|
February 21, 2013 - No. 22 Stand Up for Your Right to Be! Down with Harper's EI Changes!
|
|
Stand Up for Your Right to Be!
• Down with Harper's EI
Changes! Organize and Fight for a New Direction
for the Economy!
Canada
Post's Outrageous Claims
• Postal Workers Are Not
Fooled! - Louis Lang
Xstrata
Nickel, Sudbury
• Mine Mill Workers Ratify
New Contract and Fend Off Concessions
- Richard Paquin, President, Mine Mill Local
598, Canadian Auto Workers
Ecuador
• Movimiento Alianza PAIS
Wins Presidency and Majority in National
Assembly
Stand Up for Your Right to Be!
Down with Harper's EI Changes!
Organize and Fight for a New Direction
for the Economy!
The Harper dictatorship's cuts to Employment Insurance are another assault on the right to be. The most vulnerable are workers in the regions and small towns where moving to a job means going to a big city or far away to resource extraction boom camps. That workers are forced to defend the pittance of Employment Insurance shows that the economy serves a privileged wealthy minority and not the people and society. That workers are threatened with a denial of EI forcing them to leave their hometowns is a sign that this economy is in need of renewal with a new pro-social direction.
 "For a just and universal EI system" |
The mere existence of EI for over seventy years is an admission of the ruling elite that the economy does not work, that the economy does not serve the people, their communities and society. How can human beings and their communities exist without work? Work is life. Work is the struggle for existence at its basic level. Work produces the value on which everyone depends. Without work, what life and culture can the people have?
Before monopoly capitalism, life without work except for rich parasites has never been the lot of humans even in the most difficult conditions under slavery, feudal petty production and pioneer life. Today, people demand answers to why this system cannot provide full-time year-round work in areas of Canada where skilled workers and plentiful resources of fish, trees, minerals and fresh water abound such as in the regions of Quebec, New Brunswick and throughout the Maritimes. It appears the ruling elite, who control the largest investment funds, block the local economies from developing in a rational, sustainable, all-sided manner with manufacturing as their base, which deprives the local people of work. Workers are denied their right to be and told to leave their hometowns further ruining the local economy.
The global monopolies and their political representatives demand Canadians move to where they dictate, to wherever they decide to build pipelines, mines, oil and gas wells and infrastructure to serve their narrow short-sighted aim for a big score. With these EI changes, the Harper dictatorship declares that workers are persona non grata in their own communities. They will be starved out and given no opportunity to build their communities. This is unacceptable! Organized as one class with one program to defend the rights of all, workers say no to the EI changes and to an irrational economy that serves a privileged minority and their global monopolies. Workers and their communities everywhere in Canada demand their basic right to be and to decide and control their future.
Harper, representing the privileged elite who control the economy, is hell-bent on punishing workers for being unemployed due to lack of investments and development in their communities. Can you imagine, the ruling elite attack workers for having only seasonal, part-time or temporary work. If the ruling authorities are incapable of developing an all-sided sustainable economy that provides employment and a life for all in the regions then this proves they are unfit to rule, decide and control the people's affairs and should step aside and let the actual producers chart a new direction for the economy.
The working class does not accept the boom and bust narrow outlook of the ruling elite. The people have a right to control the economy and its rational all-sided sustainable development where value is poured back into the economy. The working class is one class from coast to coast to coast with one program. That program demands rational distribution of work and development in all regions of Canada not just where the global monopolies are smacking their lips looking for a quick buck.
Wherever the global monopolies go, they are not interested in building a sustainable economy with manufacturing as its base. For seventy years the country has had EI and still the situation has not improved, still the same problems of lack of work, regional underdevelopment and boom and bust are left unresolved. Harper's EI changes do not solve any problem; they simply throw salt in the wound of underdevelopment and chronic unemployment and underemployment.
For over
seventy years, EI has served the ruling elite to
mask the deep wound of unemployment and
underdevelopment, and to keep trained workers
around until needed. In their current arrogance,
they are now ripping off this mask because they
have other plans for unemployed workers, which
entail shipping them far away. They also believe
they have found other ways to fill seasonal and
occasional work from the vast army of unemployed
in the industrial heartland and from around the
world and through Harper's Temporary Foreign
Workers' Program and other anti-social
schemes. The Workers' Opposition says No! Workers
will not be treated as machines to be transported
from site to site at the whim of the monopolies.
Workers want to stay in their communities and
build a life and economy for themselves and their
communities. They refuse to be starved out and
deported similar to the great suffering of the
Acadians who were deported by the British
colonialists.
Workers denounce these EI changes as a neoliberal plot to wreck their communities and economies even further and drive them away to serve the global monopolies. Enough with these deportations! Enough with this economy that deliberately perpetuates uneven distortions across the country with so-called labour shortages and booms in resource extraction sectors and unemployment, wrecking of manufacturing and underdevelopment in others to provide an army of workers at the disposal of the global monopolies.
The Workers' Opposition demands investments and manufacturing in all regions of Canada so that people can build a life and affirm their right to be. The Workers' Opposition demands a new pro-social direction for the economy.
Down with the Harper dictatorship's attacks on EI
and the regions! Manufacturing yes!
Nation-wrecking no! Join with others in the
regions, towns and cities who are organizing to
deprive the ruling elite of their power to deprive
the people of their rights.
Clarification on Minister Finley's "Clarification"
On February 19, Minister of Human Resources and
Skills Development Canada Diane Finley issued a
statement and a fact sheet which claim that the
changes to the employment insurance system are
only "clarifications" to existing regulations and
that those opposed to the changes are spreading
myths about them. But facts are stubborn things.
The fact remains that these changes specify wage
cuts that the unemployed must now accept and
benefit periods after which they must accept
lower-paying jobs under threat of being cut off,
which was not previously the case. By specifying
the wage cuts and benefit periods, the Minister
removes a great deal of the discretion
available to those who administer EI in the
regions. The law not only removes the ability of
these personnel to exercise discretion but
cutbacks in personnel make it unlikely concrete
cases in which the unemployed live will be
studied. In addition, these changes are part
of regulations that the Minister can rule on
without going through Parliament. It is very
doubtful that they are for purposes of taking into
account the specific problems of the unemployed in
their regions as the Minister claims or that
individuals will be accommodated.
The new regulations were published in the Canada Gazette
on December 19, 2012. They can be read by clicking
here.
Stand Up for Your Right to Be!
Join the Organized Fight for a New Direction for
the Economy that
Provides Work and Life for All!
Who Decides? We Decide! Who Controls? We Control!
Canada Post's Outrageous Claims
Postal Workers Are Not Fooled!
Canada Post recently announced that it was facing a $327 million operating loss and is considering cut backs in service like reducing home delivery from five to four or even three days per week. The spokesperson stated that "all options are on the table" including closing some of the 6,500 retail outlets across the country as well as consolidating its 21 sorting centres to "just major cities."
This so-called crisis
facing the corporation was attributed to the
drastic reduction in mail volumes due to the
increasing use of e-mail and the internet. This is
not the first time that Canada Post has made such
dire predictions about the viability of the Post
Office. These same arguments were used during the
last round of "negotiations" with the Canadian
Union of Postal Workers in 2011 and 2012 in order
to justify attacking the wages, benefits and
working conditions of postal workers and imposing
severe roll-backs through federal legislation.
The claims then and now, range anywhere from a 25 per cent to 17 per cent drop in mail volumes which the Union maintains are greatly exaggerated. As in the past, no real facts were presented to support these estimates.
In fact, even the corporations own financial reports show that while there may be some fluctuation in mail volumes reflecting the level of economic activity, comparing mail volumes in similar quarters in 2011 and 2012 shows some decline in mail volumes amounting to approximately 4 per cent.
The most important point about the over-exaggerated claims of Canada Post about facing declining mail volumes and financial deficits is that this is a diversion being used by the corporation to hide from postal workers and all Canadians the actual situation of Canada Post within the overall economy and to stop people from having a say in the direction being taken by the corporation and the Harper government.
While the corporation claims to be concerned about the loss of revenues it continues to make cut-backs in services discouraging people from using fist class mail. Over the years directory services have been almost completely eliminated; red street letter boxes have been reduced in major urban centres; door-to-door letter carrier delivery is being replaced by community mail boxes in new developments; and the hours of operation of retail outlets has been reduced forcing people to use postal franchises in drug stores and grocery stores. Furthermore, the corporation has not produced any report on the amount of mail volume and revenue that was lost due to the Harper government's legislation deregulating international mail, taking it out of the exclusive privilege of Canada Post and handing it over to large international mailers.
It is clear that mail volumes and loss in revenues have nothing to do with the cut-backs that are being proposed now. In fact, these plans have been in place since Moya Greene was appointed President and CEO of Canada Post by the Liberal government in 2005.
 Protest against the closure of the Quebec City mail sorting plant, October 2, 2005. |
Within months of her appointment, the union received written notice from the corporation that it would be reviewing the national network including all mechanized mail processing plants and that Quebec City would be the first plant reviewed. The closure of the Quebec City plant, with the loss of 302 jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars lost to the local economy was part of an overall plan of the corporation to reduce the workforce by centralizing the processing of letter mail. New plants were built in Vancouver and Winnipeg and with the installation of the new generation Multi-Line Optical Character Reader machines (MLOCR) there as well as in Montreal and Toronto and the over $2 billion investment in Postal Transformation, the corporation has been implementing its plans to close more plants and concentrate mail processing in four main plants across the country. The most recent examples are Windsor and North Bay where letter mail will be trucked to London and Toronto respectively for processing. The Ottawa Mail Processing Plant is also facing the same threats. Some of the mail that used to be processed in Ottawa is already being diverted to Toronto and all local mail normally sorted over the weekend is being sent to Montreal.
Moya Greene, who was Assistant Deputy Minister of Transport at the time that CN Rail was privatized, clearly outlined these plans for Canada Post in her speech to the Empire Club in Toronto in October 2007. She explained the importance of "modernization and revitalization of Canada Post" in order to orient it to serve big business. She said, "In the past the Post Office was a personal link but now it plays an important role in economic communications...90 per cent of our revenues come from the business sector. We will reorganize to focus on our customers' business."
She also stated, "We are beginning the modernization process with $1.9 billion being invested in the next five years. One third of the workforce is retiring in the near future. This is an opportunity to synchronize modernization plans with the pace of retirements."
She made it clear in her speech that the exclusive privilege and universal service obligation were "restrictions from the past" that needed to be eliminated through deregulation. She said, "In order for deregulation to succeed it has to happen gradually. In the places where it was successful, it gave postal administrations more freedom to compete and adjust to the economic environment."
It is this "new orientation" and not eroding mail volumes and the internet which is behind Postal Transformation, the attacks on postal workers and the ongoing cut-backs of postal services.
If Canada Post was in such a disastrous situation and was on the verge of extinction, as the monopoly media claim on a daily basis, then why are the large corporations clamouring for the elimination of the exclusive privilege and directing the government to deregulate more areas of mail delivery. It is precisely because they want to get their hands on the most profitable parts of Canada Post's business.
The fact of the matter is that Moya Greene and now the new CEO, Deepak Chopra, who was President of Pitney Bowes Canada, were appointed to oversee the chopping up of the universal postal service. It is this new direction for Canada Post which the corporation and the Harper government don't want to openly discuss.
In the past,
as part of nation-building, Canada Post was needed
for the circulation of necessary business
information. A public postal monopoly owned by the
government was the most effective way to pool
enough capital to create a system of
communications vast enough to connect business
addresses throughout the country. So a universal
postal system has been essential for the
development of Canada right from the beginning.
But it seems that the political parties and the
corporations which they represent are no longer
interested in nation-building. The free trade
agreements and other international arrangements
have resulted in Canada giving up its right to
make decisions regarding its own economy.
The Harper government and the Liberals in the past, in adopting neo-liberal globalization, are selling public institutions like the Post Office to the highest bidder and they are trying to hide this truth from postal workers and all Canadians.
The squandering of postal assets and the
dangerous path of privatization being taken by
Canada Post under the direction of the Harper
government must not be allowed to pass. Postal
workers must continue to affirm that the global
economy is not made up of just monopoly
corporations who have given themselves the right
to roam the world subjugating the economies of all
nations. Postal workers and all Canadians are also
part of this economy and we will not stand by
while our rights are dismissed in favour of
maximum profits for the monopolies.
Xstrata Nickel, Sudbury
Mine Mill Workers Ratify New Contract and
Fend Off Concessions
Members of Mine Mill Local 598 at the ratification meeting, February 1, 2013.
On February 1, our members at Xstrata Nickel voted 92 per cent to ratify the tentative agreement that was reached with the employer. The meeting for the tentative agreement was attended by over two thirds of the membership. The negotiations involved 865 workers, that is the Xstrata nickel unit. It is basically your production and maintenance crew of the smelter, mill and mine.
This set of negotiations was more difficult than the previous ones we had at Xstrata.
There are a number of issues that made it more difficult this time than all the other times, the demands on the table were more than what we are used to. They were asking for a five-year deal and we've never done that at Xstrata before. We were adamant we wanted three years only and the members stood by that and were willing to go out on that. We were able to work out a deal with the employer at deadline basically in the wee hours of the morning, that we would compensate for a four-year deal instead of five.
Besides the length of the contract, there were a number of other issues.
One was maintaining the cost of living allowance (COLA) for our pensioners -- this is indexing for a yearly adjustment to protect pensioners from cost of living increases. The company wanted to take it away but we maintained it. We also won for our current employees a pretty good pension increase if they choose to leave within the next four years. For anybody, regardless of age, that has worked at least 30 years in the mine, they will be able to retire with a pension of $3,600 a month. The other increase is to our basic pension, that is the one based on years of service. It is increased from $56 to $59 per year per month of service by the end of the contract.
Another increase was on wages. Our employees haven't had really significant wage increases in the last 10-12 years. This time around at the negotiations, the workers made it very clear that Xstrata nickel has been profitable for the last six to seven years, that it is a very healthy company. We were able to basically bargain for them wage increases totalling a little over $3.20/hour at the end of the four-year period. In the past we were mainly concentrating on our bonuses and on the pensions. The bonuses this time have not been paying as much as in the past so the workers said let's go for something gives us more of a guarantee for wages versus relying on bonuses.
We also won some improvements in benefits, life-insurance and also on long-term and short-term disability payments.
In their proposal, the company wanted to introduce a defined-contribution pension plan for the new hires. That is what they had been talking about but at the table we were able to bargain that any new hires would have the option of maintaining the current defined-benefit plan that we have or they could choose the voluntary defined-contribution pension plan. Their defined-benefit plan will be the same one that our current workers have. We are quite satisfied with that. It opens the door for other employers and unions to look at our contract [and do the same]. It means that a defined-contribution plan is not a mandatory feature. It is possible to get around that.
There are a couple of issues that really helped us in this round of bargaining. First, our membership was so strongly behind us that they gave us a 96 per cent strike mandate in order for us to be able to tell the employer that should they not accept what we are looking for, or at least be reasonable, the members were ready to strike. Secondly the company knows that we know that they have made lots of money. It was hard for the company to fight that.
We know that Sudbury is quite a unionized city and we were getting emails and letters of support from different unions in the city saying, "We will support you any way we can if you get into a labour dispute." We were also getting letters from different businesses supporting us because obviously nobody wants a labour dispute. Even after we ratified I received a lot of emails, comments and phone calls from different businesses thanking us for making this happen because they were worried there might be a labour dispute.
Ecuador
Movimiento Alianza PAIS Wins Presidency and
Majority in National Assembly
President Correa greets his supporters rallying outside the presidential palace in Quito, Ecuador, February 17, 2013.
The Ecuadorian people reelected Rafael Correa, of the Movimiento Alianza PAIS (Movement for a Proud and Sovereign Country Alliance), as president in the first round of voting with a clear majority on February 17. According to early results released by the National Electoral Council of Ecuador (CNE), incumbent president Rafael Correa obtained 56.7 per cent of the vote. Of the seven other presidential candidates, his closest rival, Guillermo Lasso of the Parti Creando Oportunidades, proponent of a neo-liberal program, obtained 23.3 per cent of the vote.
Addressing the thousands of supporters who came to celebrate the victory, President Correa spoke from the balcony of the Presidential palace. "This revolution, nothing and nobody can stop it. We are making history. We are building the small country of Ecuador and the great Latin American homeland," he said. "Nothing for us. Everything for you, a people who have become dignified and who are working for a just and honest country," he continued. "I would also like to take this opportunity to dedicate this victory to the great Latin American leader who transformed Venezuela, my good friend Hugo [Chavez]," he added.
According to preliminary CNE data, the Movimiento Alianza PAIS has 51.9 per cent of the vote, which if maintained once a full count is completed, should give it a majority in the National Assembly with more than 69 seats out of the total of 124. President Correa's party could possibly get as many as 91 members in the National Assembly, which would give it two-thirds of the seats in the Assembly. If this were to happen, the Correa government would be in a position to adopt not only the laws that have been blocked for the past four years by the opposition, such as laws on water, land, communications and reforming the penal code, but it could also bring the changes required to the 2008 Constitution to further the citizen revolution.
When asked about the significance of the election results by Prensa Latina, President Correa said, "The big challenge is to make this change irreversible, dependent on the majority and not on power factions, for which we must finish work on the Constitution."
Both the CNE and the Union of South American Nations (USAN) reported that the vote was held peacefully and without serious incident.
Shortly after the announcement of President Correa's victory, several Latin American presidents sent congratulatory messages, including those of Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti and El Salvador. The leaders of the opposition parties also recognized Rafael Correa's victory and said they respect the Ecuadorian people's decision.
Read The Marxist-Leninist
Daily
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email:
editor@cpcml.ca