WAR ON LABOUR
Have you booked your seat to London, Ontario yet? The fight that CAW Local 27 members are engaged in with Caterpillar is, no doubt, just one of many we will see this year.
As organized labour, we are under attack, as I have not seen before. We are getting hit in the private sector, and we are getting hit in the public sector. As I write this, Toronto City Council is debating drastic cuts to its services and it is in a fight with its unions to claw back hard earned rights in their collective agreements.
Toronto’s Mayor, Rob Ford, spent a year looking for gravy that wasn’t there. That isn’t stopping him from coming to the bargaining table seeking major concessions from city workers. Those workers expect to be locked out sometime during the winter. One of the locals has offered to accept a three year wage freeze.
We need to unite, stand up and fight back. If we do not start the fight back, the London debacle is just a portent of things to come for all of us. Governments and corporations have decided it is slash and burn time, and it is our rights as workers and our working conditions, that are going to be slashed and burned.
The workers at U.S. Steel in Nanticoke and Hamilton, Ontario suffered concessions after a strike at Nanticoke and a lockout in Hamilton of several months. It was easy for US steel to manage those work stoppages as it continued to produce its steel in the United States.
When a union does have the clout to make an employer bargain, then Prime Minister Harper steps in and legislates on the matter. Air Canada workers recently felt the brunt of that as did the postal workers, earlier last year. No such intervention in London, Ontario though. Let those folks languish on the picket line, as Caterpillar manufactures its product in its low-paid U.S. locations. This company is notorious for its union busting practices, and the Harper federal government which approved the sale from Electro Motive Diesel to the Caterpillar union busters in 2010, and provided tax incentives, will not intervene in this savage attack on workers.
Ontario Premier, Dalton McGuinty, has put the public service on notice that cuts are coming. Ontario universities and hospitals are reeling in shock after a $66 million funding cut. If you don’t think that is going to have a devastating effect on workers and their families, please adjust your thinking now. I expect this is just the beginning of a very nasty year in labour relations.
Brothers and sisters, we need to mobilize, and we need to mobilize now. The fight has just begun. Will you be there, or will you watch from the sidelines as our hard won gains are stripped away? See you in London.
Hi Janice,
This is very good information. Am sending you an e-mail regarding a newspaper article on the mill in Terrace Bay and what the devasting effects will be on that community. This is getting to be common all over.
http://www.chroniclejournal.com/content/news/local/2012/01/16/northwest-pulp-mill-sale
Mobilization has to be the answer today for all working people to start paying attention to all our losses that have slowly evolved over time to become what it is today.
In Solidarity,
Brenda
I am from vancouver and i supports the workers in London,Ont. in their fight against Caterpillar.I can’t afford to go to London myself but i think that anyone who can afford it should go to support these workers.
In Indiana the workers there are also fighting against a reactionary anti-worker law called:The Right to Work Law.Caterpillar wants to move there so that they can treat the workers like slaves.This law effects workers on both sides of the border.The working class in canada and the usa needs to unite to be able to fight against these anti-worker laws and the employers.All progressive people in canada should support the workers at Electro- Motive in London.Ont.