CANADIANS: OPEN CLASS WARFARE ERUPTS IN CANADA

By Dr.Dawg

Dawg's Blawg 

January 8, 2012

The by-now-notorious lockout in London, Ontario by the American corporate giant Caterpillar, and another in Quebec by the UK colossus Rio Tinto, signal a new make-or-break era for organized labour in Canada.

The race to the bottom is picking up speed. Make no mistake: if corporations are permitted to get away with 50% wage cuts when they are making record profits, the ripple effect will be deadly.

Business commentators urge us to take the pessimistic view ~ nothing can turn aside the irresistible force of capital.

Right-wing columnists aver that unions are no longer relevant.

And the Conservative government, which maliciously intervened in two private sector labour disputes in 2011, is curiously quiet when unions have less immediate clout at the bargaining table.

Harper’s sheer crust is breathtaking:

“This is a dispute between a private company and the union and we don’t comment on the actions of private companies,” Harper spokesman Carl Vallée responded Wednesday in an email.

Spare us, please, the notion that this is a jurisdictional matter. Certainly the two provincial premiers involved are not covering themselves with glory by letting these workers and their families twist in the winter winds. The federal government, however, has all sorts of means at its disposal to bring pressure to bear on these foreign corporations on behalf of these workers ~ cancelling generous tax breaks would be one of them ~ but that would require the kind of even-handedness that it has never shown during its current anti-labour crusade.

Take, for example, the 50-week lockout in Hamilton by US Steel that ended last October, here described by labour economist Jim Stanford:

The company starved out the union with far-reaching demands to gut pensions and other long-standing provisions. The economic cost of that bitter, lopsided dispute didn’t slow the company, nor did it spur any level of government to action.

I estimate that the direct loss to GDP resulting from the lockout in Hamilton was four times larger than the effects of a one-week full shutdown at Air Canada. Indirect spinoff losses made the steel lockout even more painful. If government were truly concerned with “protecting recovery,” why didn’t it intervene? True, steel falls within provincial (not federal) labour jurisdiction. But Ottawa had plenty of leverage if it wanted to act - not least U.S. Steel’s galling violation of the production and employment commitments it made when it took over the former Stelco Inc.

In Hamilton, where workers held little power, the government stood idly by. It seems it’s only when workers have some leverage that it acts powerfully to “protect the economy.”

Precisely.

Yet the matter shouldn’t be seen as hopeless, despite all the anti-union hype. When unions first came into being, savvy business types predicted an inevitable, swift defeat for the movement, hastened along by often murderous troops and police.

That didn’t, of course, take place: general strikes and fierce physical resistance by organized workers forced governments to mediate by providing limited recognition~ while ensnaring them in complex regulatory frameworks that, over time, sapped their strength.

The result in Canada, too often, was the softening of the general membership, made even softer ~ it must be admitted ~ by the automatic dues check-off mandated by the Rand formula. Frankly, that historic ruling made union leaders lazy: no longer having to make the union case to the members on a daily basis, they too often permitted the rank-and-file to snooze. 

And now Canadian workers are paying the price. The labour movement is mired in old tactics and strategies that have become merely ritualistic at this point: one-day wonders of mass protest, “action plans” that never leave the paper they’re printed on, strongly-worded press releases.

The workers on labour’s front lines ~ picket lines, that is ~ are left to fight alone the day after the big Days of Protest. And they almost inevitably get eaten alive by the corporations and their government allies.

The Harper government’s Minister of Labour, Lisa Raitt, has already blown the trumpet of war.

To survive, organized labour, too often an oxymoron at present, must cast aside the tactics of the past and head directly into battle.

Obviously this is easier said than done, and as a former labour leader I was frequently irritated by activists shouting in the wilderness for radical measures when no one was listening (even more irritated because I had been one of them).

But Caterpillar and Rio Tinto are here to tell us that the time for a serious internal debate has arrived. What form it takes, and what comes out of it, are obviously for the members to decide, but the choice, to be blunt, is a fundamental change in approach ~ or oblivion.

SHOWDOWN AT CATERPILLAR PLANT '

WATERSHED MOMENT' FOR NORTH AMERICAN LABOR

What Caterpillar wants is right out of line. Canadians MUST support these union members.

 

By Common Dreams

January 30, 2012

Caterpillar, Inc. (CAT), the world's largest manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, has brought its well-worn job-crushing efforts to Canada, replicating wage suppression tactics used in the US and cutting benefits of union workers.

But as the union fights back and gains support from citizens ~ including members of the Occupy movement ~ observers wonder if the battle against the internationally known corporation can highlight the 'race to the bottom' when it comes to international labor and cross-border manufacturing.

Workers at Caterpillar's locomotive plant in London, Ontario, are gaining wide support as the profitable company seeks to cut their pay in half. (Photo: Canadian Auto Workers)

Mike Elk, writing for In These Times, suggests the battle taking place in London, Ontario coupled with recent developments with lockouts of United Steel Workers in Quebec, could mark a "pivotal moment" for Canada's labor movement. If things go well for CAT, but bad for the embattled Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) Local 27 and the steel workers, it could be the equivalent of "the failed 1981 air traffic controllers union (PATCO) strike that kicked of an era of union busting in the United States."

CANADA’S LABOR MOVEMENT DIGS IN 

FOR ‘PATCO EQUIVALENT,’ AS LOCKOUTS DRAG ON

According to Mike Elk:

U.S.-based Caterpillar, which owns the Electro-Motive Diesel locomotive plant through a subsidiary, locked out 420 members of the Canadian Auto Workers Local 27. Despite Caterpillar increasing its profits by 44 percent over the last year, the company is asking union workers to let it cut wages by as much as $18.50 an hour (55 percent) in some cases.

The company is also asking for the elimination of defined benefits pensions as well as reduction in overtime and vacation plans.

“It’s no coincidence in my view that two different companies decided to lock out the two biggest industrial unions in Canada ~ the Steelworkers and the CAW ~ on the same day. This looks like an orchestrated attack,” said Communication, Energy, and Paperworkers Union President Dave Coles, whose union is in the process of merging with the CAW.

“When you have these kinds of big gigantic struggles, you don’t who is going to win, but by the time this is done, these employers are going to have goddamn bloody noses. We are not going to allow Canadian employers to kick the shit out of Canadian workers.”

Both unions and their supporters are demanding that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper get involved, since these are foreign-owned companies. "Get back to the table, Caterpillar," London, Ontario's Mayor Joe Fontana said at the rally. "Get your ass down here, Prime Minister Harper."

'International in scope'A poster calling for direct action by locked-out workers and supporters in London, Ontario. (Image courtesy of CAW Local 27)

The fight, according to the report, has implications that go far beyond the battle against US-based Caterpillar or Australia-based mining giant Rio Tinto.

The Caterpillar lockout in particular is international in scope, because the company says that if workers don’t agree to cut their wages in half, it will move production to a facility in Muncie, Indiana, where workers are already making less than the $16 an hour at Muncie, Indiana. The Muncie facility is already nonunion and the unions in Indiana faced with a loss of dues from the Indiana's recently passed "Right to Work" law would most likely have a difficult time mustering the resources to organize the plant.

“It’s what we have been facing at the bargaining table quite a bit in the private sector in Canada. When we are at bargaining table, they compare what we make to lower wages in U.S. facilities,” says CAW Local 27 President Tim Carrie, whose union represents Caterpillar workers in London, Ontario.

“President Obama talks a lot about creating goods jobs in America. I hope that his idea isn’t taking good-paying jobs from Canada and creating low paying jobs in the U.S. Otherwise, we are going to go to be in a race to the bottom.”

In both fights at Caterpillar in Ontario and Rio Tinto, workers are gearing up for a massive fight in their respectively small workplaces that could redefine labor relations not just in Canada, but worldwide.

"Rio Tinto has declared war not only on USW members but on our communities, on Quebec and on Canada," said Quebec Director USW Daniel Roy. "We believe Rio Tinto will use its attacks in Alma to begin a major assault on workers and communities around the globe."

ED: Queen Elizabeth is the largest non-institutional shareholder in Rio Tinto which is also working very hard to slash unions in Australia as well.

“The lockout with Caterpillar is a watershed moment in Canada, it’s our equivalent of the PATCO strike," Carrie says. "When PATCO happened [in 1981] we didn’t see an uprising of the labor movement, the silence was almost deafening. If we lose this fight at Caterpillar, other employers will recognize that the labor movement in Canada is weak."

ONTARIO CATERPILLAR WORKERS 

LOCKED OUT FOR REFUSING HALF PAY

Jane Slaughter, writing for Labor Notes, also picks up the CAW story, highlighting the history and current projection of Caterpillar's strategy for battering quality wages and union benefits:

In the mid-1990s the company provoked lengthy strikes at its U.S. facilities in order to break the United Auto Workers’ pattern agreement in agricultural implements. Management ran the plants with scabs and workers finally returned with no settlement.

At its UAW-represented locomotive engine plant in Illinois, Cat has already achieved a starting wage of $14 an hour and is now demanding to eliminate cost-of-living increases and raise the price of insurance, as members there work under a contract extension.

The concessions Cat is demanding in London are “an insult to the membership,” Scott says. Though the company posted a record profit of $4.9 billion for 2011, with even higher profits predicted this year, it wants $18.50 off the $35-an-hour wage for over half the workforce, to eliminate cost-of-living increases, retiree benefits, and the defined-benefit pension plan, and to hike drug insurance costs. On the day profits were announced CAW picketed 12 Cat dealerships and service centers across the country.

In December the company forecast sales for fiscal 2012 would rise as much as 20 percent.

Union leaders say they’re receiving unprecedented community support despite members’ relatively high wages. Carrie cites Sisters of St. Joseph serving soup on the picket lines. Occupy London is there. Each week a different local union has hosted a barbeque for locked-out members’ families.

In seeking support, Scott says the union highlights the notion of wages cut in half. “If today you’re making $20, tomorrow you’re making $10,” he said. “They can relate to that.”