Denounce State-Organized Attacks on Workers' Right to Defend Their Claims and Working Conditions – Stand with Postal Workers!
Red Deer, December 2, 2024
The current Canada Post strike started just three days after the federal government issued an order for binding arbitration to negate the struggle between dockworkers and employers at the ports of Montreal and Quebec City and the ports in BC. This state interference in the dockworkers' struggle was preceded last August by a government order to negate negotiations and force binding arbitration in the struggle between rail workers and their employers, Canadian National (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC). Prior to that in June of this year, the government also negated the struggle between WestJet mechanics and the company by imposing binding arbitration after the mechanics issued a strike notice. All these government interventions have occurred during the present negotiations between postal workers organized in the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) and Canada Post. In fact, the most recent contract between CUPW organized workers and their employer is the result of government imposed binding arbitration to negate their struggle using a back-to-work order in 2018.
In a class society such as Canada, where the working class sells its capacity to work (wages, benefits, pensions) to those who own and control the economy, the struggle over the price of the capacity to work and working conditions is constant. The employer holds the power to hire and fire workers. If individual workers, without any collective defence organization, do not agree with the price offered for the sale of their capacity to work, they have little power other than to refuse to work for the employer. Organized collectively, workers who do not agree with the price of their capacity to work and conditions of their employment have the power to withdraw their working capacity until an acceptable arrangement is found.
The prevailing relations of production where the working class
is compelled to sell its capacity to work to those who own and
control
the economy and the produced social value puts workers in a
defensive
position. Defending their claims on the social value they
produce
against those who own and
control it and the material means of producing social wealth
compels
the working class to organize and wage collective struggles.
This
defensive struggle remains constant as long as the ownership and
control of the material means of production are not in the hands
of the
actual producers, the
working class.
The alternative is socialized ownership and control of the material
means of production and the social value produced by the actual
producers, the working class. With control workers would be able to
decide collectively how that social wealth should be distributed for the
betterment of themselves, the economy, the peoples of the country and
the world, and Mother Earth.
Ownership and control of the economy is reflected in control of
the state machinery. Control of the state machinery, including
government, its agencies and police and military forces, allows the
owners of the economy to maintain their dictate over the means of
production and the distribution of the social value. Much of the wealth
produced by the workers is funnelled to these private interests and used
for their protection and maintenance as the ruling class. This is
evident in government budgets geared to war and increasing repression,
not social programs.
Control of the state machinery, including governments and their agencies, allows the private owners of the economy to maintain the working class as a dominated class. Workers who do not control the socialized economy are forced to sell their capacity to work as their main means to acquire a living and claim a certain amount of the social value they produce.
The class struggle over the price of the capacity to work and working conditions creates constant disruption because the working class, to defend itself and force employers to negotiate terms of employment, must withhold its capacity to work from time to time. The disruption to the economy through strikes and lockouts is real and meaningful as it should be if the struggle of the working class is to have the desired impact to force an employer to negotiate terms of employment that come near to what the working class has decided they can accept for the time being.
Employers of workers in those sectors of the economy that
directly affect the whole, such as dock, rail and postal workers use the
disruption of the economy that occurs as a weapon to blame the workers
and to refuse to negotiate. They use the state through the power of
government to force workers back to work on threat of severe punishment.
This allows the owners to dictate and not negotiate an agreement that
is satisfactory to the workers.
For those in control of Canada Post the modus operandi has
become to refuse to negotiate with postal workers and then lock
them
out or force workers to strike. In all these struggles, the
employers
seek to generate a crisis atmosphere throughout the country and
use
control of the mass media to
turn public opinion against workers to create conditions for
government
intervention to negate the struggle and force binding
arbitration. These actions mean continued public support for the postal workers, and all those on strike is critical.
How does the situation pose itself? The state is customarily organizing interference in the struggles of the working class who seek to reach an agreement with their employers on the price of the capacity to work and working conditions. This state-organized interference cannot go unchallenged, as it has become a customary aspect of working class struggles. The working class cannot accept such anti-people, unjust undemocratic dictates of the ruling imperialist elite using the power of their state machine.
The ruling elite, their state machine and companies must be told to come to their senses and negotiate with the working class to find working arrangements that workers can accept. Arbitrary dictate using the state machine to threaten punishment for defending workers' rights is unacceptable in the modern world where democracy, social justice and equilibrium are what the people demand. The working class has the right to decide for itself if the terms of employment are acceptable or not, and to use the power of withholding their capacity to work as a means to reach an arrangement with employers. State interference on behalf of employers cannot be tolerated within the present division of society where one social class owns and controls the means of production and the vast majority of people are forced to sell their capacity to work in order to live.
The ruling class has made it clear in its actions and words in the media, which it controls, that it wants to privatize most of Canada Post and turn workers throughout the communications and delivery sector into part-time gig workers to negate their rights with little chance of a collective defence to negotiate their terms of employment. This would allow those who own and control the economy to expropriate even greater amounts of the social value workers produce and drive down the general standard of living of Canadians.
The situation calls on Canadians to stand as one with CUPW workers and support their strike struggle to reach an agreement with Canada Post that satisfies their demands in the current period. Canadians must make it clear that they are one with postal workers in demanding a just settlement to this dispute.
The interference of the state on behalf of big employers must stop! The working class cannot accept any violation of its rights. Government orders to end strikes without a negotiated settlement agreeable to workers are unjust and undemocratic and are rightly being opposed. The working class has the fundamental right to say No! to the state's violation of the right of workers to withhold their capacity to work to force a settlement of their claims on the value they produce and for working conditions agreeable to themselves.
Stand firm in defence of workers' rights against any unjust government demand for postal workers to return to work without a negotiated settlement agreeable to the majority of workers. Stand with postal workers! Their struggle is our struggle!
Picket
organized by International Longshore and
Warehouse
Union pensioners in support of striking postal workers, December 5, 2024.
This article was published in
Monday,
December 9, 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/ITN2024/Articles/TI54653.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca