Grocery Workers Talk Poverty Wages and Pandemic Profits

By Michelle Paquette and Doug Yearwood, YCL-LJC members in Ottawa

This article was originally published in Rank and File

After large private sector grocery retailers introduced pay increases for frontline workers, Herb & Spice—a locally owned and operated grocery store in Ottawa— announced that its employees would receive a $1.50/hour hazard pay increase. Unlike other grocery stores who have committed to maintaining the pay increase until the pandemic subsides, this employer is only delivering hazard pay for a single pay period.

The Bienfait Miners' Strike: Book Review

Peter Miller

For anyone in the labour movement, it’s good to take time to read some inspiring labour history to give you some fire to get organizing! Endicott’s book is perfect for this inspiration.

The book analyzes the Saskatchewan miners’ struggle of 1931, organized with support from the Workers Unity League. The Mine Workers’ Union of Canada, affiliated to the Worker’ Unity League, was connected with the Red International of Labour Unions. It’s main organizers were inspired by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and were militants in a labour central focused on class struggle, instead of collaboration with the bosses and their governments. The union organized workers based on industry instead of craft, and combined political demands for things like non-contributory unemployment insurance, with bread-and-butter economic demands for working members. The union was also much more democratic than other unions at the time, with regular mass meetings and democratically elected strike committees.

Precariousness & Poverty for Young Workers: StatsCan Report

Drew Garvie

This Monday, Statistics Canada released a report that confirms what young people already knew: youth jobs are few, temporary and part-time. Canada’s so-called “recovery” economy has little to offer youth besides precariousness and poverty.

The report, entitled “Perspectives on the Youth Labour Market in Canada, 1976 to 2015”, focuses on young workers aged 15-24 who are not enrolled as full-time students and compares this generation to past generations of the same age group.

Young Worker Horror Stories

We often hear that our generation has it worse off than our parents. As the capitalist class continues to deepen their attack on the living and working standards of working people as a whole, the jobs available to young people in particular keep getting worse: part-time, non-union, precarious work, internships, or straight up unemployment are often the ‘choices’ we have.

In a recent, small-scale investigation blitz of employers by the Ministry of Labour in Ontario, it was discovered that 3/4 of employers were breaking already substandard labour laws. But what does this look like at the ground level?

Here are some stories from Rebel Youth readers about their work experiences:

Freeland confronts anger over TPP in her own riding

Rally against the TPP outside the meeting - Photo: J Watts

Drew Garvie

On Wednesday, June 16, Chrystia Freeland, the Liberal Minister of International Trade visited her own riding of University-Rosedale in downtown Toronto in order to “listen” to the public as part of her promised consultation tour on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The message Freeland heard at the meeting was a clear and resounding “No to the TPP”.

It was a close to capacity crowd with hundreds in attendance at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Business. A large crowd gathered outside in festival themed rally complete with a 30 foot, red-eyed, inflatable horse, meant to represent the TPP as a Trojan horse.

Call-out for young worker horror stories

We often hear that our generation has it worse off than our parents. As the capitalist class continues to deepen their attack on the living and working standards of working people as a whole, the jobs available to young people in particular keep getting worse: part-time, non-union, precarious work, internships, or straight up unemployment are often the 'choices' we have.

But what does it look like at the ground level? Rebel Youth is calling on young workers to write about their experiences for the upcoming 20^th issue of the print magazine.

Raise your voice, cause you’re not alone! In a recent, small-scale investigation blitz of employers by the Ministry of Labour in Ontario, it was discovered that 3/4ers of employers were breaking already substandard labour laws.

UofT’s strike in retrospective: How students and labor pushed for unity

Zach Morgenstern

From February 27 to March 26 of 2015 UofT’s CUPE 3902 Unit 1, a union which represents UofT student-course-instructors (most prominently teaching assistants (TAs)) went on strike. The Union, which bargained with a strike-vote mandate it had held since November, ultimately settled for arbitration. Arbitrator William Kaplan has since ruled in UofT’s favor, allowing for a deal the union had previously voted down, which does not guarantee funding increases for individual graduate students, to be implemented.  Despite this being a far from perfect result for the month long campaign, it has to be said that CUPE 3902’s approach to the strike was commendable, at least when it came to student-TA relations.

Quebec Anti-Austerity Battle Heating Up

Johan Boyden

Reprinted from People's Voice Newspaper

Mobilizations to stop the austerity measures of Philippe Couillard’s Quebec Liberal government got a boost in late March, after a meeting of the Front Commun, the Common Front of Quebec public sector trade unions. Then the student movement brought over 70,000 protesters into the streets on April 2, its largest mobilization since the 2012 strike.

In late March, the Liberal budget presented by Couillard’s finance minister Carlos Leitao ended any illusions that negotiations could lead to a victory for public sector unions. Calling the budget “austerity at light speed,” and a gift to big business, the labour movement condemned the proposals including a two-year wage freeze. On March 31 the Front Commun concluded further negotiations would be a dead-end and began mobilizing for a strike.

Labour activist calls to 'Take Back CLC'

Peoples Voice Newspaper

For the first time since 2005, there will be a contest for the presidency when the Canadian Labour Congress meets May 5-9 in Montreal. Ken Georgetti, who has led the 3 million member federation for 15 years, will be challenged by Hassan Husseini, a negotiator for the Public Service Alliance of Canada and a member of Unifor local 2025.

A long‑time labour activist, Husseini has launched a campaign to "Take Back the CLC." A statement on his campaign website says, "As workers and unions, we are facing a massive and unprecedented right wing attack. Labour and employment standards, collective bargaining rights, and the right of workers to organize and be politically active, are all targets of right wing governments at the federal and provincial levels. The labour movement is in a fight for survival as a force for progressive social change in Canadian society.

"In recent years, grassroots activism has won real gains. There is much we can learn from these successful struggles such as that of the Quebec students, Idle No More, the Toronto Library workers, the Chicago teachers and others. As CLC President I will empower and support that kind of local activism. I will help build the local leadership it takes to challenge someone like Stephen Harper, and his corporate backers....

Campaign to Raise the Minimum Wage supporters convene for Public Forum and Strategy Meeting

RY Ontario

In Ontario over the last several months, the "Campaign to Raise the Minimum Wage" has built considerable pressure on the Wynne Liberals to raise the minimum wage to $14/hr from their current poverty rate of $10.25.

This Friday and Saturday (January 24 and 25th) activists, local campaigns and supporting organizations are convening in Toronto to discuss the way forward and hear from successful campaigns in the United States.

Under the slogan, "Fair Wages Now", and "You deserve a raise", the campaign has been successful in organizing days of actions around different themes on the 14th of every month, in dozens of communities, for the past several months.  The campaign is coordinated by the Workers Action Centre in Toronto, but has received a lot of support from other unions and organizations including the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, ACORN, the Young Communist League, the Ontario Federation of Labour, and a number of Labour Councils across Ontario.

The Attack on Postal Workers, CETA, Privatization

By Sam Hammond   

Republished from 'People's Voice' Newspaper

Eight thousand jobs under the wrecking crew hammer of Canada Post. Eight thousand families deprived of a living wage, eight thousand victims of the neo‑liberal restructuring of social life. After earlier cuts eliminating home delivery in rural areas, millions of urban residents, including retirees and those with handicaps, will now be denied door‑to‑door delivery of letters and packages. The destruction of what was and should be again a non‑profit, state‑provided service, is the kick‑off attack of 2014. This is an immense assault on services, jobs and Canadian culture.

What is the purpose of this? Even in the corporate greed and self‑gratification of the Canada Post executive strata, how does it make sense to destroy the foundation to save the building? This conundrum only unravels and reveals itself when viewed as a component of the preparation for complete privatization demanded by "Free Trade Agreements", and the neo‑liberal agenda for the destruction of trade unions and collective bargaining.

Fast food workers strike actions demand $15/h, expose poverty wages crisis

Fast food and retail workers in 60 or more cities, towns and suburbs and reportedly 1000 stores across the United States rallied in strike actions and job site disruptions all-day yesterday starting as early as 6am. The strikes marked the largest protests so far in a 10-month campaign that is gaining momentum after it began with 200 workers striking at a restaurant in New York last November, and spread to Detroit, Chicago, LA and elsewhere this summer.

The walkouts and protest actions, which can be followed on twitter via the tag #825strike, also struck at a number of cities in the notoriously anti-union and low-wage southern US. The organizers, a coalition of fast food workers, labour, community and church groups -- some of whom are mobilizing under the banner of 'Fast Food Forward' -- called for the right to organize a union as well as a boost in the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

The fast food worker's mobilization is likely the largest in US history.

While most of the strike actions and protests occurred at fast food chain stores, retail outlets like Macy's, Sears and Victoria's Secret also saw protests.  In a number of cities, entire businesses were effectively shut-down for the day.  More protests are planned later this year, according to the Service Employees International Union, SEIU.

Billions in profit

Commentators said the strikes showed "great anger" among people about income inequality in the US. This is a "march on corporate America" one organizer was quoted as saying on the news site PeoplesWorld.org

Literally millions of US fast food and retail workers are struggling to get by on just ''starvation wages,'' according to the protest organizers, who pointed to the fact that the top eight US fast-food chains — McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut, Domino’s and Papa John’s — made a gargantuan $7.35 billion in profit last year, while most of their employees, however, took less than $11,300.

Los Angeles fast food workers, for example, make a median wage of $9 an hour or just $11,232 annually according to studies. Factoring in living costs, an adult with one child would need need to make $23.53 an hour -- full-time -- to afford the basics in Los Angeles, according to an online living-wage calculator by MIT. 

"[M]ore than 25% of [fast food workers] are parents who can’t afford school supplies if they have to buy school shoes," said an open letter to fast food companies from the group LowPayIsNotOk.org  A significant number of fast food workers are African America, Latino, or from immigrant communities.

US President Barack Obama is floating the idea of a federal minimum wage of at least $9 an hour, while the Congressional Democrats are discussing a $10.10 proposal. Current US federal minimum wage is set at $7.25.

Raise or just keeping pace?

Some commentators note that the workers are, arguably, not calling for a raise but to stop going backwards on the pay scale. 

"If the minimum wage had kept pace with inflation over the past 50 years, it would be about $10 an hour today; if it had kept pace with the growth in average labor productivity, it would be about $17 an hour," the New York Times noted in an August 7th editorial.

"Americans are increasingly unable to make a living at their jobs. They work harder and are paid less than workers in other advanced countries," the NYT said, adding that "low-paid work in America is lower paid today than at any time in modern memory."

Feeling of resistance

Some news reports said the actions had an "Occupy atmosphere," while the LA Times described "fast-food workers and supporters" outside a South Los Angeles Burger King at 6 a.m., "chanting their demand for a $15-an-hour minimum wage" and "holding signs with slogans such as 'Burgers and Lies,' 'Yo Quiero $15,' and 'Lovin' a Living Wage'" 

The workers "began moving into formation before sunrise, headlights speeding by on the 110 Freeway behind the restaurant in the Brodway-Manchester neighborhood. As the sun slowly rose and honks from passing passing cars increased, the employees and protest organizers from the Service Employees International Union, many decked out in “Fight For 15” T-shirts, snaked around the corner at Broadway and Century Boulevard."

The Young Communist League of Canada expressed its full support for the demonstrations and actions in the US, noting that these kinds of actions were needed in the fightback for a higher minimum wage across Canada. The YCL Canada calls for a $19 an hour Federal minimum wage.

Some fast food facts:

What are they demanding:   $15 (U.S.) an hour

Current US federal minimum wage:   $7.25

What that is as an annual salary:   less than $15,000 a year

Median wage for US fast-food workers:  $8.94 per hour

Percent of fast-food workers over 20:  70 - 88 % (estimates vary)

Average age of US fast-food workers: 35

In their own words:

“Sometimes my phone will go out because that isn’t a priority. Giving my kids a roof over their heads is.”  -- Sharise Stitt, Taco Bell worker, Detroit

"They work harder than the billionaires in this city." -- Ryan Carter, New York

"I know I'm risking my job, but it's my right to fight for what I deserve." -- Julio Wilson, Little Caesars worker in Raleigh North Carolina

"The bottom line is we are doing this to let the corporations know we want $15 an hour, better working conditions — and we want to be treated fairly. " -- Rev. W.J. Rideout, All God's People Church, Detroit

"These strikes and these movements, they're not just for us. They're for another generation of those who won't be able to survive in this economy."  -- Tamara Green, Burger King worker in Brooklyn, New York

[This was] "theatre orchestrated by organised labor, for organized labour [...] Retail and restaurant jobs are good jobs, held by millions of working men and women, who are proud of what they do for their customers and the communities they serve across America. The planned walkout is the result of a multi-year effort by big labor to diminish and disparage these hard-working Americans by attacking the companies they work for."  -- The National Retail Federation of America.

With files from the Associated Press, Globe and Mail, The Guardian, Vancouver Sun, Huffington Post, Toronto Star, LA Times, USA Today, Peoples World, and the New York Times

Another salvo in the war on unions

Reprinted from The Morning Star
Tim Pelzer

The right-wing Conservative government of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has launched yet another assault on working people in Canada with legislation that, if passed, will make it harder to organize trade unions and easier to decertify established ones.

Conservative Member of Parliament Blaine Calkins has introduced Bill C-525 that, under the guise of giving workers a choice of whether to join a union, will remove the automatic card-check certification in the federally-regulated sector (telecommunications, banking, transportation, etc.). For decades, union certification under the Canada Labor Code has allowed a majority (50 percent +1) of the members of a workforce to sign membership cards and pay $5 to certify a union. In its place, Bill C-525 will require that 45 percent of a bargaining unit sign union cards followed by a Labor Board-supervised secret-ballot vote. More than 50 percent of the bargaining unit must vote in favor of establishing a union, instead of 50 percent of those who vote. Those who don't vote or could not vote are counted as negative votes. No provincial labor code has this type of provision.

"There are good reasons why the card-check model has been practiced in federally regulated sectors," according to Dave Cole, president of the Energy, Communications, and Paperworkers' Union of Canada.

"For one," he said, "it can be difficult to organize votes for bargaining units spread across the country and transport sector employees are regularly in different places. More importantly, the card-check process protects workers from intimidation. It's widely understood - confirmed by many academic studies - that secret-ballot workplace votes reduce union certification as they give employers an opportunity to intimidate employees through compulsory anti-union meetings and implicit threats of job loss."

Bill C-525 will also allow a minority to constantly threaten a union with decertification. If 45 percent of a union bargaining unit asks for decertification, a Labor Board supervised vote will be held. More than 50 percent of the bargaining unit must vote in favor of the union as its continued bargaining unit, instead of a majority of those voting. Those who don't want to vote or could not vote are effectively deemed to have voted against unionization.

"Bill C-525 needs to be seen in the context of the government's low-wage strategy. It's the latest step in the Conservatives' bid to reduce workers' power to the benefit of the business class", asserted Cole.

The president of the Canadian Auto Workers, Ken Lewenza, pointed out, "If this same distorted standard of democracy were applied to federal Members of Parliament, there would not be a single Conservative member sitting in the House of Commons today. There is no MP in Canada who was elected by over 50 percent of the voting-age adults in their riding. Why on earth should this test apply to unions, but not MPs?"

Blaine Calkins did not respond to email requests for an interview about Bill C-525.

Bill C-525 is currently being scrutinized by parliamentary committees and then will be voted on later this fall. The Harper Conservative government holds a majority of seats in Parliament and has enough votes to pass the bill.

Critics charge that Merit Canada, an employer lobby group which is pushing to end unionization in the construction field, is behind Bill C-525. Merit is believed to have strong ties to the Conservative Party and Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office.

Bill C-525, part of a larger crackdown on unions, comes on the heels of another Conservative anti-union effort which was defeated in a 49-33 vote in the Senate on June 26. Bill C-377 would have required that unions make public all donations over $5,000 to groups and individuals as well as salaries over $100,000. Unions would have had to submit 24 different detailed statements of expenses and offer this information on a website. Failure to do so would have lead to a $1,000 fine each day. Sixteen Conservative senators voted against Bill C-377 while six abstained. Critics charged that Bill C-377 was designed to tie unions in red tape and was discriminatory because it did not apply to business.

The forthcoming Conservative Party convention will debate a series of resolutions that would effectively eliminate unions' financial security. One proposal explicitly calls for U.S.-style "right to work" legislation to allow optional union membership.

De-bunking the myth of the good old days - part 2

St Catharines auto plant workers, 1944

by Ryan Sparrow

This article is part two of a two-part series.

Racialised and gendered work is a common feature of the development of capitalism. The need for a super-exploitable vulnerable group of workers is beneficial to the big business community as it helps bring about a much lower floor of wages and working conditions.

In the post-war era, the overt racism and overt gender discrimination of workers was still around, although less prevalent.  Institutionalized racism and sexism, however, was still very widely practised.  Racialised and gendered labour therefore represented a super-exploited strata of the working class in the post-war era. This article continues from the historic framework of analysis and presents some examples.


Racism in Auto

Racialized male workers had a variety of differing experience which allowed for their discrimination in the labour market.  For example, in the auto industry of southern Ontario black male workers were segregated into certain jobs. The policy, when it came to hiring black workers, varied from employer to employer.

Chrysler, for instance, entirely prohibited black male workers from working on their assembly lines until they were forced to change their policies with the Ontario Fair Employment Practices Act in 1951. By 1953, a Federal Fair Employment Practices Act had also (officially) been put into effect.

Other auto manufacturers like Ford and McKinnon Industries were more accepting of black workers. But these workers faced other barriers within these companies, like being segregated into specific occupations based on racial stereotypes.

Genetic resistance to heat

According to sociologist Pamela Sugiman, foundry work was one of the racialised occupations since employers stereotyped black men as“…strong, robust, and muscular worker[s]…” who were more suitable for the job, while some even claimed that “…coloured men, in particular, could endure these excesses because of a genetic predisposition to withstand heat”.

Another racialised occupation in the plants was janitorial work as firms tended to employ black males for this line of work. It is important to note that while there was nothing formal about the segregation of employment for racialised workers in the Ontario auto industry, it was a widespread practice.

Aboriginal workers

The experiences of Aboriginal male workers confirm a pattern of racialised segregation in the labour market, where the shift from rural life in the prairies to wage labour is marked by both mismanagement and intentional exploitation.

Historian Joan Sangster for example explains that the “Fordist” economic arrangement completely excluded Aboriginal and Métis populations in the northern prairies and was a “… class accommodation that marginalized many working people, often on the basis of gender and race.”

The government intentionally created racialised labour segregation on behalf of private interests with acts of coercion like the “cessation of welfare payments as a means of forcing families to accept sugar-beet work”, Sangster writes.

Lower pay, bad jobs

Instead of the employers offering wages and working conditions to attract workers, the state intervened to provide a very precarious workforce for the growers. Further, the economic data points to systemic racism where  “…Metis and Indian households always earned less than white ones in similar geographical areas”.

Aboriginal communities had very unstable employment, according Jean Lagasse’s interviews of native peoples in the 1950s, holding many different jobs with the changing of the seasons. In the post war period, Aboriginal and racialised male workers were typically stuck in the lower rungs of the labour market, the secondary labour market and some in the subordinate primary market jobs.

Women workers and racism

Historically, the dominant patriarchal view of women was that they should be confined to domestic work, tied to a man with the state and employers encouraging such an arrangement. At the same time, capitalism has regularly relied on women's labour not just to reproduce and maintain workers but also in the working class. The trade union movement historically fought for a family/breadwinner wage; therefore even in the labour movement, women’s wages were seen as a secondary income.

Women from racialized communities had it hardest. There was not a single black woman employed in all of the 50 post-war United Auto Worker (UAW) organized plants in Windsor. The segregated labour markets also created segregated communities, with the newly formed suburbs housing a predominately non-racialised, white middle class community, while the city housed a more racialised workforce.

Maggie Holmes, a domestic worker describes how all the white males travel to the city during the morning and came back to the suburbs during the evening, while she and many other racialised domestic workers were going the opposite direction towards the cities. Their jobs were tough, often leading to aliments like arthritis.

Summary

While there was representation of white Anglo-male workers in all three labour markets, the experiences of racialised workers and women workers in the post-war era confirm segregated labour markets existed in Canada.

White women and racialised workers rarely went beyond the subordinate primary market.  Racialised women had faced the most discrimination in the labour market with very few examples of them advancing out of the secondary market for labour.

Ultimately, the configuration of the labour market in the post-war era provides an revealing insight into systemic racism and sexism today.

This article has been edited.

Bibliography

Acker, J,(1990). “Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations,”
                Gender & Society, 4, 2,139-158.

Edwards, E. (1979). Labour Re-Divided Part 1: Segmented Labor Markets. Contested Terrain: The              Transformation of the Workplace in the Twenthieth Century. Basic Books: New York.

Jacoby, S. M. (1984). The Development of Internal Labour Markets in American Manufacturing Firms. Internal Labour  Markets. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. 23-69.

Sangster, J. (2010). “Aboriginal Women and Work in Prairie Communities.  Transforming Labour: Women and Work in Post-War Canada. University  of Toronto Press: Toronto. 199-23

Sugiman, P. (2001). Privilege and Oppression: The Configuration of Race, Gender, and Class in Southern                Ontario Auto Plants, 1939 to 1949. Labour/Le Travail . Retrieved from         http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/llt/47/04sugima.html

Turkel, S. (2009). Studs Turkel’s Working: A Graphic Adaption. New York, New York: The New Press.

De-bunking the myth of the good old days: sexism, racism and the working class in Canada after WWII

The historic 1945 Ford Strike in Windsor

Special to Rebel Youth

This article is part one of a two-part series.

Racialised and gendered work is a common feature of the development of capitalism. The need for a super-exploitable vulnerable group of workers is beneficial to the big business community as it helps bring about a much lower floor of wages and working conditions.

In the post-war era, the overt racism and overt gender discrimination of workers was still around, although less prevalent.  Institutionalized racism and sexism, however, was still very widely practised.  Racialised and gendered labour therefore represented a super-exploited strata of the working class in the post-war era.

The Drive System

The history of discrimination of the working class in the Canadian "labour market" comes about from its very beginning. There were "preferred" labourers, and the male Anglo-white labour was given a privilege position within the industrial framework.  While the Anglo-white male labourer was indeed heavily exploited, the exploitation of racialised and female labourers was even greater.

At the turn of the century, the primary management method by which employers managed to increase productivity was the drive system. The drive system was used to increase the worker’s effort at the job by “…close supervision, abuse, profanity and threats” and hold down the cost of labour.

Toss an apple

During this period of time, the foreman was the supreme ruler on the shop floor, hiring was, at times, arbitrary – some employers tossing an apple to a crowd of workers and whoever caught it would work. At other times, hiring was rather nepotistic -- ie. the friends and family of employees being unfairly favoured. Many workers were hired for jobs based on ethnic stereotypes.

Due to the large amount of surplus labour supply, workers who the foreman found unsatisfactory or did not like could be removed with impunity. The foreman typically had the power to set wages too, so there could be many different wages for workers doing the exact same job.

HR is born

Eventually, as a response to the class struggle and growing pressure from the labour movement in Canada and internationally (including the gains by working people in USSR and socialist countries), as well as tighter labour markets, the capitalists were forced to replace this system with somewhat more equitable forms of management.

Human resource departments became more common and formal rules were established for firms as a way to retain employees. This process was not uniform, however.  Labour historians identify three distinct labour markets that emerged in the post war era. The three types of markets were not equally accessible for gendered and racialised workers.

Three categories of workplaces

The "secondary labour market" was the lowest. Comprised of small manufacturing, service, retail sales, and temporary office work, workers in the secondary labour market had very little control over the labour processes.  The secondary labour market jobs were also the lowest paid, the least secure, with very little union coverage and almost no seniority provisions.

Above the secondary was the "subordinate primary market." The jobs in subordinate primary market are more stable, have seniority, are more likely to be unionized, and have relatively higher wages. Work in the subordinate primary market includes jobs with major manufacturers, secretary jobs, and assembly line work.

The "independent primary market" employed workers in professional fields, like skilled trades, teachers, lawyers, consultants and technicians.  Independent primary labour allowed for even higher wages, benefits, and transferable skills making their working lives much more stable since they can transfer easily to other firms.

This article has been edited from the original essay. A full biography is presented in part two.

Mobilize for Ontario Day of Action

Sid Ryan, President of the Ontario Federation of Labour

Saturday April 21,  3:00 p.m.,  Queen’s Park

Message from the Toronto and York Region Labour Council

Premier McGuinty put banker Don Drummond in charge of recommending nearly 400 cuts to jobs and public services in Ontario. At a time when Ontarians are in desperate need of economic recovery, these cuts will jeopardize every aspect of society: from health care to full-day kindergarten to pensions. No public service is safe. However, in McGuinty’s reckless plan to balance Ontario’s books by putting more people out of work and destroying the social safety net, he refuses to roll-back corporate tax cuts that are starving the province of billions of dollars that could be better used to create new jobs and help tens of thousands of struggling Ontario families to get back on their feet.

Ontarians from all sectors of society must come together to tell Premier McGuinty that he cannot cut his way to economic prosperity. Help to mobilize your members, your families and your communities to stop the cuts and put Ontario on the road to economic recovery. www.ofl.ca

Support BC Teachers: Fight Bill 22!

Statement of YCL BC Provincial Committee

The BC Liberals have proposed legislation that would send BC’s teachers back to work without collective bargaining or the right to strike. This legislation, called Bill 22, threatens the democratic rights of all workers in BC. The Young Communist League of Canada BC Provincial Committee condemns Bill 22 for seeking to terminate the basic rights of working people to bargain collectively and to strike.

Teachers are seeking improvements to public education such as smaller classes and more resources for special needs students. , Under the cynical slogan of “Families First”, The BC Liberals are attacking teachers through slander and threats. In the process, they are aggravating the problems with BC’s public school system and hindering the students who depend upon it for their education. Bill 22 uses a “cooling off period” and sham “mediation” as tools in the Liberal’s ongoing union busting efforts. Violations of the imposed restrictions being placed on teachers’ right to strike will result in millions of dollars in fines, a clearly punitive action on the part of a government.

The Young Communist League supports the struggle of the BC Teachers’ Federation and the efforts of the BC Federation of Labour, local labour councils, and others to stand strong against this anti-democratic, anti-worker legislation. We also applaud the impressive and inspiring actions of BC high school students in staging walkouts and rallying to support high quality public education.

The alternative to high quality public education is private education. The spread of private schools would mean a two-tier education system. One tier of high quality education for those who can pay the high cost of tuition fees, and another insufficiently funded tier for the majority of British Columbians.

The BC Liberal government’s time in power has been disastrous for working people, youth, and students in this province. This is the government of big business carrying out the interests of the socio-economic class they represent.

The attack on unions and on public services is part of the broader offensive on working peoples’ working conditions and living standards aimed at saving the capitalist system its current crisis by making working people pay for a situation they did not create. Youth and students should fight to stop Bill 22, to defeat the Liberal government, and ultimately to replace the capitalist system with one in which working people themselves will set the priorities for our communities and teachers and students will be valued, not criminalized and demonized. We call that system socialism.

GREECE GOES ON STRIKE - 48HOUR - STRIKE!

AGAINST THE POLICIES OF THE GREEK GOVERNMENT - EUROPEAN UNION - IMF


A big nationwide mobilization started on Monday 27th with the 48-hour strike.


SYMBOLIC OCCUPATION OF THE ACROPOLIS MONUMENT

“The peoples have the power and never surrender. Organize, Counterattack” was the slogan written in Greek and in English on the banner that the all Workers’ Militant Front (PAME) hung from the Acropolis on 27th June, on the eve of the 48-hour strike against the barbaric anti-people measures of the social-democratic government, the EU and the IMFthat starts on Tuesday 28th June and is expected to embrace every workplace.

Early in the morning hundreds of members and cadre of PAME carried out a symbolic occupation of the Acropolis raising two huge banners. This initiative of PAME had a very positive impact not only on the Greek working people but also on the tourists who were visiting the country and the Acropolis. The access of tourists to the Acropolis was allowed within the framework of the symbolic occupation of the forces of PAME.

PAME notes in its statement: “We call on the working people, the youth, the unemployed and the women to a carry out a people’s uprising. We struggle along with the peoples all over the world against the capitalist barbarity. The barbaric measures that lead the people to bankruptcy must not pass”.

In the afternoon the forces of PAME organised placard protests and mass rallies-in order to conduct propaganda for the strike-in many neighbourhoods in Athens as well as in other cities in Greece.
--

1st DAY OF THE STRIKE

The flags of All Workers Militant Front (PAME) waved in workplaces, enterprises, construction sites, ports, public authorities. Thousands of workers responded to the militant call of PAME. The strike has succeeded! Self-employed, poor farmers, pensioners, immigrants and students were there too.

Hard Battles took place at the gates of the factories and the ramps of the ships in order to picket the strike and make the capital feel the power of the working class where it hurts most, as it happened yesterday that hundreds of thousands took part in the strike.

During the dozens of demonstrations held throughout the country thousands of protesters voted unanimously against the measures in streets and squares.

The working people reject the new anti-people measures, refuse to become slaves of the plutocracy. We should note that the new anti-people measures reduce wages and pensions, increase further retirement ages and indirect taxation from 13% to 23%, strike a blow on social security and the list of hazardous occupations, increase the daily unpaid working time, establish particularly low wages for young people, abolish collective labour agreements, establish the temporary contracts which entail dismissals without compensation, reduce “social” benefits etc. In addition, they privatise companies, land, water supply services, ports, airports etc that were owned by the state in order to bring money to the state funds and pay the debt, as they claim themselves. Nevertheless, the reason is that they want to hand over new sectors of economy to the capitalists in order to invest their over-accumulated capital.

The workers and the popular strata defied the intimidations and participated in the yesterday morning’s strike demonstrations as well as to the dozens of demonstrations that took place yesterday afternoon. Today they continue their struggle which is a significant legacy for new struggles, for the escalation of the struggle. The vast majority of the protesters who participated in the strike demonstrations held in 65 cities of the country demonstrated with the flags of PAME and not with the so-called “indignant citizens” or with the leaderships of the yellow unions GSEE-ADEDY.

The Executive Secretariat of PAME saluted the hundreds of thousands of strikers who fought decisively for the strike. At the afternoon of the first day of the strike PAME organised a massive demonstration in the centre of Athens which extended up to the parliament. The strong picket lines of the demonstration prevented small provocateur groups from setting up provocations with the aim to dissolve the demonstration.

Although hundreds of thousands of strikers struggled dynamically for the strike, which succeeded in all over the country, although streets and squares flooded by the demonstrations, the international TV media showed the activity of the provocateurs as if it was the main issue in Greece and hardly spent a few seconds for the strike. This is their allegedly objective information! We have to do with a massive scale operation for the distortion of reality in Greece, that intends to conceal the resistance, the struggle and the demands of hundreds of thousands of working people.

The Press Office of the CC of KKE noted in its statement: “quite accidentally” the various groups of the hooded persons appear during the strike demonstrations with the police riot forces. This fact is one more evidence that enables the people to see that the movement which the system and the repressive mechanisms are afraid of is the movement in the factories and the enterprises, the movement of the working class that gives a perspective to the people. The class oriented workers’ movement knows how to struggle and protect itself from the provocateurs. The struggles continue undiminished.

Furthermore, the Executive Secretariat denounced the stage-managed games of some dozens of hooded individuals with the police riot forces because they seek to slander the workers’ struggles, intimidate the working people and the youth and prevent their participation in the strike demonstrations. PAME called on the workers to defy them and give an organised answer to the provocative action of these mechanisms through their mass participation in the demonstrations.

In an interview at MEGA TV channel on 28th June Aleka Papariga, GS of the CC of KKE, underlined that the activity of the hooded individuals “benefits the government too” and added that “there are many cores both within and outside the government at each time or others created by relative mechanisms that utilise these incidents or even create them”. Talking about the possibility of bankruptcy in case that the parliament does not adopt the anti-people measures of the government the GS of the CC said:

«Bankruptcy is a fact. Perhaps now they agree on the conditions or the distribution of the possible losses among the creditors.” Aleka Papariga called on the people to struggle for the disengagement of the country from the EU and for parallel radical changes in society and economy.

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2nd Day of the STRIKE

At the second day of the strike PAME along with PASEVE (Nationwide Antimonopoly Rally of the Self-employed and the small Tradesman ), PASY (All Farmers’ Militant Rally ), MAS (Students' Militant Front ) and OGE (Greek Women Federation) held mass strike demonstrations in 65 large cities of the country.

In Athens the demonstration took place in Omonoia square. A delegation of the CC of KKE headed by the GS Aleka Papariga participated in the demonstration. Afterwards followed a march in the streets of the city that ended to the Omonia square where the protesters stayed till the voting of the package of the new anti-people measures which was adopted at the afternoon by the parliamentary majority of PASOK, with 155 votes. The parliamentary group of KKE voted against the measures as a whole and headed towards the demonstration of PAME where Aleka Papariga extended a greeting stressing the need to continue the struggle for the overthrow of the anti-people choices of the government, the capital and the EU.


For more information, photos and videos you can visit:

http://inter.kke.gr/

http://es.kke.gr/


Communist Youth of Greece
www.kne.gr/english.html
Tel: 00302102592307
Fax:00302102592611

Support the Postal Workers! Stop the Conservative Attack on Working People!

On June 3rd, members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers hit the streets in a series of rotating 24 hour strikes. The strikes, supported by a 94.5% mandate, came as a result of months of negotiations eventually came to a stall.

Canada Post is demanding outrageous concessions from CUPW, including a 22% pay decrease for new hires, the gutting of sick leave benefits, the imposition of a two-tier pension plan, and more. The corporation reacted to CUPW’s legal strike action with a lockout, sycophantically claiming that “"If we allow the uncertainty created by the rotating strikes to continue, our ability to remain financially self-sufficient and not become a burden on Canadian taxpayers will be in jeopardy”.

Working people, youth, and students, should not be fooled by the attempts of the Harper Conservatives or of Canada Post to paint the situation as a standoff between union workers and “the taxpayer”. The reality is that Postal Workers are merely fighting to defend the working conditions and benefits which have taken decades of struggle to win.

In fact, there is a lot at stake in this dispute for all Canadians, not just the Posties. The attack on CUPW is undoubtedly part of a broader strategy aimed at opening the way for the privatization of Canada’s postal service by destroying the two main barriers to such a move: public support for the public post office, and the union. The result will be the proliferation of much more expensive for-profit services.

Not only in this attack on Postal Workers a wedge for privatization of postal services, but it is also the opening shot in the Harper majority governments coming offensive on working people and organized labour.

Having legislated members of the Canadian Auto Workers at Air Canada back to work only days ago, the Tories are now looking at using similar legislation against Postal Workers.

The legislation was introduced in Parliament on June 20th, and is, as described by the union, both unnecessary and unjust. In fact, the legislation is a clear interference in the collective bargaining process by the Federal government on behalf of the employer. The legislation includes arbitrary fines for those who defy it, and a requirement for mandatory arbitration with a pro-employer mandate.

Back to work legislation violates the basic rights of working people by subverting the rights of their unions to fair collective bargaining and the use of legal strike action. The Postal Workers are at the forefront of the first major struggle against the ultra-reactionary Conservative government. CUPW members will be faced with difficult decisions in the coming days and it is incumbent on the labour movement, and all progressive people, to support them however possible.

Youth and students in particular should support the Postal Workers and join them on the picket lines. Privatization, and the rollback of working peoples hard-won rights, can be stopped by a strong, united fightback. If not, the effects on youth today, and into the future, will be severe.

The Nightwatchman: Union Town