May 11,
2012 - No. 68
It is no accident since Advance Engineered Products
makes mainly tank-trailers for the petroleum industry and Nisku is a
suburb of Edmonton that is home to a huge
industrial park with an area of about eight square miles containing
more than 400 businesses. From 8,000-10,000 workers work for these
businesses at the industrial
park and on jobsites throughout the province. The Nisku Economic
Development Authority describes the industrial park as "home to
Canada's largest energy sector industrial park hosting homegrown
multi-national companies and small to medium-sized enterprises serving
global energy industries." Officially
a hamlet with a population in the townsite of 30, Nisku is a
capitalist's dream, where businesses are not required to pay one cent
in business taxes to the municipality.
Why Nisku? is a wake-up call for what is being planned.
Of the 400
businesses in the park, only 16 employers have signed collective
agreements and seven of these are with the Christian Labour Association
of Canada (CLAC). For example, of 108 oilfield services companies in
Leduc county, two are unionized
and another two are certified by the CLAC. All the rest, including all
the companies which have drilling rigs in the conventional oil patch
across the province are non-union. There are 21 welding shops listed in
the Nisku directory, all of which are non-union. One machine shop out
of 17 and one general contractor
out of nine are unionized.
While many of the companies are relatively small
operations of the
kind which come and go with the boom and bust of the oil patch, many
major energy and construction monopolies are centred there. The Leduc
County website names ten companies as the major employers.[1] Edmonton
International Airport
heads the list. One company has since gone into bankruptcy. The
remaining eight include two companies owned by Halliburton, the
infamous
U.S. multinational which former U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney headed;
four major drilling companies, two of which are U.S. owned; an
Alberta-based company which builds
modular housing for oil sands camps; and a major industrial
construction company. The construction company has a collective
agreement with CLAC and the rest are non-union.
All of this gives meaning to the word "competitive" in
the following
statement by the Vice-President of Human Resources at Advance
Engineered Products. "As North America's premier manufacturer of bulk
tank and vac equipment, our company's success relies on the
availability of highly skilled tradespeople --
particularly welders and trailer mechanics. We have been unable to
recruit and train enough Canadians for our manufacturing and service
facilities throughout western Canada because of the current highly
competitive labour market. We strongly support this government
initiative to expedite the hiring of skilled workers
from other countries." In other words, they can't get cheap labour and
now Harper is coming to the rescue.
This latest anti-worker scheme of the Harper
dictatorship shows that
it is not business as usual for the monopolies and governments which
serve them. The temporary foreign workers' program introduced a form of
modern day slavery to Canadian society. Now the government has
signalled that it intends to impose
forced labour on unemployed Canadians. When a company applies for an
labour market opinion (LMO), it is permitted to set a wage rate at 15
per cent less than the industry average. Then this is the rate for the
job that will be "linked" to those on EI who possess the required
skills. Work for 15 per cent below the
industry average or lose your EI is the clear message. Wherever workers
have no union, employers will be free to hire at lower wages and even
where the workers have their defence organization employers will be
stepping up the pressure to cut wages for new hires.
Clearly the times are calling for the organized workers'
movement to
use all its strength to fight this vicious attack on the rights of
workers and make sure it goes into the dustbin. When the Harper
Government Economic Action Plan 2012 is a plan to increase the
exploitation of temporary foreign workers, drive
down the wages of Canadians and eliminate even the completely
inadequate EI benefits, there can be no doubt that the governments in
power recognize no rights but monopoly "right." This situation requires
new ways of thinking and acting to make sure that the organized workers
take the lead in defending and organizing
the unorganized workers. It means making sure that those who are
working in a CLAC workplace through no choice of their own are
mobilized to prevent CLAC from making deals to allow this attack on
workers to proceed. No to increased exploitation of temporary foreign
workers and status for all! No to forced
labour in Alberta!
The Harper government's scheme promoted as part of its
Economic
Action Plan 2012 is complete with the call to "better connect the EI
Program with the Temporary Foreign Workers Program." In other words,
what is being prepared is that unemployed workers will be directed to
companies who have applied
for accelerated labour market opinions (ALMOs) to hire temporary
foreign workers. The fact that in most cases where employers are
seeking to hire temporary foreign workers, the wages do not even
remotely resemble a Canadian living standard is no barrier to Federal
Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development Finley
demanding that workers, both temporary foreign
workers and the unemployed, accept these jobs at 15 per cent less than
the average industry wage.
The Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) immediately
condemned this scheme.
"The federal government has put corporate profits ahead of the needs of
Canadian workers with the changes to the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW)
program announced today. We have said all along that the TFW program
was being used
to drive down the wages paid to Canadian workers and, today, the
federal government confirmed this in writing," said Nancy Furlong,
Secretary Treasurer of the AFL.
"This government claims it believes in the free market,
but doesn't
want to allow the free market to apply to workers and their wages.
Instead, it interferes to drive down wages in the interest of its
corporate paymasters," Furlong stated. "The Harper government didn't
even bother to consult with Canadian workers.
They consulted only with employers, many of whom are foreign-owned. We
asked to take part in these consultations, but they weren't interested.
We think Canadians and Albertans should be concerned with this blatant
disregard for the needs of citizens and how the federal government has
put corporate profits ahead
of its own people," Furlong added.
On Saturday, May 5, Fort McMurray stood as one to mourn
the loss of
human life on Highway 63, between Edmonton and Fort McMurray and to
demand that the entire highway be twinned. On April 27, 2012, seven
people died in yet another horrific crash on this highway. Three
families lost their loved ones
in this crash. Forty-six people have died on Highway 63 in the past
five years alone. TML mourns the loss of those who died on
April 27 and all those who have died on this highway.
But the people have had enough! They are determined to
hold the government to account.
Following the latest unspeakable tragedy on this stretch
of Highway 63,
known for many years in Alberta as the Highway of Death, or Suicide 63,
two young women residents of Fort McMurray set up a website and
organized the rally which took place on May 5. More than 2,000 people
took part to express their
grief and their outrage at the continued loss of life and serious
injuries caused by this deathtrap called a highway. Many people carried
signs paying tribute to loved ones who have died on this road, while
others carried signs demanding the twinning of the highway. A convoy of
seven buses, one for each person killed
in the latest crash came from a company who lost an employee in the
crash.
The overwhelming sentiment of the people of Fort
McMurray and the
workers who drive this highway to and from work in the oil sands and
their unions is that the long-standing demand to create a four-lane
highway must be immediately carried out. The highway has very heavy
traffic. Every day thousands
of tanker trucks, semis, logging trucks and passenger vehicles
including buses navigate the narrow two-lane highway built when oil
sands projects were still in the experimental stage. Extra-wide
loads carrying huge pieces of equipment to the oil sands add to the
congestion.
In 2006 the province announced plans to twin a 240
kilometre stretch
of the road. But to date only 33 kilometres have been completed and the
government plans only another 50 kilometres in the next three years.
Even if the government meets this target, which is unlikely given what
it has completed to date,
a four-lane highway will not be completed until 2025.
The government claims that it cannot go faster because
of the
problems of building a road over muskeg. This would be laughable if not
so tragic. Consider that the entire Alaska Highway of 2,700 kilometres
was built in six months and that was 70 years ago. It is not the way
that is missing, but the will.
Speakers at the protest pulled no punches when speaking
about the
billions made in Fort McMurray by the oil companies and the
responsibility of both the oil, gas and construction monopolies and the
government to finish twinning the highway.
The oil sands resources are handed over to the oil
monopolies, many
of them foreign-owned, for a song. Yet the owners of capital who reap
enormous profits are not required to pay a cent to build the
infrastructure required for the safety and well-being of the workers
who actually produce the wealth. It is one
more proof that Canadians need to establish their public control over
the energy resources to make sure that development serves the needs of
Albertans, First Nations and Métis and all Canadians.
Workers in the oil sands come from communities across
the
country and
this loss of life is felt in communities right across Canada. Working
people across this country are already signing the petition to twin
Highway 63. In this way they are showing that Canadians stand as one in
demanding that governments
have a social responsibility to ensure the safety and well-being of
workers and all Canadians on and off the job. To support the demand to
twin Highway 63 now, go to www.twin63now.ca
and sign the petition.
Winter conditions on
Highway 63.
The Myth of Alberta's "Camelot"
Ruling Circles Proclaim Peter Lougheed
All-Time Best Salesman for the Monopolies
- Dougal MacDonald -
Huge
rally at Alberta Legislature during 1980 provincial employees strike.
(Alberta
Labour History Institute)The recent outpouring of admiration for Peter Lougheed,
Premier of
Alberta from 1971 to 1985, and the efforts to link current Premier
Alison Redford to Lougheed and his "vision" for Alberta raises the
question of what Lougheed stood for, and what is behind his promotion
at this time.
With great fanfare, the monopoly media announced May 3
that a poll
has concluded that "by a landslide" the "greatest" provincial premier
in the history of Canada was Alberta's Peter Lougheed. Lougheed is
hailed as the person who "built modern Alberta," totally ignoring the
fact that it was the working class
and people who built Alberta. The Montreal-based Institute for Research
on Public Policy (IRPP)[1] conducted
the poll and based it on the
opinions of a panel of thirty "eminent historians, political
scientists, economists, journalists and policy advisors."[2] The panel
rated the premiers on "nine leadership categories:
vision for their province; ability to win elections; management of
provincial finances; managing the economy; building infrastructure;
communication skills; relations with fellow premiers;
federal-provincial relations; and the extent of their legacy."
Since Lougheed resigned in 1985, the
monopolies have proliferated a
mythology that the Lougheed Era was a time of unprecedented prosperity
when all the working people in Alberta were well looked after and lived
great lives, some kind of wonderful "Camelot" that everyone should now
aspire to return to.
This myth is pushed even though this was the same era when, for
example, the Alberta Labour Act
was amended (1983) to eliminate the
right to strike for firefighters and hospital employees, deny
university faculty their right to join a union, impose compulsory
arbitration,
and require arbitrators to consider government
policy, the employer's ability to pay and non-union wages. The amended
Labour
Act also
allowed suspension of the collection of dues if
employees
participated in "illegal" strike action.
To further polish up the myth of the Lougheed Era, a
contrast is
drawn with the blatant slash and burn policies of the Klein Era,
although during his time Klein was also promoted as a "man of the
people." The main trick is that instead of clarifying how each
provincial regime serves the needs of the energy monopolies
by implementing particular policies at particular times in history, it
is suggested that somehow Lougheed was an exception who fought for the
interests of working people against the foreign oil monopolies. But
Lougheed was just as much the champion of the monopolies as Redford,
Klein, Manning or any other
Alberta premier, and this is the real reason he is now being awarded a
new "honour."
Lougheed took leadership of Alberta's moribund
Progressive
Conservative (PC) party in 1965 and led the PCs to their initial
victory in Alberta in 1971, winning 49 seats to defeat and later
destroy the 36-year Social Credit dynasty. He remained premier until
1985, beginning an unbroken period of Tory rule to
the present day, and is still dusted off when it serves the monopolies.
During the April 2012 Alberta provincial election, when polls and
pundits were falsely heralding a Wildrose victory over the PCs,
Lougheed promoted incumbent PC Premier Alison Redford in a CTV
interview: "She's positive and she's a positive
thinker, and she has an up-to-date view of the province." Redford will
be the main speaker at Lougheed's June 6 award dinner in Calgary.
The Lougheed government's election in 1971 was not a
victory for the
people but mainly for the home-grown Alberta energy and other
capitalists who wanted a larger share of the revenues from energy
exploitation being siphoned off by the foreign-owned monopolies. The
Manning Social Credit government
heavily favoured foreign monopolies such as Exxon through state
administrative structures like the Texas-inspired Alberta Oil and Gas
Conservation Board which allocated exploration and development rights
and regulated oil and gas production. The ideological climate of the
Cold War smoothed the way for U.S.
control of Alberta oil and gas, with the Manning regime invoking the
"security" of the continent to justify pro-U.S. policies. One example
is the special 1951 law enacted by the province, under pressure from
the U.S Department of Defence, guaranteeing natural gas supplies to the
Anaconda copper smelters in Butte,
Montana.
Exxon/Imperial Oil's major oil strike at Leduc #1 in
1947 was a
major turning point in the Alberta economy, shifting it dramatically
from a dependence on agriculture to a dependence on oil and natural
gas, which accounted for over half the new jobs created in Alberta in
the 1960s. Unable to influence the Manning
regime as much as they desired, homegrown Alberta capitalists such as
Mannix, the Southerns of ATCO,[3]
Bob Blair of the Alberta Gas Trunk Line,
and Calgary oilmen such as the Seamans of Bow Valley Industries,
manoeuvred Lougheed into power so as to gain more control over the
state machine and use it to
further their own goals. At that time, the state was serving two roles:
to suppress the working class and people and to sort out the
contradictions among the various sections of the ruling class.
One of Lougheed's first steps, once in power, was to
replace the old
Social Credit deputy ministers in the state machine with his own
people. For example, he selected Alan "Chip" Collins, former president
of Mannix subsidiary Manalta Coal, as his deputy treasurer. He then
embarked on a major state-subsidized
industrialization and diversification program, largely within the
energy industry. The 1970s were years of major growth in the energy
industry, which earned $18 in net income for every $100 earned in 1972
and $42 in 1980. Recorded increases in after-tax profits in 1979 and
1980 were 53.8 per cent and 31 per cent,
respectively. Many fortunes were made from drilling and exploration,
providing equipment and services for the oil patch, investing in
start-up companies, and so on.
At the same time, Lougheed did not oppose Exxon and
other foreign
energy monopolies. For example, in 1974, his government established the
state-owned Alberta Oil Sands Technology and Research Authority
(AOSTRA). Publicly-funded AOSTRA perfected the now widely-used in situ
steam-assisted gravity
drainage process (SAGD), an enhanced oil recovery technology for
producing heavy oil and bitumen from the oil sands, then handed it over
to Imperial Oil. Another example is the opening of Imperial
Oil/Syncrude's oil sands project on September 15, 1978. To finance
Syncrude's interests, Lougheed created the state-owned
Alberta Energy Company in 1975, which paid for 80 per cent of the
pipeline to
ship Syncrude product from Fort McMurray to Edmonton, 50 per cent of
the $100
million power facility required to fuel the Syncrude plant, and 20 per
cent of the Syncrude plant itself. Alberta Energy was handed over to
private interests in 2002,
becoming natural gas producer Encana, which later spun off oil sands
monopoly, Cenovus.
The Workers' Collective Memory
Rally
organized by United Nurses of Alberta in 1980, during a strike caused
by the Lougheed government.
(Provincial
Archives of Alberta)
The workers' have a
collective memory of the Lougheed years, and it is not of a "visionary"
acting on behalf of all Albertans. During the Lougheed years, workers
in Alberta fought tenaciously in defence of their rights against a
government which had come to
power to champion the interests of the Alberta-based owners of capital,
particularly in the oil and gas sector. Lougheed was one of the first,
if not the first premier in Canada to openly declare himself a salesman
for the monopolies, declaring that the Alberta government was directly
in the oil marketing business.
His negotiations to secure the building of Syncrude included changes to
the labour code, essentially written by the owners of capital who
formed the Syncrude consortium, to champion monopoly right.
Syncrude insisted as a condition of the project that it
would
require a no-strike agreement with the construction unions building the
plant. If a voluntary agreement could not be reached, Syncrude insisted
that the government legislate amendments to the labour laws for special
project status which would allow
a specific site agreement with no-strike provisions. In the summer of
1974, on Syncrude's insistence, the government changed the labour code,
providing the guarantee that Syncrude demanded as a condition of the
project.
Nowhere in the legislation was there any guarantee that
when a
project was designated for a separate agreement, that it would be a
union site. The intent and effect of the legislation was to ensure the
unrestricted rights of the oil and construction monopolies to "labour
peace" in the oil sands. This special project
status legislation was used by Canadian Natural Resources Limited
(CNRL), to shut out the unions on the Horizon oil sands project site
and
sign an agreement with the Christian Labour Association of Canada
(CLAC).
The Lougheed years saw the government preside over
unprecedented union-busting.
In 1984, the Contractors' Association locked out
building trades
across the province when their contracts expired. Twenty-four hours
later they declared that the collective agreements were null and void,
and unilaterally cut wages by 50 per cent and even more. The
anti-worker labour laws to this day permit the
contractors to establish as many paper companies as they like and force
the unions to recertify what is really the same company over and over
again. Work can simply be transferred from a unionized company to a
non-union "spin-off." Many workers still remember this bitter period,
both for its hardships and the
courageous battles fought in defence of the rights of all. Building
trades workers organized mass demonstrations at the Legislature, and
carried out actions on construction sites. They were known as a force
which stood as one with workers of every sector fighting for their
rights. For example, in 1986 hundreds of
out-of-work construction workers stood as one with the workers at
Gainers, returning day after day for the historic "Battle of 66th
Street" to defend the strike and keep scab replacement workers out of
the plant.
Prior to his election in 1971, Lougheed had promised
full collective
bargaining rights for public sector workers. But instead his years in
office saw the passage of laws which criminalized health care workers
and provincial government employees, making strikes illegal for
hospital workers through the passage
of Bill 44 in 1983 and for provincial government employees through
the Public Service Employees
Relations Act in 1977.
The United Nurses of Alberta (UNA) were forced on strike
twice
during the Lougheed era. During the first strike in 1980, the
government ordered the nurses back to work after three days through an
order in council. The nurses stood firm and refused to return to work.
The determination of the nurses and overwhelming
public support for their courageous stand forced the government to back
down and six days later UNA reached a negotiated settlement which met
virtually all of their demands.
Two years later, the Tory government tried to force the
nurses to
participate in a government-supervised vote to supercede the vote the
union had organized according to its constitution. UNA resisted this
attack on its members' right to decide, and the government retaliated
with legislation making it a criminal offence for a union to boycott a
government-supervised strike vote.
Nurses went on strike again in 1982 and this time the government used
back-to-work legislation which included large fines, decertification of
the union and banning workers from holding office in or working for a
trade union in Alberta for two years
for defiance.
Button
produced by the Alberta Federation of Labour during the campaign
against Bill 44. (Alberta
Labour History Institute).
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These attacks were followed by the passage of Bill 44 in
1983 which
made strikes illegal for all hospital workers. Bill 44 provided for
huge fines and suspension of dues collection for up to six months for
any union which upheld its members' right to decide their wages and
working conditions. Strikes of hospital
workers have been illegal since that time.
The first strikes of provincial government employees
also took place
during the Lougheed era, beginning with the strike of the Alberta
Liquor Board Employees and a two-day walkout of direct government
employees angered by the government's bad faith bargaining in 1980. The
Public Service Employees
Relations Act made strikes illegal and provided for compulsory
arbitration in
which the arbitrator had to consider government fiscal policy. Calgary
teachers were also subjected to back-to-work legislation in 1980 when
they walked out demanding that the government address the question of
class size, a battle which teachers
are still fighting to this day.
The Klein years are remembered for their brutal assaults
on public
sector workers and the privatization of many public services. But the
mythology of the golden years of Peter Lougheed has pushed into the
background the fact that between 1983 and 1984, layoffs of public
sector workers had reduced the membership
of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) by 10 per cent.
Workers should discuss what is behind this rewriting of
history,
especially the fact that it is designed to convince workers that there
is no need to develop their own independent working class politics and
new direction for the economy. The Lougheed era represents the old, not
the new which can only flourish
on the basis that the workers take up the responsibility to lead the
whole society by advancing a program to resolve the problems facing
society in a manner that favours the people, not the rich.
For Your Information: Peter Lougheed
Peter Lougheed was already part of
the Alberta ruling circles when he became premier in 1971. Coming from
an old Calgary family, he entered politics in the 1960s following his
grooming as vice-president of Alberta's privately-owned Mannix
Corporation, one of Canada's
largest construction monopolies and a major pipeline builder.
Lougheed's mentor, owner Fred Mannix, was one of four major capitalists
who in 1970 founded Alberta's Canada West Foundation, a research centre
for the home-grown western monopolies.[4]
Peter Lougheed's brother,
Don, was senior vice president
of Imperial Oil from 1975-81. Imperial is the Canadian subsidiary of
Rockefeller's Exxon (formerly Standard Oil of New Jersey) which struck
the Leduc #1 oil well in 1946 and currently runs Syncrude, Alberta's
largest oil sands monopoly.
Exxon first invaded Alberta through Imperial's 1920
takeover of
Calgary Petroleum Products (CPC), which hit the Dingman Well in 1914,
the first major oil strike in Alberta's Turner Valley. CPC was
co-founded by Peter's grandfather, Senator James Lougheed, future
Canadian Prime Minister R. B. Bennett
(Lougheed's law partner), and rancher A. E. Cross. James Lougheed was
one of Calgary's leading capitalists. He was lawyer for the dominant
CPR, Bank of Montreal and Hudson's Bay Company, director of other
major Canadian companies and an investor in numerous enterprises,
including Calgary Power and
the Calgary Herald and Calgary Albertan newspapers. During
the creation
of the province of Alberta, he led the campaign for provincial control
of mineral rights.[5]
After handing over the PC premiership to Imperial Oil
alumnus Don
Getty in 1985, Peter Lougheed joined his grandfather's Calgary law
firm, now called Bennett Jones. He has since served as a director of
many monopolies, including Royal Bank of Canada (the "oil" bank), the
Bush and CIA-linked Carlyle Group,
ATCO, Bechtel Canada, Burlington Resources, Canadian Hunter, CP
Limited, Luscar Coal (CEO), Norcen Energy, Northern Telecom and
Pacific Western Airlines. Currently, his main position is chairman of
Keyera, a 1998 energy spin-off from Gulf Canada Resources. Lougheed was
Co-Chair of the private sector
group that tried to sell the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement
to the Canadian people in 1988.
Due to his involvement in events related to the
patriation of the Constitution Act (1982),
Lougheed has presided over a number of Constitutional conferences,
including the conference sponsored by the Business Council on National
Issues (now called the Canadian Council of Chief Executives) in
1996. He is Canadian Co-Chair of the North American Forum, which
annually brings together "leaders and experts from government, business
and other communities to discuss the strategic challenges facing the
United States, Mexico and Canada." George Schultz, U.S. Secretary of
State under Ronald Reagan and
former CEO of Bechtel, is the U.S. co-chair. Lougheed is a member of
the U.S. Trilateral Commission, a think tank founded by David
Rockefeller in 1973 to advance the economic interests of the monopolies
in U.S., Europe and Japan.
Notes
1. The IRPP, founded 1972, is
Canada's oldest public policy think tank. It purports to be
non-partisan but its board of directors is rife with representatives of
the Canadian ruling circles: Jim Dinning, former Alberta Minister of
Education and CEO of Canada West Foundation; John Manley, CEO of the
Canadian Council of Chief Executives; Barbara McDougall, former
Minister of State for Privatization and director of Stelco; Anne
McClellan, former Minister of Justice and Deputy Prime Minister;
Jacques Menard, Chairman of BMO Nesbitt Burns; and Paul Tellier, who
served in the Mulroney government and led the privatization of the
Canadian National Railway.
2. The panel included Thomas
Axworthy, former chief speech writer to Pierre Trudeau; Thomas
Courchesne, neo-liberal economist; David Emerson, former minister in
the Harper government; Roger Gibbins, CEO of Canada West Foundation;
and Paul Tellier. For a complete list of panelists and their
affiliations, follow this link.
3. In 1980, Lougheed
facilitated ATCO's purchase of U.S.-owned International Utilities'
controlling shares in Calgary Power (now Transalta) and Canadian
Utilities. ATCO received a loan from the newly created state-owned
Alberta Heritage Trust Fund to buy the shares. This was followed by
substantial increases in utility fees through the state-owned Public
Utilities Board. Lougheed became a director of ATCO after stepping down
as premier.
The other
founders were G. Max Bell who accumulated his
considerable fortune mainly through Turner Valley oil, FP newspaper
chain, Alberta Eastern Natural Gas, and the CPR; A.J.E. Child, who
took over Alberta-based Burns Foods in 1986; and James Richardson, head
of the Winnipeg grain merchant family.
5. Alberta did not obtain full
control of its
resources until 1930.
Monument to Workers Killed on the Job
Unveiled in Edmonton
Workers Defend Their Right to
Health and Safety on the Job
- Mary Joyce -
On April 28, the Day of Mourning for workers
killed and injured on the job, a permanent memorial to these workers
was dedicated in Edmonton. 2012 is the centenary year of the founding
of the Alberta Federation of Labour and marks 100 years in which the
organized workers' movement has fought for workplace
safety in Alberta. To mark this centenary and the continued fight for
workplace safety, the Edmonton and District Labour Council (EDLC)
commissioned the building of a memorial obelisk. The obelisk is located
in Grant Notley Park at one of the most beautiful sites in Edmonton
overlooking the North Saskatchewan
River valley.
The idea to commission the memorial originated
with the late Tom Olenuk, President of the EDLC at the time of his
death, and was brought to fruition with the leadership of the current
President, Brian Henderson. Several years passed to raise necessary
funds of $200,000, which came from many unions,
and then the process began in the past year to design, source
materials, and work them into the desired shapes.
The monument has a concrete base with four sides,
each side with texts of a poem and of the names of the contributing
workers' organizations and individuals on bronze plaques. Above the
base rises a four-sided four-foot pyramid of concrete, supporting a ten
foot pyramid of black granite. Cladding
the concrete section of the pyramid are stainless steel panels of the
city skyline. Placed in front of the panels in an appropriate scale
are, on all four sides, the figures of families holding hands, modelled
in high relief and cast in bronze, with one member whose absence is
represented by their outline etched into the
steel background.
 
Detail
of the Obelisk design; Artist
Memi von Gaza speaks about her work.
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Materials in the piece include "Brits Blue"
granite, quarried in South Africa and shipped to Quebec to be cut and
polished; concrete for the base and the supporting structure in the
lower part of the obelisk, stainless steel sheets for cladding the four
lower sides with the contour of the city skyline enclosing
engraved and textured urban detail; and bronze for figures of the
family groups and the plaques fixed to the base.
Memi von Gaza, the artist designer of the work,
spoke about the project in an interview with TML. She is well known for
working with community groups in artistic projects directed towards the
public good. She explained that the EDLC asked her for three distinct
proposals. Their membership chose
the "Broken Families" design as well as the inscription proposed by
Michael Brown: "A broken family is still a family, only with broken
dreams, and broken hearts. Here stands a memorial for those who died at
work and those who are left behind. Look to the future, remember the
past, and let not their deaths be
in vain."
Memi explained that she took great care with the
poses of the families. They are in vigil, holding hands; they have a
dignified and deliberate stance, and they are all looking towards the
hole." A bereaved viewer recognized and gave voice to her affirmation
of his family's grief: "You've captured [that] we
have a hole in our family." While explaining that this affirmation
comes instinctively, Memi was clear on the process of producing the
four distinct family groups. Due to their scale, they needed to be
modelled in plasticine, rather than clay, to keep slender parts like
wrists intact. Next she made negatives of the groups
with silicone rubber, then, plaster positives from those negatives. A
local foundry, Behrends Bronze, working closely with her, cast them in
a sand process they have perfected over many years.
Many people contributed their talents, expertise
and vision in bringing the idea of the memorial to reality. Carpenters
Local 1325 designed and installed all the forms for the concrete that
had to go down 20 feet into the river bank for a three-stage winter
pour, requiring hoarding, heating, covering tarps
and security guards for a long period to allow the concrete to set.
Concrete had to be carefully fitted to the hand-hewn granite. The
talents of the staff at Edmonton Granite, Lance White Engineering who
made the drawings, the work of the project manager who coordinated the
entire project, the helpful advice of
the Edmonton Arts Council and the outstanding talents of the designers
and technicians at Behrends Bronze were all instrumental in the success
of the project.
As Henderson stated in opening the ceremony, the
monument stood in memory of all the workers killed on the job since
Alberta became a province in 1905. Official statistics record 10,665
deaths, but this does not include farmworkers and domestic workers, who
comprised the largest number of workers
in the first quarter century. Henderson stated that all those who died
and were injured are a subsidy paid to the employer and that only the
workers and their unions are seriously committed to keeping workers
safe on the job. For both governments and employers it is business as
usual, while they seek to limit public
outrage and carry out damage control.
The monument will stand as recognition of the
necessity to step up organized resistance in defence of healthy and
safe working conditions in Alberta. Even before the end of the ceremony
of unveiling, families and groups of workers were posing for
photographs in front of it.
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Daily
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
When Federal Minister of Human Resources and
Skills Development
Diane Finley chose Nisku, Alberta to announce what the Harper
dictatorship called a "more efficient and responsive temporary foreign
worker program," she made it Albertans' particular responsibility to
defeat
this modern day slavery scheme. She made the announcement during a tour
of an Advance Engineered
Products Ltd. facility.
TML also denounces the government for
its cynical response
to the tragedies and to the united stand of the people demanding a safe
highway. Following the mass protest organized on May 5, the government
sent double the number of police to monitor highway traffic.
The police handed
out many tickets and penalties for highway infractions and a barrage of
propaganda blamed the drivers for unsafe driving. All of it is to cover
up that the government both refuses to build the portion of highway to
which it and the federal government are committed and to hold the
monopolies that benefit from
the highway responsible for paying the entire costs of the
infrastructure they need to conduct business. It is criminal neglect
and they should be held to account.