Socialist Worker 518

MAY28-30 MARXISM 2010 A PLANET TO SAVE, A WORLD TO WIN TORONTO www.marxismconference.ca

www.socialist.ca

>>page 9

$2 no. 518 May 2010

BIGOTRY, LIES AND CONTEMPT

LOCAL STRUGGLES TO MAJOR FIGHTS Carolyn Egan & John Bell look back on how workers have fought and won

Pages 5, 6 & 7

Tory attack on refugees Pages 2 & 4 Proposed bill would severely limit refugee claimants’ rights

Fight to save the planet Page 12

The real face of Harper’s Tory government exposed

1

Maternal health initiative cuts access to abortion.

Harper and International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda refuse to include access to abortion in their signature G8 initiative to improve the health of poor mothers in developing countries. This despite the fact that unsafe abortions are a leading cause of death among women throughout the developing world.

2

Failure to respect the will of Parliament. Parliament

has voted on several different issues: on releasing the Afghan detainee documents, on the repatriation of Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr and allowing Iraq War resisters to stay in Canada, to name a few. All of these have been ignored by the Stephen Harper government.

Finally, Speaker of the House Peter Milliken has opened the door to finding the government in contempt of Parliament for its failure to release unredacted documents in the Afghan detainee dossier.

Not to mention proroguing Parliament twice in one year.

3

Gagging independent watchdogs.

The Tory minority government does not like to have its actions or policies scrutinized. Several watchdogs have been removed from office or not had their funding renewed, including Nuclear Safety Commission, Military Police Complaints Commission and the Office of Public Complaints against the RCMP. Following the sudden death of the president of the governmentfunded Rights and Democracy, the Tory government swooped in

and cleaned house, planting rightwing, Evangelical fundamentalist and pro-Zionist appointees, followed by a witch hunt of any staff member who dared speak out.

4

Hypocrisy on freedom of speech and interference in border services.

The ongoing federal court case on the matter of banning British MP George Galloway continues to reveal evidence that immigration minister Jason Kenney and his office intervened and successfully bared the MP for his political views on Afghanistan and the Middle East.

5

Pushing through anti-refugee bill.

Immigration minister Jason Kenney is attempting to create a two-tiered immigration system, which will

not only hamper refugee claimants’ access to a fair hearing, but will also pit refugee against refugee. If adopted, applicants from so-called “safe countries” will be considered based on their country of origin rather than their individual situation.

The Tory government has also cut funding to organizations serving refugees and immigrants because of the positions they have taken on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

6

Helena Guergis and Rahim Jaffer.

With each day that passes, new light is shed on the Guergis/Jaffer scandal. Most recently, documents revealed that former-Tory MP Jaffer did in fact promote projects in seven federal agencies with the help of Guergis’ office and Tory aides after losing his seat in 2008.

30,000 participate in Cochabamba climate conference

Harper’s contempt for democracy Page 9 John Bell on Tories’ deceit and scandals

Gang of thugs Page 10 Jonthon Hodge on the violent history of the G8 in Genoa

BC rallies against government cuts Page 11 Communities mobilize to fight Liberal gov’t

CPMA No. 58554253-99 ISSN No. 0836-7094

1916-2010

PRIDE

Tribute to Michel Chartrand

Censorship re-engages community

by BENOIT RENAUD

Socialist Worker’s Amelia Murphy-Beaudoin interviews LGBT activist Rick Telfer

ON APRIL 12, Michel Chartrand died at the age of 93. He spent his life fighting for social justice and national liberation.

The outpouring of tributes and the atmosphere of national mourning that followed was reminiscent of when René Lévesque died back in 1987.

Chartrand was loved by many because he was a larger than life character with a unique capacity for “speaking truth to power”, as we now say. His dedication to workers rights, to the poor and to Québec’s national struggle was unwavering and uncompromising, which brought him respect and admiration.

Born into a middle-class family in Outremont, he was a monk for two years before deciding that he wanted to change the world... and get married.

His wife Simone Monet was equally dedicated to social justice issues and made very important contributions to the peace movement, human rights and women’s rights.

His politics started as French Canadian nationalist and progressive Catholic, including the struggle against conscription during WWII. In the late 1940s and 1950s he became a union organizer, notably in the Asbestos strike, and was sent to jail repeatedly under the Duplessis conservative regime.

He embraced the cause of Québec independence in the 1960s and became the editor of young and innovative authors, including Gilles Vignault. He was a founding member of the NDP, and then left it to lead the Québec socialist party.

He is remembered most of all for his ten years at the head of the Montréal council of CSN, from 1968 to 1978, at the height of union radicalism in Québec. During those years, he denounced capitalism, the bosses and all levels of government, becoming a widely known radical.

It is not surprising that he would spend four months in jail during the October Crisis and be wrongly accused of being one of the leaders of the FLQ. He was also involved in the political convergence which led to the founding of Québec solidaire. One of his last political statements was to call for a vote for QS during the last general election.

Those who want to know more about the most important socialist in Québec history can watch a documentary made by one of his nine children, Alain Chartrand, an NFB production called “Un home de parole”, now available for free online.

Chartrand will never be silenced; he will never die, because now we are all Michel Chartrand.

Continuons le combat!

2 Socialist Worker May 2010

Pride Toronto announced a new policy in March that all signage at Pride must be pre-approved. The community responded with outrage, and Pride Toronto rescinded this policy two weeks later. What has happened since the policy was rescinded?

Protesters in Halifax rally against the G8 development ministers meeting. On April 28, Toni Marie MacAfee, an education officer with CUPW, was arrested for assault after she asked police to let go of her so she could move to the sidewalk as directed. Labour participants at demonstrations marched behind a banner that read “Capitalism isn’t working for workers”.

Tories push through attacks on refugees Community organizations and refugee advocates are mobilizing across Canada in opposition to Tory Bill C-11, which will dramatically reduce refugee claimants’ access to a fair hearing and establish a two-tier system pitting refugee claimants against one another.

Amnesty International Canada, the Canadian Council for Refugees and the Refugee Lawyers’ Association of Ontario, along with dozens of local advocacy groups, decried Immigration Minister Jason Kenney’s push to fast-track the bill to a vote without allowing serious hearings and amendments.

Advocates are deeply worried that the bill will give refugee claimants only eight days

to prepare their case, with a hearing 60 days later. These timelines will deny refugees the opportunity to gather necessary evidence, and will affect some of the most vulnerable refugees including torture survivors.

The bill will create a list of countries from which claimants can be denied an appeal on the merits of the case. The Refugee Lawyers Association says this brings political decision-making into what should be an independent process. It also imposes a discriminatory bias against refugee claimants from affected countries.

The bill would deny access to humanitarian relief, including for children, and to a final assessment of risk prior to deportation. This violates Can-

ada’s obligations under both the Charter and international treaties, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

While NDP MPs Bill Siksay and Olivia Chow pushed for the bill to be sent to committee for extensive hearings before second reading, shamefully the Liberal immigration critic Maurizio Bevilacqua spent most of his effort congratulating Tory minister Jason Kenney on the bill. Had the Liberals pushed for the bill to go to committee, it could have undergone extensive changes.

Instead, they have assisted in pushing through what will be a terrible setback for refugee rights in Canada.

Kenney has received many plaudits for “tackling the refugee crisis” with this bill, in-

cluding in a Toronto Star editorial. But the Tories have borrowed a page from former Ontario MPP John Snobelen, “creating a crisis” in order to then swoop in to “fix it”.

The main thing on which Kenney has rested this bill is clearing up the backlog of refugees. But the backlog was created by Kenney and his predecessor Diane Finley refusing to fill vacant IRB positions.

Average case time has gone from 11.7 months to 19 months since the Harper Tories were elected. This is because 36 per cent of claim adjudicator positions and 25 per cent of appeal division positions were left unfilled for the first two years. In 2005, before the Tories were elected, there was no significant backlog of refugee claims.

Nova Scotia NDP bares its teeth

by STEPHEN ELLIS When the NS NDP won a historic election last summer, the new government of Premier Darrell Dexter promised to balance the budget without raising taxes or cutting spending.

The April 6 budget has shown that this fiscally conservative goal cannot be achieved without precisely these and that public sector workers are inevitably in the crosshairs.

The HST will be raised from 13 to 15 per cent. The culture budget has been cut by ten per cent. The 2010-11 budgets also laud infrastructure spending to build and repair roads and bridges.

Incredibly, the budget has also announced a ten per cent cut in the civil service over the next four years and has scaled back public sector pensions. The government has attempted to soften the blow by stating that the cuts will happen through attrition achieved

Bill C-94 denies people essential services

by JESSICA SQUIRES SEVERAL INCREASINGLY vocal groups in Quebec want the National Assembly to follow the lead of France and ban the wearing of religious symbols in public places.

When Premier Jean Charest and Immigration Minister Yolanda James introduced Bill 94, they took advantage of a hot public issue to deflect attention from their attacks on public sector workers and avoid a debate that Québec desperately needs to have in public and in the open.

This trend of opinion, strong across the political spectrum and in both urban and rural areas, wants a “charte de laïcité” that would circumvent the Charter of Rights in order to curtail religious freedoms. Many

of its proponents admit their position will never pass a charter challenge. Yet they refuse to acknowledge that their position bolsters attitudes against immigrants and minorities.

Instead of challenging this view, Charest and James have attacked another minority.

Bill 94 would cut-off niqab-wearing Muslim women from public services for reasons of identification, communication or security.

These undefined terms constitute a dangerous slippery slope.

Quebec’s radical secularists should be happy with cowardly Bill 94. If it is allowed to pass, it will make their fight—which, whether they admit it or not, is racist—much easier.

through retirements and voluntary departures.

Unfortunately, the union representing the public service, the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union (NSGEU), apart from a few words of lukewarm defiance, seems quite willing to take the hit.

Joan Jessome, the president of NSGEU, has indicated that the union lacks confidence that the ten per cent civil service cut can be managed without layoffs unless job security and retraining are strengthened to protect employees.

The government’s budget for the fiscal year 2010-11 runs a deficit of $222 million

with the promise of a balanced budget in four years. Ominously, Finance Minister Graham Steele said that over the next four years, his government will focus on the need for stronger revenues, reduced spending and economic growth to get the province back to balance.

This is clearly a foreshadowing of more attacks to come.

For the NS NDP, the honeymoon is long over. The government’s moral authority was severely hurt in public opinion polls by an MLA expense scandal. NDP’s conservative budget and attacks on workers and services seem certain to ensure their downward spiral.

Viola Desmond finally receives pardon

by STEPHEN ELLIS ON APRIL 15, NS NDP Darryl Dexter’s government issued an apology and a free pardon to Viola Desmond, a black Nova Scotian who, decades earlier, refused to be treated like a secondclass citizen.

On November 8, 1946, Viola Desmond was about to make history. She went to the Roseland movie theatre in New Glasgow, bought a ticket and sat down in the whites-only section of the movie theatre. She was then forcibly removed from the theatre,

jailed overnight, tried without counsel, convicted and fined. All for refusing to sit in the balcony section of the theatre designated for blacks.

For decades Desmond’s act of defiance has resonated among black and anti-racist whites for her courage in the face of oppression.

While the pardon is long overdue, we should celebrate Desmond as an example of the indomitable spirit of everyday people, a shining moment in the long struggle against racism in Nova Scotia.

The pro-censorship lobbyists directed efforts towards the sponsors of Pride. They chose TD Canada Trust Financial Group because they are the premier sponsor, and they simultaneously channelled their efforts to City Hall.

There were threats from City Hall to withdraw funding unless Pride agreed to implement a censorship policy. This was about the exclusion of the group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid.

We have known all along that TD Canada Trust has had the same concern, although they have been more trepidatious about identifying the group.

The positive consequence about the discourse between Pride and the issue of Israeli Apartheid is the relationship between fighting oppression as Queer people and standing in solidarity with other people around the world who face oppression, particularly Palestinian LGBT people.

The upshot is that it has given this movement a platform and an opportunity to advance arguments.

The other upshot is that we have a re-engaged, repoliticized Queer community.

There has been renewed debate among people about the direction of Pride and the kinds of politics that are legitimate in the context of pride.

The Facebook group Don’t Sanitize Pride: Free Expression Must Prevail was founded initially only to oppose the censorship policy, but since the target has clearly become QuAIA, the Facebook group has grown; it is approaching nearly 1,800 members.

What do we need to do now to ensure that Pride stays political?

Campaigns and Facebook groups are all well and good, but ultimately there needs to be grassroots dialogue about how we put the control and the direction of Pride back in the hands of the community. The community was either asleep or silent over a period of time, and this has been a real wake-up call.

We need to get together and re-imagine what a community driven Pride protest and celebration looks like.

Socialist Worker e-mail: reports@socialist.ca web: www.socialist.ca letters: letters@socialist.ca reviews: reviews@socialist.ca listings: listings@socialist.ca phone: 416.972.6391 All correspondence to: Socialist Worker P.O. Box 339, Station E Toronto, ON M6H 4E3 Published every four weeks in Toronto by the International Socialists.

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KYRGYZSTAN

INTERNATIONAL

Revolution kicks out president

by PETER HOGARTH THE REVOLT in Kyrgyzstan has forced President Bakiyev from his post as leader of the government.

Majority of Afghans want negotiations, not war

by PAUL STEVENSON WHEN AFGHAN President Hamid Karzai told a news conference that he might join the Taliban, he set off a flurry of denunciations from NATO leaders.

Karzai is NATO’s man in Kabul, but a fraudulent election and calls from the West to root out corruption in his regime have soured that relationship.

The problem for the occupying nations is that they need a stable “partner” in the seat of the president to justify the occupation to domestic audiences.

Karzai’s revelations may seem surprising—he has little base of support and, therefore, needs the West to keep him in power. However, support for the resistance is growing and Karzai needs to shore up some kind of domestic base of support before NATO leaves.

If he is seen as nothing but a Western puppet, his ability to develop a following will be compromised. So a spat with NATO is helpful to his long-term survival.

Karzai was also angry at UN insistence that he open up the Electoral Complaint Commission to international observers. He had previously stacked the commission with his own political appointees.

At the same news conference, Karzai said that the proposed Kandahar offensive may be called off. This was news to NATO who is planning to begin the attacks soon.

Karzai, a Pashtun from the south, needs support from the people of Kandahar and therefore needs to oppose the attack.

The last offensive in Marjah has

not yet yielded the results promised

by NATO planners. There was supposed to be a representative government in the town, but NATO has yet to secure all areas despite a massive assault in January.

Resistance

Marjah is a small town. Kandahar is a city of more than a half million people. Many in the city are worried about what will be a long and bloody attack. Officials in the Afghan government know that a heavy-handed assault will bring even more people to side with the resistance.

NATO attacks on civilians in April lApril 4 NATO investigators admitted that US forces killed five unarmed civilians at a birthday party and then tried to cover it up. lApril 12 Occupying forces fired on a bus carrying passengers in downtown Kandahar killing four civilians and injuring 18 others.

Hundreds to join a protest calling for “Death to America”. lApril 19 Khost, NATO killed four boys aged 12-17 who were returning from a volleyball match. lApril 25 Logar, NATO killed three civilians. The resulting protest torched ten NATO supply vehicles.

In Kandahar, a US army poll found that 94 per cent of respondents want to see negotiations with the Taliban rather than a battle. Most startling to the NATO forces, which have allegedly been winning hearts and minds, is that 85 per cent of respondents described the Taliban as “our Afghan brothers”.

This puts the NATO offensive in doubt. If the Kandahari’s are so universally opposed to a military operation, it will be impossible for NATO to root out opposition. There is no way to secure and occupy any area where the population is so clearly in favour of the resistance.

Attacks on the Afghan government in Kandahar have spiked since the NATO offensive was announced.

The resistance is doing all it can to destabilize any pro-Western opponents in the city killing dozens of Afghan police and even the vice-mayor of the city.

As NATO troop levels have increased, so have their attacks on civilians, breeding more anger at the West and resulting in mass antiNATO rallies.

Support for Afghan war falling Criminal energy giant BP THE UNITED Nations’ report on civilian casualties in Afghanistan reveals that at least 2,412 Afghan civilians were killed in fighting last year, an increase of 14 per cent from 2008.

This increase in civilian killings is causing support for the war to fall in the West. In Germany, where polls show 80 per cent opposition, the government has gone on the offensive with a fear campaign telling Germans that if they don’t kill the Taliban in Afghanistan the country will be awash with drugs and terrorists.

In Canada, ongoing revelations about the abuse of Afghan detainees are also causing the war to lose support. The most damning revelations came from Ahmadshah Malgarai, an Afghan translator who worked with Canadian Forces. He told a parliamentary committee that Canadian Forces knew that Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security was torturing prisoners of war and even said that

Canadian soldiers had killed an unarmed Afghan and tried to cover up the story.

There is a real anger developing against the Conservatives in Canada for the constant cover up of abuse of prisoners of war. Poll results show a majority is opposed to Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan.

The Tories will use the next months to ramp up the campaign to convince Canadians to support an extension of the war, although they will try to conceal the extension by saying that we are only there to train the Afghan police, not engage in combat.

The anti-war movement in Canada will have to respond to this new challenge. We need to build a mass anti-war contingent to join with labour and community groups at the G20 protests in Toronto on June 26.

The Afghan people are ramping up the resistance and we must match that commitment and bring the troops home now.

destroying the planet

by JESSICA SQUIRES THE DEEPWATER Horizon oil platform sank on April 22 off the Louisiana coast, 209 km southeast of New Orleans, two days after a massive blast that killed 11 rig workers.

A pipe that had been attached to the rig continues to spill almost 160,000 of oil per day.

Efforts to clean up the disaster have focused on using untested dome technology, with no regard for its effects on oceanic ecosystems, and now a “controlled burn” of the slick to prevent its reaching New Orleans-area wetlands, last damaged by human inaction in hurricane Katrina.

Mainstream media reports have tried to downplay the extent of the disaster, emphasizing how

small it is in comparison to the Exxon Valdez spill off Alaska in 1989.

The rig was drilling oil for the energy giant BP. According to Democracy Now, newly-disclosed documents reveal BP heavily lobbied against stricter offshore drilling safety rules last year.

Serious questions are also being raised regarding the techniques used to clean up the spill which have never been used in oceans of such depths.

The Obama administration, while launching an investigation, has ignored this obvious evidence against the expansion of offshore oil exploration and continued to push their so-called climate change bill. Expanded exploration is touted as a “compromise” to get the bill through.

Russia’s decision to impose new import duties on oil and gas supplies to Kyrgyzstan led to rapidly rising energy prices which inflamed tensions and helped spark the rebellion.

The revolt began in the northern town of Talas on April 6 when a crowd took over the mayor’s office. Within 24 hours the movement spread across the country. The opposition seized control of the television stations in the capital city of Bishkek and used a live feed to spread their message and fuel the revolt.

Crowds of opposition protesters were fired upon by snipers at the parliament buildings, enraging the crowd who stormed government offices. When they attempted to take the government buildings, the police and national guard responded with live bullets to counter the protesters’ stones and Molotov cocktails.

After capturing an army vehicle and police weapons, the protestors won the day and forced the government to resign. Former foreign minister Roza Otunbayeva heads the new administration, which is being called a “government of people’s trust.”

Kyrgyzstan is important to both Russia and the US. Bakiyev has been in trouble with Russia since he declined to host its military base in the country, while Otunbayeva has agreed to honor an agreement for the US use of Manas air base. The base is an important part of supplying US troops in Afghanistan.

If real change comes to Kyrgyzstan it will come not from Otunbayeva, but from further mobilizations in the streets.

GREECE

Greek crisis

by JESSE McLAREN THE IMF “bailout” of Greece is insufficient to stave off crisis, while triggering further resistance.

Amidst growing fears that Greece will default on its skyrocketing debt, the competing nations within the European Union have joined with the IMF to propose $100 billion of “assistance”.

But economically, the proposal has already failed to stabilize Europe. No sooner did the IMF make its announcement that the credit rating agency Standard and Poor’s downgraded Portugal and Spain, fearing they could join Greece’s downward spiral. Spain is the Eurozone’s fourth largest economy, and would exhaust IMF funds if it even defaulted.

Politically, the “bailout” could be explosive, as it calls for closing down the rail system and all its jobs, cutting pay and pensions, smashing collective agreements, and increasing retirement age.

Austerity measures have already provoked a series of general strikes across Greece, and new measures could bring workers resistance to a new level.

May 2010 Socialist Worker 3

TALKING MARXISM

INTERNATIONAL

Abbie Bakan

Harper’s refugee bill only ‘fair’ to the market HARPER’S NEW refugee bill will speed up processing of refugee claimants, ostensibly to make the policy more “fair”. But the real effect will have nothing to do with fairness and everything to do with the capitalist market.

The aim is to increase the government’s capacity to screen claimants, to sort those deemed “good” immigrants from those who will be readily rejected.

Jason Kenney, Minister of Immigration, has defended the bill on the grounds that it will challenge “bogus” claims, speeding up capacity to deport unwanted applicants. The changes are in synch with the Tories’ aims to both meet employers’ demands for selecting skilled immigrants for specific occupations and to more rapidly turn away thousands fleeing dangerous conditions who seek asylum in Canada.

Those who will suffer will include those fleeing persecution on grounds that the Canadian state refuses to recognize— like US war resisters who refuse to participate in the War on Iraq.

Also vulnerable are those who are fleeing abuse, genderbased persecution or discrimination. And anyone refused residency will be more readily subject to deportation.

The Canadian Council of Refugees (CCR) provides examples of the impact of this type of immigration controls: “Grise, a young Mexican woman, sought refuge in Canada from drug traffickers, who were persecuting her family. She was refused refugee status. After her return to Mexico, she was kidnapped by the people she had originally fled. In June 2009, she was found dead, with a bullet in her head. She was 24 years old. Grise might be alive today if she had had access to a refugee appeal.”

Capitalist states like Canada face contradictory pressures. They rely on immigrant workers to provide labour in certain areas of the Canadian economy; but opening the borders challenges capital’s ability to control the labour market.

Enter immigration controls. These controls regulate access to resources—including jobs, housing, education, and social welfare—that are tightly geared to serving the interests of the market.

No similar regulations manage capital flows across borders. In fact, recent trends have been moving in the opposite direction, guaranteeing greater mobility for corporate investors within designated global trade zones.

Surplus

Migrant workers, whether immigrants or refugees, are part of what Karl Marx called “surplus population”—vast pools of workers without work—who are collectively part of the profit-driven system. When capitalism goes through a period of expansion, these workers are pulled into the labour market to generate huge profits for the bosses.

“The surplus labouring population is a necessary product of accumulation or of the development of wealth on a capitalist basis.... It forms a disposable industrial reserve army, that belongs to capital quite as absolutely as if the latter had bred it at its own cost. Independently of the limits of the actual increase of population, it creates, for the changing needs of the self-expansion of capital, a mass of human material already ready for exploitation.”

Throughout the world, vast pools of unemployed workers, “a mass of human material”, seek to travel to where work is available. Immigrants and refugees leave behind everything they know, tear up their lives, and travel vast distances seeking safety and opportunities for themselves and their families.

In times of economic expansion, countries like Canada have welcomed immigrants to labour on the railways, in the hospitals, the schools, offices, farms or factories. In times of crisis, immigrants are blamed for creating hard times. In fact they are victims of the same crisis that all workers face.

History

Canada’s history as a white settler state is marked by immigration controls, regulated overwhelmingly by racist policies that mimicked the British colonial empire. Indigenous peoples lost their lands to colonial conquest, while Chinese immigrants were exploited to build the railroad at the centre of the Confederation project. Immigrants have fuelled the Canadian economy in every period of growth.

But while immigrants are welcomed on certain terms to work to generate massive profits, when refugees seek shelter and a better life they face overwhelming barriers.

Even Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi concentration camps were not allowed entry into Canada. Irving Abella and Harold Troper, in their book None is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe, 1933-1948, summarize the position of the Canadian government at the time: “Canadian immigration policy had always been ethnically selective as it was economically self-serving…. To all intents and purposes, Canada had shut itself off from the rest of the world just at the time when it was needed most. And for the remainder of the decade—and beyond it—a determined federal government fought every attempt by the wretched European refugees to break through this protective wall of legislation.”

Today overt racist rhetoric is not officially acceptable, veiled in the language of multiculturalism. However, after 9/11 racial profiling, in practice, clearly accelerated.

When state policies change, regardless of the political party in office, they have been motivated by the needs of capital and not of people seeking safety and human rights.

4 Socialist Worker May 2010

Will Congo be Canada’s next mission?

by G. FRANCIS HODGE THERE HAVE been calls in some quarters for Congo to replace Afghanistan as the focus of military action, once Canada’s combat role in Afghanistan concludes in 2011.

Critics and anti-war activists argue that such an intervention will only bring more bloodshed and conflict, just as it has in Iraq and Afghanistan.

C a n a d a ’s G o v e r n o r - G e n e r a l Michaëlle Jean spent two much-publicized days in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on April 19 and 20.

At the same time, the deputy administrator of the UN mission to the DRC publicly appealed to the Canadian government to send more troops (currently there are three) and to take a larger role in UN peacekeeping efforts there.

Canadian Forces Lieutenant-General Andrew Leslie recently left his senior position as Chief of the Land Staff and has yet to be confirmed in another posting. It is widely speculated that Leslie will be appointed the next commander of the UN mission to Congo.

This mission is no small affair. Since 1999 the UN presence in Congo has grown to over 20,000 soldiers and is actively involved in combat, having suffered 156 casualties. There are several different armed resistance factions in the country, which is home to vast deposits of minerals—that have been fought over

repeatedly by the various armed groups.

Complicating the situation is the fact that DRC President Joseph Kabila has publicly demanded the UN wind up its mission and withdraw by the middle of 2011.

Individuals largely regarded as progressive in Canada have advocated for a Canadian military mission. NDP MP Paul Dewar publicly called for the appointment of Lieutenant-General Leslie and for more active participation in Congo by the Canadian military. Governor-General Jean has strongly urged the same.

And prominent Liberal Senator Romeo Dallaire, formerly commander of the UN mission to Rwanda in 1994 during the Rwandan genocide, has likewise called for Canada to commit, under the auspices of the UN, to military involvement in Congo.

Support split

It may seem odd to many that Conservative commentators have weighed in on the anti-intervention side of the question.

For instance, Alain Pellerin of the Conference of Defence Associations told the Toronto Star that a Congo mission was a bad idea, saying that in Congo “there’s no light at the end of the tunnel.”

Retired Major-General Lewis McKenzie told the Globe and Mail that “My only recommendation would be, ‘don’t touch it with a 10-foot pole.’” Various

ASIA

conservative newspapers have run editorials counseling against Canadian involvement.

What this shows is that different sections of Canada’s ruling class are united on the need for Canadian military involvement overseas, but divided on how to win people to that position.

The majority of people in Canada are opposed to militarism, and so the violence in Congo is being used by part of the Canadian establishment to legitimize it and make it palatable.

Dallaire’s words are revealing. In an April 22 interview with Sun newspapers, Dallaire redefined UN peacekeeping operations as directly interventionist, not about soldiers “standing there watching” but rather about “Protect[ing] the moderates, protect[ing] the innocents from extremism…. That is what peacekeeping is—it’s peacemaking in our era.”

Such a role necessitates supporting one side of such a struggle against another. The Canadian Forces would not be playing the role of a neutral arbiter in the dispute. Dallaire is thus advocating the Canadian military taking an active, shooting role in a political/military struggle in another country.

Such a role is a long way from what most people in Canada think of when they think of UN peacekeeping. It is a role by now very familiar, as it is exactly the role Canada is currently playing in the war in Afghanistan.

EUROPE

Revolt in Thailand threatens government

Volcano exposes airline-dependence

by IAN BEECHING

FOR A week in April, Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull spewed 150,000 tons of carbon dioxide per day, and showered Western Europe in a cloud of ash that grounded flights and created travel chaos.

But the grounding of flights prevented the European airline industry from releasing their daily 200,000 tons of carbon dioxide, and allowed people living near airports to hear the sounds of birds for the first time.

Aviation is the fastest growing source of emissions and is set to produce 15 per cent of total emissions by 2050, quadrupling the number of passengers. Most of this expansion is for short-haul flights, which could be done by train. But while governments are underfunding rail systems, they are providing the airline industry with billions of dollars of subsidies to make it cheaper to take the most costly and polluting form of transportation.

The volcano exposed how much Europe has been made dependent on unsustainable oil-driven airlines, and how much needs to be done to improve green transportation.

WAVES OF protesters dressed in red shirts have stopped business as normal in Thailand over the last several weeks.

Hundreds of thousands of mostly poor, rural, supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra are demanding democracy. Thaksin, ousted in a 2006 coup, has gained support amongst the poor by proposing reforms such as a universal health care scheme.

The protesters are demanding new elections, but many have been starting to question the brutality of the state and monarchy, which Thaksin Shinawatra supports. Despite media censorship and police repression, protesters have managed to occupy many roads in the country pushing back the states attempt to move them.

Peaceful protests held in the capital, Bangkok, since March have been met with police and military violence with reports of 26 dead and 1,000 injured. Arrest warrants have been issued for red shirt leaders.

Government supporters wearing

Thaksin Shinawatra

yellow shirts have threatened to take things into their own hands and break up protesters.

As the radicalization escalates the government has refused red shirt leaders wishes to compromise. Some leaders of the red shirts are now calling the struggle a “class war”.

According to exiled Thai activist Giles Ji Ungpakorn the movement’s leadership is not prepared to wage a full ideological battle against the military and monarchy.

Much work will be needed in winning the urban working class and the lower ranks of the army into a revolutionary movement.

by JESSE McLAREN

WORKERS FIGHTING BACK

We won’t pay for their crisis Employers and governments have only one solution to the economic crisis they have made: make workers suffer and pay the price. Carolyn Egan takes a hard look at the dangers we face, and the tradition of militancy that has beaten back such attacks in the past.

T

he working class is under attack in this country.

Employers are on the offensive in both the industrial and public sector. They are demanding deep concessions, going after defined pension plans, wages and other benefits. The global economic crisis is continuing and the ruling class is shifting the costs from those who caused the crisis on to the back of working people.

The demands for austerity and private and public cutbacks are a clear sign that neo-liberalism, discredited by the massive economic collapse, continues to dominate public policy.

Most governments see cutting the deficit as the key priority and have no hesitation to reduce services, attack workers and privatize public entities.

The economic crisis has sent the rich and powerful into a blind panic and whatever they claim, they have no solution to the problem except one: make the workers pay. The class divide is clearer and clearer.

The trade union movement has been slow to respond in most instances. It seems to have lost its collective memory of how to fight back and win, and most leaders are unwilling to rock the boat and lead a struggle.

Employers appear to be reading from the same playbook when workers do fight back. They are seeking injunctions against picket line actions and threatening million dollar law suits against individual workers who are leading on the line. They are trying to isolate and intimidate militants, and drain the resistance out of those who are fighting back.

Large companies like US Steel and Vale Inco are putting significant concessions forward and refusing to bargain, leaving locked out or striking workers on the picket lines for nine months or more. Even small companies such as Infinity Rubber in Toronto are using these tactics of harassment as well as employing scabs and a high priced security firm trying to wait out the strikers.

This work stoppage is going into its six month. The strikers are holding firm but it is taking its toll on both themselves and their families.

US Steel’s Lake Erie Works locked out its workers last summer demanding an end to the defined benefit plan, as well as other concessions. 1,000 Steelworkers walked the line for months defying high-powered security and the mill was never scabbed. But in the end the members bit the bullet and ratified a collective agreement giving up the defined pension plan for new hires. It was a bitter pill to swallow but the members saw no end in sight and felt that they had little choice but to go back to work.

Workers should not be left to fight these battles alone. Picket line strength with strong solidarity and campaigns to build broad support are critical to any victory.

C

anada has a strong working class history and there are many examples of when workers fought back under very difficult circumstances. It is important that workers do not feel that they are alone but part of a larger workers movement. We have to develop the ability and confidence of the rank and file to take on the attacks, and must constantly strengthen the traditions of solidarity.

We can look back to the Winnipeg General Strike in 1919 when unemployed soldiers returned from WWI joined with trades people and workers from immigrant communities to shut down the city of Winnipeg for six weeks.

One of the slogans was “production for use, not for profits”.

Building trade workers sparked the actions by striking for union recognition, higher wages and the eight-hour day.

The trades council called a general strike because of the broad discontent felt by many workers, organized and unorganized.

Although the state came back with force and the strike was

PHOTO: G. FRANCIS HODGE

eventually called off, it gave a glimpse of working class power and the possibilities that exist when workers use the collective power that is theirs.

During the 1930s and 1940s coming out of the great depression in very difficult circumstances there were massive organizing drives which led to the formation of unions such as the steelworkers, autoworkers and rubber workers.

The activists employed tactics such as the sit down strike, and flying squads, often occupying workplaces and forcing settlements from management. Tens of thousands of workers joined the fight for union recognition and won.

Wildcat strikes

More recently, in the 1960s and 1970s, when the public sector was growing in this country, there was a rash of wildcat strikes. The postal workers gained a militant reputation and had a nation-wide wildcat.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers was formed and by 1975 there were 30 job actions and strikes.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees doubled its membership between 1963 and 1973.

Hospital workers joined by the tens of thousands and threatened an illegal strike in Ontario, presenting a common front to hospital boards. They won their demands.

It wasn’t limited to public sector workers. In 1966, there were wildcats by Steelworkers at Inco in Sudbury and Stelco in Hamilton, and dockworkers in Montreal walked of the job. As some said, it was the era of the wildcat.

Common Front

The Common Front in Québec is another example in 1972 when the FTQ, the CSN and the teachers came together to mobilize their members in unified action. Striking to win their demands, hundreds of thousands of workers went into the streets.

Today workers also have to show that they are not willing to allow companies and government to ride out the crisis on their backs.

We have seen the workers

of Greece walking out in a general strike, the workers at Water ford Glass and Republic Steel occupying their workplaces, and 45,000 public sector workers marching in Quebec. In Sudbury, workers rejected Vale Inco’s offer by 88.7 per cent after nine months walking the picket line, and 5,000 strikers and supporters from many different unions who had bused into the city on a working day marched to the chant “one day longer, one day stronger”.

If the company carries through with its threats to resume full operations with scabs, workers from unions across the province have to be there to make sure it doesn’t happen.

All unions have to commit the resources and members to keep the facility shut down.

The strikers are doing their part, and have showed the courage to stand up against the company. It is up to the rest of the trade union movement to take up the call and stand with them. This is what solidarity means today.

May 2010 Socialist Worker 5

WORKERS FIG

From local to major fi Vestas occupation

Sitting-in and fighting back

by JOHN BELL ALL OVER the world government and bosses are using the financial crisis as a pretext to drive down workers’ living conditions, rob them of their pensions and break their unions. But workers are refusing to knuckle under without a fight: here are some snapshots of recent struggles.

Visteon

In spring of 2009, workers at England’s Visteon auto-parts plant, a supplier to international giant Ford, were told their jobs were gone and there was no severance pay for them.

Workers marched in and occupied the plant. Solidarity from across the embattled British union movement was swift. When the occupation threatened to grow into a movement that would shut down other Ford plants, the bosses gave in.

The action won big financial packages for workers who had been told they would get nothing.

It was the biggest financial payoff in Ford’s history.

The Visteon workers’ fight was not to be a one-off. In the months to come it inspired other workers in the British Isles to fight back.

Waterford

Early in 2010 nearly 500 workers at Ireland’s Waterford Crystal saw their plant go into receivership.

Taken over by international financial giant KPS, the unionized workers were threatened with immediate lockout and replacement by scabs. All this took place against the background of a collapsing Irish economy—once touted as one of Europe’s “tigers”—and demands for austerity measures on the part of workers.

Members of the Unite union called on the government to nationalize the company the way they had bailed out the banks.

When the government refused they occupied the factory to rescue jobs and pensions. They fought on for eight weeks, inspiring other Irish fight-backs and drawing support from around the world.

‘The action won big financial packages for workers who had been told they would get nothing’ 6 Socialist Worker May 2010

In the end, they accepted an agreement that preserved 176 union jobs. One worker told Britain’s Socialist Worker: “Once the government stabbed the workers in the back it was always going to be difficult, but we would have got nothing if we hadn’t occupied.”

Vestas

Danish-owned Vestas made wind turbines and was the biggest employer on Britain’s Isle of Wight. With the economic crisis, demand for investment in alternative energy dipped and the factory was to be shut. At

Visteon strike

the same time, Britain’s Labour government was pledging to create thousands of new “green jobs”.

A handful of Vestas workers hastily occupied the plant to prevent the bosses from removing turbine blades and equipment. They demanded the government nationalize the factory to make good on its pledge. It took massive support from people on the island, and constant run-ins with police, to keep the occupation fed.

In the process, the Vestas workers inspired rallies and solidarity involving trade unionists and environmentalists across Britain, often working together for the first time.

The government had no intention of letting rank-and-file workers’ initiative drive its environmental agenda, always more greenwash than substance. After a two-week occupation workers left the plant and joined allies in setting up a camp outside. Finally after two months of struggle, police were sent in and smashed up the camp, allowing the company to remove the capital stock.

That was not the end of the story: Vestas workers have continued to campaign for good green jobs and for better compensation for laid off workers. Their fight shows that the solution to the economic crisis and the environmental crisis can be one and the same.

Do unions still matter? Will workers face nothing but hosti when bosses have police, judges and politicians in their h heels? John Bell, Michelle Robidoux and RItch Whyman

E

mployers and governments see in today’s great recession an opportunity to make workers pay for the crisis. Workers today often have no choice than to fight back to preserve jobs, pensions, working conditions and their very right to organize.

Sometimes, as with last summer’s Toronto city workers strike, the struggles involve thousands; more often the fight is taken up in smaller, more isolated workplaces. Be the workplace big or small, the key to turning small battles into big struggles is building solidarity with other workers.

In Britain, one factory occupation inspired workers in other industries to do the same. The rediscovery of militant tactics from the past hasn’t put an end to all the attacks from employers and government, but it has emboldened workers to dig in and fight.

But the harsh economic climate is difficult to overcome.

A major battle has been waged as the British government attacked postal workers with the aim of breaking their union— Canadian public sector workers take note. Now a settlement has been reached that preserves the union, but was ratified by only 66 per cent of the members because it granted too many concessions. Tepid support for the deal suggests that a more resolute fight could have been organized.

Past is prologue

It is worth recalling the lessons of past victories, like the great Flint sit-down strike of 1936.

Then the economic circumstances were even worse than today. Then workers in smaller, localized struggles—teamsters in Minneapolis, auto parts workers in Toledo—fought back and won real gains. Then they were literally life and death struggles for the right to organize unions.

Often these struggles were led and inspired by socialists.

Finally, the sparks generated in those local struggles lit a blaze across the auto industry, beginning in GM’s factories in Flint. When rumours came that GM planned to take production machinery out to build newer factories with cheaper labour, workers drew a line in the sand and said no. Thousands of workers sat-in and occupied.

The corporation organized a private army of goons equipped with tear gas and automatic weapons, and marshaled political

1936–1937 Flint sit-down strike

‘GM, one of the biggest and most brutal corporations at the time, surrendered, and union rights spread throughout the industry’

support at every level. The newspapers demonized the strikers.

The workers countered by democratically organizing inside the occupied plants and out.

Solidarity from the community, mostly organized by women, kept them supplied with food. Occupiers found ways of using their tools as weapons of defence.

When, after more than a month, GM had had enough, they prepared to invade and evict the workers. The call went out and over 20,000 supporters came to their defence, including 10,000 autoworkers from Detroit. So few workers showed up at other car factories that the industry basically shut down.

GM, one of the biggest and most brutal corporations at the time, surrendered, and union rights spread throughout the industry. According to one participant: “The auto worker became a different human being.

GHTING BACK

l struggles fights

ility if they hit the picket line? Is it possible to fight back hip pocket? What can workers do if their leaders drag their look for the answers.

Unions, the rank-and-file and bureaucracy

by RITCH WHYMAN FOR MOST union activists and socialists the key divide inside the union movement is between “leftwing” and” right-wing” leaders and that key strategy is to work towards the election of more progressive militant union leaders.

Of course, any serious activist will support a left-wing candidate for leader over a right-wing one. But as the experience of the Canadian Autoworkers’ (CAW) shift to the right under the once “militant” leader Buzz Hargrove shows, left leaders still continually sell-out workers and curtail struggles.

The reality is that the critical divide in the labour movement is between the rank-and-file and the union bureaucracy. The union bureaucracy is elected by, but separated from, the rank-and-file.

More often than not, their salaries are much larger than their members, they no longer have to engage in the daily battles with supervisors or deal with the frustrations that members face daily. The bureaucracy—right or left—sees workers’ self-activity as at best a tool to be used occasionally to pressure bosses and at worst as a hindrance to “getting a deal”.

This doesn’t mean there aren’t left or militant leaders. It means that the union leaderships have interests that are not the same as those of the rank-and-file.

Capitalism

The union bureaucracy rests itself upon negotiating within the framework of capitalism, not organizing to end capitalism. Its role is to mediate between workers and bosses. However, being based on the workers themselves, the union leaderships are constantly faced with varying pressures from the members, and from the employers and state.

This means the leadership can’t sell-out too much to the employers or they will face either a loss of members and hence jeopardize the stability of the union apparatus, or lose their position to someone who is more militant. Yet on the other hand, if the leadership pushes struggles too far they run the risk of being overtaken by events or jeopardizing the stability of the union apparatus.

Self-activity

Self-activity and initiative by the rank-and-file come to be seen as a threat to the jobs and stability of the bureaucracy.

This doesn’t mean that militants shouldn’t take the divisions between left and right leaders seriously. It is just that they are secondary to the divide between the bureaucracy and the rank-and-file.

For instance, the fight at the Ontario Federation of Labour around whether to support Sid Ryan or not, is one where every militant should be arguing in their union to back Sid Ryan. The fight against him is led by union leaders who want to maintain a go-slow policy and oppose the efforts to build support for striking workers for fear of rocking the boat too much.

A more left leader can help create space for building a stronger rank-and-file, but is never a substitute for the fight to build a stronger more confident rank-andfile by arguing for solidarity with others fighting back, and for self activity in the fight against the employers.

To do that means taking the words of the Clyde Workers Committee from 1915: “We will support the union officials just so long as they rightly represent the workers, but we will act independently immediately when they misrepresent them.”

Lessons from US Steel lockout

by MICHELLE ROBIDOUX

The women that had participated actively became a different type of woman, their heads were high and they had confidence in themselves.

“The whole nature of the city changed.”

Unions matter

That was then, bosses and their media argue. We’re all different now and unions and solidarity are obsolete.

It is the greedy, overpaid union workers who have forced us to seek cheaper labour around the world.

And all the while the facts prove that the tiny handful of the rich and powerful are becoming richer, while workers here and around the world are becoming steadily poorer.

In Britain, during the last year, the richest 1,000 have seen their incomes rise by 30 per cent.

While workers at Visteon, Water-

‘The facts prove that the tiny handful of the rich and powerful are becoming richer, while workers are becoming steadily poorer’

ford and Vestas were forced to occupy and fight like hell to beat back concessions, the super-rich saw the biggest one-year rise in income in 22 years of record keeping—that in the midst of a recession.

The propaganda coming from the owners of factories, mines and media hasn’t changed much over the years. And we can’t blame them—what they care about is keeping their profits as high as they can. That is bred in the bone of their competitive system. They do all they can to get us to identify with their troubles and accept their logic.

But for workers profits are not the issue; decent wages, working and living conditions are.

In the past we won those things not through competition but cooperation. We call it solidarity, a sense of class-consciousness.

It worked before and it can work again.

The deal recently accepted by workers at US Steel in Nanticoke painfully illustrates the difficulties the labour movement faces, and underlines the urgent need to build solidarity with workers when they are walking the picket line.

US Steel Canada laid-off about 800 workers from Lake Erie Works in March 2009, citing the recession as reducing demand for steel. It locked out the 200 remaining workers in August after contract negotiations with United Steelworkers Local 8782 broke down. The company demanded massive concessions including rollbacks to holidays, wages and pension benefits.

After eight months on the line, the workers accepted a deal which, while it holds the line on benefits for existing employees, eliminates the defined benefit pension plan for new hires. Defined benefits pension plans guarantee retirees a certain amount, usually based on length of service.

A defined contribution plan, like a registered retirement savings plan, pays a pension based on how much has been contributed.

The push to move to defined contribution plans is a prize sought by employers in both the private and public sector, and has become a standard feature of attacks by employers everywhere in the past few years.

It is also at the centre of the ninemonth strike at Vale Inco in Sudbury.

The workers at Lake Erie Works

held the line in the face of great hardships. They resisted attempts by the employer to push them back even further. But in the end, they felt they had little choice but to accept.

They voted 88.5 per cent in favour of the contract.

In contrast, after enduring 8 months on strike and facing the use of scab labour, workers at Vale Inco rejected a recent offer by the employer by 88.7 per cent, calling it an insult.

One very visible difference between the two conflicts is the regular solidarity actions with the striking miners in Sudbury. Busloads of steelworkers have travelled to Sudbury from Hamilton, Toronto and Nanticoke. Such actions undoubtedly help morale and can make the difference in lasting “one day longer”. On March 22, almost every major union organized delegations to join a mass march in Sudbury.

Finding ways to organize serious solidarity actions, and rebuilding workers’ confidence to take militant action to defend jobs and conditions is vital if workers are to have any chance of resisting the assault on pensions and benefits.

With negotiations coming up soon at US Steel in Hamilton, negotiations ramping up at Canada Post, and the ongoing bitter battle at Vale Inco, we need to press from the ground up for the kind of solidarity that can keep workers afloat in these bitter fights.

It is this that allowed workers to win in the past, and this is what we’ll need for the fights ahead.

May 2010 Socialist Worker 7

MARXISM 2010

A PLANET TO SAVE A WORLD TO WIN

War, oppression, poverty and climate change have defined the first decade of the 21st century.

But so too has resistance. As the global economic system moves from crisis to crisis, ordinary people all over the world are looking for alternatives, and ways to fight back.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. We’re not just fighting to save jobs and pensions, or to bring the troops home now. Faced with the growing threat of climate change, we’re fighting for the future and survival of the planet.

Marxism 2010 is a three-day conference of over 40 talks and panel discussions, where hundreds will discuss and debate how to build a better world. Join us: we have a planet to save, and a world to win!

HIGHTLIGHTS CLAYTON THOMAS-MULLER joins ANDREA HARDEN & other climate campaigners to discuss the fight for climate justice KOSTAS KATARAHIAS reports from the frontlines of workers’ resistance in Greece Palestine solidarity activists KHALED MOUAMMAR, DIANA RALPH, TIM McCASKELL & RAFEEF ZIADAH speak on the new McCarthyism: Harper’s attack on Palestine solidarity

CAROLYN EGAN & other trade union activists assess the state of the workers’ movement in Canada VIRGINIA RODINO, US-based socialist & anti-war activist, assesses Obama’s first year in power JUDITH ORR & SALMAAN KHAN talk about Afghanistan & Pakistan: imperialism’s new fault line ELLEN GABRIEL & VALERIE LANNON on 20 years since Oka: the fight for indigenous sovereignty

SEDEF ARAT-KOÇ & GILARY MASSA discuss feminism, secularism & Islam

ABDI DIRSHE & ALI AWALI discuss the new ‘scramble for Africa’

BENOIT RENAUD & MONIQUE MOISAN, editor, À bâbord !, talk about building a bigger left: lessons from Québec solidaire

STEVE CRAIG, leader, Cadillac-Fairview 61, on building solidarity across struggles CLARE O’CONNOR & JOE KELLY on South Africa to Israel: histories of Apartheid

JOHN RIDDELL, co-editor, Socialist Voice, talks about Clara Zetkin & the Communist Women’s International SHANAAZ GOKOOL, MOHAMED HARKAT & other civil liberties activists talk about Canada’s ‘war on terror’ – from secret trials to torture

JOHN BELL pays tribute to Howard Zinn readings from People’s History of the United States and performance of excerpts from Marx in Soho & MUCH MORE!

May 28 - 30 | Toronto | Ryerson Student Centre | 55 Gould St

WWW.MARXISMCONFERENCE.CA

Organized by the International Socialists 8 Socialist Worker May 2010

* Ryerson Student Centre is a fully accessible space

LEFT JAB

John Bell

Harper’s contempt for democracy exposed NEXT TIME you find yourself machine-gunned for heckling in the public gallery of the House of Commons you will know who to blame: Greenpeace.

Mass movements can defeat Harper’s Tories THE TORIES are in trouble. For the first time in two years they have dropped below 30 per cent in the polls. They are being battered by new crises every day.

Their refusal to hand over documents that could implicate them in transferring Afghan detainees to torture has now engulfed them in a much bigger crisis. The ruling by Speaker of the House Peter Milliken that the government must comply with Parliament’s request to release these documents puts the Tories at risk of being found in contempt of Parliament.

There has been a huge outcry against Minister of International Cooperation Bev Oda’s announcement that the Canadiansponsored G8 maternal health initiative will not include abortion. Canadians are now asking: if abortions won’t be funded by the Canadian government abroad, how long before they attack funding at home?

What the past few weeks have revealed is how ideologically driven the Harper Tories are.

Where they succeeded in the past at keeping a lid on their Reform Party roots, their agenda is now on full display for all to see.

The crises afflicting the

WHAT WE THINK Toreis are an opportunity to push back against them.

But there is a problem.

The opposition’s fear of triggering an election, and divisions within the parties, means they always pull back from striking a blow against the Tories.

A case-in-point: the Liberals’ motion in Parliament to demand that abortion be part of the maternal health initiative failed miserably because the Liberals are split on this issue. This defeated Liberal motion became the Tories’ springboard to pursue the plan to keep abortion out of the maternal health initiative.

The Tories exploit every possible weakness of the opposition. But the opposition is terrified of going to the polls—because they have no alternative vision to the Tories.

The contortions that all the parties adopt to justify pulling back from a real fight are making people more and more disgusted. This is why

ultimately this crisi won’t be resolved in Parliament.

But there is a positive demonstration of the power of movements on the streets to land a blow against the Tories and their wretched policies.

The recent revelations about the Tories’ direct role in banning British MP George Galloway from entering Canada are the product of a series of decisions made by the anti-war movement. Galloway was invited to speak in Canada by anti-war groups. He was banned by the Tories. And because of a grassroots campaign, Galloway challenged this ban in court.

If the ban is overturned, this would be a major victory for the anti-war movement and everyone worried about this war-mongering government.

The lesson is: the movement is key to breaking this logjam.

In the weeks ahead, the best way to ensure that the Tories sink deeper into trouble is to mobilize all-out for the protests against the G20 in Toronto June 25 to 27. These protests mark the best opportunity in some time to pull together all the threads of opposition to this rotten government.

GALLOWAY BAN

Kenney’s lies revealed in court OVER A year after he was banned from Canada by Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenney, British anti-war MP George Galloway finally had his day in court.

On April 28, lawyers representing Galloway and organizers of his 2009 speaking tour appeared in the Federal Court of Canada to argue their case against Kenney’s ban. Galloway had been invited to speak in four Canadian cities in March and April 2009 on the topic of “Resisting war: from Gaza to Kandahar”. But Galloway had to deliver his speeches via live broadcast from New York City—because Kenney banned him from entering Canada.

Kenney has denied any involvement in the ban, but court records tell another story. In November 2009, the Canadian High Commission accidentally released to Galloway’s lawyers

a completely unredacted record of e-mail correspondence that shows that the ban was initiated by Kenney’s office and involved senior bureaucrats in the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, the Department of Public Safety, the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA), the Canadian High Commission, the Prime Minister’s Office and the Privy Council Office.

When government lawyers discovered their mistake, they demanded the return of the unredacted record, saying that it had to be censored for “national security” reasons. Galloway’s lawyers objected, since the record had nothing to do with national security and everything to do with political interference.

A Federal Court judge agreed, and ordered the release of the record in January 2010.

The Galloway case is yet

another example of the Conservatives’ attack on free speech and free expression, and of their attempts to cover up, censor or redact any information that is critical of the government. It is also an example of Kenney’s abuse of power, and grounds for him to resign.

In the weeks before the Federal Court makes its ruling, free speech supporters and anti-war activists need to build a public case against Kenney, demonstrating to the public, the media and Parliament how Kenney’s office initiated the ban, and then lied about it.

Rarely do we catch the government red-handed in an abuse of power. This case is an exception, and should be used to expose the dirty tricks and sleazy tactics of Kenney and his ilk—and to drive them from office as soon as possible!

RCMP officers assigned to guard our palace of democracy are being issued Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns.

Unarmed, stapler-wielding Polish tourists beware: we aren’t just tasering anymore!

The Ottawa arms race is necessitated by a “high-profile breach” of parliamentary security in December, in the days leading up to the Copenhagen climate change negotiations. You might recall that a handful of Greenpeace activists made their way to the House of Commons roof and unfurled a banner reading: “climate inaction costs lives”.

Clearly, bigger guns with superior stopping power were all that was lacking on that fateful day, from stopping the dastardly eco-terrorists from embarrassing their government with the truth.

The fortifying of the House is an appropriate symbol of the present management. Since the day they took office, the Harper Tories have done everything in their power to block, stifle, undermine and subvert parliamentary democracy.

Recall that Tory committee chairs were issued handbooks on how to overcome the limitations of minority government by obstructing the workings of parliamentary committees. In a 2007 National Post article, Don Martin described the sabotage handbook: “Running some 200 pages including background material, the document—given only to Conservative chairmen—tells them how to favour government agendas, select party-friendly witnesses, coach favourable testimony, set in motion debate-obstructing delays and, if necessary, storm out of meetings to grind parliamentary business to a halt.”

Prorogation

Since then we’ve seen Parliament prorogued twice to stop the growing Afghan detainee torture scandal. Tories and their supporters crowed over how much more work they were able to accomplish without the nasty distraction of Parliament. But much as they might wish, they couldn’t shut the old House down permanently.

So they went back to their playbook. Documents regarding the scandal were held up behind a bureaucratic bottleneck as every word was weighed on the scale of “national security”.

Delays became eternal, and when a document did appear most of the text was blacked out.

Complaints from opposition MPs grew and calls rose to hold the Harper government in contempt of Parliament for refusing to produce evidence in a timely fashion. On April 20, federal government lawyer Alain Prefontaine told the Military Police Complaints Commission hearings into the detainee scandal that the Tories and the military brass would release the documents “when we’re good and ready”.

Speaker of the House Peter Milliken was left with no choice but to slap Harper down a peg.

Milliken wrote that: “accepting an unconditional authority of the executive to censor the information provided to Parliament would in fact jeopardize the very separation of powers that is purported to lie at the heart of our parliamentary system….”

But let’s be real: saying Harper is contemptuous of democracy is a masterpiece of understatement.

This is a man who has spent his whole life in a Machiavellian pursuit of power, devoted single-mindedly to destroying the functions of government designed (in however flawed a form) to support ordinary people.

From cynical use of populist rhetoric to build the Reform Party base; to leadership of the National Citizens Coalition in its fight to smash workers rights and unions; to an almost evangelical adherence to “Free Market” economic ideology: Harper has excelled in using the mechanisms of democracy to undermine that very democracy.

He is a master manipulator, and his political opponents are minor leaguers.

Rights and democracy I would content that no single episode in Harper’s reign reveals Harper’s contempt and utter ruthlessness toward democracy, than the trashing of the Rights and Democracy (R&D) agency.

When this mild-mannered NGO dared to support agencies in the Middle East that did not slavishly support the Zionist state of Israel (including an Israeli peace group) that was too much for Harper. So he and his thugs set out to remake the organization in their own image.

The board of R&D was stacked with new Tory appointees who set about overturning longstanding R&D initiatives. R&D president Remy Beauregard died from a heart attack following a particularly brutal meeting.

Jacques Gauthier, Harper’s appointed interim president declared war on the agency’s staff. He spent a reported $400,000 of taxpayer’s money on private investigators and “consultants” to dig up grounds to fire the workers en masse.

Finally the Tories parachuted Gérard Latulippe, an old-time Reform Party hack into the presidency. Latulippe was an advisor to Stockwell Day when he led the Canadian Alliance. More recently he has revealed himself to be an anti-Muslim racist.

Just one example of Harper’s anti-democratic methods, one snapshot of the contempt he and his disciples hold for human rights, social justice and solidarity.

The mask is off: their real contempt isn’t just directed at Parliament. They sneer and laugh at us.

Parliamentary democracy falls far short of the real ideal of democracy we strive for. We want democracy that doesn’t stop when we walk into work.

We want democracy that lives everyday, not just on election day. We want democracy that responds directly to the needs and the wisdom of working people.

But saying that we recognize the weakness of the democracy carried out in palaces, guarded by machine guns, does not mean we are indifferent when even that feeble democracy is eroded.

The slow but steady attack on our democracy didn’t begin with Harper. Hell, I’ve lived long enough to witness first-hand scumbaggery from the likes of Richard Nixon, Margaret Thatcher and Bush/Cheney. They were all united in their hatred and contempt for working people struggling for a better life.

But never have I seen a nastier piece of work than Stephen Harper. I am tired of him laughing at me, at all of us. So when he comes to town in June for the G20, to swagger before his friends, let’s hit the streets and wipe that dead-fish smile off his face.

May 2010 Socialist Worker 9

WHERE WE STAND

international socialist events

The dead-end of capitalism

MISSISSAUGA

The capitalist system is based on violence, oppression and brutal exploitation. It creates hunger beside plenty. It kills the earth itself with pollution and unsustainable extraction of natural resources. Capitalism leads to imperialism and war. Saving ourselves and the planet depends on finding an alternative.

Study group: Joseph Choonara’s Unravelling Capitalism Thurs, May 6 & 20, 6pm Failte Pub 201 City Centre Dr Organized by the Mississauga IS branch

Socialism and workers’ power

Any alternative to capitalism must involve replacing the system from the bottom up through radical collective action. Central to that struggle is the workplace, where capitalism reaps its profits off our backs.

Capitalist monopolies control the earth’s resources, but workers everywhere actually create the wealth. A new socialist society can only be constructed when workers collectively seize control of that wealth and plan its production and distribution to satisfy human needs, not corporate profits—to respect the environment, not pollute and destroy it.

peace & justice events TORONTO

Community dialogue on Bill C-94

Mon, May 3, 6:30pm Ryerson Student Centre 55 Gould St Info: nonbill94@gmail.com

Hot Docs screening of American radical: the trials of Norman Finkelstein

Reform and revolution

Every day, there are battles between exploited and exploiter, oppressor and oppressed, to reform the system—to improve living conditions. These struggles are crucial in the fight for a new world. To further these struggles, we work within the trade unions and orient to building a rank and file movement that strengthens workers’ unity and solidarity.

But the fight for reforms will not, in itself, bring about fundamental social change. The present system cannot be fixed or reformed as NDP and many trade union leaders say. It has to be overthrown. That will require the mass action of workers themselves.

Elections and democracy

Elections can be an opportunity to give voice to the struggle for social change. But under capitalism, they can’t change the system. The structures of the present parliament, army, police and judiciary developed under capitalism and are designed to protect the ruling class against the workers. These structures cannot be simply taken over and used by the working class. The working class needs real democracy, and that requires an entirely different kind of state—a workers’ state based upon councils of workers’ delegates.

Internationalism

The struggle for socialism is part of a worldwide struggle. We campaign for solidarity with workers in other countries. We oppose everything which turns workers from one country against those from other countries.

We support all genuine national liberation movements.

The 1917 revolution in Russia was an inspiration for the oppressed everywhere. But it was defeated when workers’ revolutions elsewhere were defeated. A Stalinist counterrevolution which killed millions created a new form of capitalist exploitation based on state ownership and control. In Eastern Europe, China and other countries a similar system was later established by Stalinist, not socialist parties. We support the struggle of workers in these countries against both private and state capitalism.

Canada, Quebec, Aboriginal Peoples

Canada is not a “colony” of the United States, but an imperialist country in its own right that participates in the exploitation of much of the world. The Canadian state was founded through the repression of the Aboriginal peoples and the people of Quebec.

We support the struggles for self-determination of Quebec and Aboriginal peoples up to and including the right to independence.

Socialists in Quebec, and in all oppressed nations, work towards giving the struggle against national oppression an internationalist and working class content.

Oppression

Within capitalist society different groups suffer from specific forms of oppression. Attacks on oppressed groups are used to divide workers and weaken solidarity. We oppose racism and imperialism. We oppose all immigration controls. We support the right of people of colour and other oppressed groups to organize in their own defence. We are for real social, economic and political equality for women.

We are for an end to all forms of discrimination and homophobia against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered people. We oppose discrimination on the basis of religion, ability and age.

The Revolutionary Party

To achieve socialism the leading activists in the working class have to be organized into a revolutionary socialist party. The party must be a party of action, and it must be democratic. We are an organization of activists committed to helping in the construction of such a party through ongoing activity in the mass organizations of the working class and in the daily struggles of workers and the oppressed.

If these ideas make sense to you, help us in this project, and join the International Socialists.

10 Socialist Worker May 2010

Protesters take to the street in Genoa to oppose the meeting of the G8 PHOTO: HAN SOETE

G8: gang of murderous thugs

by JONATHON HODGE WITH THE Group of Eight (G8) wealthy nations set to meet in Ontario in June, augmented by the next rung of industrial nations— the G20—meeting in Toronto, there is talk of financial regulation to stave off crises.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is taking the opportunity to burnish his supposed pro-women credentials. History takes a dim view of such claims, as the G8 has shown itself to be little more than a wealthy club fighting to cling to its power.

Nearly a decade ago, in July 2001, Genoa, Italy played host to the G8 meeting—a meeting met by mass demonstrations from across society.

With a new right-wing government in power in Italy, and only 18 months since the historic shutdown of the WTO talks in Seattle, the ruling powers saw the protest movement as their opposition. They moved with all haste to sweep it from the streets.

Pre-emptive arrests were common in the weeks leading up to the summit, as was a slander campaign across the major media, denouncing protest organizers. However, this was nothing compared to the conduct of the Italian state during those fateful days in July.

Genoa

Intimidation and arrest did not stop over 80,000 people marching through Genoa for immigrants’ rights on July 19, 2001. People had gathered from across Europe and around the world to declare “a better world is possible”, a globalization that put people’s needs before the profit goals of the powerful states.

On July 20, 23-year old Italian protester Carlo Giuliani was shot at close range by the Carabinieri (Italian riot

squad) after their jeep had become surrounded by protesters.

The jeep driver subsequently reversed over Carlo’s body, as dozens of police poured in to seal off the state’s shameful act. Within hours, images of the young man’s lifeless form had been seen around the world. Protest organizers went on television to demand government leaders stop the police actions, and they entreated Italians to flood into Genoa by whatever means, for a mass march the following day.

More than 300,000 marched in one of the largest protests in recent Italian history. Chanting “Berlusconi Assassino,” the crowd was vastly larger that organizers expected. People took to the streets in major cities across Italy to voice their displeasure at the regime.

In an apparent act of political rage, riot squad units broke into the Diaz school in via Cesare Battisti that night. It housed the Genoa Social Forum gathering places, the independent media centre, and served as temporary accommodations for dozens of people.

They locked the doors and spent two hours beating everyone who slept there. Ninty-three people were said to have been arrested in the action and reporters allowed in afterwards witnessed a profusion of blood on the walls, floors and stairways.

Italians continued to mount pressure on the regime in the days ahead.

The night of July 24, the day before Carlo Giuliani was to be buried, an estimated 250,000 Italians demonstrated in cities and towns the length and breadth of the country.

Security

In Canada in 2010, the federal government will spend over $180 million securing the three-day event, an amount that will make it “the largest

security event ever held in Canada.”

A cordon of 10,000 police will seal off the Toronto Convention Centre during the meetings.

The smear campaign in the press has also geared up, with dire warnings of “professional agitators” sneaking into the country to wreck havoc.

Border guards have apparently been issued pictures of hundreds of people to watch out for, and bar from entry.

Tory mouthpieces are touting job creation, social issues and women’s rights as central themes to the weekend, but one is forced to wonder, if the summit was actually to address those things, why do they feel the need to barricade large sections of downtown Toronto and turn the core into an armed camp? Who would be organizing to oppose such a feel-good meeting?

In reality, most remember Genoa, when politicians sipped champagne from within an armed camp— all paid for by public money—while outside the wire, police abused and killed those who marched.

This June, protesters will gather for a “people’s summit” to lay out an alternative to the G8/G20’s security bonanza, an alternative that puts people’s needs before profits, that puts stopping climate chaos above tar sands development and that puts good green jobs ahead of corporate balance sheets.

Then thousands will again take to the streets demanding fairness and justice. History would indicate, and the government’s preparations would seem to confirm, that the G8 has no intention of granting either. As always, it will be up to us to take it.

Kostas Katarahias, Judith Orr & Carolyn Egan will be speaking on “Crisis & resistance: from Greece to the G20” at Marxism 2010.

For more information, see page 8.

Thurs, May 6, 9pm Bloor Cinema 506 Bloor St W Info: www.hotdocs.ca Organized by Hot Docs

Report back from Cochabamba climate conference

Fri, May 7, 7pm United Steelworkers Hall 25 Cecil St Organized by the Toronto Bolivia Solidarity Committee Info: torontoboliviasolidarity @gmail.com

Mining (In)justice at home and abroad conference

Fri, May 7-9, 8pm Ryerson Universit Info: csrtoronto@gmail.com Organized by the Community Solidarity Response Toronto

2010 People’s Summit June 18 - 20 Ryerson University Info: www.peoples summit2010.ca

Attack the roots!

Resist the G8 & G20!

June 21 - 27 Info: www.g20.toronto mobilize.org Various locations throughout the city Coordinated by the Toronto Community Mobilization Network

Shout out for global justice

Fri, June 25, 6pm Speakers: Maude Barlow, Leo Gerard, Amy Goodman, John Hilary, Naomi Klein, Vandana Shiva, Pablo Solon & Clayton Thomas-Muller Convocation Hall 31 Kings College Cir Cost: $14 for members, $20 for non-members Info: www.canadians.org Organized by the Council of Canadians

VARIOUS CITIES

Mustafa Barghouti: Palestinian political dynamics and the realities for Middle East peace

Ottawa, ON Thurs, May 6, 7pm Montreal, QC Fri, May 7, 7:30pm London, ON Sat, May 8, 1:30 p.m.

Toronto, ON Sat, May 8, 7pm Info: www.cpjme.org Organized by Committe for Peace in the Middle East

You can find the I.S. in: Toronto, Ottawa, Gatineau, Vancouver, Victoria, Montreal, London, St. Catharines, Mississauga, Scarborough, Halifax, Belleville & Kingston e: iscanada@on.aibn.com t: 416.972.6391 w: www.socialist.ca

For more event listings, visit www.socialist.ca.

reports@socialist.ca SEARS LOCKOUT

STICKING WITH THE UNION

BC MOBILIZES AGAINST LIBERAL CUTS

Carolyn Egan

by STEVE CRAIG ON APRIL 1, Sears Canada locked out all 500 of its hourly employees in the Vaughan Distribution Centre.

The workers are members of United Steelworkers Local 9537 and have set up a picket line, which is located on Highway #50 north of Rutherford Road.

At the beginning of negotiations, Sears imposed preconditions in which it required the workers to agree to cuts in benefits and vacations before talks even started. When the workers refused, the company locked them out. The company, which last year made about $250 million in profits, insists that these reductions are necessary to remain competitive in today’s tough retail market.

Many of these workers have decades of service with Sears. They are only trying to preserve their very modest wages and benefits. So far, the labour community has responded strongly with calls for consumer actions and boycotts until Sears returns to the bargaining table and negotiates a fair contract with its workers.

The workers plan to take their message to Sears locations and raise awareness with the buying public.

MINING TRAGEDY

by JESSE McLAREN IN THE deadliest US mining disaster in 25 years, 29 non-unionized miners were killed when an accumulation of methane gas exploded at Massey Energy’s coal mine in Virginia.

According to Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO and former head of the United Mine Workers of America: “This incident isn’t just a matter of happenstance, but rather the inevitable result of a profit-driven system and reckless corporate conduct.”

Massey Energy operates non-union mines across the southeastern US, and made $100 million in profits last year. The company has been cited for thousands of safety violations and fined millions of dollars, including many violations for inadequate ventilation that leads to methane accumulation, and in 2008 pled guilty to criminal mine safety violations that led to two deaths.

The company was cited for the highest number of different kinds of safety violations of all US mines last year.

According to The New York Times: “In the past two months, miners had been evacuated three times from the [Virginia mine] because of dangerously high methane levels, according to two miners who asked for anonymity for fear of losing their jobs.”

But there is no legislation that allows the government to shut down deadly mines.

The ultimate prevention is leaving the coal in the ground. Instead of promoting “clean coal”, the US should transition to safe green jobs, which would save lives and the planet.

Solidarity against Sears lockout SEARS HAS locked out 500 workers at its warehouse in Vaughan, just north of Toronto.

by LAWRENCE BOXALL OVER A thousand people attended a rally outside the Vancouver Art Gallery called by the Coalition to Build a Better BC on April 10.

The rally was called to fight government cuts to arts and culture funding, seniors’ services, early childhood education and infant development, mental health and addictions services, the disabled and an

array of social services.

In an enthusiastically received address, BC Federation of Labour President Jim Sinclair emphasized the importance of unions and community groups working closely together to fight the neoliberal agenda of the government.

The Coalition to Build a Better BC was formed after the BC Federation of Labour called a meeting of labour affiliates and community orga-

nizations concerned about the direction the BC Government was taking the province.

Since the initial meeting, the coalition has grown to include over 25 active groups working together to co-ordinate responses to cuts. Participants include groups from the arts community, First Nations, health care, community services, organized labour, post-secondary students, youth, environmental and faith groups.

It is a newly organized workforce representing the diversity of the region.

Steelworkers are fighting for their second contract, and have come up against a company whose rationale for locking them out is as follows: no worker should have wages and benefits beyond what is given in any other Sears workplace.

The logic is lost on the members who organized so that they could better their wages and working conditions.

BC WORKERS TO PAY FOR TAX CUT TO BUSINESSES, AGAIN

by BRADLEY HUGHES THE BC Liberal government, in cahoots with the federal Conservatives, is set to introduce a Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) on July 1 that will combine the federal and provincial sales taxes into a single 12 per cent tax.

During last year’s election, the Liberals said they were not planning on introducing the HST. Three days later, staff in the BC Finance Ministry contacted their federal counterparts to begin discussions about introducing the tax.

The tax will apply to many things that are not subject to the current provincial sales tax, thus increasing the taxes paid at the till. However, businesses will be able to recoup the money they spend on the tax, which they could not do with the old provincial sales tax.

As a consequence, taxes for businesses go down, and taxes for workers go up by around two billion dollars per year according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

The provincial and federal NDP have been vocal in their opposition to the new tax. However, they mostly denounce the HST as a “tax hike” that “will cost you lots of money.”

The backlash against the tax has been channelled into a citizen’s initiative petition campaign to repeal the HST legislation. Under provincial law, if a citizen’s initiative can collect signatures of at least ten per cent of the voters in every riding, then the government must either implement the initiative (that is cancel the HST) or hold a referendum on the subject.

Former Premier Bill Vander Zalm of the hated and defunct right wing BC Social Credit Party started the campaign. Alongside him is Chris Delaney, former leader of the defunct BC Unity Party, which attempted to merge all the far right BC parties to

challenge the Liberals.

Zalm has publicly speculated that the BC Conservatives will benefit from the anti-HST campaign.

The NDP has thrown their activists into collecting signatures for this campaign, and although they do occasionally mention the class nature of the tax shift in the HST, this is overshadowed by their own right-wing messaging, and the right-wing messaging from Vander Zalm.

The NDP seems to be hoping for a revival of the Conservatives in order to split the right-wing vote. This might allow the NDP to win an election, but how could they move to progressive taxation if the political climate is dominated by tax cutting parties?

Even worse, what if the newly revived Conservatives win enough seats to join a minority Liberal party and form government?

HUNDREDS SAY ‘SAVE TRANSIT CITY’ ON APRIL 21, 400 people crammed into Toronto City Hall to demand funding for public transit.

Despite providing billions in corporate tax cuts, the McGuinty government announced it would cut $4 billion from public transit.

This would halt all work on four new transit lines.

In response, a new Public Transit Coalition called a meeting of concerned citizens and received an outpouring of support.

People talked about the social and economic impact of being cut off from accessible public transit,

and the ecological impact of dependence on cars.

While the corporate media campaigns against transit workers and rightwing mayoral candidates demand privatization, the Public Transit Coalition is showing that the real problem with transit is government underfunding.

If the huge audience from its first meeting turns itself into a sustained campaign, Toronto could have an accessible transit system that people and the planet urgently need.

For more information, visit www.publictransitcoalition.ca.

FIRST NATIONS RALLY DEMANDS WATER PROTECTION

by PETER HOGARTH ON APRIL 7, hundreds of people marched through the streets of Toronto, creatively brandishing swathes of blue fabric, representing the flowing waters of the Grassy Narrows River.

The colourful demonstration featured drumming and a huge banner reading “clean water = our survival” held up by the Asubpeeschoseewagong Anishinabek or the Grassy Narrows First Nation (GNAA).

The chanting crowd of First Nations people and allies marched from Grange Park to the Ontario Legislature at Queen’s Park to demand justice for their people and for protection of

their water.

Forty years ago, the Wabigoon River was poisoned with mercury by a paper mill that contaminated the river upstream, causing devastating neurological health impacts and depriving the GNAA people of fishing jobs and a primary food staple. People are still dealing with the ongoing health problems from this avoidable disaster.

The GNAA have been fighting for decades to defend the earth and protect Indigenous selfdetermination and culture.

They successfully forced logging giant Abitibi out of the territory and are again organizing to protect the natural environment and demand justice.

They came together to bargain a collective agreement as generations of workers have before them to bring a better quality of life.

The fact that any company feels it is bound by the lowest common denominator is an absurd argument.

Corporations feel they have the right to exploit their workforce for the sake of higher profits for the shareholders. The gap between rich and poor is widening and companies are affronted that workers choose to unionize.

Mike Harris

Under the Mike Harris Conservative government, workers lost the right to automatic card check in this province.

Previously, if over 50 per cent of workers at a given workplace signed a union card there would be automatic certification into a union. Taking this away has made it much more difficult to organize.

It allows significant intimidation by management and the rate of organizing has plummeted in this province.

Even when workers are able to overcome this obstacle and unionize, companies feel they have the right to stall at the bargaining table, put forward concessions,

lockout their workers or force them out on strike.

The attempt to weaken unions through gutting labour legislation and pushing for strong concessions at the bargaining table is a trademark of the neo-liberal agenda.

Governments, companies and the media are telling workers that they have to tighten their belts in order for the economy to recover.

There has to be a strong voice against these arguments, followed up by action.

Public sector

The recent public sector assembly that was called by the Toronto and York Region Labour Council attracted almost 500 representatives of public sector unions throughout the city.

The president of the United Steelworkers was invited to address the gathering drawing the links between public sector and industrial workers.

He spoke about the fight at Vale Inco in Sudbury where over 3,000 Steelworkers have been on strike defending the defined pension plan and the nickel bonus. He made the point that they were in the same fight as public sector workers resisting concession contracts and that we can not allow ourselves to be divided.

There was a tremendous response with workers doing a collection for the strikers.

We have to build on these official calls for unity and push for concrete support and concrete actions.

Ongoing organizing of this common front of public sector workers is happening and hopefully the tradition of solidarity will be rekindled in real ways, so that when one group is under attack everyone will fight back.

Bringing back the understanding that “an injury to one is an injury to all” is an important component of trade unionism that has been lost in recent years.

The lockout of the Sear workers, the attack on the Amalgamated Transit Union, the push for privatization of Toronto Hydro and the forced strike at Vale Inco are all a part of the same agenda and we have to fight back together.

Join the International Socialists Mail: P.O. Box 339, Station E, Toronto, ON M6H 4E3 E-mail: membership@socialist.ca / Tel: 416.972.6391

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May 2010 Socialist Worker 11

POOR TAKE CHARGE OF BATTLE FOR THE PLANET

by SUZIE WYLIE and JONATHAN NEALE in Cochabamba, Bolivia SOME 30,000 people gathered for a “people’s conference on climate change” in Cochabamba, Bolivia, for three days in mid-April.

The event was historic.

The leaders of the world’s major powers decided that they would do nothing about climate change at the UN’s climate talks in Copenhagen last December, enraging environmentalists worldwide.

The same leaders who were prepared to bail out the banks were not prepared to save the planet.

There was a danger that the climate movement would collapse in demoralization.

But Evo Morales, the left wing president of Bolivia, called on the global conference of the social movements to continue the fight against climate change.

The conference stands in open opposition to the US government and represents the bold new direction the climate movement has taken.

The centre of resistance over climate change is shifting to the oppressed.

Until now, the environmental and climate movement has been dominated by middle-class white people in rich countries, but at this conference, the majority of people were from the social movements of Latin America and Indigenous peoples.

Of the 30,000 in the Cochabamba football stadium, there were people from over 100 countries.

Tom B.K. Goldtooth, an activist in the Indigenous Environmental Network told Socialist Worker “we need a mass popular educa-

tion movement to take power away from the UN and governments and give it back to the people. After all, it is our lives that they are negotiating away.”

However, the defiance of this climate movement has many running scared. The international Trade Union Council sent a memo to its British affiliates saying, in polite language, “Don’t go to Cochabamba”. Many NGOs are frightened of any movement led by Morales, because it could challenge the US. Numerous NGOs were locked out of the Copenhagen talks—including Oxfam, WWF, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace—the UN fearing that they had become too radical and would protest against Obama. This created a storm of controversy inside the NGOs, as many of the leaders are in favour of doing what they’re told but many of the activists are not.

While parts of the climate movement globally are on the defensive, the left within the climate movement is on the offensive.

Capitalist system

Laura Hernandez and Raul Alban from Venezuela were attending the Cochabamba conference. “We are a revolutionary collective called the watermelon,” they told Socialist Worker (UK). “Global climate change is a consequence of the capitalist system. We support Hugo Chavez’s slogan: ‘Don’t change the climate, change the system.’”

The conference produced the “Cochabamba Accord.” In stark contrast to the “Copenhagen Accord” which Barack Obama forced world leaders to accept in December, this document calls for radical cuts in carbon dioxide emis-

Delegates from around the world gathered in Cochabamba, Bolivia for the People’s Conference on the Climate PHOTO: BEN POWESS

sions, no market solutions, and an end to capitalism.

This is exciting, far beyond anything the old World Social Forum ever did. This is an astonishing document that attacks imperialism and capitalism by name. Evo Morales and Hugo Chavez received thunderous applause when they mentioned Lenin, or shouted “Che” or “Revolution.” This was a stadium full of organized communities and it be-

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‘On to Cancun’

Morales declared “on to Cancun,” where the UN climate talks are to be held in November, ready to pit the Cochabamba Accord against the Copenhagen Accord.

Though this is a radical agreement and Morales and Chavez talk of socialism and revolution, yet capitalist bosses still control most companies in their countries.

They both preside over deep contradictions.

This movement must be more than charismatic left leaders, we will need workers, unions and peasants across the globe to fight together. We want to light a

fire in Cochabamba that the world can see, because the point of this conference is not the gathering of 30,000 activists.

It’s that those 30,000 will go home and organize hundreds of thousands to fight.

On to Cancun.

Clayton Thomas-Muller, Andrea Harden & Charlotte Ireland will be speaking on “After Cochabamba: the fight for climate justice” at Marxism 2010.

For more information, see page 8.

U.S. attempts to isolate Iran at Nuclear Summit

by G. FRANCIS HODGE

Never miss an issue.

came apparent that the global centre of the climate movement has shifted from the NGOs and the middle classes to organized farmers and workers in poor countries.

US PRESIDENT Barack Obama presided over a two-day summit of 47 world leaders in Washington, DC on April 12 and 13.

The stated purpose of the Nuclear Security Summit was to contribute to international nuclear security and nonproliferation by addressing the potential threat of so-called “nuclear terrorism”.

Participants were to hammer out an agreement to secure surplus nuclear fuel so as to keep it out of the hands of potential terrorists.

However, the summit arrived at no binding agreement of any sort. The work plan agreed to by summit participants says only that states “will consider, where appropriate” steps to secure nuclear surpluses or reduce the production of weapons-grade nuclear material. Moreover, this work plan is completely

non-binding. The summit failed to deliver any substantive contribution towards nuclear nonproliferation or disarmament.

The Nuclear Security Summit did, however, provide world leaders with an opportunity to consume two days of newspaper headlines with the chimera of “nuclear terrorism”. The main nuclear danger facing the world today is not that of stray surplus fissile material falling into the hands of non-state groups. Such talk is simply a diversion from the real danger posed by nuclear weapons in the hands of established states.

Russia

Though a new START treaty between the US and Russia was signed shortly before the summit that would reduce stockpiles by almost 30 per cent in both countries, this treaty would still see each state possessing 1,550 warheads

and the missiles necessary to deliver them.

The US remains the only country in the world to have used a nuclear weapon in war and the only country at the summit embroiled in wars of occupation in two separate countries where the majority of the populations involved want them to get out and go home.

The US set the agenda of the summit and, consistent with the last several decades of US nuclear policy, one standard was applied to allies of the US and quite another was applied to adversaries. There was no talk of censuring nuclear-armed Israel or Pakistan, both key allies of the US, while the summit provided a platform for the US to attempt to isolate Iran.

Iran was not invited to participate in the summit, and a key goal of the Obama administration at these meetings was to build support for economic

sanctions against it.

In an attempt to move them closer to agreement on this issue, Obama used the occasion to have private meetings with the leaders of both Russia and China, though no agreement was publicly reached.

The lack of consensus among the big powers on the question of sanctions will be welcomed by all those who oppose war on Iran. However, it is not from any sense of solidarity with the people of Iran that Russia and China are stalling. Rather, they are pursuing what they consider their own national interests, as the growing economies of both Russia and China depend heavily on imports of Iranian oil.

Those who wish to see a world free of nuclear weapons will have to look to the potential pressure ordinary people may bring to bear, rather than to the diplomatic maneuvering of this or that national leader.