December 31, 2011 - No. 23
2011 in Review
Workers' Movement Builds Up Its
Resistance
and Organization
2011 saw the working class movement break new ground in
various places. The challenge in 2012 is to extend this trend
throughout the country and make it the Year for Resistance &
Organization, the Year of the Working Class!
Steelworkers in Hamilton
under the leadership of Local
1005 USW upheld their dignity and emerged with honour from an
eleven-month battle with U.S. Steel. Steelworkers strengthened their
social consciousness and outlook of the working class as the rising
leader of society. They developed new forms of organizing
to empower their membership to participate consciously in analyzing the
concrete conditions, make decisions as a collective on strategy and
tactics, and as individuals carry out those decisions responsibly. In
doing so, steelworkers strengthened their independent voice in Hamilton
and made headway in how to unite the community behind
their working class agenda to defend their rights and the rights of all
against monopoly right and to build a self-reliant and diverse economy
under the control of Canadians.
Elsewhere, Air Canada and Canada Post workers took bold
steps to defend their rights against both the executive thieves and
Harper dictatorship. Through unjust and disruptive Parliamentary and
bureaucratic measures to negate the rights of postal and airline
workers, the state machine led by the Harperites stands
exposed as a tool of the owners of monopoly capital against the working
class.
Political action against
the working class was
duplicated in Quebec with legislation to attack construction workers
and in Ontario to deny public sector workers the right to strike in
defence of their living and working conditions. In BC, the political
class in power is directly interfering in the education sector
attacking
teachers and deliberately weakening public education to privatize it
through stealth and transfer the education of BC youth into the
clutches of global monopolies. In Toronto, a most reactionary
anti-worker cabal within the political class has seized power. The
Toronto Ford gang is bent on privatizing "anything that's
not nailed down" to hand the city's entire actual and potential assets
to its monopoly patrons, lay off and impoverish large numbers of city
workers, and generally make the city unliveable for the working class.
None of these attacks has
cowed or disheartened workers
who are resisting with renewed vigour. Quebec construction workers are
persisting in the struggle to defend their rights, as are public sector
workers in Ottawa and throughout the country. Education workers in BC
and students in Quebec are actively engaged
in defending both the working conditions of teachers and the right to
free high-quality public education. Workers are challenging monopoly
right and the absolute power of the political class and through
conscious participation in the battle are learning what more has to be
done to turn the situation around in favour
of the people.
A New Equilibrium Based on
the Recognition of Rights
The refusal of the global
monopolies and their political
representatives to recognize public right and the rights of the actual
producers, the working class, has created disequilibrium in the
country. Disequilibrium is reflected in the inability and unwillingness
of the global monopolies and political class to solve
the economic crisis in favour of the people. Even worse, the global
monopolies and political class are using the crisis as an excuse to
extort concessions, consolidate their economic and political power and
block the working class from assuming positions of authority to put
into practice its own pro-social program
and agenda to resolve problems and the crisis in a manner that serves
the interests of the people and society.
Contrary to the ravings of the Harper dictatorship that
the working class is responsible for disrupting the economy, the
disequilibrium and associated economic crisis are a direct result of
those in authority blocking the working class from giving a new
direction to the economy and solving problems, and from
the continuing attacks on the
rights of the working class and society
such as the following -- the privatization of public services including
city services, public education and health care; the extortion of
workers for concessions including attacks on their pensions; the
disruptive interference of governments into the affairs
of working class organizations and attempts to disrupt and sabotage
their defence activities and organizing; the elimination of social
programs under the medieval banner of "fend for yourself"; the
neoliberal sell out of the country to global monopolies under the
discredited banner of "free trade" that wrecks manufacturing
while turning the basic economy into a polluted cheap source of
unfinished or semi-finished raw materials; the refusal to police
foreign and domestic monopoly investment to ensure that it benefits
Canadians such as at U.S. Steel, Vale, Xstrata and Resolute Forest
Products (AbitibiBowater); the refusal to recognize
the rights of First Nations, pay reparations for the harm colonialism
has caused and allow them to build and control an economic base in
their territories; the increasing ease of governments handing over
public money to private monopolies in pay-the-rich schemes; the refusal
to organize public not-for-profit financial
institutions as a secure place for savings and insurance, and internal
source of development money for nation-building; the unlawful
destruction of public institutions such as the Canadian Wheat Board;
the forcing of P3s on municipalities so that global monopolies can
seize Canada's water, hospitals, infrastructure
and other public assets, in sum the domination of monopoly
right over
public right and the refusal to recognize the rights of the working
class. All this and more results in disequilibrium that the working
class refuses to accept. This is our economy and our country. Workers
demand nothing less than their rights and
equilibrium in the country based on the recognition of those rights.
The events of 2011 taught
the working class that
equilibrium can only be established through the conscious participation
of individuals in organizing into defence collectives and bringing the
full weight of their numbers, determination and social consciousness
into the class battle. The global monopolies, Harper dictatorship and
other
levels of government will continue to refuse to
recognize the rights of workers unless confronted and held to account
by a conscious, organized and determined Workers' Opposition.
In 2012, let's get organized and bring workers' strength
of
numbers, determination and social consciousness into actions with
analysis to defend the rights of all and for a new equilibrium based on
the recognition of workers' rights that prepares conditions for a
human-centred alternative!
In 2012, let's bring working class organizing and
activity to a
level that establishes a working class trend and new direction for the
economy and politics that cannot be stopped!
Whose
Economy?
Our
Economy!
Whose Country? Our Country!
In 2012 Build the Workers' Resistance and Organization!
2011 Photo Review
Read The Marxist-Leninist
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Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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