07) LABOUR DAY GREETINGS! - Editorial

People's Voice Editorial

     Many working people across North America will emjoy a well-deserved break on Labour Day. In the unceasing struggle between workers and bosses, every statutory holiday is a small but important victory against employers who seek to lengthen working hours in their drive to increase exploitation and profits.

     But Labour Day also has a political side, even though its origins lie in attempts to undermine celebrations of May First, the international day of the worker. Many Labour Day picnics and parades express solidarity with workers engaged in strikes and other struggles against the bosses.

     This year's Labour Day is a moment to weigh up the serious battles which lie ahead. The attack on the Postal Workers by Stephen Harper's Tory majority shows that working people face four years of escalating corporate/government assaults on labour rights. The aim of the Harper Tories is to smash the ability of workers to resist the corporate agenda in the workplace and in the legislative arena. Their ultimate goal is to lower union density in Canada from the current levels of around 30%, closer to the 10% in the United States.

     Our response must be to build broad unity of organized labour with its allies: unorganized and unemployed workers, farmers, Aboriginal peoples, the movements of students, women, immigrants and seniors, anti-war and environmental groups, the Communists and other progressive forces, and other sections of the people fighting back against neoliberal policies. Only a fightback which draws all these forces into joint action can block the Harper Tories, and open the door to a wider struggle for a real People's Alternative to the corporate agenda.

(The above article is from the September 1-15, 2011, 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.)