers leadership, that struggle has come to be known as the Steel Strike. In fact, it was much more than that. A real industrial conflict that was fought out at Canadian Westinghouse and Firestone Rubber, as well as several smaller enterprises. The picket lines were held by proletarians who supported the strikes, often just going to the nearest one regardless of membership or workplace. Many of them were not members of any union. It was a community enterprise where every worker was expected to take a side. The industrial workers scored great victories then, but every struggle has casualties and even in victory there is sadness for the price paid. At Hamilton's only daily paper, The Spectator, the typesetters union struck in 1946, becoming a part of the major conflict. The International Typesetters Union (ITU) remained on strike well into the early 1960's, picketing that newspaper, then located in the heart of the city, every single day. I don't recall the exact date the strike was called off, but I do know that as I grew up from a boy to an adult, those workers aged from young men into old age, stubbornly refusing defeat, still picketing that cursed paper. In a labour town like Hamilton, how could this happen? How could the rearguard be abandoned? Good question. In most countries the first workers to organise were printers, because they were literate, and miners, because of the nature of their work. The history of printers is very proud, and they were at the heart of forming the first labour councils in Canada, both in Quebec and Ontario. But the printers had another side that was not so good. They were splintered into small specialized unions that came and went with technology and competed within the shops for members and control. The two organized groups at the Hamilton Spectator were typesetters and pressmen, both in their own organizations and both wary of each other. Their weakness was craft unionism. If the pressmen had supported the typesetters, the strike would have been won in short order. They didn't and the outcome was sad. Is there a lesson here? Fast forward to another century, Hamilton in 2006. The Spectator, having passed through several ownerships, none of them enlightened, is now owned by Torstar. Torstar also owns the Toronto Star and several smaller community newspaper operations, including one in Hamilton called Brabant. Brabant Newspapers is a pressroom and mailing facilities that does several small community handout type papers. The workers there belong to the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP). Some of them have been on strike since Dec. 5, 2004. At the centre of the strike is the issue of pay equity. This of course makes it a gender issue. Women inserters are the lowest paid in the Torstar chain, and a union-management pay equity committee determined a long time ago under the requirements of Ontario Equity Legislation that they were $1.52 per hour below comparable male dominated jobs in the pressroom. That gap would increase each year because of percentage wage increases. The workers were forced to strike for what should have been given to them under law, but of course these laws have a bad track record of enforcement. In June 2005, Torstar fired 25 of the women strikers. Workers at the Toronto Star, the Hamilton Spectator, the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, the Guelph Mercury, the Sing Tao Chinese-language daily, Metroland and Fairway Newspaper Chain, all Torstar and all CEP-represented, have launched an action plan that could result in a boycott of their own newspapers. The Hamilton District Labour Council and CEP are calling for a boycott of all Torstar papers. The Steelworkers have been to the Brabant picket lines several times to give much needed support. This is a very good development, but there is a problem. At Brabant there are two bargaining units represented by CEP, and one of them is not on strike. CEP thinks it has a legal obligation to honour its contract which covers the non-striking workers, and legally it does. This takes us to a reminisce of the BC Teachers strike that could only be won by shoving the law back into its cave. It is a bone of contention amongst Hamilton workers who are frankly confused when they go to support a picket line, maybe even get arrested, while watching members of the same union going into work with passes from their own union. This is not only a problem with CEP, but a problem for the entire labour movement in Canada. If this worship of law had prevailed in the mid-1800s we would not have a labour movement. So the logical question is this... will these gutsy, determined Hamilton women go the way of the typesetters so many years ago? Will these newspaper moguls trivialize these lives here and now, like they did and have done over the years? In 1946 the workers who ran the presses could have won the typesetters strike in short shrift. In 2006 the press operators still hold the key. The question is: will they turn it? (Contents) (Home) Lying about democracy `(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2006 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)` People's Voice Editorial, April 1-15, 2006 When it comes to hypocrisy, the capitalist rulers of "western democracy" have no equals. Outside powers were recently caught red-handed pouring funds, organizers and propaganda into Belarus prior to voting in that country, aiming to provoke another "colour revolution" and install a pro-imperialist government. Predictably, a "tent city" was set up in Minsk, the capital, after the defeat of the right-wing presidential candidate. Even before police removed the western-backed protesters (who were soon released), the European Union and the US imposed further sanctions on Belarus, including travel and financial restrictions. Once again, a country is being punished for making the "wrong choice" at the ballot box. Such accusations of electoral fraud are pretty rich stuff, considering how George W. Bush and his gang of fascist thugs steal presidential elections. We also note the irony of U.S. officials wailing about mistreatment of demonstrators in Belarus, while prisoners in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and other Yankee jails suffer years of torture. Massive violations of electoral rights are easy to find closer to Bush's own backyard. For example, recent elections in El Salvador were marked by massive fraud conducted against the left-wing FMLN by the ruling ARENA party. But since ARENA is a client of Washington, we hear instead about claims that the recent Venezuelan Parliamentary elections were rigged. Every time the United States screams "foul" against a country such as Belarus or Venezuela, the stage is being prepared for another coup. Such a move against President Hugo Chavez would be incredibly dangerous to the peace and stability of the Western hemisphere, sending the signal that Washington will use every weapon in its arsenal to maintain domination of the entire region. For that reason, Canadians should look at the reality behind Washington's "democratic" posturing, and tell our own government that Canada should not play the role of cheerleader for every wild accusation coming from the White House. (Contents) (Home) Hit the Tory weak points `(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2006 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)` People's Voice Editorial Parliament reconvenes on April 3, and Stephen Harper's Tories will be looking to blitzkrieg their agenda over a divided opposition in the Commons. But if the labour and people's movements should hit the Conservatives' weak points hard enough, we can slow or halt the attack. * Social programs: Most Canadians support universal Medicare and a comprehensive Canada-wide child care program. Harper's strategy of letting far-right provincial governments destroy these policies must be exposed and criticized at every opportunity. * Equal rights: Fundamentalist bigots dominate the Tory caucus, but most Canadians support women's reproductive rights and equal marriage. The Tories must not be allowed to deny the equality values held by the large majority of voters. * Peace and war: Harper has played on patriotic sentiments by posing with troops in Afghanistan, but most voters are deeply suspicious of moves to tie Canada closer to the US war machine. We need to hammer away at the truth: Afghanistan is Bush's war, not a Canadian peacekeeping mission. * The new democratic deficit: After riding to power thanks to the blatant anti-democratic actions of the Martin Liberals, Harper has immediately turned into a strutting autocrat, shutting down media access and appointing unelected cabinet ministers. Tory MPs - and the media - must be reminded constantly that this government received just 36% of the popular vote. Appeals to the opposition parties won't be enough. The Canadian Labour Congress and all key democratic movements need to unite and mobilize Canadians on these issues, before it's too late. (Contents) (Home) Turn up heat on Tories, says Communist Party `(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2006 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)` PV Commentary IN THE WAKE of the narrow Conservative federal election victory, the Communist Party of Canada's Central Committee met in Toronto over the March 11-12 weekend to assess the current political situation in the country. The meeting opened with a political report by CPC leader Miguel Figueroa, who reviewed the developments which led to the defeat of the Martin Liberals by a Conservative minority under Stephen Harper. The temporary concessions on several issues granted by the Liberals, he noted, were most unwelcome in right-wing corporate circles, which threw their support behind the Conservatives and pressed hard for an early election. As soon as the Liberals faltered during the campaign, Figueroa pointed out, "monopoly support moved decisively to the Tories in all parts of Canada, including Quebec. This shift, combined with the absence of a cogent and united working class and democratic alternative, created the conditions for the Tory victory, although it was not as decisive as monopoly had hoped for." The tightly-scripted Conservative campaign, Figueroa said, took advantage of a widespread desire for "change" while hiding their true agenda. Even so, the Conservative popular vote increased only a few points, to 36.5%, and the Tories were shut out in most urban centres. The unexpected Tory gains in Quebec came largely as a result of Harper's offer that Quebec could name a representative to UNESCO and similar bodies, which helped pull votes from dissatisfied Liberals and "soft" Bloc Québecois supporters. Overall, however, the results do not indicate any clear mandate for Harper's drive to the right. Figueroa's report and the discussion by the Central Committee went into some detail about the election campaign waged by the NDP. "While welcoming the electoral gains achieved," he noted, "labour and social activists, including those carrying NDP membership cards, were dismayed by the rightward shift in party policy." Some examples of this shift included Layton's apparent tolerance of private health clinics; the failure to promise increased taxes on corporations and the wealthy; support for the chauvinist Clarity Act, which denies Quebec's right to self-determination; support for increased military spending and for Canada's military presence in Afghanistan; and pandering to the right-wing campaign to "get tough" on gun violence and youth crime. On a strategic level, the NDP leadership focused its attack on the Martin Liberals, doing little to warn against the Conservative danger. "While frustration and disappointment with the NDP's opportunistic policy is fully justified," said Figueroa, he stressed that the larger NDP federal caucus can be a useful ally in resisting the Tory/big business onslaught, if it can be pressed to play a stronger supportive role in the extra-parliamentary fightback. Turning to the role of labour and social movements in the election, the Central Committee noted the weakness of both the CAW strategy (calling the Liberals "friends of labour") and the failure of the Canadian Labour Congress to go beyond raising "labour's issues" in the campaign. Despite the willingness of organized workers to engage in major struggles, such as last fall's teachers' strike in British Columbia and a near-general strike in Quebec, it appears that class collaborationism and business unionism at the top level are resulting in "a retreat to political passivity," Figueroa noted. His report stressed the need for coordinated political action by the entire trade union movement, and more initiative along these lines by the left forces within labour. One such initiative will be the circulation of an "Open Letter" from the Communist Party, calling upon the trade union movement and all democratic forces to build united resistance against the Harper Tories. The campaign around this appeal will be featured prominently in upcoming issues of People's Voice. The CC meeting adopted a special resolution on the upcoming 85th anniversary of the CPC, calling for a series of activities and plans to build the party. Despite some difficulties last year, in particular the divisions in Quebec created by former PCQ leader Andre Parizeau, recruitment is on the rise again in recent months, including during the election. The CC voted to hold the 35th Central Convention of the CPC on the weekend of Feb. 2-4, 2007. In a related development, concrete steps are being taken by the CPC to assist the refounding of the Young Communist League of Canada. The Central Committee meeting also discussed the dangerous international situation, especially the renewed threats by US imperialism in Asia and the Middle East. A special resolution was adopted for circulation at the March 18-19 anti-war actions across Canada, calling for a turn away from support for the US war drive, towards an independent foreign policy of peace and disarmament. Another resolution gave full support to the struggle against the Czech Republic's move to make the Czech Communist Youth illegal, one of several indications of a rising wave of anti-communism in Europe. The full documents of the Central Committee meeting will be available shortly on the CPC's website, http://www.communist-party.ca. (Contents) (Home) "Code Blue" campaign on child care `(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2006 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)` PV Vancouver Bureau A PETITION CAMPAIGN demanding that politicians honour the promise of a Canada-wide child care program was nearing 25,000 names as of March 24, with thousands more signing on every day. Launched by the Canadian Child Care Advocacy Association, the "Code Blue" campaign (picking up on the term for a medical emergency) has won the backing of Canadians ranging from Olympic hockey gold medallist Hayley Wickenheiser to the Saskatchewan Legislature. The on-line petition, at http://www.buildchildcare.ca, is addressed to PM Stephen Harper, provincial premiers and federal opposition leaders. It reads: "We are calling on you to work together to honour the promise of a national child care program. The place to start is by protecting the early learning and child care agreements between the Government of Canada and the provinces. The federal-provincial agreements on child care were negotiated in good faith. They lay a foundation for a full system of early learning and child care that can meet the needs of all Canadian families. Cancelling them sets back the development of a national child care program for years to come, leaving families with young children to fend for themselves. Breaking federal-provincial child care agreements would be a breach of public trust and would lead to a cut of almost $4 billion from child care funding. The federal election results were not a mandate to turn back the clock on child care. While income support for families is a valid policy goal, a taxable family allowance and a tax credit for employers will not create early learning and child care services that are high quality, available and affordable. Families need income supports and publicly funded child care services. We call on all governments to protect and enhance progress on child care." One of the most prominent voices in the campaign is the YWCA, which has released a report showing that Canadian families strongly believe in the value of early childhood services and programs. "The findings dispense with many of the assumptions that Canada is too vast and diverse to make a national child care program viable," said Paulette Senior, CEO of YWCA Canada, in a March 20 news release. "We found that both mothers at home and those in the labour force want early learning programs for their children. Communities, whether rural, suburban or urban, value early childhood services and the contribution they make." The YWCA's report, Building a Community Architecture for Early Childhood Learning and Care, is based on panels convened in several communities during 2004 and 2005. The panels brought together representatives of business and labour, aboriginal, ethnic, community, women's and parent groups, profit and non-profit service providers and municipal and provincial officials, resulting in a call for coherent child care policies at the provincial and federal level. Despite the recent change in government, Paulette Senior said, "a minority government, facing a united opposition backed by the majority of premiers and public opinion can be made to realize that a deal is a deal. Even if the Tories won't move, connecting today's fragmented services into a system would better meet the needs of children and families." The report's recommendations include: - Adequate government funding to ensure delivery of high-quality care. - Legislation to ensure child care services are of high quality and inclusive of all children, regardless of socio-economic status, location, language or culture. - Replace child care fee subsidies for parents in favour of adequate and stable base funding for programs. Meanwhile, the Saskatchewan legislature has passed a motion to support a made-in-Saskatchewan child care plan, and to express the provincial government's dissatisfaction with the federal Conservative plan to axe child care agreements signed with the provinces last year. Leaning Minister Deb Higgins introduced a motion in the legislature on March 16, sparking a long debate in front of a visitor's gallery filled with parents and child care activists, who have been lobbying Lorne Calvert's NDP government for action. Significantly, considering that the provincial opposition is the right-wing Saskatchewan Party, the resolution was adopted unanimously. The motion reads: "That this Assembly recognize that in today's communities and workplaces, parental supports and assistance are of utmost importance in contributing to the caring and nurturing of children, and that high-quality early learning and child care plays a integral role in supporting and nurturing the social, emotional, and cognitive development of a child's life; and further, that this Assembly express dissatisfaction with the federal government's announcement to withdraw that support to families and cancel early learning and child care agreements with the provinces, and not fulfill commitments made by the previous federal government, which were to provide $146 million over five years to Saskatchewan families." (Contents) (Home) Milosevic murdered by International "Tribunal" `(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2006 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)` By Stephen Von Sychowski ON MARCH 11, former Yugoslav leader, Slobodan Milosevic was found dead in his prison cell. The UN tribunal and the capitalist media have repeatedly announced that Milosevic died of "natural causes". How natural were the causes of this death? For several decades several different nationalities existed in peace within the confines of one socialist republic; Yugoslavia. The end of the "Cold War", which brought a tide of counter revolution crashing down upon the majority of socialist countries and greatly weakened the remaining ones. This created favorable conditions for imperialist to ferment counter-revolution in remaining socialist countries. NATO, led by U.S. imperialism, aided extremist, terrorist, nationalist organizations such as the "Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)" in orchestrating war, whipping up national and ethnic hatred and eventually splitting the country apart. NATOÆs intense bombing campaign covered up most of the evidence, while their "peacekeepers" helped to ensure that dissent was eliminated, and the truth about the war was erased. In 2002, Milosevic was put on trial by a NATO tribunal for "crimes against humanity", blamed for the atrocities of the war that imperialism created. During the period of his trial, Milosevic, who suffered from chronic heart ailments and high blood pressure was routinely rejected proper care, forced to suffer through trial even in times of poor health, refused trips to Moscow to obtain treatment, and failed to be provided regular checkups. According to the Associated Press, at the time of his death, the tribunal "could not immediately say when he last had a medical checkup". On the other hand, Augusto Pinochet, former fascist dictator of Chile, frequently had his trial delayed due to his poor health, and was provided with top of the line care. Clearly, such care could not be provided to Milosevic by the International Tribunal. Certainly, a UN tribunal had access to such care, and had managed to provide it to others on trial. Faced with no concrete evidence on which to sentence Milosevic, the tribunal resorted to an alternative, death by trial. By systematically refusing proper medical attention to Milosevic and creating difficult conditions for him to survive through, they effectively were able to execute him without the trial ever coming to a sentence. We will not forget the crimes of NATO and imperialism in the former Yugoslavia. Nor will we forget the murder of Slobodan Milosevic, who never received a fair trial nor fair treatment for the ailments which eventually killed him. In the short term, the counter-revolution in Yugoslavia has triumphed and the Balkans are again safe for the exploiters and oppressors of the world to make their millions off of the hard work and suffering of their peoples. We stand in solidarity with those peoples and with the revolutionary and progressive forces fighting valiantly to overturn the new capitalist rule. All things change. One day the real criminals will stand trial. We will win! For more information, see: International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic: http://www.icdsm.org/ (Contents) (Home) Student/worker protests shake France `(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2006 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)` PV Vancouver Bureau MILLIONS OF PROTESTERS have taken to the streets of France, and trade unions are preparing for a general strike in response to what they call a dangerous and disturbing new law. The "first jobs contract" (CPE) would allow employers to fire people under age 26 without cause within two years of being hired. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin claims it will ease youth unemployment. But student and labour groups say it will aggravate the problem and allow employers to treat young workers like trash. On Sunday, March 26, four militant French student leaders rejected an invitation from Villepin to hold talks on a new youth jobs contract, calling instead for a big turnout at protests and a general strike on March 28. Three "moderate" student leaders who have not been involved in the protests did meet with Villepin. "For two months, young people and working people have expressed their worries and rejection of the First Job Contract that makes a period of poverty a mandatory phase for an entire generation," said Bruno Julliard, a leader of the national student union UNEF. The youth unemployment rate in France is 23 percent, more than double the general jobless rate. In the poorest areas youth joblessness is as high as 50 percent. France's current, long-standing labour law allows employers just a few months to terminate a new employee without giving a reason. After that, the law sets strict standards for firing employees. Opponents of the so-called "first jobs contract" (CPE) have nicknamed it the "Kleenex contract" because of the disposable workforce it would create. The new law is to be enacted when signed by President Jacques Chirac in April. Unions called for a national day of strike actions on March 28 to protest the plan. Bolstered by this support, student groups held more large-scale protests March 21 and 23. Public figures joining protests in 150 cities on March 18 included Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe, Socialist Party leader Frantois Hollande, former culture minister Jack Lang and Communist Party leader Marie-George Buffet. The protest in Paris was marred by minor violence, in which a small number of demonstrators set fire to a police car. In response, police fired tear gas into the crowd. By and large the march was peaceful, though, with a festive atmosphere. Carole Cases, a nurse who participated in the protest with two of her children, told The New York Times, "I'm sick and tired of all these phony contracts and I want to protect my children's future. They're trying to dupe the young." Many were upset with the quickness with which the measure passed through the Parliament. Bruno Julliard said the government "imposed the jobs plan without consulting anyone," and that the government only agreed to talks after the large demonstrations. UNEF, in turn, has refused to join talks until the contract is withdrawn. De Villepin IS expected to offer an amended version of the contract, possibly requiring a justification for firing or shortening the trial period during which the young worker could be fired. He has said publicly that he will stand by the law and that it will not be withdrawn. The CGT, France's largest union federation, said in a March 21 statement, "This measure, ineffective for employment, offers employers a new means of pressuring employees to renounce most of their rights under the penalty that they will be pushed out the door: it is a welcome to unpaid additional hours, worsened work conditions, lower salaries, sick days not respected, scorned dignity, etc." According to the federation, 75 percent of the population wants the CPE to be withdrawn. CGT leader Bernard Thibault said, "If this momentum continues, I think we will quickly get the withdrawal." The French Communist Party has opposed the CPE, proposing instead "a large progressive reformation of the labour code, aiming for job security and income for all." In addition to the planned labour strikes, UNEF has led student strikes at a number of universities. Student groups also worry that the CPE would make housing problems worse for young workers. Many landlords won't rent to young workers because of their precarious financial situation. "There is a big housing crisis in France. With this contract, no young workers will be able to get an apartment," said Julie Coudry, president of the Student Confederation. The new law is seen as part of pro-corporate "structural reforms" called for by international financial institutions. European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said March 20 it was absolutely necessary for European governments to conduct such "reforms." (With files from People's Weekly World and other sources.) (Contents) (Home) Bush security strategy update signals new aggressions `(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2006 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)` By Kimball Cariou THE BUSH REGIME is updating its national security strategy, and the result is scary indeed. As reported in the March 16 New York Times, the strategy document, the first since 2002, remains firm on the decision to attack Iraq, and identifies Iran as the most likely future target. The document warns of confrontation with Iran if that country does not bow to US "diplomacy" over its nuclear energy program. Reporter David Sanger of the Times was told by Stephen J. Hadley, President Bush's national security adviser and the principal author of the new report, that the warning applies to both Iran and North Korea. Syria, which was not mentioned by name in the 2002 document, is also now listed as a threat. The 48-page "National Security Strategy of the United States" goes further into new territory, warning China against "old ways of thinking and acting" in its competition for energy resources. China's leaders, it says, are "expanding trade, but acting as if they can somehow `lock up' energy supplies around the world or seek to direct markets rather than opening them up - as if they can follow a mercantilism borrowed from a discredited era." Hadley says the warning is an effort to get China's leaders to think about "the broader constellation" of their interests. Apparently Hadley is totally unaware of the hypocrisy of this position, at a period in history when U.S. imperialism openly invades countries such as Iraq to seize oil supplies. In another ominous change, the document speaks of "recent trends" in Russia which "regrettably point toward a diminishing commitment to democratic freedoms and institutions." Clearly these shifts signal the White House's intention to begin demonizing China and Russia as preliminary steps towards convincing the U.S. people to accept the option of military aggression against those countries at some point, should the international competition for resources become more intense. This analysis is backed up by the strategy's unchanged orientation on the use of pre-emptive military strikes. "The world is better off if tyrants know that they pursue W.M.D. at their own peril," the strategy says. It acknowledges "misjudgments" about Iraq's weapons program, but claims that "there will always be some uncertainty about the status of hidden programs since proliferators are often brutal regimes that go to great lengths to conceal their activities." Making U.S. intentions even clearer, the strategy openly warns that the United States reserves the right to take "anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack." In other words, pre-emptive attacks - one of the most serious of all war crimes under international law - are considered completely justified as long as they are launched by the United States itself. Another ironic theme of the document is its reference to the need for "effective democracies," a code phrase, according to its drafters, for countries that hold free elections, build democratic institutions and spread their benefits to their populations. By such yardsticks, of course, the growing attack on democratic rights and freedoms within the United States, and its rapidly widening gulf between rich and poor, would leave that country out of the circle of "effective democracies." The document hails the "new flows of trade, investment, information and technology," which are said to be transforming national security in every area from the spread of HIV/AIDS to avian flu to "environmental destruction, whether caused by human behavior or cataclysmic megadisasters such as flood, hurricanes, earthquakes or tsunamis." However, it does not mention global warming or climate change, which pose the most serious long-term threats to human survival. The National Security Strategy of the United States should be seen by the anti-war movement and all progressive forces as a warning that the number one imperialist power will never give up its position without a fight. The U.S. ruling class remains intent on domination of global resources, whether that means sending in the troops to occupy small countries, or setting the stage to take on potential rivals such as China and Russia. Ultimately, the future of humanity, depends on defeating U.S. imperialism before it destroys the entire planet. (PV editor Kimball Cariou is active in the StopWar peace coalition in Vancouver.) (Contents) (Home) What's Left `(The following article is from the` `April 1-15``, 2006 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)` VANCOUVER, BC Walk for democracy - gather 12:30 pm, Sunday, April 2, from Knight & 26th, walk past MP David Emerson's office for 2 pm rally at Norquay Park (Slocan and Kingsway). StopWar meetings - 2nd & 45h Wednesdays, 5:30 pm, Maritime Labour Centre, 111 Victoria Ave. See http://www.stopwar.ca for info. Which way for Vancouver Civic Politics? - People's Voice panel forum with speakers Jane Bouey (former COPE school trustee) and Paul Tetrault (labour activist and COPE executive member), and open discussion, 2 pm, Sunday, April 9, Dogwood Centre, 706 Clark Drive. Call PV office for details, 604-255-2041. Annual Spring Bazaar - at the Russian Hall, 600 Campbell Ave., Sat., April 29, 11 am to 3 pm. Plants, white elephant, books, hallmade products, delicious lunch at reasonable prices. Donations of cash or kind are welcome. Call 604-298-1513 for details. International Workers' Day Celebration - tribute to workers of the world, 6:30 pm, Sat., April 29, Peretz Centre, 6184 Ash St. Music, Latin American food, presentation, speakers. Donation $5. Sponsored by CPC, FMLN, Amigos de Cuba, Pena LatinoAmericana, call 604-460-0891 or 604-436-5599 for information, or see ad on page 3. Celebrate the life of Robert "Doc" Savage - evening of Saturday, May 6, Dogwood Centre, 706 Clark Drive. See next issue for details, or call George Gidora, 604-254-0936. BURNABY, PC War Resister Benefit - Vancouver War Resisters Support Campaign wine and cheese benefit party, 8 pm, Friday, April 21, at 390 N. Springer Ave., Burnaby, minimum charitable donation of $50 to attend, receipt issued to all donors. Mother's Day Pancake Breakfast - 10 am - 1 pm, Sunday, May 14 (last call for pancakes 12 noon), at 5435 Kincaid St. Proceeds to PV Fund Drive, $8 adults, $6/under 12, organized by Burnaby Club CPC. WINNIPEG, MB Stop Operation Bison meeting - Stop Operation Bison meetings, every Monday evening, 7 pm, concerning urban warfare training in Winnipeg. Info: 772-5703. TORONTO, ON Social Justice Awards - Sat., April 22, 2 pm, City Hall Chambers, with Mayor David Miller. Awards for Youth, Young Adult, Neighbourhood Organizing, Outstanding Achievement. Sponsors include Centre for Social Justice, Toronto and York Region Labour Council, Community Social Planning Council, and Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants. Rally against occupation of Palestine - every Friday, 5-6 pm, picket at the Israeli Consulate at Avenue Road/Bloor West. Organized by Jewish Women Against the Occupation and Coalition for Just Peace in Palestine. REDS ON THE WEB http://www.communist-party.ca (Contents) (Home) Communist Manifesto 2006 Calendar (Contents) (Home) PV $50,000 Fund Drive hits one-quarter mark `(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2006 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)` Just three weeks into our 2006 Fund Drive, People's Voice readers have shown their spirit of solidarity with $12,001 raised as of March 24. That's already 24% of our $50,000 target! Alberta is heading the race at this early stage, with $950 turned in, or 55% of their goal, a great showing from the working people engaged in a tough daily struggle against Ralph Klein's Tories. Next is British Colombia at 33.3%, or $7,338 of the west coast target. Our U.S. and overseas friends have donated $255 to date, for 31.9% of their goal, third at this point. As always, much of the total in March comes from some very generous and outstanding supporters of the working class press. We want to give a special thanks to the members of the $1,000 circle in this year's drive: Toronto's Ted Buck, and three supporters from British Columbia, including Paul Belanger, Anthony Grinkus, and a modest comrade from Nanaimo. Thanks also to everyone who worked hard to make the March 11 kick-off Fund Drive dinner in Toronto such a success, especially Liz Hill and others who decorated, cooked and served. Readers enjoyed a fabulous dinner at tables featuring cards honouring famous figures in Canadian revolutionary history, and listened to some great music by our friend Wally Brooker and his fellow jazz musicians. PV Editor Kimball Cariou related highlights of the struggle to oust Vancouver Kingsway's turncoat Member of Parliament, David Emerson, and the paper's new business manager, Sam Hammond, gave an update on plans to build People's Voice in the coming year. There are a couple of fundraisers for Lower Mainland readers to mark on your calendars for later this spring. On Sunday, May 14, the Burnaby Club will hold its eagerly-awaited annual Mother's Day Pancake Breakfast for PV, at 5435 Kincaid Street. Food is served from 10 am to 1 pm, with last call for pancakes at noon. It's more than you can eat, all for just $8 (adults) or $6 (under 12). This year's Vancouver PV Banquet is a bit earlier than usual, so take note now: Saturday, June 3, doors open 6 pm at the Russian Hall, 600 Campbell Avenue. Watch for details of the program, performers, and ticket prices in our next issue. And finally for now, one last word of thanks for all those PV volunteers who circulated bundles of the paper at important events during March, especially International Women's Day rallies and the March 18 anti-war protests across Canada. Thousands of extra copies were printed, bringing our working class perspective to activists in the streets at this critical moment of struggles for peace, social justice, equality and democracy. Our next big push for distribution will take place at events for May Day - be sure to send in your orders by April 20! PV 2006 FUND DRIVE Area Target Raised % British Colombia $22,000 $7,338 33.3% Alberta $1,700 $950 55.9% Saskatchewan $800 $145 18.1% Manitoba $3,000 $200 6.7% Ontario $20,000 $2,903 14.5% Quebec $500 $85 17.0% Atlantic Canada $1,200 $125 10.0% Other $800 $255 31.9% Total $50,000 $12,001 24.0% (Contents) (Home) Northern residents blast lack of apprenticeships and training `(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2006 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)` By Jason Mann, Prince George Over 70 trade unionists, small business leaders, First Nations representatives and students gathered on March 9 at the College of New Caledonia in Prince George to tackle a shortage of skilled workers in British Columbia. The event opened with an announcement the college had disclosed earlier that day it would lay off over twenty faculty members due to lack of funding. "Making it more difficult and expensive to attend school by doubling tuition fees and laying off the very people who can address this skills shortage is completely the wrong approach for education," said Cindy Oliver, President of the Federation of Post Secondary Educators. She noted that it would take at least $200 million to restore funding in BC's post secondary institutions to former 2001 levels. Not surprisingly, successful completion of apprenticeships has declined by over 40% in British Columbia since 2001. Jim Sinclair, President of the BC Federation of Labour, engaged some of the issues of local workers, noting that "people just can't get the skills they need." Sinclair addressed the low wage, de-skilling strategy of many employers who are more interested in poaching skilled workers from other countries than training new trades people. A similar point was echoed by a mill worker who pointed out there are over 200 different trades at a local mill that only employs eight apprentices. "It boils down to respect," said Ryan, a young welder who spoke to People's Voice after the forum. "The government needs to re-establish ITAC now, make trades training more accessible and not let young people down. With all of this talk about computers and the information age, we can't forget we still need people to weld two pieces of metal together." Similar public forums are coming up (in other) BC cities over the coming months. (Contents) (Home) Protestors reject commercialisation of water `(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2006 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)` Some 500 protestors demonstrated against the commercialisation of water at Schuman near the European Commission's Berlaymont building on March 22, World Water Day. The protest involved unions, the European Federation of Public Service Unions EPSU, environment groups, water activists and development organisations. The protestors formed a chain around the building of Aquafed, the European Commission and the European Council of Ministers. Passing around buckets of water, the protestors also wore shirts with the message "Our water is not for sale". The human chain was designed to symbolise the link between Aquafed and Europe. Aquafed, the federation of water companies in the private sector, lobbies the European Commission on behalf of its member companies. EPSU spokesman Jan Willem Goudriaan said the EC plays an important role in the mounting pressure on water to be considered a commodity and the liberalisation and privatisation of water services. The protestors demanded water be kept under the supervision of public authorities and that water remain accessible to the public. They also protested against the privatisation of any services relating to the water industry. They said access to clean, safe and affordable drinking water should be recognised as a human right. (Expatica News) (Contents) (Home) Union victory at Starbucks `(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2006 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)` VANCOUVER - The "Unstrike" launched by members of CAW Local 3000 against Starbucks on May 13, 2002, has finally resulted in a new collective agreement for about 140 workers. The three-year agreement was ratified by the membership on Feb. 27, with wages starting at what they would have been with COLA increases, and 8% more over the life of the agreement. Benefits were maintained, and the contract includes a binding mechanism for expedited arbitration, as well as better severance and relocation clauses in the event of a store closing. Readers are asked to patronize unionized Starbucks outlets at the following Vancouver locations: 2531 East Hastings, 1702 Robson St., 811 Hornby St., #150-1055 West Georgia St. (Royal Centre Vancouver), 1752 Commercial Dr., 1015 Denman St., 3451 Kingsway, 1095 Howe St., 1641 Davie St. 1395 Main St. (Contents) (Home) A unique record of the writer at war `(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2006 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)` A Writer at War: Vasily Grossman with the Red Army 1941-1945, Edited and translated by Antony Beevor and Luba Vinogradova. Alfred A. Knopf Canada, ISBN 0-6786-97810-x, 378 pages, $39.95 Can. A Writer at War consists of selections from notebooks and letters by Soviet journalist Vasily Grossman, describing the war as he witnessed it on the Eastern Front between 1941 and 1945. These notebooks served as raw material for Grossman's newspaper articles, which were published during the war in the Red Army newspaper, Red Star. In total, Grossman spent over three years at the front. His articles are characterized by a keen eye for descriptive detail and compassion for both soldiers and civilians caught in the war. Vasily Grossman was born in 1905 in the Ukrainian town of Berdichev. After taking a degree in chemistry at Moscow University in 1930, he found employment as a chemical analyst in a Ukrainian mine. But this work held no interest for him. In 1932, he moved back to Moscow where he pursued a career in writing, published his first novel, and won the praise and patronage of Maxim Gorky. In 1937, Grossman was granted membership in the Writer's Union, a coveted honour which included many privileges and benefits. By 1940 he was known as a conventional and moderately successful writer. When the Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Grossman volunteered for the Red Army. He was, however, rejected because he was overweight and in generally poor physical condition. Inspired by his desire to see action, Grossman went on a strict diet, lost 34 pounds, and made an intense study of military subjects such as tactics, equipment and weaponry. On August 5, 1941, Grossman was sent to the front as an official war correspondent for Red Star. Most correspondents stayed a safe distance behind the front, but Grossman went into the most dangerous areas and demonstrated extraordinary bravery under fire. His articles were based on his own first-hand observations and interviews with soldiers and civilians. Grossman was deeply moved by the suffering he observed. He wrote of "the penetrating, sharp foreboding of imminent losses, and the tragic realization that the destiny of a mother, a wife and a child had become inseparable from the destiny of the encircled regiments and retreating armies. How can one forget the front in those days - doomed Kiev, carts of retreat, and poisonous-green rockets over silent forests and rivers?" In August 1941, General David Ortenberg, editor of Red Star, ordered Grossman to cover the advance of the German Sixth Army on Stalingrad. In the course of this assignment Grossman spent more days at the Stalingrad front than any other war correspondent. The battle for Stalingrad was of great significance for Grossman's life and work. In his novel Life and Fate, he recreates many individuals and human dramas which he first recorded in his notebooks at Stalingrad. Little known outside Russia today, Life and Fate is considered by many critics one of the greatest Russian novels of the twentieth century. Like many of his contemporaries, Grossman was a passionate idealist who believed that the heroic sacrifices of the Russian Army were destined not only to win the war, but also to pave the way for fundamental postwar changes in Soviet society. When the Red Army entered Polish territory in the summer of 1944, Grossman was the first correspondent to see the Treblinka extermination camp, where the Nazis had killed over 800,000 victims. The camp commander, on orders from SS Chief Heinrich Himmler, had ordered all traces of the camp destroyed. Grossman was privileged to interview some 40 survivors as well as local peasants. His essay, "The Hell Called Treblinka" is a classic record of Nazi atrocities, and was used as evidence at the Nuremberg trials. It is reproduced in full in A Writer at War. After the war, Grossman and Ilya Ehrenberg collected extensive documentation of crimes committed by the Nazis, published in Russia as The Black Book in 1980. One of Grossman's greatest talents was his ability to gain the confidence of those he was interviewing. Ortenberg recognized and valued Grossman's unique abilities. He wrote: "All the correspondents on the Stalingrad front were amazed at how Grossman had made the divisional commander, General Gurtiev, a silent and reserved Siberian, talk to him for six hours without a break, telling him all that he wanted to know at one of the hardest moments of the battle." The fact that Grossman never took notes during an interview helped him gain people's confidence. It was his custom to sit up late at night, writing notes and newspaper stories based on interviews he had conducted during the day. Ortenberg wrote: "These notes are extremely pithy. Characteristic features of life at war are seen in just one phrase, as if on photographic paper when the photo is developed. In his notebooks one finds the pure, unretouched truth." For his contribution to Soviet war literature Grossman was awarded the Orders of the Red Banner and Red Star, and several medals, including one for bravery in combat. Grossman's biographer, Frank Ellis, writes: "Life and Fate makes a strong claim to be one of the main books on the Great Fatherland War. But it is, also, one of the main books of Soviet literature." To date only two of Grossman's novels, Life and Fate and Everything Flows, have been translated into English. The publication of A Writer at War should do much to bring the work of Vasily Grossman to the attention of a wide western audience and to promote the translation of his complete works. (Contents) (Home) COPE calls for campaign spending limits `(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2006 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)` Vancouver COPE Councillor David Cadman wants limits on campaign spending, and changes that will make personal contributions to civic elections tax deductible. Under the current system, says Cadman, large donors could have too much influence over mayor and council. "This is becoming a dollars game at this point and I don't think it serves democracy," Cadman said. Cadman was commenting on the record $4 million that was spent by the three major parties in last November's civic elections. According to campaign financing disclosures submitted on March 20, the NPA spent $1.9 million, including donations of $50,000 from Concord Pacific, $10,000 from Great Canadian Casinos, $50,000 from developer Rob Macdonald, $10,000 from Wal-Mart development consultants First Professional Management, $25,000 from the CNR and $10,000 from condo realtor Bob Rennie. Rennie had earlier given Sam Sullivan $20,000 for his battle with former BC Liberal cabinet minister Christy Clark for the NPA mayoralty nomination. Vision Vancouver spent $1.5 million, with $48,000 from Concord, $75,000 from Bob Rennie, $30,000 from Great Canadian Casinos, and $45,000 from developer Simon Lim. Vision also received $10,000 from Telus which locked out its TWU workers in a bitter four-month dispute that was only resolved on November 21, two days after the election. The biggest single Vision donor was millionaire John Lefebvre who gave $170,000. His NETeller Inc. is a web-based company that specializes in online gambling services for 1700 casinos world-wide. COPE spent $528,000 with 70 percent coming from the labour movement including CUPE, the CAW, HEU, Vancouver Elementary Teachers, the Vancouver District Labour Council and the Operating Engineers. Of that amount, $175,000 was earmarked for the joint Vision-COPE Election Day campaign organized by the Labour Council. The top corporate donation to COPE was $9,000 from Concord and $3500 from Yellow Cab. Other donations included $225 from the Blue Parrot Coffee Bar and $160 from West Star Communications Corp. More than $80,000 was donated by individual COPE members and supporters. (Contents) (Home)

The Ontario College faculty strike

(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2006 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)

By Sam Hammond

THERE IS A STRANGE, sad and typical political struggle being played out in Ontario. The McGuinty government, through its inept henchman Chris Bentley, Minister of Colleges, has twisted the hopes aspirations and futures of 150,000 college students at 24 community colleges into an instrument for higher tuitions and declining quality of education. They have done this by forcing - and let's repeat forcing - 9,100 faculty members into a strike that is 100% over quality of education.
     This scenario has become the standard first act of so many labour disputes in this country that it hard to keep track of them. Remember the political strike of the elementary and secondary school teachers against the Harris Tories in Ontario? Quality of education. Remember the glorious resistance of British Columbia teachers that shoved law and legal contempt back into the maw of the Campbell Liberals? Quality of education. The resistance of the Quebec teachers to the Quebec Liberals? Quality of education. Concurrent with the faculty strike in Ontario, there are faculty members on strike at the University of Prince Edward Island. Quality of education.

     So when the agents of government, the cut and slash committees that assign themselves impressive names like "College Compensation and Appointments Council", rise up from feasting on the educational system and feign innocence of their own machinations, is this hypocrisy?

     The OPSEU (Ontario Public Service Employees Union) faculty contract expired last August 31. That agreement had a duration during which one would assume college budget committees, the Ministry of Colleges, and the Ontario Cabinet would have considered that since the world doesn't end at the finish of each semester, some future plans must be made for administering education and paying teachers.

     Well, they did. They took the $6.2 billion that Premier McGuinty has promised over the next four years and decided to invest in real estate (structure) and student services (housing?), while increased class sizes, a climbing student-teacher ratio and serious overcrowding push the quality of education downward. They went into negotiations with no money for quality of education, no money to hire more teachers, no money to upgrade the numerous part-time staff to full time. Negotiations were spun out into a mockery that created a March 7 strike.

     Did they have an agenda? Of course. The strike was and is their agenda. Pit the students and their fragile financial and job environment against the teachers, and try to recruit the public in an anti-union, anti-teacher agenda.

     As this article is written on March 23, students have been out of the classrooms for 16 days. The Management Bargaining Team, headed by an accomplice called Joy Warkentin, says a "Semester Completion Strategy" is in place.

     Isn't English a wonderful language? The fact is that the only "Semester Completion Strategy" worth anything is a regular and normal course completion. Ted Montgomery, the head negotiator for the OPSEU team, says that the semester credits won't be worth the paper they are written on. He is right.

     This newspaper is unashamedly pro-labour and partisan on behalf of working people. It is not hard to be so when labour goes into action and its interests are the interests of the majority of the people. OPSEU has been patient in the extreme, trying to negotiate well into 2006 a contract that should have been settled in August 2005.

     Meanwhile, management have made a series of offers, each a bigger insult than the previous, to provoke a strike. OPSEU has proposed "Voluntary Binding Arbitration" to try to get students back into the classroom while arbitration proceeds and the teachers teach. The management team rejects this responsible offer and counters with a "Final Offer Selection", where each side makes a final offer and a single appointee selects one or the other. This idiotic and suicidal ploy guarantees the continuation of the strike.

     The Canadian Federation of Students are not fooled. They have come down in support of the union's position. They know who are their friends and allies in the struggle for affordable quality education. The Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) has also endorsed the OPSEU positions and agrees that the issue is quality of education.

     The shadow of privatisation hangs over every public institution we have built. The vultures of private greed are circling overhead. Is it possible that investing $6.2 billion primarily in structure and services is a way of fattening up the cow before it is handed over? Invested in smaller class sizes and better wages for an expanded teaching force, these funds would then depart in the minds of students and the pockets of educational workers, lost to the vultures forever, but certainly enriching the community that supplied the investment in the first place. Something to think about.

     When all the hogwash slithers into the gutter, when all the committees with intricate names and the so-called strategies they espouse have crumbled, McGuinty and his Minister of Colleges will be seen as the orchestrators of mayhem, lies and hypocrisy, the tools of neo-liberalism. The faculty and their union will be the same as before, guardians of the public trust, educators of our youth.

     UPDATE: Late in the evening of Friday, March 24, the OPSEU bargaining team finally won agreement from the management to implement "Voluntary Binding Arbitration," so the students can return to classes while a settlement is worked out. The next morning, management made another attempt to prolong the strike by

re-introducing issues already agreed to, which killed the deal. By noon, fearing the public backlash, management regained sanity long enough to agree with the union, so students will return to classes March 27-28. There is no settlement yet but the Binding Arbitration can now begin.

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Protests force Winnipeg Summit cancellation

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Shareholders to "wake up" Weyerhauser

(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2006 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) Special to PV

ONE HUNDRED TOP INVESTORS in Weyerhaeuser, the world's largest lumber company, have begun receiving letters demanding action to improve its social and environmental performance.
     A coalition of shareholder activists and groups ranging from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters to environmental organizations (Boreal Forest Network, Rainforest Action Network) and First Nations are calling on the lumber giant to adopt "best practices" on governance, the environment, and human rights.

     Under growing public pressure, some corporations in the forestry and paper sectors are moving towards "sustainability" policies. But Weyerhaeuser still operates under a forestry practices policy originally developed in 1971. Now, some shareholders want the company to adopt independent Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification, to respect the rights of indigenous communities, and to adopt a comprehensive policy to protect endangered forests.

     The alliance of shareholder activists is gearing up for the company's annual meeting on April 20. A March 16, 2006 letter encourages investors to vote yes on resolutions filed by Calvert Group and the Teamsters. Calvert's resolution requests that Weyerhaeuser move to gain FSC certification for its forestlands and manufacturing facilities by Nov. 1, 2006. FSC standards provide independent, third party certification to ensure strong protection of forest ecosystems, workers' rights, and the rights of indigenous peoples to free, prior and informed consent for industrial activities on their traditional territory.

     The Teamsters have filed a resolution requiring "an independent leader to ensure that management acts strictly in the best interests of the Company..." Citing a 2005 $457.8 million judgment against the company for contract violations and recent plant closures which have left at least 700 Canadian Weyerhaeuser employees jobless, the Teamsters' resolution asks for an independent Board of Directors that represents the best interests of shareholders.

     Steve Rogel, the current CEO and Chairman of the Board, is being challenged by Bonnie Swain, a member of the Grassy Narrows First Nation. Her northern Ontario community, like the Haida Gwaii and Hupacasath First Nations, asserts that Weyerhaeuser has logged on their land without permission. Lawsuits, public protests, and logging blockades have been mounted to stop Weyerhaeuser from destroying forests on their traditional territories.

     Other candidates for the board include Michael Brune of Rainforest Action Network, who specializes in developing new corporate practices; and Lynne Barker, a "green-building" specialist.

     Grassy Narrows First Nation representatives recently sent warned the chief executives of Weyerhaeuser to "immediately cease and desist from all logging and industrial resource extraction on our territory" or face a "fierce international campaign." The letter followed a decade of failed negotiations, lawsuits, environmental assessment requests, public protests, and a three-year logging blockade, the longest in Canadian history.

     Last year, representatives from Haida Gwaii First Nation spoke outside Weyerhaeuser's AGM, while checkpoints blocked Weyerhaeuser logging on their territory. The checkpoints shut down all logging on Haida Gwaii for a month and the community seized $50 million worth of logs. The campaign and resulted in an agreement with the Canadian government granting the people of Haida Gwaii more control over their traditional territory.

     Every year, Weyerhaeuser harvests over 10 million cubic metres of timber in the Boreal Forest, which stretches from Alaska to the Atlantic Ocean, areas that have not been FSC certified. The Boreal comprises 25 percent of the planet's remaining ancient forest, playing a key role in regulating global climate, cleaning the air, purifying water, and preserving life forms. Less than eight percent of the Boreal is protected, and approximately half has been designated for resource extraction by the Canadian government.

     For more information visit http://www.RAN.org/Weyerhaeuser or http://www.FreeGrassy.org.

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Obey and lose, or resist and win? The CEP quandary at Brabant

(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2006 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)

By Sam Hammond

WE WHO GREW UP in Hamilton, Ontario, in the 1940' have lived with the memory of the tough labour war fought in this city by our parents and older relatives. That was a historic turning point in Hamilton labour history and an important part of the post-war labour struggles that swept the country.
     Perhaps because of the dominance of social democratic ideology which became strongly embedded in the Steelworkers leadership, that struggle has come to be known as the Steel Strike. In fact, it was much more than that. A real industrial conflict that was fought out at Canadian Westinghouse and Firestone Rubber, as well as several smaller enterprises. The picket lines were held by proletarians who supported the strikes, often just going to the nearest one regardless of membership or workplace. Many of them were not members of any union. It was a community enterprise where every worker was expected to take a side. The industrial workers scored great victories then, but every struggle has casualties and even in victory there is sadness for the price paid.

     At Hamilton's only daily paper, The Spectator, the typesetters union struck in 1946, becoming a part of the major conflict. The International Typesetters Union (ITU) remained on strike well into the early 1960's, picketing that newspaper, then located in the heart of the city, every single day. I don't recall the exact date the strike was called off, but I do know that as I grew up from a boy to an adult, those workers aged from young men into old age, stubbornly refusing defeat, still picketing that cursed paper. In a labour town like Hamilton, how could this happen? How could the rearguard be abandoned? Good question.

     In most countries the first workers to organise were printers, because they were literate, and miners, because of the nature of their work. The history of printers is very proud, and they were at the heart of forming the first labour councils in Canada, both in Quebec and Ontario.

     But the printers had another side that was not so good. They were splintered into small specialized unions that came and went with technology and competed within the shops for members and control. The two organized groups at the Hamilton Spectator were typesetters and pressmen, both in their own organizations and both wary of each other. Their weakness was craft unionism. If the pressmen had supported the typesetters, the strike would have been won in short order. They didn't and the outcome was sad. Is there a lesson here?

     Fast forward to another century, Hamilton in 2006. The Spectator, having passed through several ownerships, none of them enlightened, is now owned by Torstar. Torstar also owns the Toronto Star and several smaller community newspaper operations, including one in Hamilton called Brabant.

     Brabant Newspapers is a pressroom and mailing facilities that does several small community handout type papers. The workers there belong to the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP). Some of them have been on strike since Dec. 5, 2004.

     At the centre of the strike is the issue of pay equity. This of course makes it a gender issue. Women inserters are the lowest paid in the Torstar chain, and a union-management pay equity committee determined a long time ago under the requirements of Ontario Equity Legislation that they were $1.52 per hour below comparable male dominated jobs in the pressroom. That gap would increase each year because of percentage wage increases. The workers were forced to strike for what should have been given to them under law, but of course these laws have a bad track record of enforcement. In June 2005, Torstar fired 25 of the women strikers.

     Workers at the Toronto Star, the Hamilton Spectator, the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, the Guelph Mercury, the Sing Tao Chinese-language daily, Metroland and Fairway Newspaper Chain, all Torstar and all CEP-represented, have launched an action plan that could result in a boycott of their own newspapers. The Hamilton District Labour Council and CEP are calling for a boycott of all Torstar papers. The Steelworkers have been to the Brabant picket lines several times to give much needed support.

     This is a very good development, but there is a problem. At Brabant there are two bargaining units represented by CEP, and one of them is not on strike. CEP thinks it has a legal obligation to honour its contract which covers the non-striking workers, and legally it does.

     This takes us to a reminisce of the BC Teachers strike that could only be won by shoving the law back into its cave. It is a bone of contention amongst Hamilton workers who are frankly confused when they go to support a picket line, maybe even get arrested, while watching members of the same union going into work with passes from their own union. This is not only a problem with CEP, but a problem for the entire labour movement in Canada. If this worship of law had prevailed in the mid-1800s we would not have a labour movement.

     So the logical question is this... will these gutsy, determined Hamilton women go the way of the typesetters so many years ago? Will these newspaper moguls trivialize these lives here and now, like they did and have done over the years? In 1946 the workers who ran the presses could have won the typesetters strike in short shrift. In 2006 the press operators still hold the key. The question is: will they turn it?

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Lying about democracy

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Hit the Tory weak points

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Turn up heat on Tories, says Communist Party

(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2006 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)

PV Commentary

IN THE WAKE of the narrow Conservative federal election victory, the Communist Party of Canada's Central Committee met in Toronto over the March 11-12 weekend to assess the current political situation in the country.
     The meeting opened with a political report by CPC leader Miguel Figueroa, who reviewed the developments which led to the defeat of the Martin Liberals by a Conservative minority under Stephen Harper. The temporary concessions on several issues granted by the Liberals, he noted, were most unwelcome in right-wing corporate circles, which threw their support behind the Conservatives and pressed hard for an early election.

     As soon as the Liberals faltered during the campaign, Figueroa pointed out, "monopoly support moved decisively to the Tories in all parts of Canada, including Quebec. This shift, combined with the absence of a cogent and united working class and democratic alternative, created the conditions for the Tory victory, although it was not as decisive as monopoly had hoped for."

     The tightly-scripted Conservative campaign, Figueroa said, took advantage of a widespread desire for "change" while hiding their true agenda. Even so, the Conservative popular vote increased only a few points, to 36.5%, and the Tories were shut out in most urban centres. The unexpected Tory gains in Quebec came largely as a result of Harper's offer that Quebec could name a representative to UNESCO and similar bodies, which helped pull votes from dissatisfied Liberals and "soft" Bloc Québecois supporters. Overall, however, the results do not indicate any clear mandate for Harper's drive to the right.

     Figueroa's report and the discussion by the Central Committee went into some detail about the election campaign waged by the NDP. "While welcoming the electoral gains achieved," he noted, "labour and social activists, including those carrying NDP membership cards, were dismayed by the rightward shift in party policy."

     Some examples of this shift included Layton's apparent tolerance of private health clinics; the failure to promise increased taxes on corporations and the wealthy; support for the chauvinist Clarity Act, which denies Quebec's right to self-determination; support for increased military spending and for Canada's military presence in Afghanistan; and pandering to the right-wing campaign to "get tough" on gun violence and youth crime.

     On a strategic level, the NDP leadership focused its attack on the Martin Liberals, doing little to warn against the Conservative danger.

     "While frustration and disappointment with the NDP's opportunistic policy is fully justified," said Figueroa, he stressed that the larger NDP federal caucus can be a useful ally in resisting the Tory/big business onslaught, if it can be pressed to play a stronger supportive role in the extra-parliamentary fightback.

     Turning to the role of labour and social movements in the election, the Central Committee noted the weakness of both the CAW strategy (calling the Liberals "friends of labour") and the failure of the Canadian Labour Congress to go beyond raising "labour's issues" in the campaign.

     Despite the willingness of organized workers to engage in major struggles, such as last fall's teachers' strike in British Columbia and a near-general strike in Quebec, it appears that class collaborationism and business unionism at the top level are resulting in "a retreat to political passivity," Figueroa noted. His report stressed the need for coordinated political action by the entire trade union movement, and more initiative along these lines by the left forces within labour.

     One such initiative will be the circulation of an "Open Letter" from the Communist Party, calling upon the trade union movement and all democratic forces to build united resistance against the Harper Tories. The campaign around this appeal will be featured prominently in upcoming issues of People's Voice.

     The CC meeting adopted a special resolution on the upcoming 85th anniversary of the CPC, calling for a series of activities and plans to build the party. Despite some difficulties last year, in particular the divisions in Quebec created by former PCQ leader Andre Parizeau, recruitment is on the rise again in recent months, including during the election. The CC voted to hold the 35th Central Convention of the CPC on the weekend of Feb. 2-4, 2007.

     In a related development, concrete steps are being taken by the CPC to assist the refounding of the Young Communist League of Canada.

     The Central Committee meeting also discussed the dangerous international situation, especially the renewed threats by US imperialism in Asia and the Middle East. A special resolution was adopted for circulation at the March 18-19 anti-war actions across Canada, calling for a turn away from support for the US war drive, towards an independent foreign policy of peace and disarmament. Another resolution gave full support to the struggle against the Czech Republic's move to make the Czech Communist Youth illegal, one of several indications of a rising wave of anti-communism in Europe.

     The full documents of the Central Committee meeting will be available shortly on the CPC's website, http://www.communist-party.ca.

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"Code Blue" campaign on child care

(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2006 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)

PV Vancouver Bureau

A PETITION CAMPAIGN demanding that politicians honour the promise of a Canada-wide child care program was nearing 25,000 names as of March 24, with thousands more signing on every day. Launched by the Canadian Child Care Advocacy Association, the "Code Blue" campaign (picking up on the term for a medical emergency) has won the backing of Canadians ranging from Olympic hockey gold medallist Hayley Wickenheiser to the Saskatchewan Legislature.

The on-line petition, at http://www.buildchildcare.ca, is addressed to PM Stephen Harper, provincial premiers and federal opposition leaders. It reads:

     "We are calling on you to work together to honour the promise of a national child care program. The place to start is by protecting the early learning and child care agreements between the Government of Canada and the provinces. The federal-provincial agreements on child care were negotiated in good faith. They lay a foundation for a full system of early learning and child care that can meet the needs of all Canadian families. Cancelling them sets back the development of a national child care program for years to come, leaving families with young children to fend for themselves. Breaking federal-provincial child care agreements would be a breach of public trust and would lead to a cut of almost $4 billion from child care funding. The federal election results were not a mandate to turn back the clock on child care. While income support for families is a valid policy goal, a taxable family allowance and a tax credit for employers will not create early learning and child care services that are high quality, available and affordable. Families need income supports and publicly funded child care services. We call on all governments to protect and enhance progress on child care."

     One of the most prominent voices in the campaign is the YWCA, which has released a report showing that Canadian families strongly believe in the value of early childhood services and programs.

     "The findings dispense with many of the assumptions that Canada is too vast and diverse to make a national child care program viable," said Paulette Senior, CEO of YWCA Canada, in a March 20 news release. "We found that both mothers at home and those in the labour force want early learning programs for their children. Communities, whether rural, suburban or urban, value early childhood services and the contribution they make."

     The YWCA's report, Building a Community Architecture for Early Childhood Learning and Care, is based on panels convened in several communities during 2004 and 2005. The panels brought together representatives of business and labour, aboriginal, ethnic, community, women's and parent groups, profit and non-profit service providers and municipal and provincial officials, resulting in a call for coherent child care policies at the provincial and federal level.

     Despite the recent change in government, Paulette Senior said, "a minority government, facing a united opposition backed by the majority of premiers and public opinion can be made to realize that a deal is a deal. Even if the Tories won't move, connecting today's fragmented services into a system would better meet the needs of children and families."

     The report's recommendations include:

- Adequate government funding to ensure delivery of high-quality care.

- Legislation to ensure child care services are of high quality and inclusive of all children, regardless of socio-economic status, location, language or culture.

- Replace child care fee subsidies for parents in favour of adequate and stable base funding for programs.

     Meanwhile, the Saskatchewan legislature has passed a motion to support a made-in-Saskatchewan child care plan, and to express the provincial government's dissatisfaction with the federal Conservative plan to axe child care agreements signed with the provinces last year.

     Leaning Minister Deb Higgins introduced a motion in the legislature on March 16, sparking a long debate in front of a visitor's gallery filled with parents and child care activists, who have been lobbying Lorne Calvert's NDP government for action.

     Significantly, considering that the provincial opposition is the right-wing Saskatchewan Party, the resolution was adopted unanimously.

     The motion reads: "That this Assembly recognize that in today's communities and workplaces, parental supports and assistance are of utmost importance in contributing to the caring and nurturing of children, and that high-quality early learning and child care plays a integral role in supporting and nurturing the social, emotional, and cognitive development of a child's life; and further, that this Assembly express dissatisfaction with the federal government's announcement to withdraw that support to families and cancel early learning and child care agreements with the provinces, and not fulfill commitments made by the previous federal government, which were to provide $146 million over five years to Saskatchewan families."

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Milosevic murdered by International "Tribunal"

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Student/worker protests shake France

(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2006 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)

PV Vancouver Bureau

MILLIONS OF PROTESTERS have taken to the streets of France, and trade unions are preparing for a general strike in response to what they call a dangerous and disturbing new law. The "first jobs contract" (CPE) would allow employers to fire people under age 26 without cause within two years of being hired. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin claims it will ease youth unemployment. But student and labour groups say it will aggravate the problem and allow employers to treat young workers like trash.

     On Sunday, March 26, four militant French student leaders rejected an invitation from Villepin to hold talks on a new youth jobs contract, calling instead for a big turnout at protests and a general strike on March 28. Three "moderate" student leaders who have not been involved in the protests did meet with Villepin.

     "For two months, young people and working people have expressed their worries and rejection of the First Job Contract that makes a period of poverty a mandatory phase for an entire generation," said Bruno Julliard, a leader of the national student union UNEF.

     The youth unemployment rate in France is 23 percent, more than double the general jobless rate. In the poorest areas youth joblessness is as high as 50 percent.

     France's current, long-standing labour law allows employers just a few months to terminate a new employee without giving a reason. After that, the law sets strict standards for firing employees. Opponents of the so-called "first jobs contract" (CPE) have nicknamed it the "Kleenex contract" because of the disposable workforce it would create.

     The new law is to be enacted when signed by President Jacques Chirac in April. Unions called for a national day of strike actions on March 28 to protest the plan. Bolstered by this support, student groups held more large-scale protests March 21 and 23.

     Public figures joining protests in 150 cities on March 18 included Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe, Socialist Party leader Frantois Hollande, former culture minister Jack Lang and Communist Party leader Marie-George Buffet.

     The protest in Paris was marred by minor violence, in which a small number of demonstrators set fire to a police car. In response, police fired tear gas into the crowd. By and large the march was peaceful, though, with a festive atmosphere.

     Carole Cases, a nurse who participated in the protest with two of her children, told The New York Times, "I'm sick and tired of all these phony contracts and I want to protect my children's future. They're trying to dupe the young."

     Many were upset with the quickness with which the measure passed through the Parliament. Bruno Julliard said the government "imposed the jobs plan without consulting anyone," and that the government only agreed to talks after the large demonstrations. UNEF, in turn, has refused to join talks until the contract is withdrawn.

     De Villepin IS expected to offer an amended version of the contract, possibly requiring a justification for firing or shortening the trial period during which the young worker could be fired. He has said publicly that he will stand by the law and that it will not be withdrawn.

     The CGT, France's largest union federation, said in a March 21 statement, "This measure, ineffective for employment, offers employers a new means of pressuring employees to renounce most of their rights under the penalty that they will be pushed out the door: it is a welcome to unpaid additional hours, worsened work conditions, lower salaries, sick days not respected, scorned dignity, etc."

     According to the federation, 75 percent of the population wants the CPE to be withdrawn. CGT leader Bernard Thibault said, "If this momentum continues, I think we will quickly get the withdrawal."

     The French Communist Party has opposed the CPE, proposing instead "a large progressive reformation of the labour code, aiming for job security and income for all."

     In addition to the planned labour strikes, UNEF has led student strikes at a number of universities. Student groups also worry that the CPE would make housing problems worse for young workers. Many landlords won't rent to young workers because of their precarious financial situation.

     "There is a big housing crisis in France. With this contract, no young workers will be able to get an apartment," said Julie Coudry, president of the Student Confederation.

     The new law is seen as part of pro-corporate "structural reforms" called for by international financial institutions. European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said March 20 it was absolutely necessary for European governments to conduct such "reforms."

     (With files from People's Weekly World and other sources.)

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Bush security strategy update signals new aggressions

(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2006 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) By Kimball Cariou

THE BUSH REGIME is updating its national security strategy, and the result is scary indeed. As reported in the March 16 New York Times, the strategy document, the first since 2002, remains firm on the decision to attack Iraq, and identifies Iran as the most likely future target.
     The document warns of confrontation with Iran if that country does not bow to US "diplomacy" over its nuclear energy program. Reporter David Sanger of the Times was told by Stephen J. Hadley, President Bush's national security adviser and the principal author of the new report, that the warning applies to both Iran and North Korea. Syria, which was not mentioned by name in the 2002 document, is also now listed as a threat.

     The 48-page "National Security Strategy of the United States" goes further into new territory, warning China against "old ways of thinking and acting" in its competition for energy resources. China's leaders, it says, are "expanding trade, but acting as if they can somehow `lock up' energy supplies around the world or seek to direct markets rather than opening them up - as if they can follow a mercantilism borrowed from a discredited era." Hadley says the warning is an effort to get China's leaders to think about "the broader constellation" of their interests. Apparently Hadley is totally unaware of the hypocrisy of this position, at a period in history when U.S. imperialism openly invades countries such as Iraq to seize oil supplies.

     In another ominous change, the document speaks of "recent trends" in Russia which "regrettably point toward a diminishing commitment to democratic freedoms and institutions." Clearly these shifts signal the White House's intention to begin demonizing China and Russia as preliminary steps towards convincing the U.S. people to accept the option of military aggression against those countries at some point, should the international competition for resources become more intense.

     This analysis is backed up by the strategy's unchanged orientation on the use of pre-emptive military strikes.

     "The world is better off if tyrants know that they pursue W.M.D. at their own peril," the strategy says. It acknowledges "misjudgments" about Iraq's weapons program, but claims that "there will always be some uncertainty about the status of hidden programs since proliferators are often brutal regimes that go to great lengths to conceal their activities."

     Making U.S. intentions even clearer, the strategy openly warns that the United States reserves the right to take "anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack." In other words, pre-emptive attacks - one of the most serious of all war crimes under international law - are considered completely justified as long as they are launched by the United States itself.

     Another ironic theme of the document is its reference to the need for "effective democracies," a code phrase, according to its drafters, for countries that hold free elections, build democratic institutions and spread their benefits to their populations. By such yardsticks, of course, the growing attack on democratic rights and freedoms within the United States, and its rapidly widening gulf between rich and poor, would leave that country out of the circle of "effective democracies."

     The document hails the "new flows of trade, investment, information and technology," which are said to be transforming national security in every area from the spread of HIV/AIDS to avian flu to "environmental destruction, whether caused by human behavior or cataclysmic megadisasters such as flood, hurricanes, earthquakes or tsunamis." However, it does not mention global warming or climate change, which pose the most serious long-term threats to human survival.

     The National Security Strategy of the United States should be seen by the anti-war movement and all progressive forces as a warning that the number one imperialist power will never give up its position without a fight. The U.S. ruling class remains intent on domination of global resources, whether that means sending in the troops to occupy small countries, or setting the stage to take on potential rivals such as China and Russia. Ultimately, the future of humanity, depends on defeating U.S. imperialism before it destroys the entire planet.

     (PV editor Kimball Cariou is active in the StopWar peace coalition in Vancouver.)

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What's Left

(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2006 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)

VANCOUVER, BC

Walk for democracy - gather 12:30 pm, Sunday, April 2, from Knight & 26th, walk past MP David Emerson's office for 2 pm rally at Norquay Park (Slocan and Kingsway).

StopWar meetings - 2nd & 45h Wednesdays, 5:30 pm, Maritime Labour Centre, 111 Victoria Ave. See http://www.stopwar.ca for info.

Which way for Vancouver Civic Politics? - People's Voice panel forum with speakers Jane Bouey (former COPE school trustee) and Paul Tetrault (labour activist and COPE executive member), and open discussion, 2 pm, Sunday, April 9, Dogwood Centre, 706 Clark Drive. Call PV office for details, 604-255-2041.

Annual Spring Bazaar - at the Russian Hall, 600 Campbell Ave., Sat., April 29, 11 am to 3 pm. Plants, white elephant, books, hallmade products, delicious lunch at reasonable prices. Donations of cash or kind are welcome. Call 604-298-1513 for details.

International Workers' Day Celebration - tribute to workers of the world, 6:30 pm, Sat., April 29, Peretz Centre, 6184 Ash St. Music, Latin American food, presentation, speakers. Donation $5. Sponsored by CPC, FMLN, Amigos de Cuba, Pena LatinoAmericana, call 604-460-0891 or 604-436-5599 for information, or see ad on page 3.

Celebrate the life of Robert "Doc" Savage - evening of Saturday, May 6, Dogwood Centre, 706 Clark Drive. See next issue for details, or call George Gidora, 604-254-0936.

BURNABY, PC

War Resister Benefit - Vancouver War Resisters Support Campaign wine and cheese benefit party, 8 pm, Friday, April 21, at 390 N. Springer Ave., Burnaby, minimum charitable donation of $50 to attend, receipt issued to all donors.

Mother's Day Pancake Breakfast - 10 am - 1 pm, Sunday, May 14 (last call for pancakes 12 noon), at 5435 Kincaid St. Proceeds to PV Fund Drive, $8 adults, $6/under 12, organized by Burnaby Club CPC.

WINNIPEG, MB

Stop Operation Bison meeting - Stop Operation Bison meetings, every Monday evening, 7 pm, concerning urban warfare training in Winnipeg. Info: 772-5703.

TORONTO, ON

Social Justice Awards - Sat., April 22, 2 pm, City Hall Chambers, with Mayor David Miller. Awards for Youth, Young Adult, Neighbourhood Organizing, Outstanding Achievement. Sponsors include Centre for Social Justice, Toronto and York Region Labour Council, Community Social Planning Council, and Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants.

Rally against occupation of Palestine - every Friday, 5-6 pm, picket at the Israeli Consulate at Avenue Road/Bloor West. Organized by Jewish Women Against the Occupation and Coalition for Just Peace in Palestine.

REDS ON THE WEB
http://www.communist-party.ca

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Communist Manifesto 2006 Calendar

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PV $50,000 Fund Drive hits one-quarter mark

PV 2006 FUND DRIVE

Area                              Target               Raised                   %

British Colombia         $22,000             $7,338             33.3%
Alberta                         $1,700                 $950               55.9%
Saskatchewan                   $800                 $145               18.1%
Manitoba                  $3,000                 $200                  6.7%
Ontario                          $20,000              $2,903                14.5%
Quebec                       $500                   $85                17.0%
Atlantic Canada            $1,200                 $125                10.0%
Other                 $800                 $255                31.9%

Total                 $50,000           $12,001               24.0%

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Northern residents blast lack of apprenticeships and training

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Protestors reject commercialisation of water

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Union victory at Starbucks

2531 East Hastings,
1702 Robson St.,
811 Hornby St.,
#150-1055 West Georgia St. (Royal Centre Vancouver),
1752 Commercial Dr.,
1015 Denman St.,
3451 Kingsway,
1095 Howe St., 1641 Davie St.
1395 Main St.

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A unique record of the writer at war

(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2006 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)

A Writer at War: Vasily Grossman with the Red Army 1941-1945,
Edited and translated by Antony Beevor and Luba Vinogradova.
Alfred A. Knopf Canada,
ISBN 0-6786-97810-x, 378 pages, $39.95 Can.

A Writer at War consists of selections from notebooks and letters by Soviet journalist Vasily Grossman, describing the war as he witnessed it on the Eastern Front between 1941 and 1945. These notebooks served as raw material for Grossman's newspaper articles, which were published during the war in the Red Army newspaper, Red Star. In total, Grossman spent over three years at the front. His articles are characterized by a keen eye for descriptive detail and compassion for both soldiers and civilians caught in the war.

Vasily Grossman was born in 1905 in the Ukrainian town of Berdichev. After taking a degree in chemistry at Moscow University in 1930, he found employment as a chemical analyst in a Ukrainian mine. But this work held no interest for him. In 1932, he moved back to Moscow where he pursued a career in writing, published his first novel, and won the praise and patronage of Maxim Gorky. In 1937, Grossman was granted membership in the Writer's Union, a coveted honour which included many privileges and benefits. By 1940 he was known as a conventional and moderately successful writer.

When the Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Grossman volunteered for the Red Army. He was, however, rejected because he was overweight and in generally poor physical condition. Inspired by his desire to see action, Grossman went on a strict diet, lost 34 pounds, and made an intense study of military subjects such as tactics, equipment and weaponry.

On August 5, 1941, Grossman was sent to the front as an official war correspondent for Red Star. Most correspondents stayed a safe distance behind the front, but Grossman went into the most dangerous areas and demonstrated extraordinary bravery under fire. His articles were based on his own first-hand observations and interviews with soldiers and civilians.

Grossman was deeply moved by the suffering he observed. He wrote of "the penetrating, sharp foreboding of imminent losses, and the tragic realization that the destiny of a mother, a wife and a child had become inseparable from the destiny of the encircled regiments and retreating armies. How can one forget the front in those days - doomed Kiev, carts of retreat, and poisonous-green rockets over silent forests and rivers?"

In August 1941, General David Ortenberg, editor of Red Star, ordered Grossman to cover the advance of the German Sixth Army on Stalingrad. In the course of this assignment Grossman spent more days at the Stalingrad front than any other war correspondent.

The battle for Stalingrad was of great significance for Grossman's life and work. In his novel Life and Fate, he recreates many individuals and human dramas which he first recorded in his notebooks at Stalingrad. Little known outside Russia today, Life and Fate is considered by many critics one of the greatest Russian novels of the twentieth century.

Like many of his contemporaries, Grossman was a passionate idealist who believed that the heroic sacrifices of the Russian Army were destined not only to win the war, but also to pave the way for fundamental postwar changes in Soviet society.

When the Red Army entered Polish territory in the summer of 1944, Grossman was the first correspondent to see the Treblinka extermination camp, where the Nazis had killed over 800,000 victims. The camp commander, on orders from SS Chief Heinrich Himmler, had ordered all traces of the camp destroyed. Grossman was privileged to interview some 40 survivors as well as local peasants. His essay, "The Hell Called Treblinka" is a classic record of Nazi atrocities, and was used as evidence at the Nuremberg trials. It is reproduced in full in A Writer at War. After the war, Grossman and Ilya Ehrenberg collected extensive documentation of crimes committed by the Nazis, published in Russia as The Black Book in 1980.

One of Grossman's greatest talents was his ability to gain the confidence of those he was interviewing. Ortenberg recognized and valued Grossman's unique abilities. He wrote: "All the correspondents on the Stalingrad front were amazed at how Grossman had made the divisional commander, General Gurtiev, a silent and reserved Siberian, talk to him for six hours without a break, telling him all that he wanted to know at one of the hardest moments of the battle."

The fact that Grossman never took notes during an interview helped him gain people's confidence. It was his custom to sit up late at night, writing notes and newspaper stories based on interviews he had conducted during the day. Ortenberg wrote: "These notes are extremely pithy. Characteristic features of life at war are seen in just one phrase, as if on photographic paper when the photo is developed. In his notebooks one finds the pure, unretouched truth."

For his contribution to Soviet war literature Grossman was awarded the Orders of the Red Banner and Red Star, and several medals, including one for bravery in combat.

Grossman's biographer, Frank Ellis, writes: "Life and Fate makes a strong claim to be one of the main books on the Great Fatherland War. But it is, also, one of the main books of Soviet literature."

To date only two of Grossman's novels, Life and Fate and Everything Flows, have been translated into English. The publication of A Writer at War should do much to bring the work of Vasily Grossman to the attention of a wide western audience and to promote the translation of his complete works.

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COPE calls for campaign spending limits

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April 1-15, 2006 Volume 14 - Number 7 $1

April 1-15, 2006
Volume 14 - Number 7
$1