03) REJECT "WORKER-VS.-WORKER" DIVISIONS

People's Voice Editorial

     The latest example of employer abuse of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program give new reason to abolish the TFWP. The situation is under official review, but it seems that either RBC Investor Services in Toronto, and/or the iGATE Corp. transnational, have violated the terms of the TFWP, which bans the replacement of already‑employed Canadian workers. An estimated 45 employees, many at a point in their careers where it would be difficult to find other work, may lose their jobs.

     Workers need to focus on the key issue here. The Royal Bank raked in an astounding $7.5 billion in profits last year. But never satisfied, capitalists relentlessly maximize profits, squeezing every possible dollar out of employees and customers. For RBC, the chance to dump a few dozen well‑paid employees by offshoring this work was too tempting to resist.

     The story of capitalist expansion in North America is a catalog of similar strategies. For some 200 years, industrial and financial bosses have sought new ways to pit workers against each other, fanning the flames of racism and sexism to create artificial divisions. The aim is to expand what Marx termed "the reserve army of labour," unemployed or under‑employed workers forced by hunger and debt to seek employment for lower wages.

     It must always be stressed that new sections of the working class are also exploited in this process. Workers from every corner of the world have the human right to seek a better life, including in imperialist countries such as Canada. The labour movement is correct to demand that corporations stop flouting the law in their drive to push down wages, and also to help integrate new migrant and immigrant workers into the trade union movement. The RBC case is proof that all‑in unity must be an urgent priority for the labour movement, in order to head off the emergence of racist, fascist, anti‑immigrant forces which have badly weakened the working class struggle in some European countries.

(The above article is from the April 16-30, 2013, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)