----------
From: Communist Party of Canada <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 15:10:02 -0400
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: PV Articles - April 15-30, 2001
PEOPLE’S VOICE ON-LINE
ARTICLES FROM THE COMMUNIST PRESS IN CANADA
INDEX:
1) “AIN’T NOTHING LIKE THE POWER OF THE PEOPLE!”
2) STOP THE DEAL! MASS MOBILIZATION CAN DEFEAT THE FTAA
3) BUHLER VERSATILE WORKERS LOCKED OUT
4) US ESCALATES FAR EAST TENSIONS
5) APRIL 21 IS ALSO EARTH DAY
6) BC COMMUNISTS READY FOR SPRING ELECTION
*****************
1) “AIN’T NOTHING LIKE THE POWER OF THE PEOPLE!”
“Labour In Action” Column by Liz Rowley
AT THE Toronto Star printing plant in Vaughan on Friday, April 6, something
amazing happened to a group of workers who are among the most marginalized
in Canada.
On April 3, the Star carriers escalated their two-week rotating strike to a
“general” strike. They had no choice. This is their first contract -- and
if the Star has its way, their last. The Star was offering them wages until
August 31, when their jobs will be contracted out to the same slave labour
outfits that distribute the Toronto Sun, National Post and Globe and Mail.
Not that these CEP members aren’t slave labour right now; that’s why they
voted for the union. Any workers who are forced to take a 25% wage cut, pay
their own gas and transportation costs, buy their own supplies and
equipment (bags, elastics, etc.), and bundle their kids into the car every
night to sleep while Mum and Dad work, are slaves. This is the real price
of Toronto’s newspaper wars.
For most, this is their second or third job. This one begins in the middle
of the night, when the workers show up at a local drop-off to pick-up their
papers, stuff in the advertising pages, put on elastics, and maybe bag,
depending on the weather. Most are poor, many are new immigrants and people
of colour, and all are permanently exhausted. In a good year, if they’re
fast, they can make $8,000. Many make less. If the kids work too, they
might make $10,000. Of course, everyone has school, or work, the next day.
The Toronto Star’s fat Saturday edition is four inches thick, full of the
weekend ads that make the paper wealthy. To bring management to the table,
the union has to make its power felt by delaying the Saturday paper.
The protocol says the Star agrees to a 15 minute delay at the plant, and
the union agrees not to follow the trucks to the drop-offs where scabs pick
up the papers. But the strikers tell me that when the picket lines are only
a few people, the ACCUFAX private security cops push strikers off the line,
and if they resist, call York Region cops who then threaten, and charge
strikers with “assault.” For many picketers, this ongoing show of power by
the employer is a frustrating, no-win situation.
But on April 6th, things change. About 10 pm, dozens of solidarity pickets
show up from unions all over Toronto and as far away as Oakville and even
Stratford. The picketers are puzzled: who are these people, so sure of
themselves with police and security? By 10:30, close to 100 people are on
the line, laughing and chanting, and the trucks start to roll up to the
gates. Fifteen minutes pass, and the pickets are ordered to move. But
nobody moves more than a foot or two. People continue to chat. Orders
continue to be issued, and ignored. The picket captain reminds everyone of
the protocol. People continue to mill around, unseeing and unhearing.
Until the truck moves up, when picketers suddenly move in front. The chants
begin: “Who has the power? We have the power! What kind of power? Union
power!” A crush develops. Time passes. Finally the truck is let through.
Six more are lined up behind.
Strikers are surprised, but wary. Everything is being filmed by security:
every face, every action. What will happen tomorrow? York Region police
arrive.
The next truck is held back even longer. Forty-five minutes pass before
police and security can move picketers out of the way. But the flustered
driver turns north on the wrong side of the median. He has to back up. The
crowd is elated. “Drop those papers right here!” someone yells.
The next truck drives up. This time the women link arms and form a line
face to face against the security line. The men link arms behind them. Over
a period of almost an hour, security push them back and back. Strikers and
picketers are mixed in together now. John Deverell, union president at the
Star, thanks everyone and reminds them of the importance of the protocol.
The chants change: “Nobody in! Nobody out! That’s what the picket-line’s
all about!” Shoving, pushing, forward and back, an inch, a foot. Finally
the truck goes through, but the strikers are beaming: this is how it should
be!
The protocol has been really broken this time. The reps are tired, their
nerves frayed. The cops say three trucks must go through this time. The
reps deliver the message. But picketers demand the cops speak directly to
the crowd. There are only three trucks. A new deal is struck: the trucks
will each be held up for 15 minutes. A cheer rings through the line: the
power of the picket line! Nobody in! Nobody out!
Strikers are first in front of the next truck. Helen Kennedy speaks from
the Labour Council, about the strikers, their demands and their courage.
About the strike’s importance to the whole labour movement, and labour’s
commitment to picket line support.
It’s almost 2 am, and strike supporters and the union flying squads head
home. The Saturday edition will be late in many parts of Toronto. But the
best results are on the picket line, where “union power” has given new
impetus to the strike.
For those of us taking part that night, the transformation on that picket
line was like a blood transfusion: from struggling alone against impossible
odds, to united struggle with the odds evening up.
Heading into the Quebec Summit, the same message stands out. People aren’t
afraid to struggle against powerful global opponents, and they aren’t alone.
Masses of people are going to Quebec City to defend their jobs and living
standards, their communities, their labour and democratic rights, national
sovereignty and future security. They’ll do what they have to, including
civil disobedience, to make their point and to win. And they have a vision
of a world based on equality and democracy, peace and security, where
governments are accountable to citizens.
That’s the power of the people. And the power of the people don’t stop, on
the picket lines, in the streets, and on the marches. Worse for the
Summiteers, it’s likely to grow quickly, as more and more people realize
they have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.
See you in Quebec City!
*******************
2) STOP THE DEAL! MASS MOBILIZATION CAN DEFEAT THE FTAA
(News release from the Communist Party of Canada, April 9, 2001)
AS THE DAYS COUNT DOWN to the April 20-22 Summit of the Americas in Quebec
City, support continues to swell for mass protest actions against the
proposed “Free Trade Area of the Americas” (FTAA).
The U.S. and Canadian governments, the main promoters of the FTAA, are
fairly confident that the heads of the 32 other national governments in the
hemisphere (all except Cuba) have been pressured or cajoled into accepting
this sweeping pro-corporate trade and investment deal.
But the FTAA’s backers have been far less successful selling the pact to
the majority of the people in the Americas. Attempts to head off protests
in Quebec City through extraordinary security measures, fear-mongering and
threats of repression by a massive 6,000-strong police force, seem to be
backfiring. Well over 25,000 are expected in Quebec City for the April 21
mass demonstration and related actions, and thousands more at other
protests across Canada. On April 8, Canada’s Trade Minister Pierre
Pettigrew even announced that the draft text of the FTAA will be released
-- but only by the time the Summit opens.
“The Canadian people are outraged by these crude tactics to stifle
democracy and the right to dissent,” Communist Party leader Miguel Figueroa
said. “Now more people than ever are making plans to get to Quebec City.
“The FTAA would significantly strengthen corporate domination of all
spheres of life. It would lower wages and living standards, and force the
deregulation and privatization of what remains of public services like
education and health care. The terms imposed by this treaty would also
further erode social and environmental provisions, and undermine both the
sovereignty of states and the democratic will of peoples and nations to
determine their own future. In short, the FTAA would be a disaster for the
workers and all oppressed peoples in Canada and throughout the Americas,”
the CPC leader said.
“No one should be fooled into believing that the inclusion of references to
`democracy,’ `human rights’ or to labour and environmental goals in the
text will make the FTAA any more palatable. Canadians have been down that
road under the Canada-U.S. `free trade’ deal and then NAFTA. We know from
our own experience how hollow such promises are.
“There is no way to ‘fix’ or amend this deal; it must be defeated in its
entirety. Only a massive mobilization of working people in Canada, the U.S.
and throughout Latin America and the Caribbean can stop this deal dead in
its tracks. And only such a mass people’s fightback can create the basis to
build the struggle for genuine alternatives to corporate globalization,
alternatives that place people’s needs, social development, and
environmental concerns before the interests of private corporate profit.
“That’s why our Party, in unison with the mass labour movement and other
democratic and progressive organizations, is calling on our members and
friends to mount an all-out mobilizing effort over these final days.”
Hundreds of CPC members and party supporters will be going to Quebec, or
participating in other anti-FTAA actions taking place across the country.
The Communist Party will also distribute thousands of copies of a special
party statement at the various protest events.
For up-to-date information about transportation to Quebec City, or about
other anti-FTAA actions, contact the CPC offices in Toronto at
416-469-2446, the Parti communiste du Quebec at 514-745-7009, or other
provincial or local offices of the CPC.
********************
3) BUHLER VERSATILE WORKERS LOCKED OUT
By Darrell Rankin
WINNIPEG - Over 250 Versatile farm tractor plant workers were locked out on
March 27, after voting 83 per cent in favour of ending their strike on
March 25. The workers had been on strike since November 3, over the issues
of seniority, contracting out and demands for benefit concessions.
The workers are “going back fighting,” keeping up their demand for the
province to buy the factory from John Buhler, who is still threatening to
move the plant to North Dakota. The workers are also campaigning for plant
closure and severance laws.
Under Manitoba labour law, when a union gives notice that a strike has
ended, the employer is required to bring workers back by seniority. The
company initially said it would obey the law, but within hours started the
lock-out.
The Canadian Auto Workers Local 2224 is preparing further charges to the
Manitoba Labour Board. The union’s earlier charges sought over $5 million
damages for unfair labour practices, such as failure to bargain in good
faith. The new charges will be for an illegal lock-out and violating the
call-back provisions of the Labour Relations Act.
Mark Froemke, president of the Grand Forks Labour Council (North Dakota),
spoke at a March 27 People’s Voice forum on the U.S. elections and the
labour movement. Froemke reported that the GFLC had passed a resolution in
solidarity with the Versatile workers. Some Versatile workers at the forum
said they were “in it (the struggle) for the long haul.”
Young people and most workers on the “shop floor” are supporting a petition
for government action to keep the factory in Winnipeg. But some key
Manitoba unions have been slow to back the Versatile workers because of
Canadian Labour Congress sanctions against the CAW, a division which is
helping John Buhler.
Although the previous Manitoba government under Tory Gary Filmon bought
Centra Gas, the main supplier of natural gas in Manitoba, NDP Premier Gary
Doer does not support the purchase of the Versatile factory. The
“Alternative Provincial Budget”, written by the social justice coalition
CHO!CES and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and released on
April 5, also did not support the purchase.
********************
