Québec solidaire’s collectives — Help or hindrance?

Several readers of my report on the recent Québec solidaire convention have asked me whether the QS collectives played any role in the proceedings. This is a logical question, particularly since QS is the product of successive fusions of various political groups, both party and non-party, some of which have maintained their own identity while participating in Québec solidaire. The recognition of collectives within QS is a reflection of the party’s diversity of opinion, and its attempt to embrace many different approaches and perspectives within a broad spectrum of critical progressive thinking. It lists party “pluralism” as one of its founding values.

The collectives are groupings of QS members organized on the basis of “particular themes or political affinities”, to quote the provisional party statutes (article 11).[1] They represent “different and complementary currents of thought” within the party that are allowed “to promote specific orientations to the degree that they undertake to comply with the party’s statutes, fundamental values and program”. However, they have no right to representation as such in the party’s leadership bodies. To be recognized by the National Council, a collective must have at least 10 party members in at least three ridings or campus QS organizations. The collectives are entitled to set up information tables at party conventions and to promote their ideas and proposals for action in the party’s internal debates.

From a distance, it is hard for a non-member of the party like myself to see what the collectives do within Québec solidaire on a day-to-day basis. They had little obvious presence as collectives at the recent convention I attended other than the literature tables that several of them maintained in the registration area. Some are organized around particular themes; an example is a “décroissance” ("de-growth" or negative growth) collective focused on ecological issues.

A few collectives, however, represent long-established political currents or tendencies in Quebec and internationally. Examples are the various Marxist-inspired currents identified currently or historically with Trotskyist, Maoist or Stalinist organizations. These include Gauche socialiste, affiliated with the Trotskyist Fourth International; Socialisme international, part of the International Socialist Tendency (the current best known historically for its analysis of the former Soviet Union as “state capitalist” rather than the more orthodox Trotskyist designation of it as a “degenerated workers state”); La Riposte, affiliated with the International Marxist Tendency; and the Parti Communiste du Québec (PCQ), which split with the Communist Party of Canada (CPC) over the PCQ’s support of Quebec independence. A few CPC members are also in Québec solidaire but they are not a recognized collective. Another collective with a more or less Marxist lineage is Masse critique. One of its leading members, Roger Rashi, has recently written his own assessment of Québec solidaire, comparing it with other left regroupments, particularly in Europe. It is available in English on the Socialist Project web site.

Oddly enough, these political collectives have had little to say about the convention, although some of their members were active in the debates, in some cases defending positions that differed from those of other collectives or the majority of the party. I would have thought the convention was an occasion for more reflection by them on the challenges facing QS as it has confronted them so far. Apparently not.

Gauche socialiste: Long live passionate debates!

Gauche socialiste’s web site limits its coverage to a video of the final wind-up rally at the convention. However, GS members are instrumental in the production of Presse-toi à gauche, a web publication that is supportive of Québec solidaire. In a November 24 article Bernard Rioux, a central leader of GS, proclaimed that “Québec solidaire accomplished a lot during this convention” but simply welcomed the existence of “passionate debates” on Quebec independence, secularism, and the relationship of the national question to its social agenda, without providing any details on their content.

A short article by Marie-Ève Duchesne reported favourably on the major resolution in the secularism debate and Québec solidaire’s decision to oppose dress codes for state employees that would ban indications of an individual’s religious beliefs. This and related resolutions demonstrated, she said, QS’s strongly feminist outlook. It is unclear whether Duchesne is a GS member. I noted that some GS members voted in favour of such a ban at the convention.

Still another article, by Serge Charbonneau on December 8, welcomed a “superb text” published on a number of other web sites by one Michèle Sirois, “Why I am quitting Québec solidaire”, who had said her decision was motivated precisely by the QS delegates’ decision to allow civil servants to display evidence of their religious beliefs in the course of their employment. She saw this as an unreasonable concession to “political Islam” and a violation of the principle of separation of church and state and of male-female equality. Charbonneau said he “understood her point of view and her dissidence”, and praised her “very relevant” observation that “The left movements’ lack of understanding of the insecurity of Québécois over their identity represents a real danger, because it leaves the field free for right-wing, even far-right movements to take over the issue of identity....” Unfortunately, there has been no response by GS or PTàG to this article or its endorsement of Islamophobic views.

Gauche socialiste maintained a literature table at the convention and sold copies of a glossy brochure on the ecological crisis featuring, among other things, articles and resolutions of the Fourth International.

International Socialism: Quebec independence “not a priority”

The few Quebec members of the International Socialists group are immersed in Québec solidaire; one of their leading members, Benoit Renaud, is the party’s national secretary. Socialisme International (SI) published a one-page flyer version of its sporadically published print newspaper Résistance, featuring an article on the economic crisis and an article by Benoit Renaud on the Quebec debate on the hijab. An English translation of the latter is available here.

The December issue of Socialist Worker, the paper of the International Socialists, SI’s counterpart in the Rest of Canada, published a report on the QS convention by Michelle Robidoux. She interviewed Matt Jones, a member of QS in the Mercier riding. He thought the position QS adopted on “laïcité” or secularism was “mostly really good” although he was critical of its support for banning “proselytizing” religious views by state employees, which he regarded as a concession to “the more ‘secularist’ currents of the party. But Jones seemed more ambivalent about the decision to support Quebec independence: “Without a position like this, it can’t move the left project forward. But within that, we would argue that it isn’t the priority. How we organize is key.” A positive feature of the adopted support for both sovereignty (as the PQ proposes) and independence, Jones said, was that it could satisfy everyone in the party: “... it links in the radical ‘indépendantistes’, a large part of whom are the far left, with something that is just more broad.”

La Riposte: Unions should affiliate to QS

Another collective from the Trotskyist tradition is La Riposte, which translates as Fightback, the name of their cothinkers in the ROC. Affiliated to the International Marxist Tendency headed by Alan Woods, La Riposte was recognized as a collective at QS’s fourth convention, in June of this year. It members staffed a literature table at the convention but did not participate in the debates. Their paper, with the same name, calls on QS to be “a party of the workers with an organic connection to the main trade unions” as well as fight for socialism. United with the Canadian workers, their natural allies, it says, the Quebec working class can “tear down the bourgeois federalist state and, in its place, set up a voluntary socialist union under equal terms, where the main levers of the economy are nationalized and placed under workers’ control”. However, La Riposte has not yet reported on the QS convention or indicated what they thought of the resolutions debated and adopted there.

Parti Communiste du Québec: For independence, and renegotiate NAFTA

PCQ members were less evident at this convention than they had been in previous ones I have attended. Possibly they were preoccupied with preparations for their own convention, held on December 12. That convention adopted a resolution on Québec’s accession to independence that differs somewhat from the position adopted by the Québec solidaire convention three weeks earlier. Once a government including the PCQ has been “elected in coalition or otherwise”, it states, the National Assembly should adopt a provisional constitution and unilaterally declare Quebec independence from Canada and the British Crown, then hold a popular consultation on the constitution followed by election of a Constituent Assembly that would draft a complete constitution for an independent Quebec, to be approved in a referendum. The PCQ would fight to include progressive social rights written into the constitution.

An independent Quebec, says the resolution, would strive for economic as well as political independence, and “renegotiate Quebec’s place within the NAFTA as well as all the other treaties that Canada has signed in our name....” Does this include continued membership not only in NAFTA but in the military alliances NATO and NORAD? The resolution does not say. Although the resolution calls for closer relations with the member countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, it also says an independent Quebec would exert “pressure on the governments of the emerging countries to improve the working conditions of their peoples.”

Communist Party of Canada: Is QS preparing to compromise with the PQ?

Although the CPC is not a collective in Québec solidaire, some of its members are in QS and were delegates to the convention. They spoke against Quebec independence. An article in the December issue of People’s Voice by its “Québec Bureau” explained why. It quoted Pierre Fontaine, the party’s Quebec leader: “From a means, sovereignty has become a goal in itself.... The door is now open for compromises with nationalist bourgeois forces — like the Parti Québécois”, Fontaine said.

The CPC thinks that the Canadian capitalist class may be overthrown before Quebec can become independent, and that Québécois should not forestall this possibility by fighting for independence through a united front with Quebec nationalists. Instead, they should fight for “a new, democratic and equal constitution for all nations in Canada”. The article did not express a position on the other issues debated at the convention.

* * *

The preceding summary of positions held by the left or Marxist collectives in Québec solidaire — a comprehensive understanding of their positions can only be gained from observing their conduct in the party and reading the documentation on the web sites I have referenced — should indicate that none, as a collective, is in a position to exert much influence, positive or otherwise, on the present course of the party. To my knowledge, Québec solidaire’s unanimous decision to endorse the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel in support of the Palestinian people — a highlight of the convention — was not an initiative of any collective in the party.

This weakness is not the result of any particular limitation on the thinking or action of the collectives imposed by the Québec solidaire structures or top leadership. Rather, it reflects the general organizational and political decline of the far left in Quebec over the last 25 to 30 years and its inability to overcome these deficiencies even in the favourable environment provided by its participation in the new broad left party. Conversely, the ability of Québec solidaire to maintain itself and move ahead in the development of its program and activities on a series of important questions of Quebec politics — as registered by the November convention — is an encouraging sign that the new progressive forces from the feminist, students, grassroots coalitions and the labour movement that have so far coalesced in Québec solidaire can make further progress in the period ahead, even without (and in some cases despite) the contribution of the old left.

That said, in my opinion the development of a Marxist left with a solid strategy for building Québec solidaire as the leading force in the fight for an independent and socialist Quebec could advance the party enormously, and with it the cause of all working people in Quebec and elsewhere. Québec solidaire is very much a “work in progress”, and socialists elsewhere have every interest in following its development closely. I hope this blog will contribute to that process in the coming months and years.

– Richard Fidler

---

[1] The statutes are due to be overhauled at a forthcoming convention.

Québec solidaire’s collectives — Help or hindrance?

Several readers of my report on the recent Québec solidaire convention have asked me whether the QS collectives played any role in the proceedings. This is a logical question, particularly since QS is the product of successive fusions of various political groups, both party and non-party, some of which have maintained their own identity while participating in Québec solidaire. The recognition of collectives within QS is a reflection of the party’s diversity of opinion, and its attempt to embrace many different approaches and perspectives within a broad spectrum of critical progressive thinking. It lists party “pluralism” as one of its founding values.

The collectives are groupings of QS members organized on the basis of “particular themes or political affinities”, to quote the provisional party statutes (article 11).[1] They represent “different and complementary currents of thought” within the party that are allowed “to promote specific orientations to the degree that they undertake to comply with the party’s statutes, fundamental values and program”. However, they have no right to representation as such in the party’s leadership bodies. To be recognized by the National Council, a collective must have at least 10 party members in at least three ridings or campus QS organizations. The collectives are entitled to set up information tables at party conventions and to promote their ideas and proposals for action in the party’s internal debates.

From a distance, it is hard for a non-member of the party like myself to see what the collectives do within Québec solidaire on a day-to-day basis. They had little obvious presence as collectives at the recent convention I attended other than the literature tables that several of them maintained in the registration area. Some are organized around particular themes; an example is a “décroissance” ("de-growth" or negative growth) collective focused on ecological issues.

A few collectives, however, represent long-established political currents or tendencies in Quebec and internationally. Examples are the various Marxist-inspired currents identified currently or historically with Trotskyist, Maoist or Stalinist organizations. These include Gauche socialiste, affiliated with the Trotskyist Fourth International; Socialisme international, part of the International Socialist Tendency (the current best known historically for its analysis of the former Soviet Union as “state capitalist” rather than the more orthodox Trotskyist designation of it as a “degenerated workers state”); La Riposte, affiliated with the International Marxist Tendency; and the Parti Communiste du Québec (PCQ), which split with the Communist Party of Canada (CPC) over the PCQ’s support of Quebec independence. A few CPC members are also in Québec solidaire but they are not a recognized collective. Another collective with a more or less Marxist lineage is Masse critique. One of its leading members, Roger Rashi, has recently written his own assessment of Québec solidaire, comparing it with other left regroupments, particularly in Europe. It is available in English on the Socialist Project web site.

Oddly enough, these political collectives have had little to say about the convention, although some of their members were active in the debates, in some cases defending positions that differed from those of other collectives or the majority of the party. I would have thought the convention was an occasion for more reflection by them on the challenges facing QS as it has confronted them so far. Apparently not.

Gauche socialiste: Long live passionate debates!

Gauche socialiste’s web site limits its coverage to a video of the final wind-up rally at the convention. However, GS members are instrumental in the production of Presse-toi à gauche, a web publication that is supportive of Québec solidaire. In a November 24 article Bernard Rioux, a central leader of GS, proclaimed that “Québec solidaire accomplished a lot during this convention” but simply welcomed the existence of “passionate debates” on Quebec independence, secularism, and the relationship of the national question to its social agenda, without providing any details on their content.

A short article by Marie-Ève Duchesne reported favourably on the major resolution in the secularism debate and Québec solidaire’s decision to oppose dress codes for state employees that would ban indications of an individual’s religious beliefs. This and related resolutions demonstrated, she said, QS’s strongly feminist outlook. It is unclear whether Duchesne is a GS member. I noted that some GS members voted in favour of such a ban at the convention.

Still another article, by Serge Charbonneau on December 8, welcomed a “superb text” published on a number of other web sites by one Michèle Sirois, “Why I am quitting Québec solidaire”, who had said her decision was motivated precisely by the QS delegates’ decision to allow civil servants to display evidence of their religious beliefs in the course of their employment. She saw this as an unreasonable concession to “political Islam” and a violation of the principle of separation of church and state and of male-female equality. Charbonneau said he “understood her point of view and her dissidence”, and praised her “very relevant” observation that “The left movements’ lack of understanding of the insecurity of Québécois over their identity represents a real danger, because it leaves the field free for right-wing, even far-right movements to take over the issue of identity....” Unfortunately, there has been no response by GS or PTàG to this article or its endorsement of Islamophobic views.

Gauche socialiste maintained a literature table at the convention and sold copies of a glossy brochure on the ecological crisis featuring, among other things, articles and resolutions of the Fourth International.

International Socialism: Quebec independence “not a priority”

The few Quebec members of the International Socialists group are immersed in Québec solidaire; one of their leading members, Benoit Renaud, is the party’s national secretary. Socialisme International (SI) published a one-page flyer version of its sporadically published print newspaper Résistance, featuring an article on the economic crisis and an article by Benoit Renaud on the Quebec debate on the hijab. An English translation of the latter is available here.

The December issue of Socialist Worker, the paper of the International Socialists, SI’s counterpart in the Rest of Canada, published a report on the QS convention by Michelle Robidoux. She interviewed Matt Jones, a member of QS in the Mercier riding. He thought the position QS adopted on “laïcité” or secularism was “mostly really good” although he was critical of its support for banning “proselytizing” religious views by state employees, which he regarded as a concession to “the more ‘secularist’ currents of the party. But Jones seemed more ambivalent about the decision to support Quebec independence: “Without a position like this, it can’t move the left project forward. But within that, we would argue that it isn’t the priority. How we organize is key.” A positive feature of the adopted support for both sovereignty (as the PQ proposes) and independence, Jones said, was that it could satisfy everyone in the party: “... it links in the radical ‘indépendantistes’, a large part of whom are the far left, with something that is just more broad.”

La Riposte: Unions should affiliate to QS

Another collective from the Trotskyist tradition is La Riposte, which translates as Fightback, the name of their cothinkers in the ROC. Affiliated to the International Marxist Tendency headed by Alan Woods, La Riposte was recognized as a collective at QS’s fourth convention, in June of this year. It members staffed a literature table at the convention but did not participate in the debates. Their paper, with the same name, calls on QS to be “a party of the workers with an organic connection to the main trade unions” as well as fight for socialism. United with the Canadian workers, their natural allies, it says, the Quebec working class can “tear down the bourgeois federalist state and, in its place, set up a voluntary socialist union under equal terms, where the main levers of the economy are nationalized and placed under workers’ control”. However, La Riposte has not yet reported on the QS convention or indicated what they thought of the resolutions debated and adopted there.

Parti Communiste du Québec: For independence, and renegotiate NAFTA

PCQ members were less evident at this convention than they had been in previous ones I have attended. Possibly they were preoccupied with preparations for their own convention, held on December 12. That convention adopted a resolution on Québec’s accession to independence that differs somewhat from the position adopted by the Québec solidaire convention three weeks earlier. Once a government including the PCQ has been “elected in coalition or otherwise”, it states, the National Assembly should adopt a provisional constitution and unilaterally declare Quebec independence from Canada and the British Crown, then hold a popular consultation on the constitution followed by election of a Constituent Assembly that would draft a complete constitution for an independent Quebec, to be approved in a referendum. The PCQ would fight to include progressive social rights written into the constitution.

An independent Quebec, says the resolution, would strive for economic as well as political independence, and “renegotiate Quebec’s place within the NAFTA as well as all the other treaties that Canada has signed in our name....” Does this include continued membership not only in NAFTA but in the military alliances NATO and NORAD? The resolution does not say. Although the resolution calls for closer relations with the member countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, it also says an independent Quebec would exert “pressure on the governments of the emerging countries to improve the working conditions of their peoples.”

Communist Party of Canada: Is QS preparing to compromise with the PQ?

Although the CPC is not a collective in Québec solidaire, some of its members are in QS and were delegates to the convention. They spoke against Quebec independence. An article in the December issue of People’s Voice by its “Québec Bureau” explained why. It quoted Pierre Fontaine, the party’s Quebec leader: “From a means, sovereignty has become a goal in itself.... The door is now open for compromises with nationalist bourgeois forces — like the Parti Québécois”, Fontaine said.

The CPC thinks that the Canadian capitalist class may be overthrown before Quebec can become independent, and that Québécois should not forestall this possibility by fighting for independence through a united front with Quebec nationalists. Instead, they should fight for “a new, democratic and equal constitution for all nations in Canada”. The article did not express a position on the other issues debated at the convention.

* * *

The preceding summary of positions held by the left or Marxist collectives in Québec solidaire — a comprehensive understanding of their positions can only be gained from observing their conduct in the party and reading the documentation on the web sites I have referenced — should indicate that none, as a collective, is in a position to exert much influence, positive or otherwise, on the present course of the party. To my knowledge, Québec solidaire’s unanimous decision to endorse the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel in support of the Palestinian people — a highlight of the convention — was not an initiative of any collective in the party.

This weakness is not the result of any particular limitation on the thinking or action of the collectives imposed by the Québec solidaire structures or top leadership. Rather, it reflects the general organizational and political decline of the far left in Quebec over the last 25 to 30 years and its inability to overcome these deficiencies even in the favourable environment provided by its participation in the new broad left party. Conversely, the ability of Québec solidaire to maintain itself and move ahead in the development of its program and activities on a series of important questions of Quebec politics — as registered by the November convention — is an encouraging sign that the new progressive forces from the feminist, students, grassroots coalitions and the labour movement that have so far coalesced in Québec solidaire can make further progress in the period ahead, even without (and in some cases despite) the contribution of the old left.

That said, in my opinion the development of a Marxist left with a solid strategy for building Québec solidaire as the leading force in the fight for an independent and socialist Quebec could advance the party enormously, and with it the cause of all working people in Quebec and elsewhere. Québec solidaire is very much a “work in progress”, and socialists elsewhere have every interest in following its development closely. I hope this blog will contribute to that process in the coming months and years.

– Richard Fidler

---

[1] The statutes are due to be overhauled at a forthcoming convention.

Confronting the War on Terror: a Canadian union leader speaks out

Annual commemorations of Human Rights Day, December 10, are often somewhat ritualized events to mark the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, the public meeting held December 10 in my home city, Ottawa, was somewhat exceptional in that it was sponsored by the Justice for Mohamed Harkat Committee. Harkat is one of Canada’s security certificate detainees, all of whom have been arrested and jailed for years without charge because two federal cabinet ministers allege, with no reasons given publicly, that they are threats to “national security”. December 10, as it happens, was also the seventh anniversary of Mohamed Harkat’s arrest.

The Ottawa meeting, attended by about 60 persons, was cosponsored by the Ottawa Centre NDP (the riding is held by the NDP foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar, MP) and endorsed by local antiwar groups. Harkat spoke briefly, in one of his first public speeches since a court loosened some of the draconian conditions of his ongoing house arrest. (He still has to wear an ankle monitoring bracelet.) Other speakers, in addition to his wife Sophie Harkat — who has waged a valiant struggle on behalf of Mohamed and the other detainees over the years — were Roch Tassé of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group; Mike Larsen, a researcher with the York Centre for International and Security Studies; and Denis Lemelin, president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW). The panel was chaired by Hilary Homes of Amnesty International Canada.

A highlight of the evening, for me, was the speech by Denis Lemelin. His union, CUPW, has for many years been in the forefront of battles for labour and human rights and international solidarity. Here are his comments at the meeting, with thanks to Brother Lemelin for sending me the text. – Richard Fidler

“Confronting the War on Terror” – No security without human rights

Thank you to be here tonight. It is important to stand strong on human rights issues.

Thank you for inviting me here. But I want to say that I am the voice of all Canadian Union Postal Workers (CUPW) members who did work around human rights for the last 45 years. Our Union has always stood up to defend social justice and human rights. It is part of our History.

Our members know that we cannot have security if people who live amongst us are subject to arbitrary detention and arrest.

They know that we cannot have security if people who are arrested do not have the right to see the evidence against them.

They know that our security is not improved when people from countries with large Islamic populations are targeted and are subjected to Islamophobia.

For CUPW, the denial of human rights to any person leads to an environment where the human rights of all people are in jeopardy.

This is why we are standing in solidarity today with Mohamed and Sophie Harkat and with other security certificate detainees and their families.

At CUPW we believe that the basic principle of natural justice has to apply to everyone. Our Union and the entire labour movement have struggled for some level of fairness in the workplace. This means that when our members are subjected to discipline, their Union advocate has the right to see the information that the Employer has on them and their Union advocate has the right to show this and share this with the member involved.

The labour movement has fought for this right for years. And now to have the government of Canada say that it is legitimate to imprison people on the basis on unseen allegations is dangerous.

But as activists, we know that we are living in a capitalist world and we know that the system has put in place mechanisms to protect itself and the labour movement has a long experience of it.

Now, I want to share with you the experience of CUPW. In a very small way CUPW knows what it is like to be watched by the RCMP and their friends. We know that the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) spied on CUPW and CUPW activists for many years. The Vancouver Local of CUPW was under constant surveillance by the RCMP from 1965-1984. In 1987, CSIS bugged the telephone system at the CUPW National Office.

There is documented evidence that CSIS agent John Farrell looked into the banking records of union activists, illegally broke into cars of CUPW activists in Toronto and was authorized to intercept every piece of mail delivered to the homes of targeted union leaders. While most mail wasn't necessarily opened, photocopies were made of both side of each piece. Information from this was used to "mine contacts" at credit card agencies and banks. The garbage of targeted CUPW leaders was routinely stolen and inspected. CSIS even gave some of the targeted leaders special garbage bags on the pretence that they were part of a special recycling experiment.

The RCMP and CSIS viewed CUPW as a National Security threat. It was wrong to say CUPW was a national security threat and it is wrong to see Mohamed Harkat and the other security certificate detainees as threats.

20 years ago, the system did it to protect itself internally and it continues to do so. Now it is doing the same thing to protect itself from the outside, on an international basis.

For CUPW this security certificate regime represents several dangerous trends: I will talk about three of them.

• The first one is about the criminalization of dissent. If you do not hold or do not appear to hold majority views, you and your ideas are criminalized. We are seeing this locally, nationally, and internationally. About a year ago CUPW had agreed to have the Justice for Mohamed Harkat committee uses our boardroom for a press conference. The day before the meeting, members of the Canada Border Services Agency visited our office. They were wearing bullet proof vests, and were armed. The message they were sending was that if you were a supporter of Mohamed Harkat, they were going to intimidate you.
• The second one is about Islamophobia. The men who are or who have been held under these security certificates have all practiced the Muslim Faith. The Runnymede Trust in Britain defined Islamophobia as: “The unfounded hostility towards Islam. It refers also to the practical consequences of such hostility in unfair discrimination against Muslim individuals and communities, and to the exclusion of Muslims from mainstream political and social affairs. This practice builds inequality and discrimination, at a time when unity is needed.
• The third one is about denial of human and civil rights. CUPW believes that the arrest of Mohamed Harkat, the torture of Maher Arar, the institution of the no-fly lists etc. serve to weaken our collective security.

For CUPW the issue is clear. Our security does not lie with measures that strip away our democratic and human rights. Our security is about solidarity and justice.

The arrest and jailing of Mohamed Harkat and the other security certificate detainees has not resulted in CUPW members feeling more secure.

Here are some items that would make CUPW members more secure:

• an end to the security certificate regime
• the unconditional freedom of Mohamed Harkat and all the other security certificate detainees
• a strong emphasis on protecting human and civil rights locally, nationally and globally
• the complete withdrawal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan

If the Federal Government was serious about a war on terror those would be some of the key elements.

Look toward future challenges.

We have to fight for a different society:

• a foreign policy that puts justice, and dignity and fair trade above that of free trade. An example of the latter is the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and Colombia.
• an emphasis on a strong public sector, including universal services, both here and internationally.
• a focus on job creation, not corporate greed.

We have to link the fight for security and human rights with the building of a new society.

In Closing

This so called “war on terror” which is really a war on Human Rights has reminded me about courage. It takes courage to withstand being arrested and jailed without charges and without knowing the allegations against you. It takes courage to stand up and say the security certificate regime is unjust and undemocratic. And, it takes courage to live every day under the harsh and invasive eyes of CSIS and Canada Border Services.

So on behalf the 54,000 members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers I want to thank Sophie and Mohamed Harkat for their courage.

We know that today, or next week or next year any of us here—trade unionists, Human Rights defenders, peace activists just to name a few—could all be threatened when human rights and natural justice are on the chopping block. Our own experiences with CSIS and the RCMP keeping CUPW and its activists under surveillance have led CUPW to recognize the need for solidarity with Mohamed Harkat and all those who become victims of secret security campaigns. We know that the best way to be part of the struggle against the secret information society is to make a new world possible.

– Denis Lemelin, President, Canadian Union of Postal Workers

Confronting the War on Terror: a Canadian union leader speaks out

Annual commemorations of Human Rights Day, December 10, are often somewhat ritualized events to mark the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, the public meeting held December 10 in my home city, Ottawa, was somewhat exceptional in that it was sponsored by the Justice for Mohamed Harkat Committee. Harkat is one of Canada’s security certificate detainees, all of whom have been arrested and jailed for years without charge because two federal cabinet ministers allege, with no reasons given publicly, that they are threats to “national security”. December 10, as it happens, was also the seventh anniversary of Mohamed Harkat’s arrest.

The Ottawa meeting, attended by about 60 persons, was cosponsored by the Ottawa Centre NDP (the riding is held by the NDP foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar, MP) and endorsed by local antiwar groups. Harkat spoke briefly, in one of his first public speeches since a court loosened some of the draconian conditions of his ongoing house arrest. (He still has to wear an ankle monitoring bracelet.) Other speakers, in addition to his wife Sophie Harkat — who has waged a valiant struggle on behalf of Mohamed and the other detainees over the years — were Roch Tassé of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group; Mike Larsen, a researcher with the York Centre for International and Security Studies; and Denis Lemelin, president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW). The panel was chaired by Hilary Homes of Amnesty International Canada.

A highlight of the evening, for me, was the speech by Denis Lemelin. His union, CUPW, has for many years been in the forefront of battles for labour and human rights and international solidarity. Here are his comments at the meeting, with thanks to Brother Lemelin for sending me the text. – Richard Fidler

“Confronting the War on Terror” – No security without human rights

Thank you to be here tonight. It is important to stand strong on human rights issues.

Thank you for inviting me here. But I want to say that I am the voice of all Canadian Union Postal Workers (CUPW) members who did work around human rights for the last 45 years. Our Union has always stood up to defend social justice and human rights. It is part of our History.

Our members know that we cannot have security if people who live amongst us are subject to arbitrary detention and arrest.

They know that we cannot have security if people who are arrested do not have the right to see the evidence against them.

They know that our security is not improved when people from countries with large Islamic populations are targeted and are subjected to Islamophobia.

For CUPW, the denial of human rights to any person leads to an environment where the human rights of all people are in jeopardy.

This is why we are standing in solidarity today with Mohamed and Sophie Harkat and with other security certificate detainees and their families.

At CUPW we believe that the basic principle of natural justice has to apply to everyone. Our Union and the entire labour movement have struggled for some level of fairness in the workplace. This means that when our members are subjected to discipline, their Union advocate has the right to see the information that the Employer has on them and their Union advocate has the right to show this and share this with the member involved.

The labour movement has fought for this right for years. And now to have the government of Canada say that it is legitimate to imprison people on the basis on unseen allegations is dangerous.

But as activists, we know that we are living in a capitalist world and we know that the system has put in place mechanisms to protect itself and the labour movement has a long experience of it.

Now, I want to share with you the experience of CUPW. In a very small way CUPW knows what it is like to be watched by the RCMP and their friends. We know that the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) spied on CUPW and CUPW activists for many years. The Vancouver Local of CUPW was under constant surveillance by the RCMP from 1965-1984. In 1987, CSIS bugged the telephone system at the CUPW National Office.

There is documented evidence that CSIS agent John Farrell looked into the banking records of union activists, illegally broke into cars of CUPW activists in Toronto and was authorized to intercept every piece of mail delivered to the homes of targeted union leaders. While most mail wasn't necessarily opened, photocopies were made of both side of each piece. Information from this was used to "mine contacts" at credit card agencies and banks. The garbage of targeted CUPW leaders was routinely stolen and inspected. CSIS even gave some of the targeted leaders special garbage bags on the pretence that they were part of a special recycling experiment.

The RCMP and CSIS viewed CUPW as a National Security threat. It was wrong to say CUPW was a national security threat and it is wrong to see Mohamed Harkat and the other security certificate detainees as threats.

20 years ago, the system did it to protect itself internally and it continues to do so. Now it is doing the same thing to protect itself from the outside, on an international basis.

For CUPW this security certificate regime represents several dangerous trends: I will talk about three of them.

• The first one is about the criminalization of dissent. If you do not hold or do not appear to hold majority views, you and your ideas are criminalized. We are seeing this locally, nationally, and internationally. About a year ago CUPW had agreed to have the Justice for Mohamed Harkat committee uses our boardroom for a press conference. The day before the meeting, members of the Canada Border Services Agency visited our office. They were wearing bullet proof vests, and were armed. The message they were sending was that if you were a supporter of Mohamed Harkat, they were going to intimidate you.
• The second one is about Islamophobia. The men who are or who have been held under these security certificates have all practiced the Muslim Faith. The Runnymede Trust in Britain defined Islamophobia as: “The unfounded hostility towards Islam. It refers also to the practical consequences of such hostility in unfair discrimination against Muslim individuals and communities, and to the exclusion of Muslims from mainstream political and social affairs. This practice builds inequality and discrimination, at a time when unity is needed.
• The third one is about denial of human and civil rights. CUPW believes that the arrest of Mohamed Harkat, the torture of Maher Arar, the institution of the no-fly lists etc. serve to weaken our collective security.

For CUPW the issue is clear. Our security does not lie with measures that strip away our democratic and human rights. Our security is about solidarity and justice.

The arrest and jailing of Mohamed Harkat and the other security certificate detainees has not resulted in CUPW members feeling more secure.

Here are some items that would make CUPW members more secure:

• an end to the security certificate regime
• the unconditional freedom of Mohamed Harkat and all the other security certificate detainees
• a strong emphasis on protecting human and civil rights locally, nationally and globally
• the complete withdrawal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan

If the Federal Government was serious about a war on terror those would be some of the key elements.

Look toward future challenges.

We have to fight for a different society:

• a foreign policy that puts justice, and dignity and fair trade above that of free trade. An example of the latter is the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and Colombia.
• an emphasis on a strong public sector, including universal services, both here and internationally.
• a focus on job creation, not corporate greed.

We have to link the fight for security and human rights with the building of a new society.

In Closing

This so called “war on terror” which is really a war on Human Rights has reminded me about courage. It takes courage to withstand being arrested and jailed without charges and without knowing the allegations against you. It takes courage to stand up and say the security certificate regime is unjust and undemocratic. And, it takes courage to live every day under the harsh and invasive eyes of CSIS and Canada Border Services.

So on behalf the 54,000 members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers I want to thank Sophie and Mohamed Harkat for their courage.

We know that today, or next week or next year any of us here—trade unionists, Human Rights defenders, peace activists just to name a few—could all be threatened when human rights and natural justice are on the chopping block. Our own experiences with CSIS and the RCMP keeping CUPW and its activists under surveillance have led CUPW to recognize the need for solidarity with Mohamed Harkat and all those who become victims of secret security campaigns. We know that the best way to be part of the struggle against the secret information society is to make a new world possible.

– Denis Lemelin, President, Canadian Union of Postal Workers

Bolivia: Why did Evo win?

Introduction

In Bolivia’s December 6 general election the governing Movement Towards Socialism (MAS-IPSP), headed by President Evo Morales, won a resounding victory, with 63.46% of the votes. The vote for its nearest rival, the right-wing PPB-Convergencia headed by Manfred Reyes Villa, was 27.15%.

Perhaps even more important, the MAS candidates won a two-thirds majority in both the Senate and the Plurinational Legislative Assembly, which will enable the government to proceed with important legislation implementing key provisions of the new Constitution ratified in January of this year. The MAS will have 25 of the 36 Senators and 90 of the 130 deputies. The MAS vote increased significantly even in some bastions of the right wing, in Santa Cruz, Pando and Beni departments.

In a parallel referendum held consecutively, a majority vote for indigenous autonomy was registered in at least 8 of the 12 municipalities.

In the following article, written shortly after the election, the Argentine socialist Atilio Boron analyzes the significance of the MAS election victory with particular reference to its implications for the left in the countries neighboring Bolivia, the “Southern Cone” comprising Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Chile.

When he is sworn in for his second term of office, on January 22, Evo Morales will be unveiling some 15 bills that are major components of his program in the Legislative Assembly in the coming year. They include a vast overhaul of the state apparatus through provisions on indigenous and regional autonomy and a new constitutional tribunal; establishment of universal medical insurance; an agrarian reform law providing for expropriation of unused lands deemed appropriate for agricultural use; and anti-corruption laws that will authorize investigations of major private fortunes currently evading taxation.

– Richard Fidler

Why did Evo win?

by Atilio A. Boron

Rebelión, December 8, 2009

Atilio Boron, with a friend

A week ago we were celebrating the triumph of Pepe Mujica in Uruguay. Today we have renewed, and more profound reasons, to celebrate the extraordinary victory of Evo Morales. As the Bolivian political analyst Hugo Moldiz Mercado pointed out some time ago, the convincing verdict of the ballot boxes marks at least three extremely important milestones in the history of Bolivia: (a) Evo is the first president democratically re-elected in two successive terms; (b) he is also the first to improve his percentage of votes from his initial electoral victory: from 53.7% to the present 63.3%; and (c) he is the first to obtain an overwhelming majority in the Plurinational Legislative Assembly. Moreover, although we do not yet have the definitive voting results, it is almost certain that Evo will obtain the two thirds in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies that would allow him to appoint judicial authorities and apply the new Constitution without opposition. All of this makes him, from the institutional standpoint, the most powerful president in Bolivia’s tumultuous history. And a president who is committed to the construction of a socialist future for his country.

Obviously, these facts will not prevent Washington from repeating its well-known criticisms about the “defective institutional quality” of Bolivian democracy, Evo’s “populism” and the necessity to improve the political functioning of the country in order to guarantee the popular will, as for example they are doing in Colombia. In that country alone, some 70 supporters of President Álvaro Uribe among the members of parliament are being investigated by the Supreme Court for their alleged links with the paramilitaries, and 30 of them have already been given jail sentences. Four million persons displaced by the armed conflict, a surge in drug trafficking and paramilitary activity under official protection and with Washington’s acquiescence, the systematic violation of human rights, submission of national sovereignty to the United States through a secretly negotiated treaty that conceded the installation of seven U.S. military bases in Colombian territory, and the fraudulent manipulation of the process to re-elect President Uribe, are all features of a democracy of high “institutional quality” that are no cause for the least concern by the self-styled custodians of democracy in the United States.

The Bolivian leader’s performance is impressive. He obtained an overwhelming triumph in the convening of the Constituent Assembly, in July 2006, which would establish the institutional foundations of the future Plurinational State. He won another crushing victory in August 2008 (67%) in the Recall Referendum forced on him by the opposition-controlled Senate with the openly professed objective of overthrowing him. In January 2009, 62% of the voters approved the new Political Constitution of the State, and just a few hours ago he obtained a further plebiscitory ratification by almost two thirds of the electorate. What lies behind this impressively successful electoral machine — indestructible notwithstanding the erosion of four years of administration, the obstacles imposed by the National Electoral Court, the hostility of the United States, numerous campaigns of destabilization, attempted coups d’état, separatist threats and assassination plots?

This is a government that has fulfilled its election promises and accordingly has developed an active social policy that has won it the indelible gratitude of its people: the Bono Juancito Pinto [a family allowance] that is given to more than a million children; the Renta Dignidad, a universal [pension] program for all Bolivians over the age of 60 who lack another source of income; and the Bono Juana Azurduy, a payment to pregnant mothers. A government that has eradicated illiteracy, applying the Cuban “Yo Sí Puedo” methodology that taught more than a million and a half persons to read and write in about two years, with the result that on December 20, 2008, UNESCO (not Evo’s supporters) declared Bolivia a territory free of illiteracy. This is an extraordinary achievement for a country that has suffered an age-old history of oppression and exploitation, subjected to heartbreaking poverty by its ruling classes and their imperial friends despite the enormous wealth it retains in its depths, and which now, with Evo’s government, is being recovered and placed in the service of the people. On the other hand, the internationalist solidarity of Cuba and Venezuela has also allowed the construction of numerous hospitals and medical centres, while thousands of persons are recovering their vision thanks to Operation Milagro [Miracle]. Major advances are being registered in the area of agrarian reform — about a half-million hectares of land have been transferred to the hands of the farmers — and in the promised recovery of the basic oil and gas resources, which at the time provoked some nervousness among its neighbours, especially Brazil, more concerned with guaranteeing the profitability of Petrobras than in cooperating with Evo’s political agenda. Lastly, the careful handling of macro-economics has enabled Bolivia, for the first time in its history, to count on significant reserves, an estimated ten billion dollars, and a tax bonanza that, combined with the collaboration of Venezuela under the ALBA agreements, has enabled Morales to carry out many infrastructural projects in the municipalities and to finance his ambitious social agenda.

Of course, many matters are still pending, and not everything that has been done is exempt from criticism. In a recent column Pablo Stefanoni, editor of the Bolivian edition of Le Monde Diplomatique, warned of the unstable coexistence between “an eco-communitarian discourse in international forums and a developmentalist sermonizing without much nuance in the domestic context”. Although this tension exists, it must be acknowledged that Evo’s eco-communitarian vocation amply transcends the level of his arguments in international forums: his commitment to Mother Earth, the Pachamama, and the original peoples is sincere and effective and is a milestone in the history of Our America. Of course, the focus on natural resources extraction in his pattern of development is undeniable, but also inevitable given the brutally predatory characteristics that capitalist accumulation has assumed in Bolivia. It is completely unreal to think that overnight the people’s government could sustain an alternative model of development setting aside the exploitation of the country’s immense mineral and energy resources. Bolivia does not have the latitude, at least for now, that Ireland or Finland had in their day. But it would be unfair to overlook the fact that the orientation of its economic model and its strong distributionist content clearly separates it from other experiences under way in the Southern Cone. Not to mention Evo’s declared intention to move ahead with the risky — and thus slow and conflictual — construction of a renewed socialism, something that has nothing to do with the nebulous “Andean-Amazonian capitalism” that some persist in presenting as an inexorable and implausible antechamber of socialism.

All these achievements, combined with his absolute personal integrity and a Spartan-like day-to-day routine (that contrasts favourably with the exaggerated fortunes and high consumption patterns exhibited by other “progressive” leaders and politicians in the region) have made Evo a leader endowed with a formidable personal charisma that enables him to beat any rival who dares to challenge him in the electoral arena. But in addition, his constant concern to raise consciousness, mobilize and organize his social base — stepping outside the discredited bureaucratic apparatuses which, like those in Argentina, Brazil and Chile, do not mobilize or raise the consciousness of anyone — not only satisfies the inescapable need to construct a subjectivity that is appropriate to struggles for socialism but also, at the same time, constitutes a decisive asset when it comes to prevailing in the electoral arena. The forces of the suffering “centre-left” of the Southern Cone, which are looking to an unpromising political future in view of the growth of the right-wing fuelled by their own resigned acceptance of possibilism, would be well advised to note the brilliant lesson offered by Evo’s triumph in the elections of last Sunday. A lesson which demonstrates that, faced with the danger of restored domination of the right, the only possible alternative is the radicalization of the processes of transformation under way. Defeated on the electoral terrain, the right will redouble its offensive in the many scenarios of the class struggle. It would be suicidal to imagine that they will bow out without a battle in the face of an electoral setback. Let us hope that this lesson is learned.

A shorter version of this article was published in Página/12 on December 7, 2009.

Translated by Richard Fidler

Bolivia: Why did Evo win?

Introduction

In Bolivia’s December 6 general election the governing Movement Towards Socialism (MAS-IPSP), headed by President Evo Morales, won a resounding victory, with 63.46% of the votes. The vote for its nearest rival, the right-wing PPB-Convergencia headed by Manfred Reyes Villa, was 27.15%.

Perhaps even more important, the MAS candidates won a two-thirds majority in both the Senate and the Plurinational Legislative Assembly, which will enable the government to proceed with important legislation implementing key provisions of the new Constitution ratified in January of this year. The MAS will have 25 of the 36 Senators and 90 of the 130 deputies. The MAS vote increased significantly even in some bastions of the right wing, in Santa Cruz, Pando and Beni departments.

In a parallel referendum held consecutively, a majority vote for indigenous autonomy was registered in at least 8 of the 12 municipalities.

In the following article, written shortly after the election, the Argentine socialist Atilio Boron analyzes the significance of the MAS election victory with particular reference to its implications for the left in the countries neighboring Bolivia, the “Southern Cone” comprising Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Chile.

When he is sworn in for his second term of office, on January 22, Evo Morales will be unveiling some 15 bills that are major components of his program in the Legislative Assembly in the coming year. They include a vast overhaul of the state apparatus through provisions on indigenous and regional autonomy and a new constitutional tribunal; establishment of universal medical insurance; an agrarian reform law providing for expropriation of unused lands deemed appropriate for agricultural use; and anti-corruption laws that will authorize investigations of major private fortunes currently evading taxation.

– Richard Fidler

Why did Evo win?

by Atilio A. Boron

Rebelión, December 8, 2009

Atilio Boron, with a friend

A week ago we were celebrating the triumph of Pepe Mujica in Uruguay. Today we have renewed, and more profound reasons, to celebrate the extraordinary victory of Evo Morales. As the Bolivian political analyst Hugo Moldiz Mercado pointed out some time ago, the convincing verdict of the ballot boxes marks at least three extremely important milestones in the history of Bolivia: (a) Evo is the first president democratically re-elected in two successive terms; (b) he is also the first to improve his percentage of votes from his initial electoral victory: from 53.7% to the present 63.3%; and (c) he is the first to obtain an overwhelming majority in the Plurinational Legislative Assembly. Moreover, although we do not yet have the definitive voting results, it is almost certain that Evo will obtain the two thirds in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies that would allow him to appoint judicial authorities and apply the new Constitution without opposition. All of this makes him, from the institutional standpoint, the most powerful president in Bolivia’s tumultuous history. And a president who is committed to the construction of a socialist future for his country.

Obviously, these facts will not prevent Washington from repeating its well-known criticisms about the “defective institutional quality” of Bolivian democracy, Evo’s “populism” and the necessity to improve the political functioning of the country in order to guarantee the popular will, as for example they are doing in Colombia. In that country alone, some 70 supporters of President Álvaro Uribe among the members of parliament are being investigated by the Supreme Court for their alleged links with the paramilitaries, and 30 of them have already been given jail sentences. Four million persons displaced by the armed conflict, a surge in drug trafficking and paramilitary activity under official protection and with Washington’s acquiescence, the systematic violation of human rights, submission of national sovereignty to the United States through a secretly negotiated treaty that conceded the installation of seven U.S. military bases in Colombian territory, and the fraudulent manipulation of the process to re-elect President Uribe, are all features of a democracy of high “institutional quality” that are no cause for the least concern by the self-styled custodians of democracy in the United States.

The Bolivian leader’s performance is impressive. He obtained an overwhelming triumph in the convening of the Constituent Assembly, in July 2006, which would establish the institutional foundations of the future Plurinational State. He won another crushing victory in August 2008 (67%) in the Recall Referendum forced on him by the opposition-controlled Senate with the openly professed objective of overthrowing him. In January 2009, 62% of the voters approved the new Political Constitution of the State, and just a few hours ago he obtained a further plebiscitory ratification by almost two thirds of the electorate. What lies behind this impressively successful electoral machine — indestructible notwithstanding the erosion of four years of administration, the obstacles imposed by the National Electoral Court, the hostility of the United States, numerous campaigns of destabilization, attempted coups d’état, separatist threats and assassination plots?

This is a government that has fulfilled its election promises and accordingly has developed an active social policy that has won it the indelible gratitude of its people: the Bono Juancito Pinto [a family allowance] that is given to more than a million children; the Renta Dignidad, a universal [pension] program for all Bolivians over the age of 60 who lack another source of income; and the Bono Juana Azurduy, a payment to pregnant mothers. A government that has eradicated illiteracy, applying the Cuban “Yo Sí Puedo” methodology that taught more than a million and a half persons to read and write in about two years, with the result that on December 20, 2008, UNESCO (not Evo’s supporters) declared Bolivia a territory free of illiteracy. This is an extraordinary achievement for a country that has suffered an age-old history of oppression and exploitation, subjected to heartbreaking poverty by its ruling classes and their imperial friends despite the enormous wealth it retains in its depths, and which now, with Evo’s government, is being recovered and placed in the service of the people. On the other hand, the internationalist solidarity of Cuba and Venezuela has also allowed the construction of numerous hospitals and medical centres, while thousands of persons are recovering their vision thanks to Operation Milagro [Miracle]. Major advances are being registered in the area of agrarian reform — about a half-million hectares of land have been transferred to the hands of the farmers — and in the promised recovery of the basic oil and gas resources, which at the time provoked some nervousness among its neighbours, especially Brazil, more concerned with guaranteeing the profitability of Petrobras than in cooperating with Evo’s political agenda. Lastly, the careful handling of macro-economics has enabled Bolivia, for the first time in its history, to count on significant reserves, an estimated ten billion dollars, and a tax bonanza that, combined with the collaboration of Venezuela under the ALBA agreements, has enabled Morales to carry out many infrastructural projects in the municipalities and to finance his ambitious social agenda.

Of course, many matters are still pending, and not everything that has been done is exempt from criticism. In a recent column Pablo Stefanoni, editor of the Bolivian edition of Le Monde Diplomatique, warned of the unstable coexistence between “an eco-communitarian discourse in international forums and a developmentalist sermonizing without much nuance in the domestic context”. Although this tension exists, it must be acknowledged that Evo’s eco-communitarian vocation amply transcends the level of his arguments in international forums: his commitment to Mother Earth, the Pachamama, and the original peoples is sincere and effective and is a milestone in the history of Our America. Of course, the focus on natural resources extraction in his pattern of development is undeniable, but also inevitable given the brutally predatory characteristics that capitalist accumulation has assumed in Bolivia. It is completely unreal to think that overnight the people’s government could sustain an alternative model of development setting aside the exploitation of the country’s immense mineral and energy resources. Bolivia does not have the latitude, at least for now, that Ireland or Finland had in their day. But it would be unfair to overlook the fact that the orientation of its economic model and its strong distributionist content clearly separates it from other experiences under way in the Southern Cone. Not to mention Evo’s declared intention to move ahead with the risky — and thus slow and conflictual — construction of a renewed socialism, something that has nothing to do with the nebulous “Andean-Amazonian capitalism” that some persist in presenting as an inexorable and implausible antechamber of socialism.

All these achievements, combined with his absolute personal integrity and a Spartan-like day-to-day routine (that contrasts favourably with the exaggerated fortunes and high consumption patterns exhibited by other “progressive” leaders and politicians in the region) have made Evo a leader endowed with a formidable personal charisma that enables him to beat any rival who dares to challenge him in the electoral arena. But in addition, his constant concern to raise consciousness, mobilize and organize his social base — stepping outside the discredited bureaucratic apparatuses which, like those in Argentina, Brazil and Chile, do not mobilize or raise the consciousness of anyone — not only satisfies the inescapable need to construct a subjectivity that is appropriate to struggles for socialism but also, at the same time, constitutes a decisive asset when it comes to prevailing in the electoral arena. The forces of the suffering “centre-left” of the Southern Cone, which are looking to an unpromising political future in view of the growth of the right-wing fuelled by their own resigned acceptance of possibilism, would be well advised to note the brilliant lesson offered by Evo’s triumph in the elections of last Sunday. A lesson which demonstrates that, faced with the danger of restored domination of the right, the only possible alternative is the radicalization of the processes of transformation under way. Defeated on the electoral terrain, the right will redouble its offensive in the many scenarios of the class struggle. It would be suicidal to imagine that they will bow out without a battle in the face of an electoral setback. Let us hope that this lesson is learned.

A shorter version of this article was published in Página/12 on December 7, 2009.

Translated by Richard Fidler

Vale Inco Strike Shows Need for International Action

First published in English in Socialist Voice, November 11, 2009

A LeftViews article, by Marc Bonhomme

A Québécois militant, member of Québec solidaire, discusses the global implications of the strike by 3,500 workers at Vale Inco, the world’s largest nickel mine, in Sudbury, Ontario.

In France’s south Pacific colony of New Caledonia, a small delegation of Vale Inco strikers from Sudbury, in Northeastern Ontario, most of them Franco-Ontarians, met in October with the union at the island’s Vale Inco nickel mine, due to open in 2010 although it threatens a UNESCO nature reserve. The newspaper Nouvelles calédoniennes reported the encounter, in its October 31 edition:

In the face of the global economy, the labour movement is looking to internationalize. In Canada, 3,500 workers at Vale Inco are currently on strike. Their union, the United Steelworkers, has launched a crusade to visit every Vale Inco site on the planet, for the purpose of forging alliances. In New Caledonia, union representatives met with the unions that represent the workers at the plant located in the south. …

For the past three and a half months, …workers at Vale Inco in Canada have been engaged in a test of strength with the Brazilian multinational that absorbed Inco, the Canadian nickel giant which initiated the Goro Nickel project in Caledonia. …

They are accusing the Vale group of taking advantage of the global crisis and lower profits to make underhanded cuts in employees’ wages, pension plans and social assistance programs. They are also organizing visits to all of Vale Inco’s sites in Brazil, Indonesia, Australia and New Caledonia, to create a sort of worldwide alliance between the various unions that represent the multinational corporation’s employees. [www.fairdealnow.ca/?cat=17]

Vale, too big to be defeated in a single country

The strike at Vale Inco began in mid-July at Sudbury, a city of 150,000 inhabitants, one third of them Francophone. In early August the strike was joined by workers at the Vale Inco refinery in Port Colborne, on Lake Erie, and the mine at Voisey’s Bay in Labrador. Vale is engaged in a frenzied competition with BHP-Billiton, an Australian-British company and the world’s largest, Rio Tinto, the third largest, and other mining giants in a process of concentration and centralization of the international mining industry. They are seeking to profit from the exponential rise in metal prices in recent years as a result of the explosive growth in demand in the emerging economies, and to strengthen their position with the major purchasers, above all the Chinese government and the big new producers in those countries.

In a push for diversification, Vale, a leading iron ore producer, purchased the Canadian nickel transnational Inco two years ago. The current economic crisis suddenly forced down raw materials prices, particularly for nickel. Vale, which had earlier settled for contract improvements with its employees in Thompson, Manitoba, is now demanding that its other workers agree to a three-year wage freeze, a defined contributions pension plan for new hires (the current plan is defined benefits), a major reduction in the annual production bonus (which has averaged 25% of the base wage), now to be pegged to the firm’s profitability, and a weaker wage indexation clause.

But unlike its major rivals, who have experienced liquidity problems resulting in major layoffs – Rio Tinto-Alcan in Quebec, for example – Vale has remained quite profitable despite the collapse in prices and has not carried out massive layoffs, although it did dismiss a few hundred Inco employees after buying this company. In Brazil itself, it plans to increase its workforce by 12% in 2010 following major investments demanded by the Brazilian government; the state-owned banks are significant financiers of Vale. In Brazil, as in New Caledonia, wages are lower, and perhaps the environmental constraints as well.

In 2008 Vale made a profit of US$13.2 billion. Its subsidiary Vale Inco made more profits in two years (2006-2008) than Inco did in ten (1996-2006): US$4.1 billion. In the third quarter of 2009, together with the new rise in nickel and iron ore prices, its profit doubled from the previous quarter although it was only a third of what it was in the same period in 2008. The company was so proud of this result that its directors had planned to go to the New York and London stock exchanges for media events in late October. Unfortunately for them, they had to cancel when small delegations of strikers came to disrupt the events with the help of local union members linked with the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) – about twenty strikers in New York supported by U.S. steelworkers but also some teachers.

Vale was so optimistic at that point that it announced it would be distributing $2.75 billion in dividends in 2009 – more than the cost of the wages and benefits of its 100,000 plus employees in 35 countries worldwide. But the strike has been relatively effective. Nickel production in the third quarter of 2009 is down by 45% from the second quarter and by 55% from the equivalent quarter in 2008, not to mention the direct cost of $200 million for the strike. However, the new rise in nickel prices has somewhat offset the lower volume, and the production of nickel (and copper, which Vale Inco extracts concurrently) is a marginal component of the transnational’s overall operations, while it was central for the old Inco.

Vale profits from the severity of the crisis in Ontario

Since its privatization in 1997 – it was a state-owned corporation in Brazil, founded during the Second World War – Vale has been systematically fighting its workers. In Brazil, its employees have no job security; the company dismisses them without cause and fires most once they have three to five years seniority in order to hire at a lower wage, which explains why the majority are on fixed-term contracts. In the current strike in Canada, Vale has hired strikebreakers and required its other workers to do the work of the strikers. The New Democratic Party sought unsuccessfully in the Ontario legislature, with the applause of strikers in the visitors’ gallery, who were expelled, to present anti-scab legislation like that in Quebec. The NDP, a social-liberal party linked to the trade-union movement, is the most left-wing party in the Ontario legislature. It divides the northern and northeastern seats, which are very blue-collar, especially outside the few major urban areas, with the governing Liberals, although it has only 10 out of the province’s 107 MPPs.

The relative isolation of the strikers from the major metropolitan centers in the south of the province has not facilitated efforts to build solidarity. However, it is worth noting the solidarity of other Steelworkers locals and the Ontario branch of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), known for its vanguard role in the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign in support of Palestine, and for its municipal worker locals in Toronto and Windsor, which waged hard-fought strikes this summer to fend off concessions demanded by the municipal authorities including the so-called progressive city council in Toronto. These politicians sought to benefit from the crisis in the automobile, steel and financial industries that has hit hard at the Ontario economy, which accounts for 40% of the Canadian GNP. It is no accident that the conflict at Vale Inco began this summer while these major strikes were taking place.

Nevertheless, this solidarity consists at best in visits by a few leaders, sometimes with cheques in support, and the mobilization of limited pockets of militants when strikers visit Toronto, for example to agitate at Queen’s Park, the site of the Ontario legislature, or to respond to the invitation of the iconoclastic film director Michael Moore when he was in Toronto for the premiere of Capitalism, a love story. Until quite recently the international mobilization has remained quite modest: letters of support from unions in less than a dozen countries and tours in Germany and Sweden accompanied by international leaders to convince certain companies not to import nickel ore from Vale. Even the big rally in late September with international guests, including the president of the CUT, the major Brazilian trade-union central, drew only 3,000 persons, slightly less than the total number of strikers in Sudbury.

A possible turning-point in October

It appears, however, that things took a turn for the better in October. The women’s strike support committee, which played such an important role in the very militant nine-month strike in 1978-79, was re-established with the help of former activists. Working with the recently constituted support committee, it will be organizing a series of family activities in November. The Ukrainian community in the region has also become involved. The spirit of 1978-79 could be regained. There appear to be some changes as well in terms of international solidarity. In addition to the trip to New York, a small delegation has returned from Australia, where Vale purchased several coal mines in 2007, and New Caledonia, where Vale Inco will soon open a new nickel mine. Dozens of Australian miners expressed their sympathy with the delegation, as did their leaders. But their contract terminates only in 2011.

In New Caledonia, there was remarkable media coverage and a warm reception from the Kanak elected representatives. The Kanaks are the first nation in this French colony, although they now make up only 45% of the total population. Did the Kanaks sense they had a lot in common with the Franco-Ontarians in the delegation – two nationalities suffering oppression of their language, their economic conditions and their lack of territorial autonomy? Oddly enough, the Steelworkers web site devoted to this conflict, from which most of the information in this article is derived, is bilingual – in English and Brazilian Portuguese. And the publication materials are English-only. But the Sudbury region itself is strongly Francophone, and is not far from the Quebec border. Will this uniform and formal unity strengthen the capacity for mass mobilization? Is this the best way to build a pan-Canadian movement? Internationalism, to be effective, must begin at home.

It is in Brazil, Vale’s economic base by far, where the situation is most promising. The miners in the company’s largest Brazilian mine, and two other mines, staged a two-day strike, October 26-27, around their own demands. A few days later, at two other mines affiliated with the smallest union central, Conlutas, which is known for its militancy, the bargaining committee symbolically invited the woman representing the Canadian steelworkers to be part of their bargaining team, to the anger of the employer’s negotiators who threatened to break off the talks. And 700 workers in these two mines signed a letter to the company calling on it to settle the strike in Canada, where negotiations have not resumed since the strike began. In a release issued November 4, the union’s leaders said:

Vale fears more than just the possibility of victory in the strike by Canadian brothers and sisters, a possibility strengthened by this gesture of solidarity. It also fears the growing international unity which is being built among Vale workers and also people in communities around the world where Vale’s profits have resulted in environmental disasters, degradation of the natural environment and community disintegration.

Internationalist optimism and bureaucratic contradiction

This optimism is justified. But so far the development of international links has been primarily at the initiative of the union bureaucracies. Their willingness to develop an internationalist response should not be under-estimated. They have been caught off guard by this strike and the membership’s willingness to take on a powerful transnational corporation capable of holding out through even a militant strike as long as the workers are isolated. They realize that the usual bureaucratic methods of bargaining supported by a national strike limited to picketing and controlled from above will inevitably result in some setbacks. When the union ranks hesitate to fight back in the face of a difficult objective situation, as in the automobile industry, the leaderships can force through some concessions. But there may be a high price to pay in terms of credibility once the threshold of an unlimited strike has been crossed. To defeat Vale, there must be a certain degree of international coordination in strikes, except perhaps in Brazil, where a national inter-union coordination might suffice.

The need for the union bureaucracy to mobilize the ranks to some degree, or to let them mobilize themselves without too many impediments, opens the door to self-organization. Has the women’s committee given the cue? The need to develop international links and an openness toward working-class internationalism, particularly with the Brazilian unions, forces the bureaucrats to restrain any temptation to engage in the kind of chauvinist language characteristic of a small imperialist power that we hear so often in Canada – “defending our middle-class, anti-ecology status” while allowing Vale to chip away at the wage scales and working conditions of its employees elsewhere.

The Steelworkers are styled an “international” union, although they have locals only in the USA and Canada. So when the “international” president of the union called for nationalization of Vale at the big strike support rally in late September, to the standing ovation of the strikers, there was a note of ambiguity. If nationalization means a takeover by the capitalist state in order to escape Brazilian living conditions, that is a setback for internationalism – and an economic illusion, for the nickel market is worldwide. A state corporation would do as Vale does. However, nationalization can signify the first step in the takeover by the workers collectively, as the Zanon workers took over their plant in Argentina. [A strike made famous by Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis in their film The Take. For recent coverage of the Zanon struggle, see http://tinyurl.com/my25o5.]

The self-managed collective would confront the state with the need to provide financing, technical assistance and guarantees of international markets, if not conversion of the company and retraining of the workers. It would make the undertaking an integral part of the community, and in the case of a firm that is intrinsically an exporter, would also link with the workers in client and competitor firms abroad in support of their demands and their struggles, within a perspective of collaboration for joint marketing in the context of a levelling upward of living conditions. It would be a first step toward internationalist self-management.

Irrespective of whether it goes forward or is worn down, this strike against Vale gives some idea of what the strike movement will be like in the 21st century. Global strikes against transnational corporations will be an essential pillar of internationalism. They are just beginning.

Translated by Richard Fidler. The web site of the Vale Inco families and community members is Fair Deal Now!. See also Down in the Vale: Sudbury Steelworkers Strike at Vale Inco

LeftViews is Socialist Voice’s forum for articles related to rebuilding the left in Canada and around the world, reflecting a wide variety of socialist opinion.

A LeftViews article, by Marc Bonhomme
A Québécois militant, member of Québec solidaire, discusses the global implications of the strike by 3,500 workers at Vale Inco, the world’s largest nickel mine, in Sudbury, Ontario.

In France’s south Pacific colony of New Caledonia, a small delegation of Vale Inco strikers from Sudbury, in Northeastern Ontario, most of them Franco-Ontarians, met in October with the union at the island’s Vale Inco nickel mine, due to open in 2010 although it threatens a UNESCO nature reserve. The newspaper Nouvelles calédoniennes reported the encounter, in its October 31 edition:

In the face of the global economy, the labour movement is looking to internationalize. In Canada, 3,500 workers at Vale Inco are currently on strike. Their union, the United Steelworkers, has launched a crusade to visit every Vale Inco site on the planet, for the purpose of forging alliances. In New Caledonia, union representatives met with the unions that represent the workers at the plant located in the south. …

For the past three and a half months, …workers at Vale Inco in Canada have been engaged in a test of strength with the Brazilian multinational that absorbed Inco, the Canadian nickel giant which initiated the Goro Nickel project in Caledonia. …

They are accusing the Vale group of taking advantage of the global crisis and lower profits to make underhanded cuts in employees’ wages, pension plans and social assistance programs. They are also organizing visits to all of Vale Inco’s sites in Brazil, Indonesia, Australia and New Caledonia, to create a sort of worldwide alliance between the various unions that represent the multinational corporation’s employees. [www.fairdealnow.ca/?cat=17]

Vale, too big to be defeated in a single country

The strike at Vale Inco began in mid-July at Sudbury, a city of 150,000 inhabitants, one third of them Francophone. In early August the strike was joined by workers at the Vale Inco refinery in Port Colborne, on Lake Erie, and the mine at Voisey’s Bay in Labrador. Vale is engaged in a frenzied competition with BHP-Billiton, an Australian-British company and the world’s largest, Rio Tinto, the third largest, and other mining giants in a process of concentration and centralization of the international mining industry. They are seeking to profit from the exponential rise in metal prices in recent years as a result of the explosive growth in demand in the emerging economies, and to strengthen their position with the major purchasers, above all the Chinese government and the big new producers in those countries.

In a push for diversification, Vale, a leading iron ore producer, purchased the Canadian nickel transnational Inco two years ago. The current economic crisis suddenly forced down raw materials prices, particularly for nickel. Vale, which had earlier settled for contract improvements with its employees in Thompson, Manitoba, is now demanding that its other workers agree to a three-year wage freeze, a defined contributions pension plan for new hires (the current plan is defined benefits), a major reduction in the annual production bonus (which has averaged 25% of the base wage), now to be pegged to the firm’s profitability, and a weaker wage indexation clause.

But unlike its major rivals, who have experienced liquidity problems resulting in major layoffs – Rio Tinto-Alcan in Quebec, for example – Vale has remained quite profitable despite the collapse in prices and has not carried out massive layoffs, although it did dismiss a few hundred Inco employees after buying this company. In Brazil itself, it plans to increase its workforce by 12% in 2010 following major investments demanded by the Brazilian government; the state-owned banks are significant financiers of Vale. In Brazil, as in New Caledonia, wages are lower, and perhaps the environmental constraints as well.

In 2008 Vale made a profit of US$13.2 billion. Its subsidiary Vale Inco made more profits in two years (2006-2008) than Inco did in ten (1996-2006): US$4.1 billion. In the third quarter of 2009, together with the new rise in nickel and iron ore prices, its profit doubled from the previous quarter although it was only a third of what it was in the same period in 2008. The company was so proud of this result that its directors had planned to go to the New York and London stock exchanges for media events in late October. Unfortunately for them, they had to cancel when small delegations of strikers came to disrupt the events with the help of local union members linked with the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) – about twenty strikers in New York supported by U.S. steelworkers but also some teachers.

Vale was so optimistic at that point that it announced it would be distributing $2.75 billion in dividends in 2009 – more than the cost of the wages and benefits of its 100,000 plus employees in 35 countries worldwide. But the strike has been relatively effective. Nickel production in the third quarter of 2009 is down by 45% from the second quarter and by 55% from the equivalent quarter in 2008, not to mention the direct cost of $200 million for the strike. However, the new rise in nickel prices has somewhat offset the lower volume, and the production of nickel (and copper, which Vale Inco extracts concurrently) is a marginal component of the transnational’s overall operations, while it was central for the old Inco.

Vale profits from the severity of the crisis in Ontario

Since its privatization in 1997 – it was a state-owned corporation in Brazil, founded during the Second World War – Vale has been systematically fighting its workers. In Brazil, its employees have no job security; the company dismisses them without cause and fires most once they have three to five years seniority in order to hire at a lower wage, which explains why the majority are on fixed-term contracts. In the current strike in Canada, Vale has hired strikebreakers and required its other workers to do the work of the strikers. The New Democratic Party sought unsuccessfully in the Ontario legislature, with the applause of strikers in the visitors’ gallery, who were expelled, to present anti-scab legislation like that in Quebec. The NDP, a social-liberal party linked to the trade-union movement, is the most left-wing party in the Ontario legislature. It divides the northern and northeastern seats, which are very blue-collar, especially outside the few major urban areas, with the governing Liberals, although it has only 10 out of the province’s 107 MPPs.

The relative isolation of the strikers from the major metropolitan centers in the south of the province has not facilitated efforts to build solidarity. However, it is worth noting the solidarity of other Steelworkers locals and the Ontario branch of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), known for its vanguard role in the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign in support of Palestine, and for its municipal worker locals in Toronto and Windsor, which waged hard-fought strikes this summer to fend off concessions demanded by the municipal authorities including the so-called progressive city council in Toronto. These politicians sought to benefit from the crisis in the automobile, steel and financial industries that has hit hard at the Ontario economy, which accounts for 40% of the Canadian GNP. It is no accident that the conflict at Vale Inco began this summer while these major strikes were taking place.

Nevertheless, this solidarity consists at best in visits by a few leaders, sometimes with cheques in support, and the mobilization of limited pockets of militants when strikers visit Toronto, for example to agitate at Queen’s Park, the site of the Ontario legislature, or to respond to the invitation of the iconoclastic film director Michael Moore when he was in Toronto for the premiere of Capitalism, a love story. Until quite recently the international mobilization has remained quite modest: letters of support from unions in less than a dozen countries and tours in Germany and Sweden accompanied by international leaders to convince certain companies not to import nickel ore from Vale. Even the big rally in late September with international guests, including the president of the CUT, the major Brazilian trade-union central, drew only 3,000 persons, slightly less than the total number of strikers in Sudbury.

A possible turning-point in October

It appears, however, that things took a turn for the better in October. The women’s strike support committee, which played such an important role in the very militant nine-month strike in 1978-79, was re-established with the help of former activists. Working with the recently constituted support committee, it will be organizing a series of family activities in November. The Ukrainian community in the region has also become involved. The spirit of 1978-79 could be regained. There appear to be some changes as well in terms of international solidarity. In addition to the trip to New York, a small delegation has returned from Australia, where Vale purchased several coal mines in 2007, and New Caledonia, where Vale Inco will soon open a new nickel mine. Dozens of Australian miners expressed their sympathy with the delegation, as did their leaders. But their contract terminates only in 2011.

In New Caledonia, there was remarkable media coverage and a warm reception from the Kanak elected representatives. The Kanaks are the first nation in this French colony, although they now make up only 45% of the total population. Did the Kanaks sense they had a lot in common with the Franco-Ontarians in the delegation – two nationalities suffering oppression of their language, their economic conditions and their lack of territorial autonomy? Oddly enough, the Steelworkers web site devoted to this conflict, from which most of the information in this article is derived, is bilingual – in English and Brazilian Portuguese. And the publication materials are English-only. But the Sudbury region itself is strongly Francophone, and is not far from the Quebec border. Will this uniform and formal unity strengthen the capacity for mass mobilization? Is this the best way to build a pan-Canadian movement? Internationalism, to be effective, must begin at home.

It is in Brazil, Vale’s economic base by far, where the situation is most promising. The miners in the company’s largest Brazilian mine, and two other mines, staged a two-day strike, October 26-27, around their own demands. A few days later, at two other mines affiliated with the smallest union central, Conlutas, which is known for its militancy, the bargaining committee symbolically invited the woman representing the Canadian steelworkers to be part of their bargaining team, to the anger of the employer’s negotiators who threatened to break off the talks. And 700 workers in these two mines signed a letter to the company calling on it to settle the strike in Canada, where negotiations have not resumed since the strike began. In a release issued November 4, the union’s leaders said:

Vale fears more than just the possibility of victory in the strike by Canadian brothers and sisters, a possibility strengthened by this gesture of solidarity. It also fears the growing international unity which is being built among Vale workers and also people in communities around the world where Vale’s profits have resulted in environmental disasters, degradation of the natural environment and community disintegration.

Internationalist optimism and bureaucratic contradiction

This optimism is justified. But so far the development of international links has been primarily at the initiative of the union bureaucracies. Their willingness to develop an internationalist response should not be under-estimated. They have been caught off guard by this strike and the membership’s willingness to take on a powerful transnational corporation capable of holding out through even a militant strike as long as the workers are isolated. They realize that the usual bureaucratic methods of bargaining supported by a national strike limited to picketing and controlled from above will inevitably result in some setbacks. When the union ranks hesitate to fight back in the face of a difficult objective situation, as in the automobile industry, the leaderships can force through some concessions. But there may be a high price to pay in terms of credibility once the threshold of an unlimited strike has been crossed. To defeat Vale, there must be a certain degree of international coordination in strikes, except perhaps in Brazil, where a national inter-union coordination might suffice.

The need for the union bureaucracy to mobilize the ranks to some degree, or to let them mobilize themselves without too many impediments, opens the door to self-organization. Has the women’s committee given the cue? The need to develop international links and an openness toward working-class internationalism, particularly with the Brazilian unions, forces the bureaucrats to restrain any temptation to engage in the kind of chauvinist language characteristic of a small imperialist power that we hear so often in Canada – “defending our middle-class, anti-ecology status” while allowing Vale to chip away at the wage scales and working conditions of its employees elsewhere.

The Steelworkers are styled an “international” union, although they have locals only in the USA and Canada. So when the “international” president of the union called for nationalization of Vale at the big strike support rally in late September, to the standing ovation of the strikers, there was a note of ambiguity. If nationalization means a takeover by the capitalist state in order to escape Brazilian living conditions, that is a setback for internationalism – and an economic illusion, for the nickel market is worldwide. A state corporation would do as Vale does. However, nationalization can signify the first step in the takeover by the workers collectively, as the Zanon workers took over their plant in Argentina. [A strike made famous by Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis in their film The Take. For recent coverage of the Zanon struggle, see http://tinyurl.com/my25o5.]

The self-managed collective would confront the state with the need to provide financing, technical assistance and guarantees of international markets, if not conversion of the company and retraining of the workers. It would make the undertaking an integral part of the community, and in the case of a firm that is intrinsically an exporter, would also link with the workers in client and competitor firms abroad in support of their demands and their struggles, within a perspective of collaboration for joint marketing in the context of a levelling upward of living conditions. It would be a first step toward internationalist self-management.

Irrespective of whether it goes forward or is worn down, this strike against Vale gives some idea of what the strike movement will be like in the 21st century. Global strikes against transnational corporations will be an essential pillar of internationalism. They are just beginning.

Translated by Richard Fidler. The web site of the Vale Inco families and community members is Fair Deal Now!. See also Down in the Vale: Sudbury Steelworkers Strike at Vale Inco

LeftViews is Socialist Voice’s forum for articles related to rebuilding the left in Canada and around the world, reflecting a wide variety of socialist opinion.