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It never seems to get mentioned that the flip side to the high dollar is that capitalization costs are often lowered, because of favourable exchange rates when purchasing specialized technology that increases productivity. Labour is only one factor in the equation. Fiat. for example, could get more bang for it's buck by investing in a new automotive platform, than it will achieve by antagonizing it's Canadian workers through the media, by discounting, like Caterpillar, the value of it's hourly employees, while totally ignoring the contributions that Chrysler workers have made towards increased quality, productivity and, not least of all the health of their local economies and service to their communities. Perhaps it hasn't occurred to senior Governments that cutting both corporate taxes and personal incomes makes their treasuries poorer as well. How long will it take for austerity to become desolation, despair and, ultimately desperation?
Yes!
Caterpillar Picketed Today in a Dozen Canadian Cities
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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.
Bravo Mick! It's a very good article and those you interviewed had some very interesting insights. I personally agree with nationalizing Canadian rail. It's the opposite of what is being pushed on the developing world where World Bank and regional development banks are funding privatization of rail.
Why will the workers stick together? "Caterpillars make great glue." ;)
Thanks laine, I agree that pushing for more public ownership of the rail sector, and manufacturing in general, would be a great step in the right direction though one the neo-liberal provincial and federal governments are loath to take. Ideally it would be not only nationalized but democratized as well so we don't end up with a bunch of techocrats in Ottawa running it like state-capitalists. That was Rosenfeld's opinion as well, but space was limited and I had to pick the best qoute for the article.
Wilf, that is a great joke. I litterally laughed out loud.
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.
The news isn't unexpected, but of course it is still a shock. Caterpillar would have closed the plant anyway, even if the workers caved to all it's demands. It was a fishing expedition to reduce severance costs, is all.
They got government subsidies through tax breaks-- like Navistar did-- only to use that money to open a plant in the U.S. All they bought the plant was for the technology and know how.
I find the role of the Conservative government in all this, and the weak kneed approach of the Provincial Liberals plain treachery agaisnt thier own citizenry in favour of a foriegn corporation.
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.
Bastards. By that I mean the owners, their complicit Canadian and Ontario politicians, and those dismantling the gains of decades of working class struggle in both the U.S. and Canada. Don't let them grind us down.
NDP: All aboard!!!
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.
Indiana just passed Right to Work legislation. This essentially makes it not a requirement to join the union in your workplace. I have a feeling that this unpopular move by the Republicans is one reason that the move south was made. Watch your TV screen this Sunday to see what effect it has had in Indiana.
Did anyone else see Kevin O'Leary and Amanda Lang argue over this issue at the beginning of their show today? O'Leary is one crazy guy who cannot understand the role of any union at all, except as scapegoat.
Make no mistake, the Corporation is in the drivers seat now and Harper is the passenger giving directions.
Caterpillar already got what they wanted in buying the company- the technology and intellectual property.
They should, but they won't, because none of the NDP leadership candidates are running on a workers' government platform.
Here's a couple of articles on the concept of a workers' government, for those who are not familiar with it.
The Workers' government
A ‘workers' government' as a step toward socialism
FYI, I consider the governments of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia to be workers' governments.
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
I posted on Facebook last night that the USA has already passed right to work legislation in 22 states - Indiana becomes 23, but the first state in America's industrial heartland to do so. It absolutely is union-busting. Scary. Probably just a matter of time before someone tries to pass a similar legislation here in Canada - with the full approval of the HarperCons. Look at their tepid response to Caterpillar.
..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.
At a time of record high profits, Caterpillar is shutting down the Electro-Motive plant in London, Ont., throwing 450 people out of good jobs.
What is Stephen Harper doing to defend Canadian jobs? Nothing. He gave the company $5 million in taxpayer handouts with no commitment to job security.
New Democrats will not stand by. Join me in sending Harper a strong message: stand up for Canadian jobs.
Click here to send an e-mail to Stephen Harper to save EMD jobs in London, Ont.
In solidarity,
Paul Dewar
(sent, and I got this response: Thank you, your submission has been received.)
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.
And they should promise to do it inside one four-year term, too. Anything less than this isn't worth swapping out the corrupt stoogeaucracy for.
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.
And don't count on the NDP acting any differently if they ever get to be the government for four years, according to Fidel.
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.
It takes only a few days - not four years - to pass legislation when the government has the political will to do so. That's how long it would take a hypothetical NDP government to nationalize an abandoned branch-plant like Electro-Motive.
Right wing governments like Harper's know that. And they aren't shy about using their power to create radical social change in ways that are harmful to the interests of the majority of Canadians.They even did it as a minority government, thanks to an ineffectual opizishin.
Yet we're supposed to accept as a given that the NDP can't do the same thing, in the interests of the majority of Canadians, if they ever get a majority in Parliament.
Your advance excuse-making for an imagined future do-nothing NDP government gives us no reason to bother voting for them.
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?
I agree with Fidel - if you don't vote NDP in 2015, you're voting for the status quo. Going over 100 seats in 2011 was hopefully just the first step towards an NDP government. Who else is there besides the NDP to move past the failed policies of the Libs and Cons?
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.