By Sam Hammond, chair of the Central Trade Union Commission, Communist Party of Canada
In the World Trade Organization, from the very beginning the world's largest banks, insurance companies and financial institutions based in the imperialist countries have ruled the roost and bullied acceptance of their neo-liberal global agenda. Wearing silk suits and carrying battle maces, their lobbyists have blackmailed and threatened developing countries and junior imperialist supplicants like Canada into acceptance of the myth that their General Agreement on Trade In Services (GATS) and General Agreement on Trade & Tariffs (GATT) are beneficial to them. This spawned NAFTA and threw away the Auto Pact, amongst other deep penetrations and acquisitions of our economy. It was and is the basis of the destruction of our manufacturing base and the transition to a supplier of cheap energy and resources, the export of jobs, attacks on public social programs, falling wages and general impoverishment of very large sections of the Canadian working class.
But the worst is yet to come, as these policies of deregulation and unfettered flow of capital impact internationally and sharpen the traditional antagonistic contradictions of capitalism. As millions starve and more millions totter on the brink, as pension funds bleed billions in losses and people watch their quality of life and their jobs disappear, where are the perpetrators of this calamity?
They are sitting in their offices, waiting for government bail-out cheques, money ripped from our wages, pensions or social assistance, to purchase their failed assets. They will receive hard cash for worthless paper, which we now must work for the next generation or so to give value to so they can steal it again. We have purchased their deregulated crimes with the future of our children.
The wordsmiths of barbarity and exploitation have re-christened us as "collateral damage". Under-utilized as the identifier of a few thousand murdered civilians, this cute literary phrase now develops its full potential as the moniker of the entire global non-capitalist population. But the movers and shakers of the WTO, GATS, GATT and the World Bank have not gone to confession, because they do not admit their sins.
Consider this quote from a Briefing Paper authoured by Ellen Gould for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA): "Former advocates of deregulation are conceding that given the severity of the sub prime crisis, new regulations will have to be imposed on the financial industry. But even as these regulations are being drafted, a deregulation agenda is being advanced at the World Trade Organization... Governments are under pressure to remove conditions on foreign entry into their financial markets and to impose `disciplines' on their regulations."
The cat is out of the bag, the wolves will remain wolves. But will the people of the world willingly remain at the bottom of the food chain? Not according to the people of Latin America, but more on that later.
The auto companies globally are symptomatic of the problems of imperialist rivalry, mutual corporate plunder, super-exploitation, migration of capital and relative over-production. In other words, a deregulated Shangri-la that they have turned into a dangerous vehicle of ruin. They are also big bankers (GMAC, Ford Motor Credit and Chrysler Financial) who deal in auto loans and leasing the way other bankers and speculators deal in home mortgages.
Japan, the United States and China are the three largest auto producers in the world (in that order), and Canada is ninth. There were 73 million vehicles produced globally in 2007 (2.6 million in Canada). Through their financial institutions, the auto makers still own a large percentage of the vehicles which they have out on lease. As people default on leases or auto payments, the cash flow dries up, and the same financial crisis develops that we see in mortgages, for the same reasons.
Of the $700 billion bail-out package approved by the U.S. government to buy debt with public funds, $25 billion is slated to the auto companies, but not one penny to an unemployed auto worker.
To add insult to injury, GM has requested an additional low interest loan of $10 billion from the Feds, to justify a bank loan of another $10 billion. For what purpose? So they can purchase Chrysler LLC, rationalize production with plant closures and layoffs, and service a shrinking market with one less competitor. This has another inverted twist: Chrysler is owned by Cerberus Capital Management, which also owns 59% of GMAC. If this isn't financial incest, what is?
There are comparable bail-outs in Canada. Despite the crisis in manufacturing - auto in particular - and despite our own slight-of-hand artists and the global-U.S. spillover, our "deeply integrated" Harperites are in a state of blissful tranquility, oblivious to the suffering around them.
It is increasingly necessary for our social justice movements and Labour to react to this crisis and find new methods of resistance to protect the Canadian working people. We have the analysis, and we know the cause and effect. The question is what to do.
The Canadian Labour Congress made a strong statement on the crisis before the end of the federal election. Then on Oct. 21, a press release headed "Labour Leaders Demand a Say in Federal Economic Plan" was published from a meeting of the CLC Executive Council, which includes the country's largest unions along with provincial federations, the Quebec Federation of Labour and territorial federations, but unfortunately not the CNTU.
The release (see page 7 for more) contained some useful material, some rather sharp finger-pointing and a demand for an immediate meeting with Harper before the upcoming international summits. Other demands made it clear labour wants to be included and consulted on measures to protect private pensions, expand public pensions, make Employment Insurance available to laid off workers, and cap executive compensation.
This is good, but also in the release were some rather strange twists. Ken Georgetti stated that working people "need to know that the people working on solutions to the economic crisis are on their side." Another quote: "At the heart of the Labour plan is economic activism on the governments part through investments in infrastructure, renewable energy and greater energy efficiencies, rebuilding the manufacturing and forestry sectors, and reforms to employment and labour laws." And another: "Working people know there will be sacrifices. They should not be expected to make them all, or any for that matter without consultation."
The labour demands are just and minimal. There is a problem in perception when the expression "on their side" is thrown in as a qualifier. Are these brothers and sisters serious? That will only happen when we have a socialist government, because that is the measuring stick of which class is in power. We should be prepared to force reforms whether they are on our side or not, no peace without justice.
The second quote on investing in infrastructure, etc., with the exception of "reforms to employment and labour laws," could be lifted out of any corporate demand for handouts. It is unreasonable to demand public investment without public control and ownership. Labour must sharpen up its agenda and put our interests at the top. Why say "working people know there will be sacrifices" in the future tense, when we have been hemorrhaging for years? Who gave permission to the CLC to advise that we would make some sacrifices if we are consulted?
Perhaps the labour leaders of Canada could consider something like this: "We warn the Harper minority government that the organized working class will not be pushed another step backward and we will not pay the cost of the neo-liberal corporate-created crisis. We are prepared to organize resistance in defense of our people, our sovereignty, our social programs and all our hard won gains in unity with all democratic Canadians. We demand employment, housing and access to the wealth of our country under public ownership and control. We demand just settlement with Aboriginal people. We demand withdrawal from Afghanistan and Haiti and investment of the military expenditures on rebuilding our infrastructure and manufacturing base."
Labour must be prepared to sound the alarms and champion a people's response to the crisis. There must be a sense of emergency that will recruit the social justice movements, the Aboriginal peoples' organizations, and every labour centre and union in this country, affiliated to the CLC or not. In particular, great pains must be made to form alliances with the CNTU to make a genuine unified response and fightback possible.
We must always remember the legacy of capitalism is to solve crisis on the backs of the working people. Human suffering, the horror of war and the plunder of nations are on the first page of their recipe book. Instead of a descent into barbarity to preserve a social system that has outlived its right to exist, we need peace, justice and socialism.
(The above article is from the November 1-15, 2008, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
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