03) B.C. - CAPITALISM IS STILL NOT WORKING

 

Labour Bureau, Communist Party of British Columbia, November 2014

 

            The Communist Party of Canada extends warm greetings to delegates attending the 56th Biennial Convention of the BC Federation of Labour. As your community's leading labour activists, you are certainly aware of the continuing global economic crisis. You understand this is a crisis brought on by the greed of the 1%. The origins of this greed are not abstract; they are rooted inextricably in the capitalist system.

 

            Karl Marx identified over a hundred years ago the cyclical nature of economic crises. An historical look at the economies of the developed capitalist countries since that time bears out his observations and conclusions. The present crisis has its roots in the 1970s, when capital was faced with falling rates of profit from manufacturing. In response, capitalists sought out new and higher sources of profit. In general terms, this meant a shift of capital from the manufacturing to the financial sectors of the economy.

 

            A second attempt to spur profits was to close plants in the U.S. and Canada, and to open new branch plants in the Maquiladora zone or in the "free economic" zones of China, Vietnam or wherever labour costs were cheap. This had the desired effect on the rate of profit, but created higher permanent unemployment in Canada and British Columbia. This means tougher competition for jobs and a harder negotiating climate for unions, and eventually declining real wages. A more recent trend is the expansion of the  "Temporary Foreign Worker Program", designed to increase unemployment. This is not the fault of workers who seek employment to feed themselves and their families, but of the corporations and governments which want to reduce labour costs.

 

            Allegedly to stimulate spending and boost the economy, significant tax cuts were carried out for the wealthy and for corporations, as well as large‑scale bailouts of banks and corporations facing bankruptcy. This lowered federal government revenues, and reduced transfer payments for education and health. Having also reduced taxes, provinces facing deficits then downloaded expenses to municipalities, who in turn passed them on to working people. Municipal infrastructure and services suffered because there are limits to property taxes that people can pay.

 

            However, there always seems to be enough money for the military ‑ F35's, warships, sending troops overseas ‑ but not for First Nations housing or other crucial services for the poor and marginalized. There is also corporate welfare; the IMF reports that annual subsidies to the oil and gas industry alone in Canada are over 34 Billion dollars. (Mitchell Anderson, 15 May 2014, TheTyee.ca.)

 

Working class reaction

 

            Over the last few years, mainly in Europe and Asia, but also in Canada and the US through the "Occupy Movement" and campaigns to organize fast food workers and raise the minimum wage, there has been major resistance against cutbacks, corporate bailouts, and austerity. The state reaction has primarily been police and tear gas.

 

            In many cases these governments include (or are even led by) social democrats or "socialists" who are complicit with European Union and European Central Bank demands for major "reforms" to protect the integrity of the European Union itself. At best, their goal is only to moderate capitalism, not to replace it with a better economic model. They fail to recognize that the interests of the bosses are opposed to those of workers, and that capitalism cannot be reformed to serve working people. There is a similar danger in Canada and in BC, where the NDP lost the 2013 election after failing to campaign for a decisive break with the neoliberal policies of the Liberals.

 

            Organized labour in BC and Canada has been slow to organize a fightback against the corporate/government onslaught. But there are signs of change. A new, more dynamic leadership at the CLC is opening up the possibility of more militant participation of labour in peoples' struggles. The "Common Front" in Ontario, and the unity of the Quebec labour movement against the Couillard government's austerity attack are positive signs of a new attitude of struggle. The courageous strike by the BC Teachers, and the struggle of the Richmond IKEA workers, are examples of how to build a united labour-community fightback in this province.

 

            The incoming leadership of the BC Fed needs to seek out partners to join in such a fightback. The success of the Teachers in gaining public support proves that right‑wing governments can be compelled to back down. Reaching out to our natural allies ‑ Aboriginal peoples, students, anti‑poverty and social justice groups, environmental movements, seniors, anti‑war groups ‑ is the best way to move this process forward.

 

           

What's to be done?

 

            At this convention delegates should pressure the incoming leadership to develop labour's own program, independent of all political parties. Such a program could include the resistance against austerity, the use of BC resources for BC jobs, an end to private public partnerships, stopping and reversing privatization, and more.

 

            Regardless of who is elected as President and Secretary‑Treasurer, the delegates determine the political policy and line of the BC Federation of Labour. Arming the Executive Board with strong, militant working class policies would enable them to start building a massive, united peoples movement, to take back our province from the corporations; to protect our environment from the oil and gas barons; to rebuild our fishery and to establish large scale value added manufacturing, instead of the current policies of exporting our resources to be processed elsewhere. Labour is the essential ingredient in such a movement, it is the glue that will hold it together and the engine that will move it forward.

 

            Mass pressure is needed on all parties to adopt such policies now ‑ not when politically expedient. A real fightback plan cannot be limited to lobbying. We need action, from teach‑ins to sit‑ins, rallies, marches, pickets, and strikes.

 

            We also need to ensure that the labour movement represents, and fights for, the entire working class ‑ not just those with union cards. It must be activist oriented, and rooted in solidarity and struggle, not business unionism. We need to discard the mistaken beliefs that the interests of workers and bosses can be reconciled, or that the labour movement's role is to help "better manage" the capitalist system. Fighting for immediate reforms that will better the lives of working people is an important task for labour and its allies. The struggle for these reforms must move beyond the realm of collective bargaining and become the basis to unite all workers behind a political program to bring about meaningful political change.

 

            What we need is Socialism ‑ a society in which the value produced by labour is used by society rather than expropriated by corporations and sold for profit. This of course means democratic public ownership of banks, major resources, and producers, and placing political and economic power in the hands of working people.

 

            If you support these ideas, contact us to find out about joining the Communist Party, the party of the working class, which fights for a socialist Canada!

 

(The above article is from the November 16-30, 2014, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading socialist 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.)