June 6, 2014 - Vol. 3 No. 41

June 12 Election -- A New Direction for the Economy Is Needed

The Ontario Economy Is Not Working

June 1 Election -- A New Direction for the Economy Is Needed
• The Ontario Economy Is Not Working
• Crisis in Ontario's Auto Assembly and Parts Industry
• Closure of Unilever Plant Further Undermines Ontario Food Processing

June 12 Election -- A New Direction for the Economy Is Needed

The Ontario Economy Is Not Working

In the Ontario election, the Liberals and PCs are vying to present themselves as the party which can bring investment and jobs to the province. Since 1995, Ontario has suffered through Liberal and PC governments. Both governments have preached and practiced neo-liberal politics. No substantial difference exists between the two parties except quibbles over how best to implement their anti-social austerity agenda. The results of their disastrous run in power, together with the Harperites federally, are daily provided by reports that show the manufacturing base of the Ontario economy is crumbling and the living standards of the people are disintegrating. The public services on which the people rely including public education and healthcare are deteriorating, as investment funds are shifted to schemes that directly enrich the private sector especially the global monopolies. Social programs have been cut leaving the people to fend for themselves.

Both the Liberals and PCs attack the public sector and the hardworking public employees who provide the province's necessary services. Privatization of public enterprise has been a constant theme leaving government with less revenue and the people at the mercy of big companies. The Liberal government went out of its way to attack the rights of teachers and other education workers in a major assault on public education. The Hudak PCs have declared war on the public sector stating a PC government would fire 100,000 public sector workers.

Top left to bottom right: Mass rally in London at Electro Motive Diesel lockout, January 2012; protest after closure of Vertis printing in Fort Erie, January 2013; protest against permanent closure of Stelco blast furnace by U.S. Steel, November 2013; Ontario Day of Action against Cuts, April 2012; Ontario teachers' and education workers' opposition to Bill 115; Ontario Public Service workers fight to defend their wages and working conditions, March 2014.

Both parties say their goal is to help monopolies become competitive on the global market. To this end, they provide the monopolies public funds, public and social infrastructure at a fraction of its price of production and an end to government regulations or red tape as they call them.

If indeed, the policies and practices of the Liberals and PCs have made certain global monopolies competitive, they have repaid the government's largesse by asking government for yet more handouts, demanding workers claim less of the value they produce and often firing some or all of their workers, closing up shop in Ontario and moving their operations elsewhere. Making monopolies competitive has become synonymous with giving them free rein to do as they please such as stopping production in Ontario yet continuing to sell their products here, which are made elsewhere.

The Liberals and PCs do not see social problems as issues that must be solved but as ones holding importance only if they can enrich big companies through private schemes. Raw material resources are not considered crucial means to build a self- reliant all-sided economy based on manufacturing and public services. Rather, they are seen as private commodities that the big resource companies can pillage using publicly supplied infrastructure while leaving nothing behind to show for the value the workers have pulled from the ground except pollution to clean up, deserted work camps, unresolved social problems, and one- sided isolated local economies incapable of existing on their own.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The Liberals and PCs have brought Ontario an austerity economic pie and the taste is not good. Handing over the economy to the rich and their big companies is bad for the economy and people. The neo-liberal direction of the Liberals and PCs is not working and does not deserve your vote. The independent and practical politics of the working class in this election is to organize and work hard to deny the Liberals and PCs a majority government. By keeping the parties of the rich to a minority government, the working class movement can use its strength to hold the government to account. After the election, the working class movement through its independent and practical politics will continue to build momentum for a new direction for the economy that serves the people of Ontario and not the rich and their naked ambition to dominate the world.

In this election, vote to defeat the Liberals and PCs! No to austerity!

Crisis in Ontario's Auto Assembly and Parts Industry

Reports are piling up of the extended crisis in Ontario's manufacturing sector and the auto industry in particular. Despite receiving billions of dollars in public funds, the auto assembly and parts monopolies are not investing in Ontario. The sector is still a full 15 per cent below pre-2008 levels in terms of shipments and has recovered only 8,300 of the 43,400 jobs lost between 2007 and 2009.

The crisis continues despite motor vehicle sales recovering fully in Canada to a record 1.8 million last year and 15.9 million in the United States, which is almost equal to pre-crisis levels.

The assembly and parts monopolies have shifted production to Mexico and the southern United States. Investment in Canadian facilities has slowed to barely one-third of what it was in 2007, which means facilities are not being renewed let alone expanded. A survey of Ontario manufacturers predicts a further 14 per cent decline in the parts sector and a 29 per cent drop in the truck body and trailer manufacturing facilities.

Canada's share in North American production of auto products has fallen below 14 per cent from highs in the twenty per cent, which reflects the fall in investment. This decline has a direct negative effect on other sectors, such as Ontario's steel industry.

Another disturbing trend since Canada and Ontario became ensnared in NAFTA and imperialist globalization is the privatization of imports and exports. The most powerful monopolies have been given the right to remove production facilities from Ontario and Canada yet continue selling their commodities in the country. No connection is demanded between production and sales within the country; under neo-liberal globalization, both production and sales are considered the purview of the private monopolies and not that of governments serving the public interest.

The province needs a new direction in the economy not more of the same promised by the Ontario Liberals and PCs. Deny the parties of imperialist globalization a majority in the Ontario election.

Manufacturing Yes! Nation-Wrecking No!

Closure of Unilever Plant Further Undermines
Ontario Food Processing

On May 8, the second day of the provincial election campaign, Unilever announced that it will close its Brampton dry mixes food plant in 2016, destroying the livelihood of 280 workers. The plant has been in operation for 51 years and the workers produce more than 30 million cases of packaged dried soups (Lipton) and sauces (Knorr) a year. The company announced that it will move this production to a plant in Independence, Missouri. Unilever also closed its plant in Peterborough in 2009, where it produced ready-to-serve soups and tomato sauces, with production being moved elsewhere or transferred to a third party.

In the past year an estimated 50,000 manufacturing jobs have been destroyed across Canada, of which more than 24,000 have been in Ontario. The past year alone in Ontario's food industry has seen Heinz announce the closure of its plant in Leamington, Kellogg the closure of its cereal plant in London and Christie's the closure of its bakery in Etobicoke.

Unilever is an Anglo-Dutch multinational consumer goods company co-headquartered in London, England and Rotterdam, Netherlands. Its products include food, beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products. It is the third-largest consumer goods company in the world based on 2012 revenue, after Procter & Gamble and Nestlé. It has a work force of approximately 163,000 people in 100 countries worldwide and sells its products in more than 170 countries.

Brampton plant manager Paul Browning was quick to insist that Unilever had not asked the Ontario government for any financial aid or incentives to induce them to stay and will not be doing so. He also made it quite that the owners do not consider that they have any responsibility to account for their wrecking of the Ontario economy or to come to any arrangement to keep the plant operating. According to Browning and Unilever, this was a private business decision that "made sense" for "logistical and strategic reasons" as 80 per cent of the production from the Brampton plant is shipped to the U.S. for sale.

"Looking at the next 50 years in our savoury business, it became clear that we would need a major technical upgrade to state-of-the-art facilities. So it wasn't a matter of upgrading -- it's really a matter of an entirely new plant," John Le Boutillier, chief executive officer of Unilever Canada, is quoted as saying in an interview.

It is high time the Ontario economy produce the goods and services needed in Ontario. Goods sold in Ontario have to be produced somewhere. Why shouldn't the dried soups and sauces Unilever sells here actually be produced here? Is the issue really that plants cannot be modernized or is it that governments refuse to take up their social responsibility to defend the public interest and workers' rights, and hold the monopolies to account? The subservience of the Ontario and Canadian governments to the foreign multinationals does not even permit discussion of the need for a human-centred self-reliant economy.

The people of Ontario want governments that use their authority to uphold and enforce arrangements with monopolies based on mutual benefit and recognition of the rights of workers, farmers, suppliers and their communities. The fact that governments refuse to do so highlights the importance of the working people building their own Workers' Opposition to challenge monopoly right.

The Brampton plant is located in the riding of Bramalea-Gore-Malton where the NDP is striving to defend its seat in the Legislature against a Liberal takeover, while the PCs are also hoping to make gains in this 905 riding. The workers should make sure they defend the riding against any attempt by the Liberals or PCs to take it over! Make sure neither Liberals or PCs get a majority in this election!