February
16, 2009 - No. 34
Venezuelan
Constitutional Amendment Approved
Decision of Historic
SignificanceVenezuelan Constitutional
Amendment Approved
• Decision of Historic Significance
• Venezuelans Vote Peacefully over
Whether to Amend Constitution
- James Suggett and Tamara Pearson,
Venezuelanalysis.com
• Media's Double Standards
- Steve Rendall and Isabel Macdonald, Common
Dreams
Canada
• ACA Co-Operative Workers "Rally
for Fairness"; Fraud Looming on the Horizon
- Ena Boutilier
• Globe and Mail's Labour Cost
Obsession
- K.C. Adams
Venezuelan Constitutional
Amendment Approved
Decision of Historic Significance
  Caracas, Venezuela, February 15, 2009TML congratulates
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and the Venezuelan people for winning
the February 15 referendum vote to eliminate the two-term limit on all
elected offices!
At 9:35 pm local time, three and a half hours
after polls closed and with 94.2 percent of votes counted, Venezuela's
National Electoral Council (CNE) announced that Venezuelans had voted
54.4 percent to 45.6 percent in favour of a constitutional amendment to
eliminate the two-term limit on all elected
offices.
Chávez supporters celebrated the nearly 9-point
margin of victory with enthusiasm, as it will allow President Hugo Chávez
to run for a third full term in 2012.
According to the National Electoral Commission
(CNE), abstention was relatively low at 33 percent, with about 11 out
16 million registered voters voting. This is about two million more
votes than in 2007 for the failed constitutional reform referendum that
would have altered 69 articles of Venezuela's
constitution.
The elimination of the term limits permits Chávez
to govern for longer than the four years remaining in his term, which
is crucial to consolidate the Bolivarian revolutionary process he has
initiated in Venezuela. At a rally in Caracas two days before the vote,
Chávez said that a "yes" victory in the
referendum would signify that another barrier had been knocked down.
Our revolution is a great force that advances by overcoming obstacles,
he said. He predicted that the "yes" option would win by a "knockout"
and called on the people of Venezuela to be ready "to open new horizons
after we approve the constitutional
amendment." He added that the great victory on Sunday would be part of
the commemoration for 20 years since the February 27, 1989 uprising
when the Venezuelan people made headway in taking control of their country.
Chávez recalled that in December 1999 the Pacto
de Punto Fijo -- an accord between the Venezuelan political
parties Democratic Action (AD), COPEI and Democratic Republican Union
(URD) -- was ended and a popular government elected. Over the last ten
years he said the people have
made advances by removing social, cultural and psychological barriers
and established a new international profile for the country. He said that the revolution is a great popular
force that is more conscious every day, more united every day, with a
greater capacity to move forward with the advances of a sovereign and
free people.
Clearly, the decisive "yes" victory on Sunday makes it
possible for the Venezuelan people to continue opening their path to
progress as a sovereign people who control their own destiny. It gives
expression to the hope of all oppressed peoples that change is possible
and that a people united around a progressive
revolutionary project and a progressive revolutionary leadership, can
make history.
Long Live the Bolivarian
Republic of Venezuela!
Venezuelans Vote Peacefully over
Whether to Amend Constitution
- James Suggett and Tamara
Pearson, Venezuelanalysis.com,
February 15, 2009 -
Since the trumpets and fireworks woke up
Venezuelans at three o'clock this morning to vote in a national
referendum on whether to amend the constitution to abolish the two-term
limit on all elected offices, the electoral process has been tranquil,
democratic, and efficient in nearly every region of Venezuela, with
few irregularities reported.
On December 1 President Hugo Chavez called on his
party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) to campaign for
the constitutional change, at first just proposing that the limit be
withdrawn from the position of president. In January the national
assembly approved the change, adding that
it be applied to all elected positions, and then put it to a general
referendum.
According to the National Electoral Council (CNE),
all voting centers were open by 9am. Voting centers are meant to be
open at 5.30am, and must stay open until 6pm or later if there still
are people waiting in line.
Chief of the military's Strategic Command
Operation for the elections, Jesus Gonzalez, said that voting had begun
with "complete normality, except for a few exceptions." He said one
person had been detained for breaking one of the voting machines.
In the capital city of Caracas, people with purple
indelible ink-dyed fingertips, signaling that they had voted in the
early morning, walked their dogs, read books in the park, played
happily with their children, and listened in groups to reggaeton or
salsa music.
When inquired about their feelings about the
referendum, most Venezuelans said the voting machines were quick and
easy, and they encouraged their fellow citizens to exercise their
democratic rights.
"This is our duty to the country, to come out and
vote. It is our life, our country, our process," said one woman in the
La Pastora neighborhood. A man waiting in a short line nearby
commented, "Everyone should come and fulfill their duty to the country,
independent of their political position, come
vote and combat abstention."
Observers reported that there were very few long
lines with fifty or more voters, while notably short voting lines were
very prevalent in the capital city as well as other major cities,
including Mérida, San Cristobal, Maracaibo, and Maracay. Government
officials said this is because Venezuelans are
only voting on a single, yes-or-no question.
People in the street, in both upper class
neighborhoods as well as low-income barrios, told Venezuelanalysis they
expect most people to vote in the late afternoon, perhaps because they
had been up late celebrating Valentine's Day last night.
The National Guard and other security officers
maintained a well-marked security perimeter around voting centers, and
treated voters and observers with utmost courtesy, using neutral
language and displaying knowledge of the electoral norms laid down by
the National Electoral Council (CNE).
In Mérida a truck playing the reveille bugle call
traveled around the city from 3am until about 7am, to wake up voters
and voting booth attendees.
In one voting center in a small primary school in
Belen, a small line had formed by 6.30 am, while at a larger center in
the city center, Libertador High School, there were long lines of 10-15
people per voting room (with 12 voting rooms in the school, assigned
according to identification number). By
afternoon there were few people in the lines.
The voting process was identical to that of the
regional elections in November last year. The National Guard arrived at
4am, and was responsible for managing the lines at the various
stages and checking ID's before people went inside.
Inside, people formed new lines, sitting down
patiently. From there 3 or 4 people lined up outside their voting room
until they were let in. They showed their identification at a table,
put their fingerprints next to their name, were asked if they knew how
to vote, then went behind a cardboard screen
to the computer, where they marked their vote on a touch screen. The
computer printed out a hard copy of their vote, which they placed in a
ballot box. Finally, they dipped their small finger in indelible ink.
The head of each voting room asked the voter, "Do
you know how to vote?" and "You have two options, choose one."
All voting center workers were patient, helpful,
did not rush voters, and used very neutral language when giving
instructions. Likewise, voters were calm, cheerful, keen, and
disciplined.
"Yes, its all going well, I hope everyone comes
out to vote to decide for our country," said Quina Quintero, from
Merida.
"I voted 'No', it was quick, much quicker than
last time," said Oliverio Picon.
"It's fabulous, great, very fast, very good. Yes
it's important that everyone vote, the whole thing is totally
democratic," said Eliana Molina.
This referendum is the second ever totally
automated national election in Venezuela, out of a total of 13
electoral cycles the country has undergone since Chavez was elected ten
years ago.
In contrast to previous elections, this voting day
has been marked by relatively few acts of politically motivated
violence. The only major incident of violence was a burglary and
vandalism of the social work school at the Central University of
Venezuela (UCV) in Caracas early this morning. Burglars
identifying themselves as members of the opposition group Bandera Roja
broke windows, set fire to paperwork, broke furniture, and spray
painted "No means No," an anti-amendment slogan, on the walls.
Eleven people have been detained in the state of
Tachira, for public disorder near a voting center. They will receive
warnings.
Opposition observers have made one public
complaint, as the pro-Chavez governor of Anzoategui, Tarek Saab voted a
second time after his first vote was nullified.
Early in the morning, voters in a few voting
centers had reported that the machine had registered a null vote,
signaled by a blank voting receipt, when they had intended to vote yes
or no on the amendment. Promptly, CNE President Tibisay Lucena
announced on national television that voters should
be sure a check mark appears to the left of their choice before
pressing the vote button on the machine.
There are 16,767,511 registered voters, 11,422
voting centers in addition to 126 voting centers in overseas embassies
and consulates.
Media's Double Standards
- Steve Rendall and Isabel
Macdonald*, Common Dreams,
February 16, 2009 -
With Sunday's Venezuelan referendum on term
limits, we can expect to hear a lot about Venezuelan president Hugo
Chávez's "plan to become president for life" and its reflection on
"Venezuela's battered democracy" -- as the New York Times
editors put it[1]
around the time of Venezuela's last (failed)
term limits referendum.
But when Colombian President Álvaro Uribe's
efforts to lift term limits succeeded in 2005, the U.S. media took
little notice, and Uribe's reputation as the U.S.'s favorite 'democrat'
in the region remained intact.
In Colombia, the lifting of term limits was a big
story, in good part because the Colombian courts have sentenced the
congress member who cast the deciding vote on the amendment to almost
four years in prison for taking bribes from Uribe aides (he knew
nothing, of course) in exchange for her vote.
And though Uribe supporters are collecting signatures to get him on the
ballot for 2010 elections, the bribery affair has caused Colombian
courts to raise questions about Uribe's eligibility.
Yet Uribe's scandal-ridden term limits law was
treated as far less newsworthy by U.S. editors than the Venezuelan
government's moves to put the question of term limits to the popular
ballot. A search of "Álvaro Uribe and "term limits" in the Nexis
database of U.S. newspapers and wires turns up 60
articles, in contrast to 1003 articles about Chávez and term limits. A
spot check reveals that even the articles mentioning Uribe and "term
limits" were often about Chávez's efforts to lift term limits, not
Uribe's.
Similarly, 286 articles mentioned both Chávez and
"president for life," while only 29 articles mention Uribe and that
epithet -- but virtually all of those 29 were again referring to Chávez's
perceived power grabs, not Uribe's. (One Associated Press story[2] did compare Uribe to
Chávez, but didn't quite
apply the term to Uribe: "The wonkish, diminutive but tirelessly
tenacious politician [Uribe], who turned 56 on Friday, has been cagey
on that score. Those who oppose the idea [of Uribe running again] say
it would put him in league with his continental rival, Hugo Chávez of
Venezuela, who has been widely branded
autocratic for doing his utmost to try to stay president for life.")
This discrepancy reinforces the findings of a
recent Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) study[3], "Human Rights Coverage
Serving Washington's Needs," which found that editors at major U.S.
papers portray Colombia as a safer haven for human rights and democracy
than Venezuela, despite
Colombia's vastly more dismal record.
It would seem the role of U.S. reporting and
opinion on Venezuela (and Colombia) is less about informing the public
about real threats to democracy and human rights in Latin America than
it is about serving as a propaganda arm of U.S. foreign policy. One
would be wise to remember this when reading
about Venezuela's referendum this weekend.
Notes
1.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/01/opinion/01sat2.html
2.
http://www.journalgazette.net/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080706/NEWS04/807060434/0/APS
3.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3699
Canada
ACA Co-Operative Workers "Rally for Fairness";
Fraud Looming on the Horizon
- Ena Boutilier -
 After Kentville,
Nova Scotia's ACA Co-Operative announced the termination of over 300
jobs at its poultry processing facilities, affected workers have come
out in full force. On Sunday February 8, more than 200 people flooded
the small town's Central Square courtyard for a "Rally for Fairness" to
press the workers'
just demands and to show solidarity with ACA workers.
On January 22, ACA Co-operative Ltd. cut 300 jobs
at two of its Kings County poultry processing facilities, both located
in the Annapolis Valley, one of which is closing permanently. The cuts
included the layoffs of 75 union employees at ACA in New Minas and the
permanent loss of 40 non-union
ACA and Eastern Protein Foods employees and 187 Eastern Protein union
positions. Eastern Protein, a subsidiary of ACA located in Kentville,
is being closed permanently. ACA Co-operative Ltd. is reportedly a
business co-operative owned by 57 poultry producers.
The company is refusing to release the vacation
and severance pay owed to the workers, and in doing so has retreated
under the time-tested umbrella of "creditor protection" at its Eastern
Protein plant. The company was given a $3.5 million capital loan by the
province of Nova Scotia last fall, $2 million
of which has already been advanced. Workers have been demanding for
over a week that the Kings County municipality lobby the provincial
government to withhold the remaining $1.5 million of that loan and put
it in a trust fund until Eastern Protein's "creditor protection period"
expires.
Workers are explicitly placed at the bottom of the
company's priority list as part of the so-called creditor protection
program. Some are owed as much as $6,000. "I'm told the company has a
list of 57 creditors and the workers are No. 56 on the list," said Tim
Brown, president of Local 2216 of the Canadian
Auto Workers, which represents the workers.
Brown then summed up the matter correctly and
succinctly: "We think we should be No. 1 on the list." The workers are
also implying that the company's actual insolvency is suspect and
openly stated that whatever cash flow problems it has being having are
the fruit of bad management.
As of January 22, ACA Co-operative had 30 days of
creditor protection for Eastern Protein. The plant would still be
operating for a few days after the protection period ended and
management is asking for a 45-day extension to the protection period so
they can come up with a proposal for secured
and unsecured creditors. It is further threatening that the
"unreasonable" disbursement of the $1.5 million to the laid off workers
will adversely affect the livelihood of the remaining 350 workers who
should put their faith in management "to make the situation as good as
possible." The union is charging that a secret
agenda exists to transfer all debt of the remaining plants onto the
books of the Eastern Protein plant which is being closed down.
Under provincial legislation the maximum payout
allowed to workers is $3,250, and only after bankruptcy is declared. By
all rights, and despite the dictates of Canada's capital-centred laws,
the number one creditor of ACA and Eastern Protein are the workers,
without whom the pockets of their bosses
would swell to nought. Instead banks are at the top.
The Kentville situation brings commercial law
which enshrines the right of monopolies and the banks into complete
contempt. In an attempt to sugarcoat the bullet, Labour Minister Mark
Parent said in an interview in response to the workers' "Rally for
Fairness" on the following day, February 9 that
"I've never understood the rationale behind that." He said, "The banks
may be lending money, but the workers are lending their time, which is
a form of money. Both should be treated equally." Parent stressed that
"he has asked his department to make sure employees are treated
fairly." These statements are made
to disinform. The government is responsible for defending the public
good and saving Eastern Protein from anti-social financial wreckers. Yet
Parent can give no guarantee of their demands or initiative to create
pro labour laws is taken and defend the public good while the victims
are to believe that "everyone is in
it together, labour and capital alike."
Far from being in a unique situation, however,
workers in the Annapolis Valley should pay attention to the experience
of the class across Canada. Before Hamilton's Stelco steel processing
plant was sold off piecemeal to U.S. Steel, the company declared itself
bankrupt and entered "creditor protection"
under the auspices of the Companies' Creditors Protection Act
(CCAA) in order to facilitate a massive theft of added value produced
by the workers, and a similar fraud is now looming on the horizon for
workers in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley.
The ideological root of this fraud -- repeated ad
nauseum by the political cartels and in the monopoly media
-- is the claim that workers are merely a cost of production whose
claims are secondary to the monopolies and the financial oligarchy and
who are expendable in the drive of those
parties to make profit. This view is propounded not only in the case of
ACA, Eastern Protein and their creditors, and in that of Stelco, but
also in the cases of several other monopolies who have similarly
dismissed the claims of workers in recent days. The auto monopolies GMC
and Nissan are planning massive
lay-offs that are almost sure to effect workers at their Canadian
facilities.
Meanwhile, 24 unionized employees at the Halifax
Herald,
representing 23 percent of its news staff, have been
given layoff notices on February 2. In December, Magna International
shut down its Atlantic Castings Ltd.'s die-cast manufacturing plant in
North Sydney, affecting a total of
45 full-time and 10 part-time jobs. Workers there have been keeping
watch with an eagle eye and aim to block any maneouvre by Magna to ship
the plant's equipment to one of its other operations.
Furthermore, French multinational Michelin which operates three
plants in Nova
Scotia, announced on February 5
that 95 workers at its Waterville plant (also located in the Annapolis
Valley), which produces truck, small off-the-road and earthmover tires,
would
be let go in April, on the heels of scores of other lay-offs in the
company's plants in South Carolina and Oklahoma. The latter case
prompted Nova Scotia Premier Rodney
MacDonald to give some free promotional support to Michelin and all
other monopolies with the mantra that "we're not (immune) to what's
happening in the global economy."
MacDonald's use of the royal "we" is deceptive. In
reality, all possible measures are being taken to immunize the
monopolies and their creditors from the disastrous effects of a crisis
of their making. It is the workers who are not immune to the effects of
this crisis, as it is their claims that are being
relentlessly attacked under the assumption that they are a cost of
production whose value is as fickle and manipulable as any market
commodity. On this basis, the monopolies and the financial oligarchy
are demanding their proverbial pound of flesh before the workers can
see one cent of what is justly owed to them.
In response to these attacks, workers at ACA and
Eastern Protein recognize that the value of their work is fixed
according to the amount of labour-time that is put into their products,
and that all of this value -- in the form of pensions, severance pay or
any other form -- is something upon which they
have a rightful first claim. This just and true stand of ACA and
Eastern Protein workers, is a powerful example to be followed by their
brethren at Michelin, Nissan, GMC and all other monopolies who are
attempting to shelter themselves from the consequences of their own
self-destructive impulses.
Nova Scotians cannot stand back and allow this
travesty of monopoly right to proceed without comment, opposition and
widespread denunciation. They must put the monopolies on notice that
they are not going to be able to operate in the dark with impunity and
without active opposition. As one organized
force, the workers of ACA Co-operative, laid off and still employed,
must oppose all attempts to pit one against the other. Further,
recognition of workers' centrality to production on the part of ACA and
Eastern Protein workers must form the basis for building an independent
politics of the entire Canadian working
class. This imperative is made all the more pressing by the inability
of even the most skilled of bourgeois orators to sugar-coat the reality
faced by the working class, and by the fact that this ruling class has
no just or sustainable solution to today's economic and political
quagmire.
Concessions Are Not Solutions!
Defend the Dignity of Labour!
Whose Economy? Our Economy!
Endnotes
1. For more on the lay-offs at ACA Co-Operative,
see TML Daily, February 5, 2009 - No. 27: "More
Layoffs for Workers in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley: More
Indifference from the State and the Monopolies."
2. For more on Stelco and CCAA, see TML
Daily, January 16, 2006 - No. 1: "Stelco's CCAA Fraud --
Sanctioning Secret Intrigue and Theft: A Matter of Monopoly Power and
Control Over the Process,"
and continuing coverage through
to the present.
3. For more on the drive for "efficiency" on the
part of the food monopolies, see TML Daily, March
7, 2007 - No. 36: "Workers and Farmers to Bear the Burden of Maple
Leaf's 'Restructuring.'" See
also "Maple Leaf Forever; the Crisis in
Farming and Food," Shunpiking Online, Vol. 4, No.
4, May/June 2007.
Globe and Mail's Labour Cost Obsession
- K.C. Adams -
Part One
Globe and Mail's
Objective Position as an Anti-Worker Social Relation
The Globe's labour cost
obsession is not merely an editorial position expressing a subjective
bias against the working class; it reflects the newspaper's unequal
social relation as a section of the monopoly CTVglobemedia that
exploits workers as chattel labour. The newspaper itself is a
privately-owned part of the socialized economy, which claims profit of
enterprise from realized added-value produced by Globe
workers. This objective social relation pits owners of capital against
the working class with competing claims on the same pool of realized
added-value.
The owners of Globe capital
consider as their private property everything associated with the
company including all added-value produced by Globe
workers. Owners of capital view workers as chattel labour, with no
ownership rights to any of Globe property
including
the added-value they produce. The wages claimed by Globe
workers according to capital-centred political economy and monopoly
right come out of the company's privately-owned property regardless of
the fact it is newly produced added-value. The existing unequal social
relation between Globe
workers and owners of capital dictate that the actual producers have no
property rights to the added-value they produce. Capital-centred theory
considers that owners' right of ownership extends to all property
including the entire new added-value produced by the working class. All
added-value produced by workers
immediately slips from their grasp under capitalist political economy
and falls to the owners of capital, even the portion that comes back to
workers in the form of wages, salaries, benefits and pensions. From
this perspective, the wages, benefits and pensions paid to the Globe
workers come from a pool
of private property controlled by the owners of Globe
capital and are therefore a negative labour cost deducted from their
private holdings.
The claims on added-value by the owners of Globe
capital are in direct competition with Globe
workers. The objective position of Globe owners
of capital in their social relation with Globe
workers drives their anti-worker prejudice and capital-centred
outlook, which in turn shapes such anachronistic theories as labour
costs of production. These anti-worker theories are reinforced within
the ruling ideology in Canada, which outlaws in official discourse,
education and mass media any theories that may accurately analyze the
modern monopoly-controlled socialized
economy and contradict theories of the ruling establishment.
The unequal social relation is reflected in the
thinking and outlook of the owners of capital. Owners of Globe
capital use their newspaper as a medium to create public opinion for
the capital-centred outlook in general and specifically against their
own workers. For owners of capital to behave
and think otherwise would require at the very least a restriction of
monopoly right within the unequal social relation and a consideration
of workers not as ordinary chattel labour but as the human factor that
transforms the bounty of Mother Earth into use-value.
To uphold the dignity of the human factor in
socialized production requires a determined struggle within the
existing unequal social relation to restrict the right of monopoly
ownership to a claim on added-value. This struggle would entail
restricting monopoly right from satisfying its claim until after
workers have made their Canadian-standard claim and after governments
have made claims sufficient to guarantee the rights of all members of
society and fulfill all their other social responsibilities to the
economy and society. The organized working class movement has to gain
enough strength in numbers, unity
and conviction to become effective in restricting monopoly right of
ownership over added-value, something that requires in part a debunking
of capital-centred political economy.
In contemporary Canada, owners of capital have
secured their domination of the unequal social relation through
monopoly right. The social relation has become even more anti-worker
and anti-social given the concentrated power of the monopolies, their
control of the state machine and their ideological
dominance over the working class through manipulation of culture,
education, the mass media and thinking in general. In the face of this
tyranny over the economy, superstructure and all aspects of social life
and civil society, the working class has to train itself in ways to
refute and overcome capital-centred theory
and practice.
As Hardial Bains taught long ago, "Understanding
requires acts of conscious participation in acts of finding out."
Abstracting Absence
Workers can use the science of abstracting absence
to get a better grasp on political economy. Imagine that the present
dialectical social relation at the Globe and
generally throughout the socialized economy is transformed and no
longer has two contending social
forces but only one, a revolutionized working class. This would require
harmonizing the social relations with the socialized productive forces
of modern industry. To do this the obsolete force would have to be
removed. Owners of capital are the personification of the obsolete
social force that is in contradiction with
socialized production. Private ownership of the Globe
would have to be replaced with a free association of the working class
using the socialized productive forces for the common good. Any claim
by owners of capital on the added-value produced by Globe
workers would be eliminated.
What then would happen to their theory of labour cost? It would become
obvious that such a theory was based on the former unequal social
relation and its subjective anti-worker bias.
With the overthrow of the old social relation, its
theoretical underpinning is gone as well. The socialized productive
forces and the entire added-value produced by the Globe
workers would now be under the control of the free association of
workers to be used as they decide within their
democratic institutions. The added-value would be divided between the
workers directly involved in production at the Globe
according to their work and the various levels of government (local,
regional, national and countrywide), which claim added-value to fulfill
their social responsibilities to guarantee
the rights of all, defend and expand the socialized economy and
humanize the social and natural environments. The issue of labour cost
would not arise, as workers would hardly view themselves as chattel
labour and a cost to themselves and their society. The transformation
of the unequal social relation throughout
Canada would mark the end of the Canadian working class in its present
form of chattel labour. It would also signify the end of the aim of the
unequal social relation to defend and expand individual private wealth
and privilege, replaced with an aim defined by the collective and
individual needs, agenda, program
and thinking of the working class to guarantee the rights of all and
humanize the social and natural environment.
CTVglobemedia
Promotion of the narrow private interests of
owners of capital and their unequal social relation with the working
class, which includes the owners of Globe capital
and Globe workers, is expressed routinely and
without criticism in the Globe and
in the CTVglobemedia Empire. The anti-worker bias is reinforced by
using spokespeople, experts and academics from universities, think
tanks and trade unions who repeat without criticism capital-centred
theories such as labour cost.
The anti-worker bias is expressed ad nauseam in
all the mass media controlled by the unequal social relation
CTVglobemedia including its television stations CTV, BNN, TSN,
MuchMusic etc. and through the CHUM Radio Network. But that is not all.
The anti-worker social relation CTVglobemedia,
which controls the Globe and Mail,
has tentacles that stretch widely throughout the Anglo-U.S. Empire.
Finance capital operates with interlocking ownership. CTVglobemedia is
itself controlled by other factions of capital some
known, some hidden. Major owners of CTVglobemedia are The Woodbridge
Company (Thomson family) 40 percent, Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan 25
percent, Torstar 20 percent and Bell Canada 15 percent.
The relationship with Torstar is significant in
that Torstar operates another unequal social relation shaping
anti-worker public opinion. Torstar owns either wholly or significantly
the Toronto Star, Metroland Media Group (with
over 130 daily and community publications across Canada such
as the Hamilton Spectator, the Kitchener-Waterloo
Record, the Cambridge Reporter, the Guelph
Mercury and Metro in partnership with
CanWest), Torstar Digital including toronto.com, Sing Tao
Daily (largest Chinese language newspaper
in Canada), Harlequin book publishing, Workopolis employment centre
profiting from unemployment and the obsolete labour market (operating
in French in partnership with Gesca Ltée, the newspaper publishing
subsidiary of Power Corporation of Canada), and Black Press publisher
of 150 newspapers in Alberta,
British Columbia, Washington state, Hawaii and Ohio and owner of
websites selling used vehicles (usedeverywhere.com) throughout the
Anglo-U.S. empire.
The ownership connection of Black Press newspapers
with selling cars has resulted in the following open controversy as
described by Wikipedia: "In August, 2007, a story
in the Victoria News sparked a complaint from an
advertiser and led to the firing/resignation of three senior
Black Press employees. Victoria News reporter
Brennan Clarke quit the publication after a story he wrote about buying
cheaper cars in the United States led to a complaint from Victoria car
dealership Dave Wheaton Pontiac Buick GMC. Black Press claimed the
article was not balanced, and said that
reporters and editors should not purposely jeopardize advertising
revenue with their stories, because that revenue pays their salaries.
The company also fired the Vic News' long-time
editor, Keith Norbury, in part because of the complaint. And Black
Press's Vancouver Island Newsgroup regional editor,
Brian Lepine, resigned in protest. The Canadian Association of
Journalists publicly questioned the credibility and independence of the
Victoria News, wondering how many stories Black Press kills behind the
scenes because of advertising concerns."[1]
The anti-worker opinions expressed in the media
empire (CTVglobemedia, Torstar, Black Press) are objectively rooted in
the unequal social relation based on private ownership of a part of the
socialized forces of production. The private media monopolies exploit
the working class as chattel labour,
propagate capital-centred theory to maintain and confirm their
dominance within the social relation, and keep the working class
disinformed, confused and incapable of finding its independent bearings
based on modern human-centred theory.
Join and build Groups of Writers and Disseminators
to help free the working class from the ideological straitjacket of
capital-centred thinking and theory.
(Part two: The necessity to challenge
capital-centred theory or fall unwittingly into its quagmire. The
Globe's use of trade union leaders and experts to reinforce the
anti-worker theory of labour cost -- two Globe examples, "CAW to cite
productivity in labour cost talks" and "CAW eyes labour cost cut."
For a recent item refuting the theory of labour cost see TML Daily,
February 9, 2009 - No. 29 "Autoworkers Are Not a Labour Cost, They Are
the Producers of the Value They Claim")
Note
1. For more details on this Black Press
controversy see www.publiceyeonline.com/archives/002624.html and
www.publiceyeonline.com/archives/002609.htm.
Read The
Marxist-Leninist
Daily
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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