Labour mobilizes support for locked-out Electro-Motive workers

This is good news!

They should be glad in London North that they have an MP in federal government to fight for workers.

In principle, governments CAN do just about anything. Obviously we are not going to get that from either of the governments in question.

So the question is what can an NDP opposition propose that government would do, which brings us back to governments can do just about anything.... but there are practical limits on what even a government with political will can do.

Either government could flat out bar the closing of a plant. But that would be an empty gesture, since there is no power to make companies invest.

Which leaves the possibility of nationaling the plant. Always a popular call on this board and in a small sector of the NDP. You can scream invective at the rest of us all you want, there is no appetite in the NDP for turning back the clock like that. Not going to happen.

That still leaves a lot of territory where a government can 'legislate the parameters' to the point that,  for example in this case, it leaves Catepillar still with the nominal power to not make a serious offer and close the plant when/if the 'offer' is rejected.... but makes it so unattractive for Catepillar that they are hobbled from going that route.

How a government does that is an essentially technical question that depends entirely on the specifics of each case. But there is always a way to do it.

It gets a lot more sticky for an opposition party making proposals- because a lot of the legislative tools that would be used are complex enough to make them difficult to explain on the public stage- and even more difficult to defend against attack.

Even being more difficult for a political party it's still a question of political will.

But for starters, and maybe the biggest single weapon anyway, there is how the governments use labour law. Harper and Raitt are showing how federal powers are used to tilt heavily against unions. The NDP can do the opposite.

Even there, its no slam dunk. If a government even says that it thinks Catepillar is not bargaining in good faith, that has a very material effect on the balance of power. But the opposition party saying what effect the federal government could have even from expressing its opinion, meh. 

But I think you do that as a minimum anyway: call attention as loudly as possible to what Catepillar is doing, and that the federal government should discourage them and demand they bargian in good faith.

But I'm not hopeful of this babbysitter federal NDP leadership having the chops to do this- even with the interim leader being politicaly based in the trade union movement.

Its not thread drift at all, as far as the what governments and opposition parties do.

Its a big part of the problem.

Hard enough to get the NDP serious about playing hardball in this. And when [if] we get there- we do not generally discuss the gigantic elephant in the room:

When companies go this hardball route where the plant either closes or the workers take whatever the company wants to give them, part of that is the hard realities of economics in the particular industry. Standing tough does not solve that, it only gives you the opportunity to solve that.

Without the chance to try, you are finished. So fighting for that comes first. But for the unions and for governments/political parties its just a stay of execution.

I hope that everyone in this thread understands that international capitalism has entered into a new phase, and that any means of retaining sovereignty when it comes to maniipulating monetary as well as fiscal policy, is going to become fundamental to survival. Just is case anyone was tempted to enter into a "circularity of history" explanation of what is being experienced now.

I thought it was a good question.

The follow-ups to the possible answer could turn eventually into something snotty. Discussions are like that. But 'snotty' just isnt in the question.

Nor is the question just 'what did the MSM report about what the ONDP says?'

Not to mention that if this is a priority, the ONDP is able to make sure it goes beyond press releases no one reads.

"As a wholly owned subsidiary of Caterpillar, the world's leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines and industrial gas turbines, we are in a unique position to offer the widest range of products and services possible, including the most fuel efficient, environmentally friendly locomotive engines, to railroads in every area of the world."

http://www.progressrail.com/

Ken Lewenza was on P&P about this, made a really strong case for his workers. Evan Solomon kept hammering away at the Conservatives trying to get a commitment from them that Caterpillar will be held to account if they leave. Then an excellent panel on corporate salaries. Conservatives are arguing that Caterpillar's costs are half in the USA than what they are here, and that unions have to deal with that reality. The Con rep refused to discuss whether Caterpillar's profits and CEO salaries are fair when they want to cut worker's salaries in half and take away pensions. Let's all face reality - with the Conservatives in power, we're all fucking doomed.

I don't believe anything from the mouth of conservatives.

From a CAW backgrounder:

There are 465 CAW Members at Electro-Motive Diesel

The employer has demanded the following concessions....

• $21 million annually reduction in wages and time off per year.

• $1.5 million dollars per year in benefit cost reductions.

• $6.9 million dollars cut out of Pension and Retiree benefit costs

• $10 million dollars out of the SUB fund.

The savings listed above would be gained by concessions the employer has tabled in the following areas:

• A wage reduction for all classifications. The deepest cut is $18.50 per hour for about 50% of the workforce.

• Elimination of the Defined Benefit Pension Plan

• Elimination of retiree benefits

• Substantial reduction in shift premiums

• Elimination of COLA

• Reduction in overtime compensation

• Elimination of 4 holidays annually

• Elimination of vacation of between 64 and 120 hours of vacation time

• Elimination of survivor income benefits, income maintenance plan, SUB plan, SWW protection, maternity top, retiree medical, retiree life insurance etc...

• 25% co-pay for the cost of premiums of medical, drug, dental, vision, hearing aid coverage

• 25% co-pay at time of purchase of the cost of drugs

• Major reduction in dental and other benefit coverage amounts

• Elimination of protection of skilled trades work

OFL to mobilize massive rally in London against caterpillar Inc.
London Day of Action declared for Saturday, January 21 at 11 am

(LONDON, ON) -- The Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) today issued a call to workers across Ontario to mobilize for a massive rally in London, Ontario on Saturday, January 21 to oppose Electro-Motive Canada (a subsidiary of U.S. industrial giant Caterpillar Inc.) and its attack on decent paying Canadian jobs.

“We see this fight as being central to the entire labour movement and we are going to dig in our heels and fight Caterpillar with everything we’ve got,” said OFL President Sid Ryan. “Good jobs and retirement security are being threatened by greedy corporations and every level of government. If workers don’t start to fight back, decent jobs will become a thing of the past and the middle class will be decimated.”

McGuinty Sounds Off On Electro-Motive Labour Derailment

Essentially, McGuinty wants both sides to "moderate" their tone, and he'll provide a mediator.

Harper and his cronies are saying this can't be compared to Air Canada intervention, because Electro-Motive is provincial jurisdiction. They also say that they gave no specific grants, loans, etc. to EMD, so there's nothing to threaten to "take back".

The scariest comments come from Yvon Godin:

Thanks a whole lot, Yvon. That's what we need - more back-to-work legislation. In any event, Harper can't legislate anyone, because (as the Cons correctly point out) it's provincial jurisdiction. Thank goodness Godin doesn't know which level of government to ask for intervention.

Well, McGuinty has apparently satisfied the first "demand". As for the "millions in tax breaks", they were changes in tax rules - not specific to EMD, so they can't be "returned".

There is at least this:

"EMD is not bargaining in good faith, and both levels of government need to use the tools available to them to get the employer to play a resonsible role..."

Great links, thanks Fidel!

Looks like a huge success - estimates of attendance at the rally (which just ended a while ago) ranged as high as 15,000. Though we have much bigger May Day and political demos in Québec, I'm hard pressed to recall a rally this big dealing with a specific labour struggle in recent history.

Congratulations to Ontario workers for their big show of solidarity!

Toronto Star:

http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1119295--thousands-turn-out-for-lond...

Yes!

Caterpillar Picketed Today in a Dozen Canadian Cities

Not to toot my own horn too loudly but the article I wrote: What will it take to win the lockout at Electro-Motive Diesel? was published on rabble.ca today. It was really great to be able to talk to the workers first-hand about thier thoughts on strategy for the lockout. I only wish I had more time to talk to more of them and get to know them better. They are a fantastic group of people.

Why will the workers stick together? "Caterpillars make great glue." ;)

Electro-Motive plant to close

The NDP should be calling for the plant to be nationalized and run under workers' control. Then we'd see how Caterpillar likes having competition.

Friday's announcement to close the plant came just days after Indiana passed legislation to become a right-to-work state, meaning workers in unions do not have to pay mandatory dues

ETA: CBC reported tonight Indiana became the 23rd state to pass this legislation - but the first in America's industrial heartland. Scary.

Ken Lewenza on P&P. Harper gov't blaming the Ontario gov't.

They shouldn't be allowed to take anything from the plant.  Want to move to the US?  Okay, you're thieving assholes.  But don't think you're taking anything with you.  We (taxpayers) paid for that plant.  We'll be keeping it.

Boom Boom, that poster from the NDP website is brilliant!  I sure hope the NDP has the guts to advocate that Caterpiller gets to take NOTHING with them when they move.  Nothing.

Caterpillar already got what they wanted in buying the company- the technology and intellectual property.

Sending Solidarity to all our union brothers and sisters! Please share this message of strength with workers everywhere!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-JYlagwSvM

..when these events take place opposition begins with workers taking over the factory. this forces the political parties and labour leadership to take a stand. community support is crucial as well.

Can you or Paul Dewar explain how demanding our tax money back from Caterpillar is going to save a single Canadian job?

It's typical NDP diversion tactics; don't talk about the politics, talk about the money. Don't talk about how the federal government ought to nationalize failing foreign branch plants instead of giving them corporate welfare; instead just talk about how the corporate welfare bums ought to pay back the handouts as the price of being allowed to pack up and leave hundreds of workers without jobs.

They have Caterpillar in Venezuela. And there are dozens of foreign-owmed and controlled oil and other companies operating in Venezuela. What Chavez and socialists have done in that country is insist that they pay their taxes. In effect they have not nationalised things in the old socialist sense so much as they have a modernized version sometimes referred to as energy nationalism and strong central government. 

We don't have strong central government here in the northern colony. A series of corrupt stoogeaucracies have allowed foreign mulitinationals to pretty much have it all their way on taxes and scooping up Canadian corporations and valuable assets. The NDP fought for the creation of FIRA and Mulroney scrapped it. And today we have corporations like Caterpillar kicking workers in the chops without fear of breaking any rules in Canada because there are none. With the Tories and Liberals you get weak and ineffective government in Ottawa favouring majority foreign-owned and controlled corporations. Canada is "open for business", as they say. And they like to give Canadian workers "the business", for sure.

It took decades to weaken Ottawa to the point now where they are running the country like a banana republic. And you want the NDP to make promises over four years that not even Hugo Chavez dared to.

And in other threads you've argued, basically, that the problem is not the majority foreign-ownership and control of Canada's economy since Muroney scrapped FIRA. In your opinion Canada is an imperialist country with an oligarchy of its own in full control. That's not what the numbers say since 1985 and more than 14000 foreign takeovers of Canadian corporations and valuable crown assets. 

Caterpillar workers have walked a picket line that is just not there. It's down in the goddamn states where the absentee corporate landlords are running half our economy for us.

More than three dozen sectors of Canada's economy are majority foreign-owned and controlled and mostly by rich Americans. They achieved these thousands of takeovers of Canadian corporations since 1985. No rich country has allowed a third as much foreign ownership and control of its manufacturing sector as Canada does t'day as in here and now and even presently.

And you want the NDP to promise to fix inside of four years what took the two old line parties 35 years to sell and pawn off and dreg-u-late and privatise and basically sell us all down the Mississippi Riverto the extent that we have. 

It's not happening, M. You can't fuck the country all the way in that direction and expect the NDP to make promises they can not possibly keep. It took Tommy Douglas and the CCF five terms in power to create a province from nothing. M, you don't want the NDP in Ottawa - you want Walt Disney and special fx.

Cohn: How Canada let Caterpillar strip a plant clean

What exactly would you nationalise besides fresh air, Spector? The corrupt stoogeaucracy has sat idly by while Canadian workers were robbed blind. Again! Those jobs and taxpayer subsidies and home-grown technology and know-how are going, going, gone. It's all been pissed away as usual with our corrupt stooges observing from the sidelines. And thousands of Nortel jobs and valuable technology? Pissed away, like RIM tech and inno will likely be flushed down the big white phone in the bathroom. Say g'bye, M, because none of those jobs or valuable tech will be nationalised by the NDP, a second coming of Hugo Chavez of the north or even the mad hatter. Gone. Big vacuum where there was once an opportunity for Ottawa to rule on these issues with trace amounts of backbone.

And, why should the NDP promise to nationalise this particular foreign-based branch plant, the one which used to be here and will surely not be well before the next federal election,  and not any of the 14,000+ companies that were bought by rich Americans at firesale prices since 1985? How much would that cost after the two old line parties have dropped us down a bottomless debt hole since 1975?

Caterpillar workers, the ones who used to have jobs associated with a physical branch plant location in Ontario and now do not, can not wait until the NDP is elected before calling the cops on these absentee corporate raiders. You have to first catch them in the act and do something about it before the trail goes cold and they are long gone with the booty. 

This is like that Wile E. Coyote-Roadrunner cartoon where Wile. E. suddenly realizes there is no ground underneath his feet. First his body drops with a whistle effect. And the last thing you see is is head and eyes bugged out before he hits the ground. There is no trampoline or ACME rubber shoes to save Caterpillar workers in Canada. 

Your solution is to not vote against the bullshit and tolerating stoogeaucracy after stoogeaucracy in Ottawa. That's not a solution. Workers will not be helped by your obvious lack of empathy for their sudden unemployment and jib-jab for the sake of maintaining your dogged determinism to warn us off voting NDP in favour of even more stoogery in Ottawa.

Don't vote NDP - you'll get more of the same guaranteed. These stale old line party re-runs on the boob tube are a lesson in frustration, don't you think? 

Never mind nationalisations - that is for countries like Venezuela where foreign corporations are still physically there at the time of nationalisation. You have to have something to nationalise, ie. physicall assets, technology, profits etc. Once it's been flushed down the pike it's extremely difficult to make it reappear. You don't want the NDP in Ottawa - you want David Copperfield...

Which leads us to the actual problem: How do you go about re-establishing your country and sovereignty in general? A good place to wade in to this dilemma would be to start voting NDP some time before your country is sold out from under your feet lock, stock and barrel and not after. After is too late. What's afta NAFTA?

The NDP did not win the rights workers have today, and the NDP will not "save" the workers in the coming period of struggle. No politicians will. The workers, once again, will have to figure out how to do it themselves, and in the course of doing so, support others' struggles and rally other allies to our cause.

I agree with Boom Boom, you're basically voting for the status quo by not voting against them on the one day every four years that counts for anything. Voters in Saskatchewan had to elect five CCF governments before they were able to create a province from scratch after the Liberals were finished.

Not voting NDP is a vote for FPTP election fraud and a continuance of the stoogery. Your let's keep the stooges-in-hand do-nothing attitude will not help any workers in the northern banana republic. Why bother complaining at all if you're not prepared to do anything about it? By not voting against the stoogeaucracy you're basically allowing Mr or Mrs Old Line  Party to speak for you. You might as well be nodding up and down in rapid agreement to the Caterpillar job losses, the Nortel job losses and branch plantization, and the ongoing sellout of your country. That's not a solution. That is actually making the job even more difficult for your perfect revolution - that one which has not happened in Canada since 1867 and likely never will.

ETA: Conservative parties in Canada once stood for public ownership of public utilities, and they were wildly popular because of it. And the Liberals once nationalised a significant portion of money creation and credit and boosted pensions to alleviate poverty among millions of Canadians too old and worn-out to work anymore. They were generations of Canadians who were martyred by two terrible world wars and economic depressions. And governments of the day were encouraged to do it by ordinary Canadian voters, and  with pushing and prodding for it by a CCF opposition party, forerunners to the NDP.

I agree with Unionist that Canadians can be all powerful if we desire to be. We can cause the two old parties to shift their policies toward the political centre and even a bit to the left where they once stood on a few significant issues. And we can do that by voting NDP. The rest will follow in time. But we have to start somewhere. The problem will not fix itself.

The status quo stands for the ongoing electoral fraud and everythying else you claim to disagree with but are not going to lift a finger on election day to cast a vote in protest of. The NDP are on the other side of that line. If you want a united front on the left in the style of 1930s Spain, then your best bet is to vote NDP here in Canada. It might only be a country in name at this point, but there is still time to change things. And change will not happen overnight. Like all things worthwhile, and as most older Canadians will tell us from experience, change will take some effort on our part and on the part of the future of this country and namely younger Canadians. The whole world is more politically conscious now than it has been in a long time. And we have to do our part. Sometimes revolutions require longer term commitments,  effort and sacrifice. Most socialists know this to be true.

Jun 14, 2004

Source : Kitchener-Waterloo Record

"If a working democracy is founded on an enlightened electorate, we are in deep trouble.

Early on, this federal election was reduced to a simple venting of rage by a frustrated electorate, egged on by the media. And for those consciences bothered by the lure of lower taxes and not so sure that the economic reasoning behind the gesture is not pure Barnum and Bailey, anger conquers the last inhibitions.

Here we are, entering a century in which this country will be challenged to maintain a modicum of the living standards achieved at great cost over the past two or three lifetimes, and an election will apparently be decided by the self-absorbed.

Lower taxes and revenge against those who misuse taxes and against a bloated bureaucracy that feeds off those taxes -- that's what this national election is revolving around.

As for Canada's ability to prosper and to pass on a sustainable future to its children in a challenging, new world economy not based on fossil fuels, well, let the ubiquitous "they" look after those details. You know, the "they" that will always come up with something.

The media are central players in this act of reductionism.

As much-respected Toronto Star columnist Carol Goar has worried, the media "remind voters incessantly that they're grumpy and cynical," whereas they really "need to hear, in enough detail to make informed choices, what the parties stand for and where they differ."

Another, more trenchant opinion by Antonia Zerbisias in the Star calls it a media that "distracts with trivia, just to better the bottom line."

If, as an Ipsos-Reid poll found, only 11 per cent of the citizenry aged 18 to 29 could name the leader of the official opposition on the eve of the election, what percentage might be able to say what the notwithstanding clause in the Charter of Rights could mean for the future of women wanting to end their pregnancy, for instance? Who is most likely to benefit from a general ignorance of such details?

When Winston Churchill observed that democracy was the worst of governing systems, "except for all the others," he could not have reckoned with a citizenry reduced to this level of understanding. Or did he?

And did only one in five of the twentysomethings in his time bother to vote?

It took a world war to usher in voting rights for women and another to bring some security to the notion of universal democratic rights.

For what?

The "informed citizen" may now be an informed taxpayer. For neoconservatism, this was the key to electoral success, first exploited by the late Ronald Reagan.

This corruption of the meaning of the individual in the democratic process should be the subject of protest -- because ignorance of what is going on in the halls of power will always result in feeling "lied to" when things go sour.

Seven decades back, the newly "Progressive" Conservative Party of Canada, in the same pickle the Liberals find themselves in today, gave birth to a central bank and the beginning of a national broadcasting system and a national airline.

The remnants of the airline and an emasculated Canadian Broadcasting Corp. struggle on. But the "new" Conservative Party of Canada would make short work of eliminating the last vestiges of the "deviant" act of its predecessor, carried out as a despairing attempt to save itself in mid-Depression.

Ian Morrison of Friends of Canadian Broadcasting says that proposals by Conservative Leader Stephen Harper "would have the effect of dismantling Canada's national public broadcaster and would eliminate the vast majority of Canadian programs on television during prime time."

There is nothing as dangerous to the neocon as an informed Canuck.

And if it's too much to expect other media owners to leap to the defence of a public institution that has helped to hold this country together -- the minions of Global TV and the National Post have urged its demise -- where, at least, are the moral philosophers, the teachers?

Those people who instruct the young have apparently succumbed to the postmodernist distaste for either history or anything not relating to the consumerism and mass communication of the late 20th-century post-industrial society."

------------------

First things first, in the electoral game, always.

Fidel does. Every time you suggest something the NDP could do to make a real and positive difference in the lives of ordinary people, he's quick to say you can't expect them to do that even given four years of majority rule.

According to him, Canada has a weak and ineffectual government, and U.S. big business runs the whole show. So apparently it doesn't really make a difference whom we elect.

Good news indeed. it is not often we see this kind of behaviour from corporations.

Hear-hear! 

And I take issue with some of the more fundamentalist socialists of us when they propose old style nationalisations and walking picket lines - the ones which used to be there before deep integration and neoliberal agenda of the last 30 years in general. Our good friend Karl Marx didn't envision the new liberal capitalism happening today. In Marx' and Lenin's time absentee owners of the means of production typically meant that the owners lived on the hill uptown where they were masters of all they surveyed, as in with their eyeballs and not stock tickers reporting on how their overseas operations were functioning. 

Today, we have absentee corporate landlords based in the U.S. and other countries  and sometimes beyond the need of the state in which they are absent from. With the new liberal capitalism of the last 30 years, absentee corporate landlords make decisions about branch plant locations in Canada. In times of economic downturn theyve been able to layoff workers here in order to prop-up operations at home. Under the new liberal capitalism and neoliberal trade deals such as NAFTA and "fully mobile capital" they tend not to even favour workers in their own countries. Manipulating mineral and energy prices is still on as usual, tho, with monopolizing natural resource wealth in various countries. But manufacturing has become especially foreign owned and controlled by absentee corporations since 1985. We can't picket strike lines where absentee owners are now completely absent from and who won the right to offshore to low wage zones while accepting taxpayer subsidies as rewards for screwing the workers here. We need to, believe it or not, re-gain or work to re-create those former relationships between local workers and the former absentee owners of the means of production. We need to insist on less foreign ownership of the means not allow more of it. Unions and workers really have become powerless to do anything about it under the new/neo liberal capitalism. And our old party governments have insisted on allowing Canada's national energy policy to be dictated to us from corporate board rooms and mostly in America. 

Yeah, the class struggle is so, like, last century!

That's completely false, but even if it were true, it would be no excuse for unions and governments to roll over and play dead in the face of neoliberal capitalism.

What the hell is an "absentee corporate landlord"? You're trying to make a false analogy with landlord-tenant relationships.

Branch plants are nothing new in the last 30 years. It's been that way for the last 100 years at least.

You keep using "absentee" as some kind of insult. With globalization there is no such thing as absentee corporations. They are everywhere at the same time; borders mean nothing to them.

Why, because the "absentee" owners have to be present in person to witness the picket lines, otherwise picketing is of no use? Do you want to tell workers they have no right to withdraw their labour and shut down production?

Yeah, Canadian capitalists are so much nicer to deal with than foreign ones! But don't expect an NDP majority government to do anything to change foreign ownership until they have been re-elected two or three times, because after all, the Canadian government is a weak and ineffectual puppet of foreign capital, presiding over a helpless banana republic.

Yes, sadly the situation is hopeless. Instead of picketing and all that "old style" labour militancy we should just pack up and go home and wait for 2015 when we can cast a  ballot for a different, but weak and ineffectual government that we can't expect to make any difference until we have re-elected them several times as a reward for doing bugger all.

Yeah, I noticed that Spector, but what's wrong with that? You want some capitalist to show good motives besides doing the right thing? It's an unprecedented gesture as far as I know, and self-interest motivates everyone. We should praise it to the skies and use it for our own self-interest.

ETA: Oh and by the way, you're trying to change Fidel's mind? How about rolling a really heavy wheel up a hill?

Here's an example of what a non-NDP provincial government was prepared to do in a similar situation less than two years ago:

It seems at least some of our politicians aren't as cowardly and helpless in the face of foreign plant closures as Fidel imagines.

That's right, one word from Steve or Pinocchio, and Caterpillar will move 460 jobs to the right-to-work state of Indiana. We know.

Absentee as in the US-based Caterpillar corporation, and absentee stockholders and CEO's with majority foreign ownership and control with corporate headquarters based in America and other countries. As in picket all you want they can't hear you nor do they care because of vast expanse of fresh air and international borders separating workers and the owners of the means.

No, it's not like 100 years ago, Sleeping Beauty. Much has changed.

No, I was the one who began explaining this to you several posts ago and even months ago in other threads. You were the one inisisting that NAFTA meant nothing significant in terms of neoliberal trade deals. And you were the one arguing that three dozen key sectors of Canadian economy majority foreign-owned and controlled and mainly by superrich Americans should be a trifle detail to any real socialist government serious about creating socialism in one province or country. Your arguments have been little more than ambigious and arbitrary circular reasoning and mostly unrelated from one weak argument for maintaining stoogeaucracy in Ottawa to the next. You make about as much sense as a public service announcer with a mouth full of marbles sounding off over a blown speaker. All i hear is static and feeble attempts to communicate vague, disconnected ideas that were obsolete 35 years ago in a country that doesnt exist anymore.

They may not be nicer and may have actually figured out since that NAFTA was a bad deal even for them. Canada's oligarchs are now disabused of any notion that they would be scooping-up controlling interest in even a single sector of U.S. economy and let alone key sectors vital to national interests in America. Meanwhile more than three dozen sectors of this economy is majority foreign-owned and controlled as well as our national energy interests since the Libranos sold the environment to Exxon-Imperial and the fossil fuel industry based mainly in the U.S. But this doesn't concern you, because as far as youre concerned there has been no pawning off of and selling out of or hollowing-out of Canada since neoliberalism got underway in the 1980s. It's a blank period where nothing significant happened in Canada as far you can tell. Are you waiting for David Copperfiled to make things right in a finger snap? Undoing the damage done over the last 30-35 years is going to take more than four, I'm sorry to have to inform you. And with WorstPastthePost, making political promises beyond four years is surely a lie in this country. Ask the Liberal or Tory parties about making promises. McGuinty and Harper have made lots of them and kept very few of them.

These are crisis times for workers. With governments either outright hostile to, or unwilling to protect, unions, it is up to unions, workers and their supporters to take creative action, such as sit-down strikes and occupations.

CAW threatening to occupy Electro-Motive plant

LONDON, Ont. -- The Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) union is prepared to occupy the Electro-Motive plant in London if owner Caterpillar Inc. doesn't bargain a severance package, Local 27 president Tim Carrie says.

The union occupied a Caterpillar front-end loader plant in Brampton in 1991 to get the company to the table after it announced it was closing that factory.

It worked then, and the workers are prepared to do it again, Carrie said on the weekend.

Ooh, Fidel will be outraged! Think of the possible consequences for the poor taxpayer!

Why all the sarcasm and mockery, MS?

Not sure if Thomas Walkom's item has been posted yet - apologize in advance for duplication:

Caterpillar closing part of a coordinated attack on unions

The whole article is worth a read (as is always the case with Walkom).

Well in fairness, Boom Boom, what would you call this:

There's no monopoly around these parts on name-calling.

It's a clear, undeniable fact that Danny Williams boldly (rashly, call it what you want) did what NDP provincial governments are a little too conservative to even contemplate. It reminded me of this situation a decade ago:

Hargrove wants taxpayers to save tractor plant

That was the Buhler Versatile plant.

I'd appreciate if certain people could open another thread to discuss whatever the content of the above posts is (sorry, it's beyond me). This thread is about labour mobilization in the EMD situation, and it's in the Labour and Consumption forum. Thanks loads.

The NDP will be judged by how well they support the workers. The workers will never be judged by how far they support the NDP.

And part of the judgment was already rendered early in this thread, by the first poster who brought the NDP into this equation:

What he couldn't predict was that someone would "scream invective" against Danny Williams for "turning back the clock". It is truly shameful when a millionaire conservative shows more courage to defend the rights of workers and of the nation than those unimaginative souls who "have no appetite".

But it's ok. The NDP is not involved in the EMD crisis. The workers are. And whether they have the strength to influence Caterpillar and McGuinty and Harper, or not, will depend only on one thing: their strength, their unity, and their allies. Try to remember that no matter what party we favour at the polls (or what candidate in the threads), if we are not allies of the workers, we are nothing.

Right to Work is one of the biggest,most insidious canards going for working people.It is always sold as trying to "stand up for the individuals freedom in the workplace".But when one looks into the history of it (starting with the Taft-Hartley Act)and the well heeled groups that promote it (The National Association of Manufacturers,The Koch Bros. and thier many tentacled free market think tanks like the Cato Institute),workers freedom in the workplace is a long way down the list of priorities...

It is nothing more than legislative union busting.If one delves into the geography of RTW,one finds that it tends to take place in the Mid-Western states and the Southeastern states.Not so ironically,these states have amongst the lowest levels of education,the lowest standards of living,and,the highest levels of industrial injury and death in the US....But at least they are "free"!!!In otherwords,"Right to Work" is simply the "right" to be willingly poor.

Sadly,I agree with you that it's simply a matter of time that some form of "Made in Canada" Right to Work legislation is passed by our Minister of Management (Lisa Rait) through the PMO.If I miss my guess,the Wild Rose Alliance has RTW in it's platform?I'm trying to figure out how they are going to sell it,though?I suppose we'll see the tried and true NAM/Koch Bros. "persoanl freedom" canard along with the played out perjorative like "Corrupt Union Bosses!" crapola..But I think they may use something I heared Ron Paul say a few weeks ago in the Republican debates when talking about a national RTW plan...RTW is going to needed to stop the "union problem" and to be "competative" with China.Of course,Mr. Freedom and US Constitution" Ron Paul kinda let the cat outta the bag on that one because he was basically saying what we all knew,but the Free Marketeers never admit...

RTW is about legislatively keeping that standard of living low and allowing business to have a free reign over the workplace.It never was,or is,about the sanctity of workplace rights for the average worker

Thanks, pogge.

Some NDPers feel that nationalization would arouse Bay Street and Wall Street. They'd come kill us, or even worse, stop "investing" and "creating jobs".

Business people like David Olive and Danny Williams understand the world a bit better. They're not afraid to "play hardball" to defend their interests.

Let's play hardball.

And apparently some of us think that thousands of predatory takeovers of Canadian corporations and valuable crown assets by rich Americans since 1985 and financed by Canadian banks using the savings of Canadians isn't a problem. Apparently they think there should be thousands more takeovers, and that the NDP had been wrong for speaking out against the rubberstamp approvals of these takeovers, like Electro-Motive in 2010. In fact, I think those people will tend to regurgitate any idiotic, pro-stoogeaucracy nonsense sooner than give the NDP credit for demanding an end to pawning off control of our manufacturing sector and economic sovereignty in general to foreign interests.

Danny Williams' nationalisation of Abitibibowater is turning out to be just another corporate welfare handout with overall cost of the cleanup and payoffs already at nearly a quarter of a billion dollars. And the NAFTA dispute tribunal isn't located in Canada - it's down there in one of those right-to-work states. That was one of many smooth moves by the strangler from Shawinigan and "pro Canadian worker"/stoogeaucrat John Manley in 1994. Carrot Top in Washington took Chretien's government and dozens of government lawyers for a big ride while throwing the ultimate fuck into Canadian workers.

The anti-Canadian worker, anti-NDP rhetoric in this thread has been laughable to the say the least. And it's quite sad actually.

Thank you for trying, Fidel. The "extra-parliamentary" types are not about to admit that it's a question that can only be resolved by political action, and that right now, the workers of the world are confused by their retreat to the level of job action - in defense of their own limited turf. With such offers from Caterpillar for a new contract, it was obvious that they were about to move out. And that story has been repeated ad nauseum down through the years. But labour has to put on a show.

You will not hear boo about the dominance of a market that has caused Tweedledee and Tweedledum to accept all those takeovers that you so properly listed, above. And if the NDP is not making nationalist waves, it has always been because labour elements react against any mention of nationalism and vote the free-trade ticket regularly as clockwork. The Waffle set-to decided it for me. Maybe someday they'll opt for a leadership that doesn't just slavishly respond to their fear. In the way that they confuse the issue hereabouts. In the meantime, I'm afraid the NDP will continue to be their whipping post and we'll hear boo-all about the workers tendency to vote for capital's defenders.

You got it wrong, U. It's the leadership I'm talking about. They should be doing the interpreting.

See: "Maybe someday they'll opt for a leadership that doesn't just slavishly respond to their fear."

You trot out the usual language meant to suppress any attempt at explaining why it goes on:"The NDP will be judged by how well they support the workers. The workers will never be judged by how far they support the NDP.

And part of the judgment was already rendered early in this thread, by the first poster who brought the NDP into this equation"

Solidarity forever.

No, I'm simply supporting Fidel's attempts at overcoming the nonsense trotted out here in the name of "true socialism."

I've been on the losing end of a strike. Waited all winter for others in organized labour to come to our assistance. UE gave it a shot the first couple of days, but that was it. Don't go all moralistic on me again for my lack of sympathy for the folks losing their jobs. Been there. Have you? And if you have, didn't it trigger some idea that a higher level of action was needed?

My sumpathy this morning is also for the dozen temporary workers from Peru who died in an accident just west of here. Their situation was dictated by a federal-provincial lack of respect for the need for humane labour laws. The NDP did reform them in this province for a couple of years, but some folks hereabouts have piss-poor memory.

Well said.

I find this doctrinaire dispute going on here interesting, but rather obscure.  Might be good for a thread where the positions can be sharpened.