The Marxist-Leninist Daily

TML vehemently denounces the anti-worker propaganda that is being spewed once again against the workers of the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC). This time, it is taking the form of a gross campaign of slanders from the monopoly media, the TTC authorities and various Toronto city councillors according to which the TTC workers are harming the reputation of the public service by their alleged bad behaviour. The "evidence" provided is a series of camera-phone pictures and videos shot by so-called ordinary passengers showing some TTC workers napping in their cubicles or taking unscheduled breaks.

Instead of rejecting this phony "evidence" with the contempt that it deserves as being unreliable and disgraceful spying on the workers while on shift and soberly assessing any passenger concerns in the proscribed way, the TTC authorities and various Toronto city councillors are pretending that this is the proof that the workers are abusing the passengers and are out of control. They are trying to foment tensions between the workers and the passengers, which they can then call a "customer relations" crisis. They have made the most inflammatory statements, blaming the workers for what they call a culture of complacency at the TTC to justify calling for all sorts of disciplinary actions, the shuffling around of workers and dismissals under the hoax of punishing "poor performance" and getting rid of those who do not have skills for "customer service excellence." The TTC authorities arrogantly claim that they will seek this so-called excellence with increased harassment of the workers including a more generalized usage of what they call "secret shoppers" and "comprehensive supervision."

TML demands an immediate stop to these irresponsible statements and slanders against the TTC workers. Blaming the workers for any crisis at the TTC, real or imagined, and creating strife amongst workers and between TTC workers and passengers who themselves are part of the working people of Toronto covers up what is the actual crisis at the TTC, its origin and thus its solution. The crisis at the TTC is not a problem of customer relations due to the behaviour of workers but the chronic underfunding of the system by the provincial and federal governments, which facilitate the monopolies to steal the social wealth that could otherwise be used to fund social programs, including maintaining and expanding public transit. Far from being responsible for this crisis, it is the workers who are forced to bear the brunt of this underfunding which leads to staffing cutbacks, breakdowns of equipment and long waits for passengers on cold winter days. They are the ones who are keeping the system working in spite of all these pressures, by working split shifts under increasingly stressful working conditions, amongst other things. Taking punitive arbitrary actions against the TTC workers and inciting Torontonians against them will only exacerbate the situation, leaving the system even more at the mercy of anti-social forces of wrecking and privatization.

Any person in a position of authority within the TTC as well as municipal and provincial politicians should treat the TTC workforce with utmost respect and dignity and assist them in delivering the service. Any problem which occurs must be dealt with through a process that has been agreed to by the workers. The TTC executives and the politicians who keep abdicating their social responsibility by going into this nonsense of behaviour problems and wrecking the established system of labour relations with this new "exciting" YouTube-Twitter process of fabricated evidence and presumption of guilt must be rejected with contempt by the people.

The pressures on the TTC service are bound to increase as the McGuinty government is preparing to deliver its budget in March and as the mayoral race in Toronto is underway. Private profiteer vultures and irresponsible politicians are already filling the media that now is the time to increase private plundering of the TTC system to siphon more of its resources into private hands and to crush the workers and their demands for working conditions that are commensurate with the services they are providing.

Now is the time for everyone to oppose this hysteria by defending the TTC workers and all public sector workers and developing the fight for public services that serve nation building.

TTC Workers' Union Holds Press Conference

- Remarks by Bob Kinnear, President, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113, February 9, 2010 (excerpts) -

On February 9, Local 113 of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) which represents the TTC workers, held a press conference to denounce the propaganda campaign of the monopoly media and the TTC authorities against the workers. TML is publishing below excerpts from comments made by ATU Local 113 President Bob Kinnear.

***

In Ontario, workers are entitled to a harassment-free workplace. And even though it is also a public space, a bus, a streetcar or a subway station is our workplace. The people who work there are human beings, just like you. There is no group of workers in this city who are more subject to public assault than TTC workers. Every time there is a fare increase, we brace ourselves for the inevitable spike in insults and assaults. But the recent media focus on a handful of TTC workers has made a bad situation much, much worse. We have heard from many operators who now fear taking a few minutes for a needed washroom break because they don't want to be subjected to ridicule or embarrassment. They don't want to appear on the front page, or on any page, of the Toronto Sun or the Toronto Star, or the National Post, on CityTV or Global or CTV or any of the other self-appointed guardians of the public good or the voice of the people.

I invite any journalist here today to go online and take a few minutes to research the health effects of chronic urinary retention. Let me give you a head start on the most common problems: urinary tract infections, kidney infections, kidney failure, bladder cancer and prostate problems.

So once again: to all those who get some cheap thrill video stalking a driver leaving his or her bus for a washroom break: Stop it! It's inhuman and it's creating potential employee health and public safety hazards. And to the media who receive such videos, I'm asking you to send them back with a reprimand to the person who sent it. You are not performing a public service by publicizing the washroom breaks of public service workers. And to Brad Ross, the TTC official who publicly declared that a washroom break should be announced to passengers and should only take three minutes, I say: "Who made you God? Who are you to determine how much time any man or any woman might need to answer a call of nature? Please explain to us where this standard comes from. And if you can't, please apologize to your employees for the needless anxiety and stress you have caused them."

But as a union we have never said that any TTC employee is entitled to nap on the job or has the right to be rude to customers. It happens, of course, and there is a process for dealing with these things. There has to be a process because things aren't always black and white, even when they might seem black and white to some people. People are entitled to defend themselves and tell their side of the story. The grievance procedure is a process that both management and the union have agreed to. Every union, including the ATU, has a legal obligation to fairly represent its members. It's the law in Ontario. Now I don't need a law to tell me to defend my members. I'm just telling you that it is the law. Everyone who is accused of doing something wrong, and especially if their livelihood is at stake, is entitled to a fair and impartial hearing. And even if they are shown to have been in the wrong, the punishment must fit the crime.

Having said all that, I want to assure the public that the union takes all the criticism of our members very seriously and we want to do something significant to address it. But before I announce our plans, I want to make a couple of comments on the Saturday email from Chief General Manager Gary Webster. This email was unfair in the extreme. Mr. Webster actually blames all employees -- several times -- for all the recent troubles. He takes absolutely no responsibility for management operating decisions that anger customers. For example, he takes no responsibility for the recent token fiasco. Our members took all the flak for that. He takes no responsibility for the staff cutbacks that result in dirty subway stations and washrooms. He takes no responsibility for the St. Clair cost overruns (which, by the way, were the result of contracting out). He takes NO responsibility for any management decisions that have adversely affected service and led to great customer dissatisfaction. No, it's all the workers' fault... Nor does Webster bother to mention the chronic government underfunding that is responsible for fare increases and the sad state of our once world-leading transit system. Nor does he even once mention that TTC operators have often difficult and demanding jobs and go to work every day not knowing whether they are going to be insulted or assaulted. His email was a petulant, whiney rant that insulted all of his employees.

Now let me conclude with an announcement of what the union is going to do to help restore some civility and rationality to this public debate on TTC service...We are going to initiate a series of town hall meetings across this city at which rank and file transit workers can meet and talk with TTC customers about how we can work together to improve services and build a high level of mutual respect and support..The objective will be to begin repairing the damage that has been done to our reputation and our relationships with our fellow citizens through an exchange of views and information. I believe that one of the outcomes will be that we will find there is a great deal of common ground that unites TTC workers and riders. But we'll let the chips fall where they may. These town halls are not going to happen right away. They will take some time to arrange and we will be working with interested community groups to ensure good turnouts and a true cross section of our customers in this very diverse city. We will also be approaching respected community leaders to serve as moderators... They will be well publicized and held at convenient times for public participation. And we will ensure that there will be plenty of coffee and adequate washrooms.

Why TTC Workers? Why Now?

The hard working men and women of the Toronto transit system move 750,000 people back and forth from their jobs and schools every day -- half a billion trips a year. This critical contribution to our socialized economy is accomplished through intense and disciplined work by an army of 11,000 transit workers. It is outrageous that the monopoly media, including it's "social media" wing, is attacking and denigrating the dignity of these workers.

These attacks are represented as just spontaneous acts by some smart-assed kids with camera phones, but is that all there is to it? The working class has a lot of experience with different sectors being criminalized -- exactly the way Toronto transit workers are now, and exactly the way they were during the 2008 strike over contracting out maintenance work.

Everyone remembers how postal workers were viciously slandered as thieves and crazy people when they were opposing the huge anti-worker restructuring and privatization by Canada Post and the private mail monopolies. Workers in rail, steel, auto and forestry have all been criminalized for "defending entitlements" when they resisted the restructuring and cratering of these industries. The fighting miners and mill workers in Sudbury are being criminalized today as they stand up to the dictate of Vale Inco.

Why the transit workers, why now? Monopolies are marauding everywhere looking for big scores -- especially now in the current crisis they caused. For them the TTC's $9 billion in assets and $1 billion a year operating budget are plums waiting to be plucked.

The city's official plan has also frozen street construction and calls for massive expansion of the TTC to accommodate an expected 20 percent increase in population. $11 billion in TTC capital spending is up for grabs in the current 5 year plan -- 80 percent of which is for "state of good repair" spending. Transit workers and their demands for living wages and job security are the only organized force attempting to restrict the looting of this public treasure by the monopolies.

Workers have to be wary of the slander campaigns against TTC workers and other workers characterized as "entitled workers." We are aware that the rich are trying to drive down the standard Canadian wages and working conditions. But it is not always apparent that they are working on this at both ends of the labour market -- the low wage and the high wage ends.

At the low wage end, migrant workers without any civic rights are used to remove the floor under the labour market -- to remove the limit on how low you can go. At the high end, in sectors where workers have strong traditions of fighting the capitalists and forcing concessions from them, an attempt is made to smash the workers' defence organizations and tumble down the wages of "entitled workers."

My father and my grandfather both worked at the TTC, on the streetcars and in the car barns respectively. They were proud of the work they did. They were also proud of the contribution they made to the cause of the Canadian working class. One of our favourite family stories is the one about my grandfather getting the family dressed up and proudly taking them for a walk on Bloor Street on the first Saturday after Toronto transit workers won their battle for a five day week. This is the dignity the media hucksters are denigrating.

The Need for Democratic Renewal

Demonstrators at the Security and Prosperity Partnership Summit in Montebello, Quebec in August 2007 denounce
the sellout of Mexico's sovereignty.Signs read "The homeland is not for sale, it must be defended"; "No to the SPP."

The people of Mexico have a proud tradition of opposing colonialism and imperialism and affirming their rights. This year Mexico, like several other Latin American countries, will commence celebrations of the 200th anniversary of independence from Spanish colonial rule. The Mexicans have carried out two revolutions and fought bloody battles to oppose French then U.S. imperialist aggression, the latter of which stole more than half of its territory. The Mexican Constitution recognizes the people's sovereignty and respect for that of other countries. It recognizes the country's natural and energy resources as a national heritage. It prohibits the domination of the Mexican government treasury by the international financial oligarchy. It prohibits the Mexican army from taking part in wars of aggression or foreign military pacts. It recognizes the rights to housing, clothing, food and education. However, despite their historic accomplishments and the fine words of the Constitution, the present reality facing Mexicans is a government in the service of the monopolies and foreign interests which has imposed the violation of rights and impunity as the norm. For rights to be recognized requires having the political power to provide the means for their expression. A crucial question facing the Mexican people is how to end their political marginalization and achieve decision-making power so that they can exercise control over matters that affect their lives. In this regard, a brief survey of Mexico's current political arrangements underscores the pressing need for renewal of the democracy in the people's interests.

As concerns the office of the president, since Felipe Calderón was elected to that post in 2006, violations of the Constitution and to the people's rights have increased and been carried out with total impunity. Coupled with his sellout of Mexico's sovereignty through the Security and Prosperity Partnership with the U.S. and Canada, as well as militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border in cooperation with the U.S. military, amongst other things, Calderón's presidency can be characterized as one of treachery towards the nation.

In terms of the legislative branch, members of the Congress and Senate are elected through universal suffrage. The party that obtains the majority forms the government and leads the country. Currently the party in power is the ultra-conservative National Action Party (PAN) from which Calderón comes. The PAN lost its majority as of the July 2009 elections, forcing it to govern with the aid of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), a party which is not at all revolutionary and which occupied power for 70 years until the 1980s. These are analogous to the Conservative and Liberal Parties in Canada. The first outrightly defends monopoly right and U.S. annexationist policy, while the other claims to be for the interests of the people but hypocritically does the the same as the PAN.

The political system also includes an ostensibly non-partisan government body, the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), charged with organizing the elections, tabulating the results, dispersing public funds to the political parties and overseeing their activities during the electoral period. The IFE includes an electoral tribunal that receives complaints during and between elections. This includes complaints from members of registered political parties who claim their rights have been violated by their party or by another registered party. While in theory this body is independent of the government, the president of the IFE is elected by the Senate, meaning that the party in power has the luxury to elect someone favourable to its interests. Moreover, IFE's current president, Leonardo Valdés Zurita, in office since 2008, is himself a fellow traveller of Mexico's bourgeois elite, including being a close friend of President Calderón's wife.

Since 2006, partisan political influence on the IFE has been used on multiple occasions to render decisions favourable to the PAN. Calderón's 2006 ascension to the presidency was the result of the electoral tribunal's refusal to consider the numerous irregularities that took place during the election, as well as its refusal to abide by the norms related to vote recounts which would otherwise have confirmed the victory of the opposition presidential candidate Manuel Lopez Obrador from the left coalition. Subsequently, the tribunal has wasted no opportunity to hand down decisions unfavourable to the opposition and declare Obrador, as well as the movement he leads of thousands of Mexicans, defeated. In the latest such incident, the tribunal took advantage of a complaint by a Labour Party (PT) member regarding the application of party policy, to interfere in the party's internal affairs. In rendering its decision in the matter at the end of January, the tribunal not only declared the party policy invalid, but on this basis dislodged the entire party leadership including the president, then ordered that new policies be adopted and that leadership elections be held in July. The PT is one of the main allies of Obrador and made important gains against the PAN and PRI in the July 2009 elections.

This reality demonstrates that without democratic renewal, it is impossible for the Mexican people to have decision-making power as well as the power to implement and defend those decisions. In response to the need for democratic renewal, Mexico Tekizetiliztli (the Labour Union of Mexico in Nahuatl) is organizing a Congress on Sovereignty beginning in October 2010 and is calling on all political and democratic forces to unite to make this Congress a success and an important advance in the Mexican people's fight for democratic renewal and their right to decide.

A New Form of Regime Change, Made in USA

In 1983, the strategy of overthrowing inconvenient governments and calling it "democracy promotion" was born.

Through the creation of a series of quasi-private "foundations," such as the Albert Einstein Institute (AEI), the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute (NDI), Freedom House and later the International Center for Non-Violent Conflict (ICNC), Washington began to filter funding and strategic aid to political parties and groups abroad that promoted U.S. agenda in nations with insubordinate governments.

Behind all these "foundations" and "institutes" is the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the financial branch of the Department of State. Today, USAID has become a critical part of the security, intelligence and defense axis in Washington. In 2009, the Interagency Counterinsurgency Initiative became official doctrine in the U.S. Now, USAID is the principal entity that promotes the economic and strategic interests of the U.S. across the globe as part of counterinsurgency operations. Its departments dedicated to transition initiatives, reconstruction, conflict management, economic development, governance and democracy are the main venues through which millions of dollars are filtered from Washington to political parties, NGOs, student organizations and movements that promote U.S. agenda worldwide. Wherever a coup d'etat, a colored revolution or a regime change favorable to U.S. interests occurs, USAID and its flow of dollars is there.

How Does a Colored Revolution Work?

The recipe is always the same. Student and youth movements lead the way with a fresh face, attracting others to join in as though it were the fashion, the cool thing to do. There's always a logo, a color, a marketing strategy. In Serbia, the group OTPOR, which led the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic, hit the streets with t-shirts, posters and flags boasting a fist in black and white, their symbol of resistance. In Ukraine, the logo remained the same, but the color changed to orange. In Georgia, it was a rose-colored fist, and in Venezuela, instead of the closed fist, the hands are open, in black and white, to add a little variety.

Colored revolutions always occur in a nation with strategic, natural resources: gas, oil, military bases and geopolitical interests. And they also always take place in countries with socialist-leaning, anti-imperialist governments. The movements promoted by U.S. agencies in those countries are generally anti-communist, anti-socialist, pro-capitalist and pro-imperialist.

Protests and destabilization actions are always planned around an electoral campaign and process, to raise tensions and questions of potential fraud, and to discredit the elections in the case of a loss for the opposition, which is generally the case. The same agencies are always present, funding, training and advising: USAID, NED, IRI, NDI, Freedom House, AEI and ICNC. The latter two pride themselves on the expert training and capacitation of youth movements to encourage "non violent" change.

The strategy seeks to debilitate and disorganize the pillars of State power, neutralizing security forces and creating a sensation of chaos and instability. Colonel Robert Helvey, one of the founders of this strategy and a director at AEI, explained that the objective is not to destroy the armed forces and police, but rather "convert them" -- convince them to leave the present government and "make them understand that there is a place for them in the government of tomorrow." Youth are used to try and debilitate security forces and make it more difficult for them to engage in repression during public protests. Srdja Popovic, founder of OTPOR, revealed that Helvey taught them "... how to select people in the system, such as police officers, and send them the message that we are all victims, them and us, because it's not the job of a police officer to arrest a 13-year old protestor, for example...."

It's a well-planned strategy directed towards the security forces, public officials and the public in general, with a psychological warfare component and a street presence that give the impression of a nation on the verge of popular insurrection.

Venezuela

In 2003, AEI touched ground in Venezuela. Colonel Helvey himself gave a 9-day intensive course to the Venezuelan opposition on how to "restore democracy" in the country. According to AEI's annual report, opposition political parties, NGOs, activists and labor unions participated in the workshop, learning the techniques of how to "overthrow a dictator." This was a year after the failed coup d'etat -- led by those same groups -- against President Chavez. What came right after the AEI intervention was a year of street violence, constant destabilization attempts and a recall referendum against Chavez. The opposition lost 60-40, but cried fraud. Their claims were pointless. Hundreds of international observers, including the Carter Center and the OAS, certified the process as transparent, legitimate and fraud-free.

In March 2005, the Venezuelan opposition and AEI joined forces again, but this time the old political parties and leaders were replaced by a select group of students and young Venezuelans. Two former leaders of OTPOR came from Belgrade, Slobodan Dinovic and Ivan Marovic, to train the Venezuelan students on how to build a movement to overthrow their president. Simultaneously, USAID and NED funding to groups in Venezuela skyrocketed to around $9 million USD. Freedom House set up shop in Venezuela for the first time ever, working hand in hand with USAID and NED to help consolidate the opposition and prepare it for the 2006 presidential elections. ICNC, led by former Freedom House president Peter Ackerman, also began to train the youth opposition movement, providing intensive courses and seminars in regime change techniques.

That year, the newly-trained students launched their movement. The goal was to impede the electoral process and create a scenario of fraud, but they failed. Chavez won the elections with 64% of the vote, a landslide victory. In 2007, the movement was relaunched in reaction to the government's decision to not renew the broadcasting license of a private television station, RCTV, a voice of the opposition. The students took to the streets with their logo in hand and along with the aid of mainstream media, garnered international attention.

Several were selected by U.S. agencies and sent to train again in Belgrade in October 2007. Student leader Yon Goicochea was awarded $500,000 USD from the right-wing Washington think tank, the Cato Institute, to set up a training center for opposition youth inside Venezuela.

Today, those same students are the faces of the opposition political parties, evidencing not only their clear connection with the politics of the past, but also the deceit of their own movement. The colored revolutions in Georgia and the Ukraine are fading. Citizens of those nations have become disenchanted with those that took power through an apparent "autonomous" movement and have begun to see they were fooled.

The colored revolutions are nothing more than the red, white and blue of U.S. agencies, finding new and innovative ways to try and impose Empire's agenda.

Support Transit Workers!