Action Alerts Working people didn't cause this crisis... and we won't pay for it! Unite and fight to defend our jobs, services and rights! - CPC

http://www.communist-party.ca/news/Statements/2009/Crisis%202009.pdf
Maybe you work in the Alberta oil patch, or an auto plant
in southern Ontario, or a call centre in New Brunswick.
You could be a forestry worker, a bank teller, or a university
teaching assistant. Wherever you live, your future is on the line as
the global economic crisis sweeps across Canada, and layoffs and
shutdowns spread like a wildfire. You could already be one of the
1.3 million Canadians ‘officially’ unemployed, or one of the millions
who survive on part-time, temporary, low wage jobs. Perhaps you are
among the two-thirds of jobless workers who aren’t eligible to collect
benefits from the EI fund built up from your pay deductions.
And the crisis is just beginning. At least 50 million workers will lose
their jobs across the world this year. Production has dropped by up to
fifty percent in some countries, and food shortages are spreading. A
real global economic recovery could be years away. Who created this
mess? Who should pay for the crisis? What policies can help working people
instead of the rich?

So who’s responsible?

It would be easy to pin the blame for the economic meltdown on a
few greedy individuals. It’s true that a handful of global billionaires
and gigantic transnational corporations have artificially inflated and
manipulated the values of real estate, high tech, stocks, commodities,
even national currencies. “Bubble capitalism” has reaped enormous
fortunes for the ultra-rich, while billions of working people and the
poor ended up deeper in debt.

The neoliberal policies of right-wing governments made matters
worse, through privatization, deregulation, tax cuts for the rich, and
social program cuts. They claimed these neoliberal policies would
increase everyone’s wealth. Instead, the gap between the rich and
working people has widened to staggering proportions, and labour &
democratic rights are under increasing attack. Capitalism always heads towards crises. Individual capitalists and corporations, competing for higher profits,
seek to maximize their return on investment by cutting labour costs;
this process always cuts spending power, leaving working people
without the necessary income to purchase the goods and service we
produce. Throughout history, this cycle results in frequent economic
crashes, followed by recoveries. Every time, workers pay the price,
while the bosses end up getting richer.

Are we really in the same boat?

We are told that “everyone’s in the same boat” during this economic
depression. Maybe if it’s the Titanic – the wealthy have plenty of
lifeboats while most of us are locked below decks. In Canada, as in
most countries, the first response by pro-capitalist governments was
to “bail out” corporations facing financial ruin – the same corporations
which reaped record profits for years, at the expense of taxpayers
and workers. While millions of working people lose their jobs, homes,
and pensions, fat cat CEOs still get huge bonuses and bloated salaries.
The Tory budget introduced in late January hands billions of dollars
to corporate shareholders, while most working people laid off by these
companies can’t even collect EI. Same boat, all right!

What should be done?

Instead of making workers pay for the crisis through wage cuts and
unemployment, those who have enjoyed billions in profits must pay.
We need to unite and fight for an emergency program to protect jobs
and incomes for working people, and put Canada back to work. Such
an anti-crisis plan should include measures to:
! expand EI to cover all workers for the full duration of
unemployment, with benefits at 90% of former earnings;
! protect and expand manufacturing industries on the basis of a
comprehensive industrial policy, and introduce plant closure
legislation;
! place a moratorium on evictions and mortgage foreclosures
and utility cut-offs due to unemployment;
! increase the minimum wage to $15/hr., increase pensions and take
other steps to raise incomes and stimulate domestic consumption;
! take emergency action to improve the social and economic
conditions of Aboriginal peoples;
! invest in a massive public construction program to build
affordable social housing, rebuild Canada’s infrastructure, and protect
the environment;
! shift the tax burden from working people onto the corporations
and the wealthy;
! The richest 10% of Canadian families with children
earn over 80 times more than the poorest 10% of families,
who earn less than $10,000 per year on average.
! Canadian households used to save about 20% of
their after-tax income. Today, the savings rate averages
zero, and personal debt is at an all-time high.
! About 2.2 million Canadian workers (16% of the total,
including 19% of women workers and 12% of men) had
jobs in 2005 that paid less than $10 an hour. Thirteen per
cent of all jobs in Canada pay less than $8 an hour.
! Corporate profits as a percent of GDP rose from less
than 5% in 1992 to historic highs of over 14% by 2005, and
remain at this record level.
! Total annual operating profits of corporations in
Canada rose from $40 billion in 1992, hitting the $100 billion
mark by 1997, $150 billion by 2003, and up to $216 billion in
2008.
! Corporate taxes as a percentage of total profits have
fallen from the 35-40% range during the late 1980s, down to
less than 25% in recent years.
! After adjustments for inflation, wages for full-time
Canadian workers were virtually stagnant from 1992 to 2005,
at about $730 per week.
! Workers’ share in the overall “economic pie” has
declined sharply, from 68% in 1992 to 61% by 2005.
Meanwhile, the share going to profits rose from 22% up to
33%.
Data from Statistics Canada and the
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
120,000 Irish workers fill the streets
of Dublin – Feb. 21, 2009
These figures don’t lie!

! expand Medicare and universal social programs, invest in
education and cut tuition, introduce a universally accessible
affordable system of quality public child care; and
! immediately withdraw from the disastrous war of occupation
in Afghanistan and cut military spending by 50%.
These immediate anti-crisis measures should be strengthened by
more transformative steps, including:
! nationalize the big banks, insurance and other financial
institutions and place them under public, democratic control;
! nationalize the energy industry to guarantee domestic supply
and to provide the material basis to rebuild Canadian industry
and create hundreds of thousands of jobs, especially in renewable
energy and mass transit;
! place the “Big Three” automakers under public ownership
and democratic control, and build a small, fuel-efficient, affordable
and environmentally sustainable Canadian car;
! immediately withdraw from NAFTA, and adopt a
diversified, multilateral trade policy based on mutual benefit; and
! introduce a liveable, guaranteed annual income (GAI), and
a shorter work week with no loss in take-home pay.
Such a plan would move our country in a fundamentally new
direction, by placing the needs of working people and our environment
before corporate greed, establishing a foreign policy based on peace
and disarmament, and reversing the erosion of our sovereignty.
How can we achieve these goals?
We can’t move in this direction by meekly accepting pay cuts and
job losses – that’s the lesson from the last “great depression”. We
need a massive campaign to block the Tory-corporate attack and to
demand pro-people alternatives. Instead of summit meetings with
corporate leaders, we need people’s summits, bringing together the
organized labour movement, Aboriginal peoples, youth and students,
women, farmers, seniors and all democratic forces engaged in the
struggle for peace, the environment and equality rights, to unite and
fight back at this crucial moment.
We need to build a real People’s Coalition, in the streets and
communities and at the electoral level, to curb the power of the
corporations and resolve the crisis in the interests of working people.
The Communist Party of Canada, the party that led the crucial
working class struggles during the ‘dirty 30s’, pledges to do
everything in our power to help build and win such struggles. We
urge you to take up these issues in your unions, your workplaces
and schools, your communities. If you agree with our proposals,
contact us today. Join and build the party that combines today’s
urgent fightback with the vision of a socialist future, one in which
unemployment, hunger, exploitation, oppression, war and
environmental degradation will be ended forever!
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1 • PEOPLE’S VOICE • FEBRUARY 15-28, 2009