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January 26, 2012 - No. 7
Workers'
Movement
Autoworkers Firmly Defend Their Claim on
What They Produce
- K.C. Adams -
Workers'
Movement
• Autoworkers
Firmly Defend Their Claim on What They Produce - K.C. Adams
• Bell Workers Resist Yet Another Attack on
Their Livelihoods - Christine Nugent
• Open Letter from Fraser Papers Retiree and
Victim of Brookfield
In Defence of the
Rights of All
• Close Guantanamo Bay! Omar Khadr Must Be
Returned to Canada! End Rendition and Other Acts of Torture
- Dorothy-Jean O'Donnell
Workers'
Movement
Autoworkers Firmly Defend Their Claim on
What They Produce
- K.C. Adams -
Part One
Autoworkers proudly claim a portion of what they
produce. The value they claim as wages, benefits and pensions is theirs
by right as producers of value in the automotive industry. Autoworkers'
work-time adds value to the vehicles they produce; they have a right to
claim a Canadian-standard portion of that
value.
Executive managers of the big three automakers slander
the claim of autoworkers on the value they produce as "a cost of
production." This gross insult has a simple motive: to justify a
reduction of autoworkers' wages, benefits and pensions. Autoworkers
point with honour to the work they do as the source of
all value for those involved in the industry. How could their claim on
the value they produce be considered a "cost of production"? That is
such self-serving rubbish! Without the work of autoworkers, there would
be no value to distribute. There would be no value in the form of
wages, benefits, pensions, interest
payments to the moneylenders, dividends or equity profit to owners of
capital, salaries and bonuses for executive managers, retained earnings
for reinvestment or taxes for governments.
Autoworkers are the source of the value that is divided
amongst all claimants in the auto sector. The total value to be claimed
is determined by the work-time of autoworkers. Switching around the
amounts that each claimant takes out of the whole does not change the
total amount of value autoworkers create;
it merely changes the ratio in which the value is divided.
 Executive managers at
Chrysler, Ford and GM say that the
claim of autoworkers on the value they produce has to be reduced to
make the companies more competitive. What nonsense! Moving around the
different claimed portions of the total value autoworkers produce does
not make a company more competitive.
It simply changes the ratio in which the total value is divided.
Stealing wages from workers so investors can claim more does not make a
company more competitive; it merely means certain claimants receive a
greater portion of the value while the actual producers of value, the
working class, receive a smaller portion.
Autoworkers were not born yesterday nor did autoworkers
just start negotiating their claim on what they produce. They have been
doing this for a century and have learned from direct experience that
in the final analysis executive managers, who represent certain vested
moneyed interests including their own
salaries and bonuses, will say and do anything to reduce the claim of
autoworkers on what they produce so that the vested moneyed interests
they represent can claim the portion taken from autoworkers. All the
bluster of executive managers, their political representatives and
flunkies in the mass media regarding the
working class boils down to the same thing: take away some of the claim
of autoworkers in the form of wages, benefits and pensions on the value
they produce and give it to other claimants.
Extortion Is a Crime --
Time for a New Direction for
the Economy
Auto executive managers have unleashed a propaganda
campaign prior to worker/management contract negotiations that begin
later this year. They are camouflaging a planned money grab on the
portion autoworkers claim as a need
for workers to give up wages and agree to "profit sharing" and to
"connect" their claims "with productivity, positioning and
competition." Chrysler Group CEO Sergio Marchionne even goes so far as
to say the present wage, benefit and pension structure is an "outdated
entitlement notion." According to Marchionne,
wages, benefits and pensions are not legitimate claims on the value
workers produce but "outdated entitlements." What slander! He has the
impudence to tell autoworkers to give up these so-called "entitlements"
and replace them with management controlled pie-in-the-sky "profit
sharing connected with productivity,
positioning" and some concocted "competition" with workers in faraway
places who have been beaten down so badly they can barely drag
themselves into work to produce value for privileged parasites whose
greatest chore in life is to cash in their investment coupons. And
worse, he has coupled these demands with
threats to close factories if autoworkers do not capitulate.
Workers say no to these executive managers and
anti-worker sycophants in politics and the mass media -- autoworkers
are having none of it! Forget the capital-centred jargon; it's as
worthless as anything else that comes out of the mouths of the
"captains of industry" these days. They are fanciful words to cover
a dark attempt to panic autoworkers and extort concessions from them to
fatten the pockets of a privileged few.
Canadian autoworkers are not so easily duped and
frightened; they refuse to be intimidated. Workers realize that if they
give in to threats and extortion and agree to abandon their claims on
the value they produce, the country will end up in total chaos and
crisis where only a relative few will be able to afford
the vehicles autoworkers produce and most will live in constant
insecurity. Extorting concessions from workers with threats to relocate
industrial facilities and slandering workers as "costs of production"
are crimes that must not pass! The words and criminal actions of
executive managers are forcing workers and their
allies to organize and demand a New Direction for the Economy that
favours public right not monopoly right. Manufacturing yes!
Nation-wrecking no!
Autoworkers demand nothing less than what is theirs by
right from the value they produce: Canadian-standard wages, benefits
and pensions and security of employment. Anything less or anything else
is unacceptable. Concessions are not solutions!
Bell Workers Resist Yet Another Attack on
Their
Livelihoods
- Christine Nugent* -
 
Bell workers rally in
Ottawa, April 1, 2011.
The January 25 announcement that Bell Canada has taken
up yet another reorganization of their monopoly that affects the jobs
of 400 Bell workers in Ottawa and Toronto resonates with all Bell
workers who have faced similar attacks on their right to a livelihood
over the past two decades and all those presently
working whose right to job security is threatened by these developments.
In March of last year, Bell laid off more than 100
unionized clerical employees in Ottawa. Some of these members had
30-plus years of service in the company and were only months away from
retirement. The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada
(CEP) Local 6004 has seen Bell relentlessly
cut unionized staff over the last three years, reducing the original
members from 1,400 by almost half after this last round.
We stand shoulder to shoulder with these workers as they
organize to fight for their rights.
These recent job cuts and the intolerable forced
relocation of employment will affect 300 clerical employees and 23
technicians whose jobs will be moved from Scarborough and downtown
Toronto to the Bell campus in Mississauga as Bell consolidates its call
centres there. For the 65 workers in the Ottawa call
centre to stay employed, they too will have to re-locate to Mississauga.
To disinform people and throw the workers off guard,
Bell spokespeople told the media that Ottawa workers will have the
opportunity to find new positions at Bell. This sort of deception
serves to mask the violence unleashed on the workers. They have two
months to find such a job "opportunity" before their
last day. Furthermore there is no mention of the necessary training
being provided to guarantee employment in a new position.
Michelle Arruda is the President of CEP Local 6004 which
represents two bargaining units in the telecommunications sector, with
some 1,100 members throughout Ontario. She ridiculed Bell's PR,
pointing out that job postings in Ottawa only occur once every two
months.
Many workers will only receive severance monies which
will complicate their seeking re-training and employment insurance.
Furthermore, the company's offer of early retirement -- the same offer
made to many Bell workers over the years as they are squeezed
out of their jobs just months before qualifying
for a full pension -- can deprive workers of being able to retire with
dignity. Workers and their unions in these situations must continue to
be vigilant in their struggle to survive these attacks and demand that
governments do their duty to ensure the supports they deserve are
provided.
"We continue to see companies, such as Bell Canada,
moving work anywhere they like -- including out of the country -- to
increase their bottom line. It's time for governments at all levels to
take responsibility and stand up for their constituents and their
families," said Barb Dolan, the Ontario Administrative
Vice-President of CEP.
The criminality of this recent action against the
workers is magnified by the November 28, 2011 Ontario Labour Relations
Board (OLRB) ruling which denied the union's legal challenge of Bell
Canada's decision to phase out the workers' post-retirement benefits.
This will affect workers who retire beginning
January 31, 2012.
This ruling came down at the same time as Bell Canada
Enterprise profits soured in the third quarter of 2011 and CEO George
Cope stated in the press, "I don't think we've ever been better
positioned in all segments for the fourth quarter, and we have a clear
path to dividend growth for 2012."
At whose expense? Who produces the wealth and who should
have first claim on it?
While the wealth in the telecommunications industry is
produced by the communications workers, the working class, small
businesses and farmers face exorbitant pricing for their
telecommunication needs, including telephone services, wireless
communications, high-speed Internet, digital television and other
services.
The value workers produce is always more than they
claim. Workers' wages, pensions and benefits exist in relation to
profits, in that both come from the same pool of added-value. Paying
workers less becomes a direct benefit to owners of capital as workers
still do their work and produce value but the size of
their claim is smaller.
Bell workers have been fighting to retain their jobs and
improve the conditions of the unorganized workers. In July of last
year, an attempt to organize the 1,500 Bell Mobility call centre
workers in Mississauga resulted in a 52 per cent no vote. During the
campaign the union was forced to launch complaints
with the OLRB against Bell's interference with their right to organize
the workers.
 In June 2011 Bell's plans
to move 125 jobs out of London
was met with a protest by labour activists from several unions outside
its London offices.
Patti Dalton, President of the London and District
Labour Council stated at that time, "Bell represents the kind of
corporate thinking that is hurting communities like London. Bell Canada
has a responsibility to the community to retain good union jobs, and I
really think they need to be taken to task on this."
"They are making huge, huge profits. The average CEO's
salary, during the worst of the recession, which is far from over, was
$6.6 million," she added.
The Workers' Opposition demands that governments put a
stop to this theft of workers' rights to their livelihoods and to
retire with their full pension and benefits after years of producing
wealth for these corporations.
Open Letter from Fraser Papers Retiree and
Victim of
Brookfield
The New Brunswick Victims
of Brookfield Association held a meeting, January 12, to elaborate
their 2012 fight-back
plan. Their counterparts
from Quebec did the same on January 20. The Victims of
Brookfield
suffered a loss of
35.4-40 per cent of their
pensions due to the bankruptcy proceedings of the former Fraser Papers.
TML Daily is posting below an open letter
originally published on the website of the Communications, Energy and
Paperworkers Union of Canada on January 24. The letter is from
Rémi Séguin of Thurso, Quebec, who is a Fraser Papers
retiree and a member of the group Victims of Brookfield.
This group of retirees is fighting against the theft of their pensions
by Brookfield Asset Managment, which took over Fraser Papers in 2009
and
restructured it under bankruptcy protection, during which it used the Companies'
Creditors
Arrangement
Act (CCAA) to shaft the pensioners.
***
I sympathise with White Birch Paper retirees. Let me
tell you what I went through with the CCAA.
I worked for 39 years at the Thurso paper plant. I
worked both the night shift and the day shift and this was detrimental
to my health. Now that I have retired and should be able to derive some
benefit from all those hours spent fighting off sleep, the Ontario
Court of Justice has deprived me of that entitlement
in the interest of a multinational company.
Background:
On January 6th, 2009, the Brookfield Asset Management
company, which already had a controlling interest (60%) in Fraser
Papers, acquired 16.3 million common shares and 81.5 million stock
purchase warrants worth $120 million which gave it a 75% interest in
Fraser Papers. Six months later, yes
only six
months later and after buying $120 million worth of stock, Brookfield
Asset Management asked the Ontario Court of Justice to place Fraser
Papers under bankruptcy protection and the Court agreed to do so.
Strange!
The Fraser Papers plant in
Thurso was sold to Fortress
Paper. The Fraser Papers plant in New Brunswick which, according to
Brookfield Asset Management, was not profitable was placed under
bankruptcy protection by itself. Today, the controlling owner of the
plant is still Brookfield but the plant is running
under the name Twin Rivers. Strange!
The Thurso paper plant managed by Fortress has suddenly
become profitable and the Twin River Papers plant in New Brunswick,
managed by none other that Brookfield, the company that filed for
bankruptcy protection on its behalf in June 2009, has also suddenly
become profitable. Strange!
 The Ontario Court of
Justice has condemned us, the
retirees, to pay for part of the debts of Fraser Papers with our
pension fund. Let it be quite clear that this reduces our income by
about 40% for the rest of our lives. Imagine having your salary cut by
40% overnight with no hope of ever seeing it increase again
while expenses such as taxes, electricity, gas, etc. keep increasing.
And all this in order to pay off creditors such as banks! Strange!
Today, while Brookfield Asset Management, which by the
way has a portfolio of $150 BILLION, continues to make millions
of dollars of profits at its Twin Rivers plant, we also have become
victims of Brookfield. We have had to say goodbye to our well-deserved
retirement dreams, our leisure activities
and our children's inheritance.
Unfortunately, justice is such that it gives the rich
the right to use the laws to steal from the less fortunate.
For further information:
Rémi Séguin
Brookfield victim
Thurso, QC
819-985-1600
remyseg@gmail.com
In Defence
of the Rights of All
Close Guantanamo Bay!
Omar Khadr Must Be Returned to
Canada!
End Rendition and Other Acts of Torture
- Dorothy-Jean O'Donnell -
January 10 marked the tenth anniversary of the opening
of Guantanamo
Bay as a detention centre for people captured by the U.S. military in
Afghanistan. As of now, 171 human beings remain in this notorious
dungeon of the Empire.
January 22 marked the third anniversary of the promise
by U.S. President Barack Obama that he would close Guantanamo within a
year, just two days after his inauguration in 2009. Yet another failed
promise and a predictable one given that on October 28, 2009, Obama
signed into law the National Defense
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 (NDAA). Ostensibly a law
pertaining to military and national security funding, it also
placed substantial obstacles to the closure of Guantanamo. Obama signed
the law while expressing "reservations" together with the claim that
his administration would not utilize some of the more draconian
provisions of the Act which permit indefinite detention of U.S.
citizens and provide a legal framework for other torture camps like
Guantanamo. Obama gave up even these reservations when he
signed an executive order on March 7, 2011 authorizing the continued
indefinite detention of those held in Guantanamo. On December 31, 2011,
President Barack Obama signed the NDAA for the 2012 fiscal year. The
law not only allocates $662 billion to the defence sector but also
permits the indefinite detention of "terrorism suspects" without
charges being laid and the imprisonment without trial of U.S. citizens.
The NDAA also allows terrorism related cases to be moved from the
jurisdiction of the FBI and the civil justice system to that of the
military.
January 2012 also marks three months after the date by
which Omar Khadr was permitted to return to Canada.
Khadr was a 15-year old youth when he was shot and
captured after a firefight in Afghanistan in which he and U.S. soldiers
were said to be engaged. After more than nine years of detention at
Guantanamo, during which time he was subjected to all kinds of abuse
and torture, in the fall of 2010 Khadr "pled" to certain offences in
return for a further eight year sentence and "assurances" he could
return to Canada to serve the remainder of his sentence after one more
year in Guantanamo. In the days leading up to the "plea agreement," the
Canadian government communicated on October 23, 2010 that it was
"inclined to favourably consider" a request by Khadr to serve his
sentence in Canada. Having served the first year of his eight-year
sentence by October 2011, Khadr's lawyers made the application that he
be transferred to Canada. Three months later there has been no movement
towards his repatriation. He continues to languish at the Guantanamo
Bay military base along with 170 other detainees.
Prior to this, Khadr won at least two Supreme Court of
Canada filings that his Charter
rights had been violated by the Canadian government in its dealing with
him. The government appealed these decisions. Ultimately the
Supreme Court upheld the findings that Khadr's rights had been violated
but confirmed that the executive power has the prerogative to deal with
foreign affairs so long as it does not violate international
conventions such as the Geneva Convention which prohibits torture under
all circumstances. What the Supreme Court said was that for reasons of
state the polity cannot be informed about issues which concern the
security of the state. Therefore, nobody can advise the Prime Minister
how to conduct the affairs of the state.
Students at the
University of Alberta are
organizing a campaign to Bring Omar Khadr Home! On January 7, about 100
people participated in a rally at the Alberta Legislature calling for
the repatriation of Canadian citizen and child soldier Omar Khadr and
the closing of Guantanamo
Bay detention camp where he has been imprisoned for
over nine years.
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It is notable that a Canadian public opinion poll in
January 2009
found that 69 per cent of those polled supported the immediate
repatriation of
Khadr to Canada.
It is a matter of great concern that maximum pressure be
brought to
bear on the Canadian government to follow through on its commitment to
"favourably consider" Omar Khadr's return to Canada. This is not simply
an administrative procedure to be carried out behind closed doors.
At the same time, Canadians should strongly support the
international campaign to close Guantanamo Bay and end rendition and
other acts of torture.
A January 11 editorial concerning Guantanamo Bay in the Washington
Post described the last decade as "a shameful period in the
history of the United States and a stain on our national conscience."
The day before, on January 10 the U.S. radio program
"Democracy Now"
interviewed the former Chief Prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay Morris Davis
who described the last ten years as being "an unfortunate decade." He
noted that former U.S. Presidential candidate John McCain and five U.S.
Judges have declared
waterboarding to be torture. He also commented that the U.S. guarantees
free speech only for "those who have nothing to say."
Morris Davis was the Chief Prosecutor of the first
Military Tribunal
at Guantanamo Bay which was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in
the
case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. Davis
was dismissed for public comments he made following that ruling.
Speaking of the first tribunal, the U.S.
Supreme Court found
that "its structure and proceedings violate both the US Code of
Military Justice and the four Geneva Conventions of 1949." Davis was
dismissed in October 2007 when it was reported that he said he was
"not going to take orders from the guy who said waterboarding was
A-Okay."
Read The Marxist-Leninist
Daily
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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