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July 15, 2010 - No. 133
Steelworkers Defend Their Rights
at U.S. Steel Hamilton and Essar Steel Algoma
• Steelworkers
Defend Their Rights at U.S.
Steel Hamilton and Essar Steel Algoma
• The Weakness
of Global Monopolies Versus the Strength of the Working Class Movement
- K.C. Adams
Quebec Public Sector
• Support the Just Struggle of the Nurses
• Nurses Deliberately Kept in Precarious
Employment - Interview, Régine Laurent, President,
Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé
Steelworkers Defend Their Rights at
U.S. Steel Hamilton and Essar Steel Algoma
Steelworkers organized into USW Local 1005 in Hamilton
and USW
Locals 2251 and 2724 in Sault Ste. Marie are facing global monopolies
demanding concessions on working conditions, benefits and pensions.
Steelworkers report they are united and determined to resist the
demands for concessions at U.S.
Steel and Essar despite the anti-worker pressure from the global
monopolies, governments and mass media.
TML sends its
militant greetings to all steelworkers involved and
their leadership and reiterates its full support for their just
struggle to resist concessions. TML
is convinced the steelworkers'
cause is just and necessary. Their resistance to concessions on the
economic front assists all Canadian workers
and the collective economy. Under the present conditions of monopoly
tyranny, organized conscious resistance is the only path open to the
workers. As long as the locals rely on the united strength of their
members and discuss openly with all concerned the tactics and methods
of struggle, they will emerge stronger
in this battle to defend the rights of all.
 The steel monopolies are
wreckers and thieves. They are
opposed to
the trend of history where the actual producers are those who decide
the level of claims they deserve on the social product they generate
within the socialized economy. A modern economy in a country with
bountiful resources such
as Canada is more than capable of providing a Canadian standard income
and security in retirement for all. The demand of the monopolies to go
backwards through concessions exposes them as enemies of Canadians and
their collective economy. Each battle against concessions, when fought
with tactics that are consciously
developed from within the locals, strengthens the overall resolve of
Canadian workers and their allies to defend the rights of all and put a
halt to this retrogression.
In a press release describing its aim for the collective
agreement,
the Essar Steel monopoly arrogantly declares, "We are seeking ways to
optimize productivity and to ensure our competitive performance in an
increasingly consolidated, global steel industry . In terms of our
competitive advantage, no
other competitor is prevented from using the economy of shared services
to reduce its costs . What we seek is a level playing field."
These are clichés for concessions and monopoly
right. The "level
playing field" they seek is the lowest wages, benefits, pensions and
working conditions of their "competitors." In other words, they are
"competing" to drive down the wages, benefits, pensions and working
conditions of the working class.
That is the essence of monopoly competition and that is why it must be
resisted with unity and determination.
The working class has an opposite outlook: to raise the
wages,
benefits, wages and working conditions for all to a level commensurate
with the work they do, and to establish in practice that the actual
producers have first claim on the social product they produce and to
ensure that the economy is reproduced
and their communities and governments at all levels have adequate
resources to sustain social programs, public services, infrastructure
and to serve the general interests of society. By resisting downward
pressure on their standard of living, workers are making a big
contribution to defending the collective Canadian
economy especially in the communities where they live and work.
 Workers should reject with
utter contempt the
self-serving reasons
for concessions given by the monopolies. Those reasons have more to do
with the failures of monopoly capitalism than with economic science.
"Optimizing productivity" requires reinvestment within the means of
production, to upgrade
and expand the steel mills to modern standards to meet Canadian demand.
Productivity has nothing to do with the level of claims by steelworkers
on the steel they produce. The level of wages, benefits and pensions is
a direct struggle with the owners of capital over the revenue generated
through production and sales.
Whether one side in the class struggle claims more or less revenue has
nothing directly to do with productivity. This big lie of the
monopolies stems from the capital-centred outlook that labour is a cost
and therefore productivity is related to a so- called labour cost per
unit of production. The scientific measurement
of social product is the amount of socially necessary work time for its
production. The measurement of social product is not its so-called
cost, which the monopolies easily manipulate for self-serving reasons.
All the arguments of the monopolies for concessions are
bogus and
should be rejected with contempt. In fact, concessions are contrary to
the public good, the welfare of the communities directly involved and
the general interests of society.
But knowing that the monopolies are wrong and
concessions are bad
and actually stopping concessions and reversing this period of
retrogression are two different matters. Knowing that concessions are
wrong and waging a successful battle to resist concessions are related
but separate matters. Workers
can know they are right and have justice on their side and still lose
the battle at this time. The point is to use every battle to become
stronger and to mobilize the mass of workers to join the struggle
against monopoly right so that we can turn the situation around! The
broad discussion of tactics on how to defeat the
monopoly offensive for concessions is a great step forward. What
features are necessary to develop within the workers' ranks so that a
determined economic struggle will break the back of this period of
concessions and nation-wrecking? What is the relation between the
economic struggle and the necessity for workers
to become worker politicians to defend the rights of all and open
Canada's door to progress? Workers must reach a level of unity and
determination that monopolies of the likes of Essar Steel and U.S.
Steel will be scoffed and laughed at and denounced for suggesting that
workers must sink to the lowest level to
please the international financial oligarchy.
TML calls on
the people of Hamilton and Sault Ste. Marie and all of
Canada, in particular on young workers, to rally around the
steelworkers in
their battle to defend their rights against these marauding steel
monopolies. Join with the USW locals involved in this
just struggle. Together, let
us show the global monopolies the mettle of Canadians!
Down with the Unjust Demands of the
Global
Monopolies for Concessions!
Concessions Are Not Solutions!
U.S. Steel
and Essar, Back Off!
Canadians Demand just Collective Agreements for
Our Steelworkers!
Long Live the Just Struggle of Canadian Steelworkers!
The Weakness of Global Monopolies Versus
the Strength
of the Working Class Movement
- K.C. Adams -
Humans learn through direct experience. This direct
experience can then be summed up and transformed into a living theory
or guide to action so that further direct experience becomes more
profound and opens a path forward. Knowledge and society have moved in
an upward spiral since the human species began.
The recent direct experience of Canadian workers with the global
monopolies Vale, U.S. Steel, Xstrata, AbitibiBowater and Shell in
Montreal should be constantly summed up and developed into theory to
open a path forward.
It is fashionable to speak of how powerful these global
monopolies have become; even certain working class organizations bemoan
the apparent power of the monopolies. Direct experience and theory
teach us something more complex. They point to fundamental weaknesses
in the monopoly camp that workers
have only just begun to penetrate. Contrary to the assumption that
global monopolies are all-powerful and can overwhelm workers and even
entire nations, they are part of the dialectical process of change,
development and motion and will reveal their objective weakness when
confronted by a conscious workers'
opposition.
The apparent strength of the monopolies signifies a real
weakness of the working class movement. Weakness of the monopolies
would signal a growing strength of the working class movement. This
means that workers should concern themselves less with the apparent
strength of the monopolies and more with
overcoming the weakness of the working class movement.
 Predators prey on weakness.
They prey on the most
vulnerable, the young, the infirm and elderly. Monopoly predators feed
on working class weakness. When the working class is organized to
defend the rights of all and is ideologically strong and partisan, it
is the rich and their monopolies that reveal their fundamental
weakness.
Power exists in relation to weakness. Those who speak of
the power of the monopolies refer indirectly to the weakness of the
Canadian working class. The issue is not the power of the monopolies
but how this apparent power feeds off the weakness of the working class
movement. The power of the monopolies
and the weakness of the workers' movement form a single whole. This
relationship is in constant change, development and motion. As the
working class strengthens itself as a class of, for and by itself, the
opposing aspect of the relationship (owners of capital) becomes weaker
to a similar degree.
The monopolies and state may appear stronger and more
ferocious at this time, as they certainly have during the yearlong
strike at Vale Inco and during the crisis in the forestry sector. The
appearance of ferocity is a telltale sign of desperation to block the
working class from building its strength. Instead of backing
away from this frenzy of the rich, the working class must courageously
organize and prepare itself and its allies for resistance. Organized
conscious resistance makes the working class movement stronger and
weakens the global monopolies.
When workers challenge monopoly right with staunch
resistance, as Vale workers have done this past year, they force the
monopolies to expose the reality that they are obsolete and a block to
progress. The monopolies do not want the modern working class to gain
any confidence in its abilities to manage the
economy and society without owners of capital weighing them down. With
working class strength through conscious resistance comes the
realization that the monopolies are not necessary, that they are an
impediment to social harmony and prosperity, that they are relics of
mediaeval privilege and lawless impunity
and the source of recurring economic crises.
Direct experience propels thinking Canadians to
understand that Vale, U.S. Steel and all the rest of the global
monopolies do not represent any benefit to Canada, either net or gross.
The monopolies want to steal more and more of the added-value produced
in Canada and take it out of the economy.
Added-value produced by Canadians, such as that created
by Inco and Stelco workers, is divided amongst three main claimants
that exist in time and space within Canada:
1) the Canadian working class who are the actual
producers and providers of services;
2) governments of various levels;
3) owners of enterprise capital, owners of debt and
owners of land.
It is obvious to all involved that Vale, U.S. Steel and
other global monopolies want to lower the portion of added-value
claimed by the Canadian working class and governments. It is as simple
as that. The arguments of the monopolies that they want to be more
competitive and drive down the costs of workers
are a smokescreen to hide the simple reality that they want to reduce
the claims on added-value by both the Canadian working class and
governments. The rich and their global monopolies want more of the
social product for themselves.
The new collective agreement at Vale will reduce the
claim of workers on the added-value they produce. This will reduce the
amount of income tax and other individual taxes paid by Vale Inco
workers. Corporate income taxes have been continually reduced year
after year. The net result is less social product
(added- value) claimed by Canadian workers and governments and more
social product claimed by the global monopoly Vale, of which almost all
will leave the mining and metallurgical communities, the country and
its socialized economy.
 For the working class, the
monopoly arguments of
competition and working class costs are a farce and big lie to hide the
truth that the monopolies want more of the added-value for themselves.
Many workers understand that if they were to eliminate all the claims
of owners of enterprise capital, debt and land
on the added-value that workers produce then Canadian enterprises would
be the most competitive in the world. Owners of capital acknowledge
this when they insist that government-owned enterprises represent
"unfair" competition because much less of their added-value is claimed
by owners of capital, in particular
owners of enterprise capital, making public enterprises more
competitive. More of the added-value of government-owned enterprises
stays within the socialized economy thereby strengthening it and
becoming a factor against economic crises.
The stark reality is that any lowering of the claims of
the Canadian working class and governments on added-value, such as Vale
with the new collective agreement and U.S. Steel at Lake Erie Works and
other monopolies are attempting to do, greatly weakens the Canadian
economy and social fabric of the country.
Any lowering of the claims of owners of enterprise capital, debt and
land on added-value greatly strengthens the Canadian economy and social
fabric of the country. This struggle over claims on added-value has a
great bearing on the strength or weakness of the monopolies versus the
strength or weakness of the working
class movement. As one aspect strengthens itself in any way, the other
aspect is weakened. But with any relationship, the rising aspect (in
this case the working class) does not need the declining or obsolete
aspect (the rich and their monopolies) to exist and renew itself. By
strengthening itself, the working class movement
will eventually eliminate the declining aspect and give rise to new
arrangements.
The Canadian working class in its recent battles with
the global monopolies has shown its unlimited potential. It has only
just restarted its battle in earnest to affirm itself in the new
conditions of the anti-social offensive both on the economic front in
its trade union head to head battles with the monopolies, and
on the political front in organizing for democratic renewal so that
working class politics can neutralize monopoly right politics and
engage in a determined struggle over the direction of the economy and
control of the state machine.
This talk of the overwhelming power of the monopolies is
to keep workers in thrall and not engaged in conscious participation to
build a working class movement of, for and by workers themselves.
Aggressors, such as the global monopolies, want their prey to imagine
the overbearing strength of the predator
and remain paralyzed with fear doing nothing or little to organize
resistance.
 The working class has
justice on its side. The working
class has the natural flow of history on its side. To flourish and
prosper, the working class does not need the rich and their global
monopolies. The monopolies suppress nation-building as they drain
social product from the economy and squander it in war
and luxuries around the world. This must be reversed. The rich and
their monopolies want a quiescent, compliant and weak working class to
continue their regime of exploitation and oppression. The working class
needs nothing from the rich and their monopolies except to see the end
of their imperialist system of
states. Workers need to stand up and organize their class to defend the
rights of all and move Canada forward towards new arrangements. By
recognizing the weakness of the working class movement and changing it
through conscious participation, the potential strength of the working
class movement emerges and
takes shape as actual strength while the apparent power of the rich and
their monopolies begins to weaken.
Join the movement to build a Workers' Opposition!
Contact the Workers' Centre of CPC(M-L) for information:
workerscentre@mlpc.ca.
Quebec Public Sector
Support the Just Struggle of the Nurses
On July 2, the Fédération
interprofessionelle de
la santé (FIQ)
which represents 58,000 nurses, assistant nurses, inhalotherapists and
perfusionists announced that it was walking away from negotiations with
the Charest government. According to the FIQ, the Charest government is
insisting that the FIQ accept
the same conditions included in tentative sectoral agreements reached
with the other health care and social service unions of the
Common Front, even though the FIQ has made it clear that it does not
consider these conditions to be acceptable to its members. The FIQ
points out that instead of restricting the all-out privatization of the
system, these tentative agreements put privatization as the agenda for
the joint
worker-management committees. In the case of the nurses, this
privatization is increasingly
done
through the use of private hiring agencies.
 The FIQ opposes the Charest
government's dictate which amounts to another decree. It calls on the
government to meet its
demand to reorganize the work time. According to the FIQ's proposal,
every full-time worker would work a four-day or in some cases a
three-day work
week with an increase of hours over the present eight hour model,
depending on the conditions. For example, they could
work a four day work week for a total of 33 hours and be paid for 36
hours. The FIQ proposal is based on using some of the workers' sick
days and holidays
to cover part of the wages for the
extra hours and is asking the Charest government to pay for the rest.
The FIQ favours a
structure of full-time positions for all employees and proposes
a transition mechanism which leads gradually to all positions becoming
full-time. This reorganization is based
on the transformation of as many part-time jobs possible into full-time
jobs. According to the FIQ, this would drastically reduce the amount of
forced overtime currently imposed on nurses which has created an
untenable situation. Two or three 16-hour shifts per week have become
quite frequent, for example. The FIQ proposal also reduces the use of
the private hiring agencies and provides a measure of stability in the
working conditions of the
nurses. This stability would contribute to keeping the nurses in the
public system to train and attract new ones.
TML fully supports the just struggle of the
nurses which
is the struggle of all against the dismantling of public services and
calls upon all workers to demand that the Charest government satisfy
these just demands.
Nurses Deliberately Kept in Precarious Employment
- Interview, Régine Laurent,
President,
Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé (FIQ) -
TML: The FIQ announced on
July 2 that it was walking away from bargaining at its sectoral table.
What were the main reasons?
Régine Laurent: At
the last
bargaining session, the government bluntly told us that we had no
choice but to accept what other unions of the Common Front have
accepted at the sectoral tables, whether on the reorganization of work
time, hiring agencies, premiums for those who work in intensive and
critical care, etc.
These are amongst our most important priorities, but according to the
government there is nothing or almost nothing left to be negotiated. We
were told to accept this as the starting point and then we can talk
about something else. We told the government
that we were not accepting this disguised decree which
negates our right to negotiate our working conditions.
The government's latest offer is
totally
unacceptable. Regarding the reorganization of work time, there is
nothing for the day shift workers. We have a lot of people who work
days shifts and are more than 50 years old. They are also in need of
having
their work schedules reorganized
and one of the reasons is to keep them at work for as long as possible
before they go into retirement so that they can assist in training
those who are taking their place. We went very far in our
proposals to get something done for these day shift nurses. We told the
government that since it does not want
to reorganize their work time across the board, then we should target a
certain number of facilities in which there is a critical mass of
nurses who are over 50 and start with them. The government is refusing.
But it gets worse still. In order to agree with the
reorganization of
the work time, the government wants to force the nurses to finance it
with their vacation days. It wants the nurses to take two weeks of
vacation instead of one month and use the lost days of vacation to
finance the reorganization of work time.
The point is that the government will not invest even a
penny in the health care system. If workers want something they have to
pay for it. Again the FIQ has gone very far to get this reorganizing.
We have proposed to use some of our holidays and sick days to finance
part of the project. Our
proposals provide $200 million that the government can use to finance
this reorganizing. We are asking the government to come up with the
other $100 million that is needed. This it not much, especially if
one thinks that there is going to be a lot of money saved by reducing
the forced overtime and the use of
private hiring agencies. This $100 million will be recuperated very
fast. There is no way that we are going to use our vacation time to
finance this project. Our nurses are exhausted and they need all the
vacation they can take. We are supposed to finance everything while the
government pockets the money
saved. Furthermore, and this is the most important
point, this reorganization would provide a measure of stability in the
system and in the lives of our nurses. But this is not what the
government wants to do. It is not telling us what it wants to do but it
is not difficult to understand that it wants
to open the doors more and more to the privatization of public
services. This privatization is what the government and its ideology
are
pushing, even if it negatively impacts the people and costs the
health care system much more than the public
system.
Then there is the issue of the premiums. The government
has made a
move to extend premiums to the those who work in particularly
difficult sectors. It agreed to extend the premium for workers in
intensive
care to those working in critical care. This has to be done because the
care
has become more
and more complex over the years. Premiums are being extended and
existing premiums increased but the government is saying that
in order to get the full premiums, nurses must never take sick days.
If they do, their premium is reduced
accordingly. This is a
slap in the face to our members. This is the reward we are getting for
all our sacrifices to keep the health care system running
against all odds. This is particularly humiliating for women and most
of our members are women. If they have to take a sick day in order to
take an elderly parent to the hospital
or to deal with their sick children, they are lose a part of their
premium. This is totally unacceptable. We have always
fought for premiums for those who work in intensive and critical care
but not in a manner that is conditional on not taking sick days.
So we have walked away from the bargaining table and
we're not
going back until there is a genuine process of negotiation on the basis
of our demands. We are determined to get a collective agreement which
will contribute to solving the very serious problems that we are
facing. This struggle has the support of people across Quebec and in
this regard
our petition campaign in support of our demands is going very
well.
TML: The FIQ is saying that
precarious
employment is at the base of the attacks of the Charest government in
health care. Can you elaborate?
RL: The Charest government
deliberately
maintains nurses in precarious employment. There are still 40 percent
of them
who are part-time and 60 percent are assistant nurses. Even if these
nurses
have work under the present nursing shortage,
they still do not have a
stable job and they are guaranteed only two days of work per week. That
is what allows the employers to do what they want. Our people are
penalized. Try to get a mortgage when you are on a job that guarantees
only two days of work per week. We are facing a structural
precariousness even if nurses are working
more than two days a week at the moment. If the employer decides to go
through a private hiring agency to hire nurses then our nurses are not
going to have work. They have no stable employment. We keep telling the
government that the health care system needs these nurses. If the
government does not want to
provide full-time jobs to all these nurses we are asking that at the
very least it guarantees seven days of work per two weeks instead of
the
current four. The point is that they are needed. The government does
not
want to reduce this precariousness. It wants to maintain it under the
hoax of so-called flexibility, which means
going more and more with the private agencies and maintaining chaos in
the system.
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Website: www.cpcml.ca
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