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January 23, 2012 - No. 20
London Day of Action to Support
Locked-Out Caterpillar Workers
End the Lockout Now! Withdraw These
Concessions Now! All for One and One for All!
London
Day
of
Action
to
Support
Locked-Out
Caterpillar
Workers
• End the Lockout Now! Withdraw These
Concessions Now! All for One and One for All!
Anti-Social Privatization
Offensive in Toronto
• "No Board" Report Issued - David
Greig
• Torontonians Stand with Civic Workers in
Opposing City Budget Cuts
London Day
of Action to Support
Locked-Out Caterpillar Workers
End the Lockout Now! Withdraw These Concessions Now!
All for One and One for All!
On Saturday, January 21, thousands of workers converged
on Victoria Park in London, Ontario, to demand the U.S. monopoly
Caterpillar immediately lift its lockout of the Electro-Motive
Diesel workers and withdraw its outrageous demands for concessions. The
workers, members of Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) Local 27, have
been locked out since December 31, 2011 because they refuse to submit
to demands for concessions that include wage cuts of up to 50 per cent,
and the elimination of benefits and pensions. The lockout also comes
with threats that production may be moved to Muncie, Indiana.
The London rally firmly rejected this dictate and
defended the dignity of the Caterpillar workers and the people of
London. The substantive participation of workers from all over
Ontario provided ample evidence of the determination of Ontario workers
to deprive the monopolies such as Caterpillar, U.S.
Steel, Vale Inco, GM, Rio Tinto and all the others in all sectors of
the economy of their ability to act with impunity and impose an
unacceptable dictate on the workers who produce the wealth they and
society depend on for their living, security and peace of mind.
Contingents of workers and their allies came from as far
as Ottawa, Sudbury and Timmins. The largest was of course from London
itself. They were joined by militant contingents from Windsor, St.
Catharines, Hamilton, Brampton, Mississauga, Oakville, Toronto and
Oshawa, amongst others. Members of
CAW locals came out en masse
but so did all unions representing all
sectors of the economy. Youth and students, local residents and
activists of various community organizations added to the colourful sea
of flags and banners representing auto, steel, nickel, food, public
transit, the post office, health, education and other sectors, which
filled Victoria Square.
People carried signs of all descriptions denouncing the outrageous
demands for concessions put forward by Caterpillar and the refusal of
the Harper government to stand up for workers. Workers' representatives
from Chicago, Illinois and Erie, Pennsylvania,
also came to express their fighting unity with the Canadian workers.
 The presence of most of the
main federal and provincial
trade union leaders showed the importance they give the cause of the
Caterpillar workers -- Ken Georgetti, President of the Canadian Labour
Congress; Sid Ryan, President of the Ontario Federation of Labour; Dave
Coles, President of the Communications, Energy
and Paperworkers Union; Paul Moist, President of the Canadian Union of
Public Employees; Ken Neumann, National Director for Canada of the
United Steelworkers; and John Gordon, President of the Public Service
Alliance of Canada. NDP interim leader Nycole Turmel and local MPs and
MPPs were present,
as was London Mayor Joe Fontana and a group of city councillors. Mayor
Fontana delivered greetings from the City Council and added his voice
to all those demanding Caterpillar end its lockout in a way that is
acceptable to the workers and the city.
 Brianne Jones, daughter of
an EMD worker, spoke to the
experience of the younger generation when she said the lockout made her
understand that it is not the monopolies that secure working conditions
and living standards for the people but the workers themselves through
their struggle and that their fight
provides a future for the coming generations. Representatives of two
London community organizations -- the London Abused Women's Centre and
the Sisters of St. Joseph -- expressed the view of the community that
the
struggle of the Caterpillar workers is the struggle of all.
Bob Scott, CAW chairperson at Electro-Motive Diesel was
vigorously applauded when he said the fight of the plant's workers is
about a community, a province and a country and about the future of
coming generations. He said the union is ready to negotiate at any time
but attacking the membership is no basis
for negotiation.
CAW President Ken Lewenza stated the struggle is not
only for these 465 workers and their families but for the 450,000
manufacturing workers in Canada who have lost their jobs in the last
five
years. He denounced the Harper government for standing with
multinational corporations at the expense of Canadians. He said that is
was not only morally wrong for Caterpillar to receive tax incentives,
get tax breaks, etc. then lock out the EDM workers to enforce demands
for concessions, but that it was within the power of the Prime Minister
and the Government of Canada to legislate in the House of Commons that
it is legally wrong as well. He clearly said that
this is not a struggle which divides Canadian and American workers.
Canadian workers stand with the workers in Muncie, Indiana and with all
the workers in the world fighting for equality and economic justice, he
said.
What the Workers Had to Say
Throughout the rally TML
and Workers' Forum
journalists interviewed workers to find out their views on the
challenges they and their unions face at this time.
The workers took firm stands in support of all
workers under attack, mentioning specifically the locked out workers at
Rio Tinto in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, the Toronto City workers
threatened
with a lockout in order to destroy their job security provisions and
the York Region Transit Workers on strike
since last October against the international transit monopolies
contracted by the Municipality of York Region to operate its transit
system.
They said they were at the rally to put the Caterpillar
monopoly on notice, as well as all private monopolies and public sector
employers, that workers have rights belonging to them as producers of
the country's wealth and providers of the public services we all depend
upon, and that these rights must be recognized,
including union rights. They said governments must get the message that
they have a responsibility to defend workers' rights and make sure that
working conditions are proper and that the workers receive the security
in retirement they have earned and deserve. Many workers denounced
Stephen
Harper's visit to Electro-Motive
Diesel in 2008 to announce tax breaks for Caterpillar. Others denounced
all these pay-the-rich schemes which are always justified in the name
of job creation and job security. They denounced the claim that the
government will not intervene in a private corporation as if giving
Caterpillar public money and Caterpillar
pocketing the public money is a private affair!
Anti-Social
Privatization
Offensive
in
Toronto
"No Board" Report Issued
- David Greig -
As requested by Toronto's Ford administration, on
Thursday, January 19 Ontario's Labour Minister issued a "no board"
report for the negotiations between the city and about 6,000 of its
workers belonging to CUPE Local 416 whose contract expired on December
31. Since talks between the two sides began in
late autumn, the city has pursued the imposition of unacceptable terms:
the destruction of job security and layoff/rehire/redeployment/shift
scheduling and other protections that put some limits on workplace
dictate by city management, and the degradation of workers' benefits,
among
other things.
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The Ford regime's representatives have likewise rushed
this process by requesting conciliation already on December 15 in order
to arrive as soon as possible at Thursday's declaration of impasse and
then after 17 days to be able to initiate a lockout. Together with the
unacceptable kind of demands for concessions,
this is evidence of failure to really bargain in good faith. It shows
instead the regime's will to disrupt public services in order to
force submission to its aim: clearing away obstacles to further public
service privatization and elimination, and tearing down a standard for
the security and well-being of those who
provide the services and for other workers as well.
On the other hand, the workers have demonstrated their
will to negotiate to achieve a collective agreement acceptable to both
sides for as long as required without disrupting public services. To
that
end, they offered to accept a wage freeze to which the city responded
with another unacceptable demand of the same
sort to deprive employees who have been permanent for less than 25
years of their job
security in return for an insulting lump sum payment. The city has
sought to justify its inflexibility by dishonestly presenting its aims
of broad job and service destruction as an urgent and unavoidable
necessity, rather than the narrow and self-serving
objective of the anti-social forces in power representing monopoly
interest and the rich here and at other levels of government.
The Ford regime merits condemnation for its anti-social
and anti-worker stance which disregards the well-being of the people of
Toronto and the workers who provide public services, as does the Labour
Minister for facilitating this regime's schemes. The city must abandon
its course and bargain in good faith to
achieve an acceptable agreement without disrupting public services. Let
us stand solidly with the city workers in this just struggle that
belongs to us all.
Torontonians Stand with Civic Workers in
Opposing City Budget Cuts
Toronto civic workers are engaged in a sharp struggle
with the Ford administration over its attempts to destroy their job
security and other protections, degrade benefits, and privatize or
eliminate the public services they provide. Their fight is at the
centre of the broad struggle against the anti-social Ford agenda
and is a main obstacle in the way of it continuing the city-wrecking
agenda.
On January 17, more than 2,000 people rallied in front
of City Hall to "Stop the Cuts." City and other public sector workers,
public school and transit employees, and community and neighbourhood
organizations opposed the Ford regime's agenda of privatization,
service cuts and user fee increases.
This rally against the Ford agenda was organized to
coincide with the discussion and vote by City Council on the draft 2012
city budget that contained a broad range of cuts to jobs and services
even after some changes at the Budget and Executive Committees. There
has been widespread mobilization against these
cuts, and in the council session the Ford administration lost a number
of votes on amendments. These eliminated from the budget a number of
service cuts worth about $20 million affecting child-care subsidies,
school pools, shelters, ice rinks, community grants, mechanized leaf
collection and TTC bus routes.
However, the amended budget, finally adopted 39-5 as the
rally took place, still had more than $68 million in service cuts.
These will lay off more than a thousand workers, defer hiring of more
than 450 (among them emergency service workers), close some public
pools and reduce street cleaning, recreational,
environmental, horticultural and forestry spending, close the High Park
zoo, and increase the fees for garbage collection, among other things.
So the anti-social drive of the Ford regime continues
with the remaining cuts in this budget and especially the other
initiatives it is pursuing or planning. Residential garbage
privatization from Yonge St. to the Humber River is being implemented
in 2012, with the declared intention of doing so in the rest of the
city as well. Custodial staff paid $22 per hour are being replaced by
private contractors paying workers half as much. The regime is
attempting to destroy the standard security, terms of
work and defence organizations of the 30,000 city workers whose
contracts expired on December 31. Likewise,
it is moving further on the sale of city entities and property like a
share of Toronto Hydro and Toronto Community Housing homes, all in line
with the aim of getting rid of "anything that's not nailed down."
The failure of the city administration to realize
several of its anti-social intentions contained in the original budget
proposals is significant since it shows there are possibilities for
defeating the Ford regime. The civic workers are the main target,
especially their job security provisions which are an obstacle for
the privatization agenda.
 
  
  
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