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December 1, 2010 - No. 206
Post Office
Postal Transformation Implementation
"An Unmitigated Disaster"
- Denis Lemelin, National President,
Canadian Union of Postal Workers -
 
Left: "No to
harrassment! Get out of our lives!" Quebec City Day
of Action, October 13, 2010.
Right: Winnipeg Wild Cat,
November 22, 2010. (CUPW)
Post Office
• Postal Transformation Implementation "An
Unmitigated Disaster" - Denis Lemelin, National President,
CUPW
British Columbia
• Opportunity to Discuss Taxation
Ontario
• More Evidence of Chronic Under-Funding of
Community Colleges - Dave Starbuck
Nova Scotia
• Spryfield-Sambro Loop Community Health
Project -- Privatization by Stealth
Discussion on Nation-Building -- The Necessity to Restrict Monopoly
Right
• Part Four: Government Claims on Social
Product -- Necessity for a Modern System of Taxation - Workers' Centre of
CPC(M-L)
Post Office
Postal Transformation Implementation
"An Unmitigated Disaster"
- Denis Lemelin, National President,
Canadian Union of Postal Workers -
After weeks of problems with deliveries, injuries and
forced overtime, Winnipeg letter carriers walked off the job on
November 22.
Canada Post has been forcing Winnipeg letter carriers to
adopt a new delivery method. Letter carriers are reporting more strains
and injuries as well as being forced to stay out for hours past their
scheduled end times. Anita Neville (Liberal MP for Winnipeg South
Centre) recently raised the concerns of her constituents
about the new system. Ms. Neville calls the transformation "an
unmitigated disaster."
The New Delivery Method Is
Unsafe
The new method of delivering mail requires letter
carriers to hold a bundle of machine sequenced mail in their hand.
Manually sorted letter and oversize mail is carried resting on the
forearm, while unaddressed admail, packets and personal contact items
will
be carried in a dual satchel.
We believe that the new delivery method is dangerous and
will increase injury rates, particularly in harsh weather. Our injury
rates are already far too high. There have been numerous occasions
where the union has demanded that Canada Post fix its problems in
Winnipeg before imposing postal transformation
on the rest of the country.
Too Fast, Too Soon
 But Canada Post went ahead
and implemented the new
method before addressing and solving the problems. It appears that
Canada Post did not think through their "plan" before implementation.
This is another example of the lack of respect and the kind of ruthless
thinking that
puts machines before people and the financial 'bottom line' ahead of
workers' health and safety. While ignoring the problems, Canada Post
has indicated that they plan to "forge" ahead into other locations with
their piece meal project.
Our Demand Is Clear -- "No
Letter Carrier Shall Be Required
to Carry More than One Bundle of Mail"
We must send a message to Canada Post that it is
imperative that these issues must be resolved at the bargaining table.
We demand that Canada Post respect your health and safety.
In solidarity,
Denis Lemelin
National President
Canadian Union of Postal Workers
British Columbia
Opportunity to Discuss Taxation
The BC Liberal Party in power has said a provincial
referendum on
the HST will take place September 24, 2011. Elections BC released the
following question the BC polity is to answer: "Are you in favour of
extinguishing the HST (Harmonized Sales Tax) and reinstating the PST
(Provincial Sales Tax) in conjunction
with the GST (Goods and Services Tax)? Yes/No."
To say the least, this is a loaded question as both
"choices" are mainly focussed on individual taxation. To answer yes,
rejects the HST but gives political support to the PST and GST. To
answer no, supports the HST, which combines the PST and GST
into a single tax applied to more
commodities and with a broader focus on individuals and less on
enterprise to enterprise transactions.
The Workers' Opposition should use the referendum to
stimulate discussion on taxation and not become trapped in a yes/no
divide.
The most vocal forces in the anti-HST campaign are using the anger of
the people against ever-increasing individual taxation to unleash
hatred against taxation in general.
An independent working class voice has mostly been absent from the HST
debate. The referendum gives workers and middle strata an opening to
elaborate their views on taxation rather than simply respond with a yes
or no.
The Workers' Opposition demands increased funding for
social
programs. Money to fund those investments has to come from the BC
socialized economy. The BC and federal governments are responsible for
claiming enough social product from the economy to meet their social
responsibilities to defend the well-being
of Canadians and society. Where should those funds come from that
government claims on behalf of the people in BC and their society? How
much should the claim be and how should it be spent?
The working class and middle strata should discuss these
matters and
not allow themselves to be manipulated into adopting views that are
contrary to their basic interests.
Ontario
More Evidence of Chronic Under-Funding
of Community Colleges
- Dave Starbuck* -
 A report entitled "Environmental
Scan 2010: College
Resources" prepared by Colleges Ontario further documents the chronic
under-funding of Ontario's community college system. Colleges Ontario
is the advocacy organization for the province's 24 colleges of applied
arts and technology.
According to the report, college system revenues
totaled $2.98 billion in 2008-09. Provincial government funding in the
form of grants accounted for only 52 per cent of college system
revenues.
Tuition and other student fees in various forms now account for 36 per
cent of
college revenues. College system expenses
amounted to $2.93 billion. College system expenses include items such
as flow-through expenditures, contract services, scholarships and the
tuition set-aside. Proceeding from the outlook of capital-centred
accounting, the report lists compensation costs (salaries and benefits)
as the largest expense item for the colleges.
According to the report, wages, salaries and employee benefits account
for 61 per cent of college expenditures.
The report notes that despite the "impact of the
Reaching Higher Plan [the
post-secondary education plan of current
Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty and the Ontario Liberal government --
TML Ed. Note] on operating grants for colleges, in 2009-10 real
operating funding
per [full-time equivalent] student was about seven per cent lower than
it was in 1994-95."
Coupled with the significant increase in tuition fees
over the past decade and a half, real per student revenue was about two
per cent higher than in 1994-95. The report shows that "when college
operating grants and tuition fees are considered together, in 2008-09
per student revenue in Ontario [$8,332]
was the lowest among the provinces. Per student revenue [operating
grants plus tuition fees] in Ontario was about 48 per cent lower than
that in Saskatchewan, the province with the highest level of per
student revenue [$15,950]."
Funding per student for Ontario colleges also
continues to significantly lag behind that of secondary schools and
universities. While secondary schools received a grant of approximately
$10,500 per student in 2008-09 and universities received approximately
$8,500 per student, colleges received only $6,000
per student.
Funding for apprenticeship training has also declined.
The report states that: "In current dollars, the apprenticeship per
diem
has changed little since 1994-95. After inflation is taken into
account, the per diem has decreased by 26 per cent. The student
in-school fee [paid by the student --
TML Ed. Note] has offset
some of this reduction."
"Environmental Scan 2020: College Resources" also
provides information on college human resources and student financial
aid. In 2008-09, Ontario colleges employed almost 37,000 people of whom
more than half, 21,000, are part-time. There are 7,051 full-time
faculty, 6,751 full-time support staff
and 2,069 full-time administrative staff. Between 1994-95 and 2008-09,
the overall number of full-time staff employed at colleges decreased
slightly. However, the number of administrative staff increased
approximately 13 per cent and support staff increased by 8 per cent
while the number of
full-time faculty declined by approximately
13 per cent. In comparison, college enrolments were almost 26 per cent
higher
than they were in 1994-95.
In 2008-09, about 72,000 college students were Ontario
Student Assistance Program (OSAP) recipients, or 44 per cent of total
full-time college students. While this is an increase from the low of
35 per cent in 2002-03, it is well below the 1995-96 level of 54 per
cent. The OSAP
default rate for the college system
was 10.6 per cent in 2008, slightly lower than in 2007. This compares
to the default rate of 18.0 per cent for private career colleges.
Nova Scotia
Spryfield-Sambro Loop Community Health Project --
Privatization by Stealth
 Canadians are dead set
against the privatization of the
health care system but are faced with governments that serve private
not public interests. As a result, they use the social wealth to pay
the rich while claiming there is a scarcity of funds for health care
and other social programs. After creating a crisis in health
care by depriving it of the required funds, a "solution" is then
presented in the form of public-private-partnerships or P3s, promoted
as a creative way to solve the "health care crisis." Canadians have
seen that they are simply another way to put public money at the
disposal of private interests. One such example in
Nova Scotia is particularly insidious because it is not even referred
to as a P3.
Spryfield-Sambro Loop
Community Health Team
The Spryfield-Sambro Loop Community Health Team is a
pilot project funded through a private-public initiative including
Capital Health Queen Elizabeth II Foundation (an organization which
facilitates private sector access to health care) and three
U.S.-based pharmaceutical monopolies: AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline and
Pfizer. AstraZeneca is also involved in several telemedicine projects
in the Maritime provinces.
Instead of openly informing Nova Scotians of their
plans, the P3 Spryfield-Sambro Loop Community Health Team is
misrepresenting the actual arrangements for privatization that are
being put into motion. It released a four-page glossy colour pamphlet
outlining the purported delivery of community
health services to this region that is part of Greater Halifax.
Entitled "Spryfield-Sambro Loop Community Health Team Community Health
Conversations," the cover states "Basic programs and services of the
Community Health Team will be free." This conceals the fact that this
team will provide no tangible primary health care services to the
people in the Spryfield-Sambro Loop. Rather
what is termed "education" and pharma-solutions are on the menu of free
services.
The booklet claims there was a broad community
consultation process and involvement to identify the problems in the
community and how best to address them. Yet when people living in
Spryfield were asked by this TML
correspondent, few knew about the
"team" or about the consultation process.
In fact one worker at the Captain William Spry Community Centre, noted
that, "Yes there was a public meeting about one and a half
years ago here at the Centre. We all spoke about the problems faced
here such as mental illness, poor nutrition and youth problems. We were
all given a Sobey's card at the
end of it." Other people queried were adults who use the Spry
Centre regularly and/or who live in Spryfield and none of the 55 people
asked had even heard about the initiative with the exception of
one worker.
There are several aspects of this project that smack of
forcing privatization of health care without consultation; of using
public funds that should go to primary health care and putting it
toward
more administration, telemedicine and pharma-solutions; toward an
informal and concealed P3.
The location of the Capital Health Community Health
Team will be in the Spryfield Mall, near a new pharmacy owned by
Sobey's corporation.
The slogan on the cover of the booklet is "Building
Communities Together: Capital Health Primary Health Care in
Collaboration with IWK Health Centre and community partners." The
so-called community partners are none other than Sobey's, AstraZeneca,
GlaxoWelcome and Pfizer. This is a P3
by any other name, a fact that is not openly disclosed to the
"community" who will be the guinea pigs in this pilot project.
The "Services"
The project claims to be promoting health through
"wellness programs" focusing on "nutrition education"; "emotional
wellness education and supports"; "education sessions" (parenting);
"sexual health" (youth); "physical activity"; "assessments" (personal
and family wellness profile);
"personal wellness education" (risk factor management); "peer support
to manage your own health." What all this amounts to is leaving people
to fend for themselves in regard to the real cause of health problems
such as lack of work, food and housing. It further entrenches
privatization of health care in Nova Scotia.
What is the good of "nutrition education" to someone on a limited
budget or who must rely on processed foods provided by food banks? Does
"peer support to manage your own health" mean that people in Spryfield
can truly be left to manage their chronic health problems alone and
with no additional primary health
care supports? If Capital Health was serious about improving nutrition
they would offer a free nutritious lunch program in each and every
school in Nova Scotia, for example. Instead of any services, people in
Spryfield are offered a condescending mixture of moralized terminology
and the option of telemedicine
and pharma-solutions.
The team also purports to keep personal and family
"wellness profiles" of members of the "community." Who collects and is
privy to this information? These wellness profiles would provide the
private aspect of the P3 with a great opportunity to use people's
chronic health problems and other personal information
as a pool of data for marketing and other research. In this way, the
three pharmaceutical companies could relieve themselves of the
financial burden of telemarketing and market surveys, at public expense.
All of this underscores the lack of any consultation and
decision-making power of the people. The administrators employed in the
Community Health Team are not members of the Spryfield community and
 have no idea of what the people are really facing. The
information
pamphlets are offensive in their paternalistic
tone and in the way that they shove pre-ordained arrangements down the
throats of the people of Spryfield. The pamphlets make clear that the
Community Health Team will not be addressing the real issues of the
poor sectors of Spryfield, such as lack of access to jobs, decent
housing and nutritious food. This project
serves to further the privatization of health care, and even worse,
further entrenches people in the overuse of pharmaceuticals.
Nova Scotians refuse to be the guinea pigs of the
pharmaceutical monopolies and other private interests. They demand
public health care that is a provided as a right by virtue of being
human.
Discussion on Nation-Building
The Necessity to Restrict Monopoly Right
to Control and Manipulate Prices
Proposal
for
a
Modern
Formula
to
Determine
Prices
of
Production
- Workers' Centre of the Communist Party
of Canada (Marxist- Leninist) -
TML is
posting below Part Four of "Discussion on
Nation Building -- The Necessity to Restrict Monopoly Right." Part One
was published
in TML Daily, November 23, 2010 - No.
200. Part Two was published in TML Daily,
November 24, 2010 -
No. 201. Part
Three was published in TML Daily,
November 30, 2010 - No.
205.
Part Four
Government Claims on Social Product --
Necessity for a Modern System of Taxation
 Renewal of the taxation
system plays a big role in
combating economic crises and restricting the right of monopolies to
reverse the tendency of a falling rate of profit. Government should
focus its claim for social product (taxation) on the revenue of
enterprises producing and distributing goods and providing services.
The obsolete practice of taxing individuals including user fees for
public services should be abolished. Canadians live in an
interconnected socialized economy, and governments and enterprises
should recognize that truth in practice. They should also stop saying
the economy and its problems are unknowable and
nothing can be done except demand concessions from workers and push
austerity on the country.
People should view the socialized economy and claims on
social product from a broad perspective. This requires looking at the
aggregate social product annually produced as an integral whole and
examining how that product is divided up. The working class and owners
of capital plus governments claim almost
the entire social product produced by the working class. The three main
categories of claimants of social product are:
1) claims of workers according to their work and
work-time on what they produce and make available through distribution
and the provision of services;
2) government claims on social product to finance social
programs and meet its needs and the general interests of society;
3) claims of owners of capital to profit according to
their private ownership and control of parts of the socialized economy;
this claim is subdivided into profit of enterprise (including an
accumulation fund or retained earnings), interest-profit, rent- profit
and claims on profit by executive managers.
A broad perspective keeps these categories distinct and
objective and constantly aware of their change, development and motion,
with the working class and government in ascendency and owners of
capital in decline.
A modern definition of taxation upholds the view that
government claims within a socialized economy, such as Canada's, must
be social and not individual, just as production, distribution and
services are social, industrial and mass, and not petty and individual.
Taxation must be focused on the revenue of enterprises
and not individuals. The government should abolish individual taxation
such as income taxes, sales taxes, individual property taxes and user
fees for public services.
Individual Taxation Is
Obsolete
Government claims through individual taxation instead of
revenue from enterprises deviates from a modern definition of taxation.
Individual taxation strengthens monopoly power and control over the
economy, which is regressive. It weakens the struggle of individual
workers and their collectives for a say and control over the socialized
economy, the sector in which they work and their particular
enterprises. The obsolete practice of individual taxation introduces
confusion into the origin of social product, how it should be claimed
and distributed, and what constitutes a cost of
production. Individual taxation confuses the issue of a society needing
social production to sustain itself and develop. Workers and members of
the middle strata can even develop contempt for taxation in general and
join anti-tax reactionary forces that do not want to develop the social
responsibilities of society to
guarantee the rights of its members.
Individual workers through their work-time make
available all social product to be claimed by themselves as individuals
and by the state and owners of capital. Social product in the form of
taxation comes from workers' work-time and should be claimed as such
from the revenue of enterprises and not later or
indirectly through individuals. It should not come from workers as
"taxpayers" but from them as the actual producers of all social product.
The origin of social product is found in the work-time
of the working class at enterprises within the socialized economy.
Value added through work-time flows throughout the socialized economy
as revenue. Revenue is equal to the gross income of enterprises minus
their costs of production. Costs of production
are mainly commodities purchased by enterprises from within the
socialized economy or abroad that are necessary for production of
commodities and their distribution or for the provision of services.
Claims on revenue are not costs of production. The
present taxation system reinforces the viewpoint of the owners of
capital that claims on revenue, other than profit of enterprise,
constitute costs of production for an enterprise. From this
capital-centred viewpoint, claims of workers, corporate taxes,
interest-profit,
rent-profit and claims of executive managers all constitute costs of
production. This erroneous viewpoint distorts the reality of an
interconnected socialized economy where the modern working class
produces all social product. Workers and their allies must fight for a
modern definition of taxation where governments
make their claims directly from the revenue of enterprises.
With the present obsolete system of individual taxation,
workers make their claim on what they produce but then are forced to
hand over half or more of their claim to governments in various taxes
and fees for public services. This turns many workers against taxation
in general, which in turn weakens the movement
for increased spending on social programs. Rather than turning against
taxation in general, workers and their allies should force government
to abolish individual taxation and make its claims objectively and
directly from the revenue of enterprises at the point of production and
distribution of goods and provision
of services.
The three main categories of claimants (workers,
governments and owners of capital) should make their claims directly on
the revenue of enterprises. These claims should be objective,
transparent, distinct and readily knowable by the Canadian people for
open discussion and debate.
A modern definition of taxation is important as well in
solving in a progressive way the issue of workers themselves having a
say and control over their claims for wages, benefits and pensions.
Workers and their peers should be the judge of what their claims should
be. For this process to be socially responsible
and effective, workers and their peers must have before them the facts
of their socialized economy, both its aggregate social product as
revenue and the particulars of every sector and enterprise. They should
also be fully conscious of how much governments need to claim to
increase investments in social programs
and meet the general interests of society. How governments spend the
revenue they collect is a related front of struggle that must be taken
up by the Workers' Opposition.
The claims of owners of capital for the various forms of
profit should come from a pool of revenue at each enterprise that is
determined objectively and consciously according to a modern formula
for prices of production based on a general rate of profit. From an
understanding and knowledge of what society
needs in the form of government claims, how much social product is
produced and available nationally and in particular sectors and each
enterprise, workers and their peers can argue out and determine the
level of their claims according to their work. This understanding does
not appear magically but from conscious
participation in acts of finding out.
The Transient Nature of
Capitalism
Under the present capitalist system of commodity
production for exchange, the claims of the three main categories
(workers, government and owners of capital) are made on social product
as exchange-value, usually in the form of money. This means effectively
that actual and potential social product that cannot be realized as
exchange-value but is needed by the people and its socialized economy
is left unclaimed or not produced. This is a fundamental defect of the
capitalist system and brands it as transient. Capitalism came into
being to bridge the gap between the various
systems of petty production, from which it emerged, and a modern
socialized economic system and relations of production that can fully
utilize the benefits of industrial mass production.
Within this transient system, it is particularly
important that government not claim taxes from individuals but rather
from the revenue of enterprises producing and distributing goods and
providing services. Individual taxation tends to mask the problems of
the transitory system and strengthen the retrogressive
forces nestled within the most powerful enterprises that do not want to
resolve problems fundamentally but divert people into grasping at empty
policy objectives rather than taking decisive action to move society
forward through modern definitions.
If a formula is enforced restricting enterprises to a
general rate of profit through prices of production set scientifically,
and a wholesale market controlled by public corporations in all basic
sectors, every enterprise would pay an equal amount of taxes from
revenue according to size whether it pays directly or through
an equalization formula of a general rate of profit determining prices
of production. The government would claim enough to meet its needs and
the general interests of society and would force companies to adhere to
the general rate of profit through public control of prices of
production and the wholesale sector.
The modern definition of governments claiming taxes directly from the
revenue of enterprises opens a door to progress whereby those claims
could be increasingly made and rendered in the form of products or
services and not have their use-value negated as exchange-value and
forced to face an uncertain future
in the marketplace before being claimed by government as money.
Changes to Open a Door to
New Relations of Production
A detailed public accounting of all industries, sectors
and enterprises is necessary to enforce both proper taxation of the
revenue of enterprises and adherence to prices of production that
reflect a general rate of profit. A modern formula for
prices of production is introduced in Part Five of this series.
An important issue is to recognize that the socialized
economy is in essence public and should be considered public in all its
aspects. Monopoly right over the socialized economy must be restricted
in favour of public right. Enterprises that hide accounts and
transactions should be considered in serious violation
of the law and the people's right to a full public accounting of their
socialized economy.
(Part Five: Introduction to a Modern Formula for
Prices of Production)
Read The Marxist-Leninist
Daily
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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