Workers Must Fight for a Resolution that Defends the Rights of the Wet'suwet'en and the Rights of All !
- Pierre
Chénier -
Mass action blocking rail tracks in Toronto, February 15, 2020.
Hysteria in the monopoly media about rail
blockades and other actions that are disrupting transportation in
support of the Wet'suwet'en land defenders has grown exponentially
since Via Rail and CN announced they are shutting down services. On
February 13, CN announced it was closing down its Eastern Canadian
network, and on February 14, Via Rail announced it was cancelling most
of its services Canada-wide. This led many media to predict catastrophe
for the Canadian economy, and ramp up threats of secession in the West
and of Canada breaking up, with the railway being some sort of symbol
of Canadian unity. Calls for "government intervention" to forcefully
remove the blockades are increasing.
The political crisis that has been triggered by
the RCMP invasion, again, of Wet'suwet'en land and violation of the
rights of the Wet'suwet'en to decide who can come on their territory
and for what purpose, is presented as being of no importance to
Canadians. The 'solution' that is being called for is to extend the
police violation to all those who are taking a stand in solidarity with
the Wet'suwet'en land defenders so as to get the trains moving again.
 Workers are all
too familiar with the characterization of anyone who challenges the
dictate of those in power as being illegitimate, troublemakers,
criminals. Every day, workers defending their wages and working
conditions are vilified as criminals. The workers at the Regina Co-op
Refinery who are resisting the demands of the owners that they agree to
a significant reduction in pensions they previously negotiated have
been arrested and fined for taking actions to stop the company from
continuing production using management and scabs. Railway workers and
postal workers, amongst others, have repeatedly faced back-to-work
legislation when their employers needed state and police support to
impose unacceptable conditions on them.
Underlying the hysteria about the effects of
disruption to transportation services is the attempt to get the working
class to side with the ruling elite who refuse to shed the old colonial
relations and establish nation-to-nation relations with the
Wet'suwet'en and other Indigenous nations.
Workers are not supposed to concern themselves
with the state violence being used against Indigenous peoples; their
only concern is supposed to be that their livelihood should not be
impacted through layoffs and other means. Workers are alternately
considered troublemakers and disrupters of rule of law and the national
and regional economy when they wage mass actions in defence of their
rights, and as bystanders when Indigenous nations and their allies wage
mass actions to defend Indigenous rights such as is the case with the
rail and other blockades.
What is hidden is the profound stake that workers
have in pointing out that these events highlight the fact that the
Canadian state and its police powers do not allow the relations between
people and political authority to be sorted out, and that democratic
renewal is the order of the day. Those who are advocating further
violence by the state under the hoax of defending the economy, the rule
of law, or Canadian unity, are defending the power and the privilege of
the few and the whole colonial state structure that is depriving people
of the power to control their lives.
While Canadian trade unions have scores of
resolutions in defence of Indigenous peoples, these make sense only if
they mean something when times get difficult and the economic and
political status quo is being challenged.
Workers know what it means to be criminalized when
one is waging struggles to win justice in a situation where all of the
arrangements that are supposed to give you a voice and say have been
wrecked to the benefit of global private interests. The situation calls
for the Canadian and Quebec working class to take a stand in defence of
the rights of the Wet'suwet'en Land Defenders, against the violence of
the colonial state and for political solutions that favour the people.
This article was published in
Volume 50 Number 4 - February 15, 2020
Article Link:
Workers Must Fight for a Resolution that Defends the Rights of the Wet'suwet'en and the Rights of All ! -->Workers Must Fight for a Resolution that Defends the Rights of the Wet'suwet'en and the Rights of All !
Website: www.cpcml.ca
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