Sunday, August 15, 2010
CANADIAN LABOUR BRITISH COLUMBIA:
MORE ON SLAVE LABOUR IN BC:
A couple of days ago Molly blogged on the recently discovered conditions of virtual slave labour at the Khaira tree planting camp in BC. The following sort of connects with the previous post on XL Beef about dependence on leftist parties and their good graces, but it has an additional fillip. Regular readers of this blog may notice my general 'pro-union' biases, just as they may notice my biases to rational and organized anarchism (as opposed to so much of the nuttiness of North American anarchism). At the same time I am very happy to be independent of any organization as this allows me to criticize when criticism is due. i say this because of a recent post from the National Union of Public and General Employees Union (NUPGE) blaming the recently uncovered events in BC on cutbacks in the civil service in that province. Here's a reprint from Molly's first blog on this subject:
One reason the government may be hesitant about a full inquiry is that Khaira Enterprises has been a long standing supplier of labour to the province. According to the Power Profiles site they have been in business for 10-20 years with total sales of $2,000,000. As far back as 1999 they were listed as being paid $219,288 by the province. Even more astoundingly in March 2009 they were certified as 'Safe Certified' by BC Forest Safety. The latter is a quanga set up of mainly industry and government representatives but also with a nominal union representation.
Note the following. Khaira Enterprises were getting government contracts as far back as 1999. The NDP was in power in BC until 2001, and the presumed "cuts" were far in the future. Khaira Enterprises "passed inspection" way back in the "glory days" of social democracy. Also note that in 2009 Khaira Entperprises was "safe certified" which seems to say that a civil serpent did indeed inspect said business under the authority of the board of Worksafe BC which has union representation (the USW to be exact). The so-called 'Worksafe BC' was a renaming of the old BC 'Workers' Compensation Board' in 2005, continuing the trend of trying to remove responsibility for unsafe work conditions from the enterprises onto individual workers. This is a trend that has been followed in political jurisdictions governed by left wing parties as well.
What Jacques Ellul called the "political illusion" is nowhere as bluntly visible as in situations such as this. If a system is set up such that various workers are considered to have "fewer rights" than others, and if this system is governed by a political process that allows one side (the employers) to have undue influence on its process then naturally abuses will become common. One can only wonder about how many other Khaira Enterprises there are across the country, and one is not surprised about how these things occur under social democratic governments with a maximum of government employees. Simply multiplying 'inspectors' does nothing if the inspection process is biased to begin with. That's where I, as a libertarian socialist, part company with statist socialists and why I think there is a better way to ensure workers' rights than government decree.
Labels: British Columbia, Canadian labour, independence, Khaira Enterprises, labour, libertarian socialism, statism, unions...
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Labels: class, deaths, international labour, labour, libertarian socialism, Workers Memorial Day, workplace deaths, workplace safety
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
"Fight HST" campaign launches
Group has 90 days to collect signatures for repeal.
by Bill Tieleman
Former BC Premier Bill Vander Zalm will launch the Fight HST citizens Initiative petition campaign to stop the Harmonized Sales Tax in BC Premier Gordon Campbell's own riding of Vancouver-Point Grey on Tuesday April 6.
The public rally April 6 marks the beginning of the 90 days that "Fight HST" has to collect the signatures of 10 percent of registered BC voters in each of the province's 85 constituencies for the Initiative petition to be accepted by Elections BC, says Fight HST Lead Organizer Chris Delaney.
"The HST takes money out of people's pockets but doesn't put a dime into healthcare, education or important services," said Vander Zalm
Vander Zalm says it was important to launch the campaign right in Premier Gordon Campbell's own riding, to send a clear message to the BC Liberal government.
"British Columbians don't want Premier Campbell's HST — not even in his own riding," said Vander Zalm. "If Premier Campbell and the BC Liberal MLAs don't listen to the people and drop the HST, he and his party are finished."
Vander Zalm says he is confident British Columbians will make the Initiative a smashing success after drawing huge crowds as he toured across the province over the past two weeks.
"British Columbians are fed up with the HST and fed up with the undemocratic way Premier Campbell and Finance Minister Colin Hansen are imposing a tax after promising they wouldn't do it," said Vander Zalm. "This citizens Initiative petition is the people's chance to tell Premier Gordon Campbell they want him to drop the HST — and demand that he drop it."
"The HST is the most hated tax ever because it is a cruel tax that takes money out of people's pockets but doesn't put a dime into healthcare, education or important services," said Vander Zalm.
In addition to Vander Zalm, speakers at the rally will include Delaney and "Fight HST" Strategist Bill Tieleman, founder of the NO BC HST Facebook protest group, which has more than 131,000 members.
Bill Tieleman, president of West Star Communications, is one of BC's best known political commentators and communicators. Read political commentary from Bill every Tuesday in 24 hours, Vancouver's free weekday newspaper (also online). Listen to Bill on Mondays at 10am on CKNW AM 980's Bill Good Show, in Vancouver, BC. Bill's email address is below.
Email: weststar@telus.net . Website: http://billtieleman.blogspot.com/ .
Vander Zalm's anti-HST rally draws hundreds in Vancouver
Several hundred concerned taxpayers turned out to hear former B.C. premier Bill Vander Zalm launch his anti-HST petition Tuesday night in Vancouver.
Vander Zalm's supporters filled the auditorium of Kitsilano Secondary School to hear him criticize Premier Gordon Campbell's surprise introduction of the harmonized sales tax just weeks after the provincial election last May.
The 12 per cent tax goes into effect July 1, replacing the seven per cent PST and five per cent GST.
"If you want to make something bad look good, you have to lie, and you have to lie over and over, and that's what's been happening," Vander Zalm told the crowd.
But not everyone who turned out Tuesday night agreed the tax would be bad for taxpayers. One man said his mother's benefits would actually increase under the HST.
But Vander Zalm challenged him, saying vulnerable people will still be hurt by the new tax.
The former premier also criticized the timing of the introduction of a harmonized tax that will apply to many good and services that were previously exempt from the PST, such as restaurant food, hair cuts and sports club memberships.
"We're in a recession folks," he said. "We were hoping to come out of it. We were hoping to come out of it soon, but these people in Victoria are only digging us deeper down.
"We're going to suffer. Industry and our businesses and all of us will suffer with it. It's a bad tax at a bad time for the wrong reasons."
Recent university graduate Katherine Chan agreed with that sentiment.
"I'm planning to get married, you know, buy a house, build a family, and, seriously, I can't even feed myself now. How am I going to, like, you know, support my own kids?" she said.
Thousands of volunteers collecting signatures
Vander Zalm is aiming to get rid of the tax by forcing the province to hold an initiative vote on the issue, but first, he needs to collect thousands of signatures on a petition supporting his draft bill.
So far, the veteran campaigner has signed up nearly 2,000 volunteers from ridings across B.C. to help him collect the estimated 300,000 voter signatures required to trigger an initiative vote, which is similar to a referendum.
Speaking before the rally, he said told CBC News he has seen a lot of hectic days in his 25-plus years in politics, "but I've never ever experienced anything like this."
"I have faxes coming in and going out till my fax machine is heating up. My telephone has never stopped ringing. And the e-mails? I hate to look at the computer," he said.
About 300 people signed the petition at the rally on Tuesday night, but volunteers have already begun collecting signatures across B.C.
Those organizing the petition have 90 days to collect signatures from 10 per cent of registered voters in every riding. Then Elections BC has to verify the signatures.
Once that is done, a legislative committee would then decide whether it will send a draft bill directly to the legislature for a vote or put the issue to a province-wide vote first.
But the provincial government has already said the HST is a federal tax, and an initiative vote wouldn't affect it.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/04/07/bc-anti-hst-rally-vander-zalm-vancouver.html?ref=rss#ixzz0kTxDjz2e
Labels: BC, Bill vander zamm, Canadian politics, CBC, economics, HST, libertarian socialism, protests, statism, Straight Goods, tactics, taxes
Sunday, March 21, 2010
I'm at it again. Can't leave the CCF alone. I've been reworking the Regina Manifesto, reframing it in largely non-statist terms, as if guild socialists had written the Regina Manifesto rather than Fabians. It is also framed in term of an actual cooperative rather than as a political party per se. Historically cooperatives have played both roles concurrently. I invite others to join in the fun. What I've whipped up so far is in the extended entry.
The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation of North America will not rest until it has brought the values of life, liberty and happiness into every enterprise in America and has put into full operation a cooperative and collaborative platform for an open economy throughout the whole of America.
Under the rule of these latter-day merchantilists the drive for a monopoly on credit and access to capital leaves the productive world high and dry and working Americans tossed to-and-fro between periods of manic and wasteful activity in which the main benefits go to Wall Street speculators, investment bankers and the industrial-military-financial complex of war profiteers, and then to yet another round of catastrophic depression, in which the already precarious situation of insecurity and hardship of people alienated from their birthright is compounded. We believe that these evils can be removed by free people committed to building a free and open economy together where the means of production, distribution and credit creation are socially-held within the partnership-based framework of open enterprise models.
The new social, political and economic order can not be achieved by partisan political means, nor can it be achieved by redistributive taxation nor by the nationalization of businesses. The aim of the Cooperative Commonwealth of North America will be achieved by creating an economic democracy that shares a common operating system with that of the political republic. The CCF knows that no political republic can long guarantee liberty to individuals and to society as a whole without the presence of a strong civil, participatory and democratic marketplace.
This social and economic transformation can be brought about by the action of a social movement inspired by the ideal of a Co-operative Commonwealth and dedicated to the practical application of USA's founding values of life, liberty and reward for honest achievement. We believe in change effected by Main Street's working people, entrepreneurs and companies as they work collaboratively and in solidarity toward their social and economic agenda in the marketplace on a daily basis.
1. Establishing a General System for Open Corporate Enterprise Models
2. Reestablishing the Credit Commons
The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation of North America advocates a decoupling of its affiliated enterprises from speculative financial arrangements and draws upon the concepts of Social Credit, The Theory of Monetary Emissions and Open Capital to fashion a creditary system that has the power to sustain a free and open economy. A creditary system in conformance with our objectives
(I) issues credit not as debt but as 'equity carried forward' as Chris Cook (http://www.opencapital.net ) and Thom Greco advocates.
(II)separates banking into 3 distinct departments namely an issuing (monetary department), financial department and capital department to prevent asset-price bubbles that arise from an over supply of fixed capital that in turn results in an excess of production over consumption. This departmentalization of banking is advocated in Bernard Schmitt's Theory of Monetary Emissions (http://www.csbancari.ch/istituti/RMElab/bibliography.htm ).
(III)The formation of a beneficially-held pool of productive capacity and capability in the form of a Capital Account constituting the 'Real Credit' of society from which credit may be issued debt free to all consumers and households on a statistically controlled basis to effect non-inflationary and non-deflationary market clearing. This is the course of action advised by advocates of Social Credit.
3. Co-Operative Institutions and Open Capital Partnerships
4. Farming, Ecology and Economy
5. Inter-regional Trade and Development Compacts
Labels: CCF, cooperation, Ecodema, libertarian socialism, Pierre Ducasse, Regina manifesto, socialism, statism
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
TORONTO RALLY IN SUPPORT OF STRIKING STEELWORKERS:
The strike in Ontario and Newfoundland against the international mining giant Vale Inco has been ongoing since last August (over 7 months now), and there is no end in sight. This struggle will probably go down in Canadian history as one of the most hard fought labour disputes ever. Molly has mentioned this strike multiple times at this blog.
As negotiations seem to go nowhere and the company seems intend on reopening their facilities using scab labour the United Steel Workers and their supporters rallied last weekend in Toronto to keep the fight in the public eye. Here's a report from the Toronto Examiner.
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U.S.W. rally in Toronto to support 3,500 workers on strikeAndrew Moran
As mediators for the United Steelworkers and multinational giant Valeco Inc. negotiate in Toronto over the weekend, USW members rallied in the downtown core to show support for the workers in Sudbury, Port Colborne and Voisey's Bay who are on strike.
Toronto, Canada - On Saturday, hundreds of members and supporters of the United Steelworkers rallied together in Toronto at the Metro Convention Center to show support of those 3,500 workers in Sudbury, Port Colborne in Ontario who have been on strike since May of last year and also for those in Voisey’s Bay in northern Labrador who launched a strike on Aug. 1.
Vale Inco, which is a Brazil-based mining corporation, sponsored a conference at the MTC to negotiate with USW representatives over the company’s rollback in pension plans, seniority rights and nickel bonuses. However, more than 3,500 miners and smelter workers are not satisfied with the company's latest cutback measures.
OFL President Sid Ryan said this battle does not only belong to the strikers in the three towns but to Canadians across the country, as Ryan called upon trade unionists and members of the public to stand up against the multinational giant Vale Inco, according to a Marketwire press release.
“We need to raise a loud and united voice to tell Vale Inco to bargain a fair contract for these workers. This strike has exacted an enormous price on these workers, their families, and their communities, and they need and deserve to see it end with a fair contract.”
There have been no formal talks between the two sides until it was announced last week that they were going to negotiate over the Mar. 6 and Mar. 7 weekend, notes the Hamilton Spectator.
CBC News reports that those at the Voisey’s Bay nickel mine have protested the company’s demands in freezing wages and rolling back on many bonuses. The two sides will meet with a conciliator between Mar. 15 and Mar. 16. Vale Inco workers, catering staff and security personnel have been on strike since the summer.
In one leaflet handed out at the rally, the Communist Party of Canada listed several demands for the workers at Vale Inco. The CPC called for the federal and provincial governments to intervene in the situation, while also calling for federal and provincial bans on “scab labor”. The Communists also want a nation-wide labor campaign to transfer natural resources and important manufacturing sectors to the public sector.
"We salute the Vale Inco workers for their courage in walking away from the bargaining table and resisting huge concessions," said the CPC in a brochure and added, "We call on all Canadian unions and working class organizations to rally around the struggle of the Vale Inco workers."
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Molly Note:
The last part of the above article caught my eye. It wasn't too long ago that the communists actually held positions of power within the unions, and the "beloved" CPC would move heaven and earth to prevent their minor Trotskyist and Maoist competitors from doing what they are reduced to doing themselves in the 21st century. How the mighty have fallen. The CPC, of course, is in precisely the same position today as supporters of the Bourbons were at the turn of the 20th century. Massive nationalization today is a non-starter because it has been proven over and over to not only be inefficient but also to lead to yet another form of class domination. This sort of thing is not what libertarian socialists would advocate.
Labels: Canadian labour, Communist Party, demonstrations, labour, libertarian socialism, Toronto, Vale Inco, Vale Inco strike
Thursday, December 03, 2009
UNIONIZED WORKERS workers at West Fraser’s Eurocan pulp and kraft paper mill are supporting the idea of buying the operation the company wants to close down the end of next month.
First results from voting earlier this week indicate 91 per cent of the members of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada Local 298 support of the idea, according to a union spokesperson. At press time, results were not yet available for the decision of Local 1127.
Forest minister Pat Bell, in Kitimat Tuesday, said he’s a “big fan of employee-owned business models.”
“The power of employees with their own money invested in an operation is significant,” he said. “I’d never want to bet against someone who, not only is their job on the line, but their house is on the line because they just mortgaged it to invest in the facility.”
“If there’s a future for West Fraser, it is likely under an employee ownership model of some kind.”
Kitimat mayor Joanne Monaghan said that a group was formed in-camera at the Nov. 30 council committee of the whole meeting. The group’s members, from both the union and council, will work together to decide the feasibility of a union buyout of Eurocan.
Councillors Richard McLaren, Randy Halyk as well as district manager Trafford Hall volunteered to be part of the team.
“It is an avenue that needs to be pursued,” said Monaghan.
Kitimat councillors were informed of the idea of a union purchase at their Nov. 23 council meeting by Local 298 president Mary Murphy.
“On November 30th, I’ll be requesting direction and support from my membership for a buyout strategy,” she said. “Both locals will need a huge amount of support in order to make this venture a success.”
Her presentation was followed with applause from the council gallery.
“The closure of Eurocan will have a direct effect on Kitimat, Terrace and everyone in BC,” she said. “CEP National and our local union are continually looking for opportunities in having the mill viable and running. I believe that the mill can be successful, and I’m not the only one.”
Her announcement came on the heels of news that an unnamed Chinese company had expressed interest in the mill.
Provincial forest minister Pat Bell has also told reporters that a company with “fairly large interests in China” is looking at the mill’s financial records.
Labels: BC, Canadian labour, CEP Union, CEP Union Blog, CHEK TV, coops, current events, Eurocan, Kitimat, labour, libertarian socialism, producer co-ops, self management, socialism, Terrance
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Libertære Socialister/Libertarian Socialists formed in Denmark!:
Related Link: http://www.libsoc.dk
Labels: anarchism, anarchist organization, anarkismo.net, international anarchist movement, libertarian socialism, organization, socialism
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Winnipeg, along with the rest of Manitoba, will be holding its municipal elections this October 25th. Me...I will be out of town, and I can't say that I'm weeping big tears about the matter. The field for mayor of Winnipeg holds four candidates, all equally unappealing. The front runner and likely victor is the incumbent Sam Katz. He stands as the "right wing" candidate though his record as either a tax-cutter or a spending-reducer is marginal to non-existent. What he excels at is glad handing in the fine old political tradition and conspiracy in same. When the recent affair of turning part of Winnipeg's Forks historic location over to be part of the parking space for his ballpark he had the grace to step out of council chambers for the vote. But when it was suggested that there was a certain amount of "influence" that he had on other council members to sway their vote there was "great shock and indignation" that such a thing could even be suggested. Perish the thought !!! This from a man who does his damnedest to get his "friends" elected to other council seats, forming an "unnamed Party" over and against the "unnamed Party" of the NDP oriented councillors. The Green Party who are also running candidates in some wards have the best take on this. Part of their platform is that candidates should be free to declare their Party orientation. It would be a considerable step forward from the present wink-wink, nudge-nudge system where everybody is quite determined to lie about an obvious reality.
Actually Sam Katz would make a truly magnificent Mayor if he would apply 1/10th of the sort of business acumen to running the city as he has in running his own financial affairs. In the last civic election which Katz won against a full slate of about 9 (I think) candidates. One radio station took it upon themselves to look up the legal records of the various candidates. Katz totalled more lawsuits than all the other candidates combined. He had been a regular for many years in sueing others and being sued in turn in a wide variety of different matters. A lawyer could make a decent living by only representing Sam Katz.
I had a recent conversation with a couple who are active members of the Conservative Party here in Winnipeg, people who might be assumed to have some sympathy for the mayor. They do, insofar as they dislike the other candidates more. But the three of us came to an agreement about two matters. One is that Katz is definitely!!! the most intelligent candidate in the race, and the proof is......he'll never get caught. The second is that Katz is standing proof that a person can never become rich by investing their money wisely. You only become rich by investing other peoples' money wisely .....and then never paying them back.
The other candidates in the race deserve little mention. One, Ron Pollack, is a joke candidate, and the only person who can't get the punch line is himself. Another, Chris Hasselriis, is the ultimate "fashion lefty". He oozes "slick" from the top of his fashionable haircut to the soles of his fashionable shoes. He actually has a "platform" of sorts which is to promise as much as he can to everybody that he thinks of as fast as he can. An occasional idea of his such as abolishing the business tax might seem "appealing", but what would replace the lost revenue of $60 million dollars is a matter of great silence. Should the waters of the sea part and Hasselriis gets elected it would be likely that this cut would go the way of Sam Katz's similar promise 4 years ago. In sum Hasselriis seems like the sort of person who has never heard of a way of spending money that he couldn't love.
Hasselriis has been labelled a "libertarian socialist" by some of the local media. Cough !, Gack !, Choke !. Such a label robs the term of all possible meaning. He is actually too much even for the local leftists, and one has to say that their taste buds are pretty jaded. So another more traditional leftist candidate, Marianne Cerilli, has entered the race. If Hasselriis has never met an expenditure that he couldn't love Cerilli has never met a tax that didn't spark romantic interest on her part. Once more, some of her platform may be superficially appealing. Putting an extra tax on big box stores certainly gets my "spite vote", though the surrounding RMs will undoubtedly take up the slack. Opposing the new hog processing plant in St. Boniface is also a winner in my books, though getting this reprieve through the process of electing a Mayor hardly solves the problem of the availability of city coffers to private interests in a structural sense.
This can be seen from a deadly silence about a certain question that follows from another one of her promises...that city funds won't be available for Winnipeg's professional football team. Fine and dandy from my point of view. Let all sports teams rise and fall on their own ability to generate income from fans. OK, but she justifies this by stating that the interest in the football team is only an interest of a "minority". Maybe, but she has made no noises whatsoever about city support for "high culture" and the not-so-high culture of the local arts scene. Minorities ???
Could it be be that Cerilli's regard for certain "white-wine socialists", to use an old cliche, is so strong that she thinks that one of these is equal to 20 "football boors" ? Even Katz won't touch this one with a ten foot pole.
Enough of the other candidates. On to the atrocity. Despite being the obvious front runner Katz has been searching around for an "issue" that makes his campaign look less like the shuffling of a herd of zombies. He has found it in a proposal to ban the sale of spray paint to anyone under 18 years of age. This would presumably cut down on the amount of graffiti around the city. He also wants to make it an offense for anyone under 18 to even possess a can of spray paint. A law prohibiting sale of spray paint to minors would likely survive a constitutional challenge, but one prohibiting possession would not. The mind boggles. "Sheriff Wyatt Katz" determined to clean up the crime of downtown Dodge City- I mean Winnipeg- by barring the dangerous weapons of spray cans from the hands of the young hoodlums. "All right kid, this is the police. Drop that can and come up with your hands up or we'll start shooting".
The sad part is that this lead weight will likely float. Mercifully it will attract only those who would have voted for Katz anyhow, even if he was proven to be the AntiChrist. About the same number of people who would believe that the city should drop support for the football teams but keep support for artists, real and pseudo. The majorities lay elsewhere.
Labels: crooks, elections, freedom of speech, Katz, leftism, libertarian socialism, St. Boniface, Winnipeg