babble is rabble.ca's discussion board but it's much more than that: it's an online community for folks who just won't shut up. It's a place to tell each other — and the world — what's up with our work and campaigns.
When will we see a fightback against Harper's austerity
May 29, 2012 - 2:40pm
From: http://rabble.ca/whatsup/casseroles-night-canada
This will be the first of many casseroles nights across Canada. Once Quebec students stop the tuition hike and Law 78, we're all going to Stop Harper together!
When are we going to see a fightback against the Conservative government's budget cuts, most importantly the latest cuts to Employment Insurance?
In the past year there've been protests/demonstations around tuition fee increases in Quebec; the Quebec government's 'Plan Nord'; Quebec's law 78; global warming; the tar sands; piepline expansion and oil tankers in BC; the lockout of Rocky Mountaineer workers; Bill 22 and the teachers dispute in BC; postal workers strike; the 1% (occupy movement); Conservative party election fraud; Conservative government's immigration policies; the threat of war against Iran; Rob Ford's austerity in Toronto; the BC missing women's inquiry; International Women's day; May Day; the Palestinian Nakba. And this is not a complete list.
Yet there have not been any protests of note against the Conservative government's cuts. 19,000 federal government jobs are to be cut over the next 3 years. Already vital frontline services have been cut. Most importantly, Employment Insurance has been severely cut again, more or less turned into Workfare.
The response from social movements? Bumpkus, nothing, nada.
The silence from the union movement is deafening. Hoping that the NDP will get elected in 2015 and reverse some of the cuts is simply not good enough.
And the grassroots social movements seem to have their attention focused elswhere. Everywhere it seems, except the Harper government's austerity.
What gives?
You need to read more. This has been discussed all over the place.
for starters:
discussion on babble with links
Speak out against Harper's budget budget2012.ndp.ca
http://apps.facebook.com/petitions/takeaction/936/748/575/Don't let Stephen Harper Sneak his "Trojan Horse" Budget Bill Through - The Petition Site apps.facebook.com
I have union links to anti-austerity as well, will dig them up when I have more time - getting supper ready now.
I'm fully aware of the Casseroles night in Canada. Though as I understand it the maim thrust of this is solidarity with the student/social struggle in Quebec. This is the only mention I've seen of the Casseroles being turned into a movement against Harper. Even then it's not clear that this is anything more than something that Derrick wrote when he posted this on rabble. I guess we'll see on Wednesday evening to what extent opposing Harper's cuts figures in the Casserole protests in the roc.
Yeah, I'm nearly blue in the face from years of discussion about the what gives. NDPP posted a link in the Anarchy thread that might go some way toward formulating an answer to the question.
I've been calling for a General Strike for a while now, but the idea always gets shot down.
Ok, I really should have titlted this thread "When will we see a fightback in the streets against the Harper government's austerity?"
The 'in the streets' part is critical. It's what we're not seeing.
Well, we have union bureaucrats in their 50's making six figure salaries to thank for that. They have no interest in supporting a general strike. It's in their interest to do nothing to rock the boat that might threaten their ability to reitre comfortably in a few years.
Left Turn-- please don't make such assumptions.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/story/2012/04/04/ottawa-national-de...
http://www.globalmontreal.com/canadians+protest+age+of+austerity+at+may+... http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Federal+workers+take+Parliament+Hill+r...
http://m.ottawasun.com/2012/05/01/protesters-decry-public-service-cuts-a...As for general strike-- right now the people are moving towards us. Comments about unions in the media are getting more positive --
people are starting to get it like they have not in many years.
There are many who do not think that a general strike organized by labour is a good idea. It would be seen as an attack on the very people whose support we want right now-- not the employers.
There is a lot happening right now. Some of those union leaders in their 50s have seen what has happened before when you take the wrong kind of action at the wrong time. (That was kinda bit ageist don't you think?)
What is a union bureaucrat? are you talking about union activists? Or government workers who happen to be unionized? It is not clear which you are insulting.
I think that was a terrible anti-union comment. And by the way most government workers in their 50s are not make 6-figures except in their dreams but thanks for the union bashing. Which side are you on anyway?
Wow. I think this shoots holes in your credibility.
Right.
Because it has always been the way to lasting and permanent change in the past.
The "in the streets" part is about as critical as Thomas Jefferson's claim that people have to spray blood all over the place to feed liberty, like it is some God demanding sacrifice.
In reality, no one can predict what brings about change. Sometimes it is one person standing up in a committee room and asking a senator if he has no shame.
I didn't find Left Turn's comments anti union but anti union bureaucracy. I didn't think Left Turn was referring to activists or government workers. He was referring to what the old union movement used to call pork choppers. I personally blame the fixation with bricks and mortar for much of the refusal to be proactive. When the government threatens heavy fines they are threatening the bricks and mortar. The larger the assets the more control the bean counters have over an organization. That led to the bureaucratic nature of unions and is a real hindrance to movement building.
I do think Left Turn you need to look past the reps for the root causes of the problem because most union reps work very hard for their money and the stress takes its toll on the ones that care. I know many union reps who spend their "off" hours being involved in social justice work the good salaries allow them that privilege. Like all workers with pensions they are looking forward to retirement and that's not either wrong nor abnormal. Having said that union reps with pension and benefits make six figures and the top officials of the large unions are remunerated better than that.
For the record, as far as I know, none of those who shot down my idea of a General Strike here on babble or elsewhere were union bureaucrats however that term is defined. I've been raising the idea for well over six months now.
Boom Boom the truth is that no leader of a major union in Canada will call for a General Strike. In BC the Fed does rallies and have been opposed to all calls for general strikes. Austerity programs were born in BC in 1983 and the union movement then was strong and vibrant. Some of the unions in conjunction with a grassroots community organizers and groups began a fight back that was building to a general strike A union "bureaucrat", Union Jack Munroe, defused the growing general strike by cutting a deal with the government. The Solidarity Coalition in my province was sold out by the union leadership plain and simple. I am still a proud trade unionist but the idea that the head of the BCGEU or the IUOE or the Steelworkers will be calling for a general strike to oppose Harper is fantasy land.
If they where going to take a stand INCO would have been good or maybe Air Canada or maybe the CP Rail employees today.
That's not entirely fair. Most of the union leaders I've met work their asses off, and not just for their particular bailiwick. They're politicians, sure, but they're activists too, and take solidarity seriously by working with other unions (and not just for predatory purposes) for the betterment of workers. The exception to this would be Buzz "Mr. I-want-a-senate-appointment" Hargrove.
I'm sure there are others out there like old Buzz, but is there something wrong with being paid well for hard work and receiving an appropriate pension (that you've paid into for decades)? How low do you want to set the bar?
I work for a union.
My trouble with a general strike is that it would play in to the hands of our enemies. There would not be enough public support and we would all be legislated back. We would gain nothing and lose a lot.
We need to work on the support part first and then the means of demonstrating it rather than expose ourselves by doing the reverse.
Support is coming-- perhaps we will have it in the next year or so but not right now.
I also know a lot of union leaders and I don't think they operate out of fear or greed. There are exceptions but these are rare.
Bureaucrats is not leader either. Bureaucrat would be the union workers -- like me. 6 figures is a joke and quite an insult.
Thanks Kropotkin, the union bureaucracy is indeed who I'm talking about. The likes of Ken Georgetti and his ilk. Back in 2009, when rank and file union members wanted to have a large rally on Parliament Hill on the pension issue, Georgetti made a back-room deal with the Conservative government in which the unions agreed to call off any plan for a protest in return for a promise from Harper that the government would act to protect pensions. Well, the unions called off plans for a protests, and then the Harper government turned around and stabbed the unions in the back on the pension issue.
I agree that most union reps work quite hard for their money. However, they do not appear to have the ability to get the Canadian Labour Congress to take actions more radical than what Ken Georgetti and other top CLC officials are prepared to support.
Sorry but i know quite a few of the people who worked on that campaign and who are still working for better pensions for everyone.
Do you have any idea how close that came to being a reality? Yes, the unions got stabbed in the back on that but they had convinced many people and changed the entire conversation and nearly got their way (last minute lobbying is what did it in as I understand it). Still the work they did will make a change happen -- but we do have to get rid of the Harper majority to get there.
And I don't know what you mean about a demonstration being called off-- I certainly remember attending one on the Hill in 2009 over pensions with a lot of the staff of the CLC there. And they were there on their own time as well.
Here is a part of the speech to it:
http://www.canadianlabour.ca/news-room/speeches/speech-nortel-pensioners...
More on the CLC campaign:
http://www.canadianlabour.ca/action-center/retirement-security-for-everyone
BTW- I don't work for the CLC
Agreed, no union leader is going to call a general strike at this moment in time. We're clearly not going to go from nothing to general strike in one step. The question is, why has nobody organized a national day of action against Harper's cuts comparable to the national days of action around the proroguing of parliament or the election fraud scandal?
The BC Fed held a rally this afternoon to support the CP Rail workers and oppose the Harper Government's back to work legislation. They mentioned some of the other anti-union actions of the Harper government; and they mentioned Harper's cuts, notably the cuts to EI and the closure of the Kitsilano coast guard station (this virtually guarantees that there will be more preventable drowings down the way in the waters off Vancouver). There were about 200 people in attendance.
However:
-- There were no poc among the speakers -- which tends to mean that many oc don't see themselves as part of the movement;
-- There three speakers where all white men (only the mc was a woman)
-- All the speakers and the mc were union members -- which leads many activists who don't identify as union members in their activism to not indentify with the movement
-- There was no chanting and no march -- rallies without chanting and a march feel somewhat deflating to me
-- There was no publicity beyond union membership lists and social media
-- The crowd was far too white.
I stand corrected that there was no demo on parliament hill around pensions. However, I understand that many rank and file union members wanted to hold a follow-up rally to call for a doubling of CPP benefits, and that Ken Georgetti reached a deal with the government in which the government promised some action to improve pensions, in exchange for a guarantee that there would be no demo on the issue. Harper's supposed 'improvement' to the pension system were the changes to the private retirement savings system announced in the 2010 budget. A complete stab in the back that got only a press release response from the CLC.
Again I don't think that is fair at all -- the CLC has an ongoing pension campaign. I see lots of stuff coming out from them on this.
The doubling of the CPP benefits is not a "rank and file" thing -- this is what the leadership is pushing. I think eventually they will get it too. I see Georgetti talking about this constantly.
A General Strike isn't just one day - it is supposed to last until the demands are met. Yes, some will be arrested for not obeying back to work legislation, but that tactic will backfire on the government as those essential to the workforce are jailed. I think it's just such a huge embarrassment to the government that charges and jail time are lilely thrown out the window. And if we're looking at over a million people out on the street day after day, night after night, probably with pots and pans in 'les casseroles' protests, with increasing size as time goes on, I think governments would cave. That's my read, anyway. If I'm wrong, well, then I'll accept that. But I think this country is so pissed off with Harper that a General Strike would fall on sympathetic ears.
Ok, so the CLC has an ongoing campaign on the doubling of CPP benefits. Fine. I still don't see Ken Georgetti helping to organize a national day of action on this issue with demos in several major Canadian cities.
I don't deny that the labour movement does what it does, but I don't think it's enough. Not by a long shot.
I also criticize folks who organized the demos against proroguing Parliament in January 2010, and the folks who organized the demos against the election fraud back in March, and the occupy movement, and the NDP, for not organizing a national day of action against Harper's austerity. Sure, there have been demos where Harper's cuts have been denounced, but there hasn't been a national day of action where opposition to Harper's austerity cuts have been the main focus.
Plus, I don't see the NDP MP's clamouring to speak out against Harper's cuts at demos. Maybe they've all been muzzled on this issue they way they appear to have been muzzled on the Quebec student strike. I don't know, but until I see evidence of NDP MP's speaking publicly at demos against Harper's cuts, I'll consider it a possibility.
Two reasons, people are angry but not angry enough and there would need to be momentum. Only die hards protest, once it becomes more mainstream and less "weird" people go into the streets and protest more "mainstream" people join them leading to a social acceptance amongst the sympathetic but protest shy.
As for the whole bureaucratic nature of unions, preventing them from taking a lead in fomenting social protest, well yeah. They're useful institutions as a counter weight to corporate power, but they're slow to change as they are a form of government in themselves, hence they love obscurantism and making things complicated thus discouraging anything from happening. They are also mired in old fashioned thinking and the promotion of an ossified work culture that I would call conservative in a literal sense (as in slow to change) and unimaginative (as in adopting new modes of thought). For example, I would not say they are responsive to changing cultural-economic desires, for instance doing more for part time workers because maybe people want to work part time, which would do more to promote flexible work/life balance. This is not a code for flexibility to exploit, it simply refers to the fact that in a case like this part-timers ought to have the same rights as full timers. But unions see part-time as an inherent bad, so they have a fetish for solely promoting/protecting the interests of full time employees and full time employment, like this is the 50s or something.
So when will we see something like what's happening in Quebec happening in the rest of Canada? I'm not sure. But I can't see unions leading it. They're just not able to. That said if they have the connections, they ought to use them for something as a nexus to start something.
The discontent seems to be everywhere. I hear the most unlikely opinions exchanged in conversation between the the most unlikely people. It's when people nod in agreement if I care to toss my two cents worth in that I find something peculiar is going on. It's like a deep sense of betrayal run through everything, from Halifax to Ottawa, and an awareness that the people stand utterly alone against the corporations and the banks.
Hey SJ, read this: NDP making huge gains as Canada tilts leftward: poll
I just thought it would brighten your day because I know how much you hate these Reform Party retreads in phony-majority power.
With the NDP breathing down their necks the ReformaTopries are politically neutered and will continue governing as if they still have a minority from here to 2015. It's too bad Harper lost his bff with Ignatieff, or they'd really be selling us down the Mississippi in the style and manner of Brian Mulroney. Egg shells to 2015. lol!
It just goes to show the level of desperation that is beginning to set in amongst the population. They're being kettled in from all sides in search of an escape.
You can throw in the towel or use it to wipe the sweat off your face. No fear, SJ. Let's give 'er snot!
Yes, there was a certain energy about seeing millions of people delivering themselves from the last vestiges of Stalinism, which has entirely dissipated now that they've been delivered into corporatism. I don't think the popularity of the whole zombie inspired genre over the past few years is a coincidence. We're so plugged in that the entertainment segments of the market instinctively knows where we're at, and it's response is to provide simulated first person shooter training to legions of potential security guards.