CAW members outraged – 'Disgrace to bring boss into our house'

“This isn’t the same union as it was 20 years ago”

“It was a disgrace to bring the boss into our house”

These were just two of the dozens of expressions of outrage at the Canadian Autoworkers council the day after Buzz Hargrove warmly endorsed Paul Martin and gave him a union jacket. While the press and the Liberals played the event up, they refused to cover the debate the next day.

On the council floor was a motion calling for the CAW to endorse 40 NDP candidates and to push for another minority government of the NDP and Liberals.

The motion itself did not call for endorsing any Liberal candidates. But as one speaker told the council “the horse is already out of the stable”.

The presence of Martin at the council and his warm introduction by Hargrove had already sent out the message that Hargrove was calling on CAW members to endorse the Liberals. No amount of fine print in the media will change that message.

The dismay at Hargrove and the national leadership’s actions took shape around the debate on the elections motion. It became a debate not about the motion but about Paul Martin and whether the CAW was further retreating from supporting the NDP.

The majority of those who spoke to the motion were against it and were all rank and file members, with those defending the leadership primarily being staffers.

After the debate, the chairperson (Ken Lewenza from local 222) and Hargrove took half an hour arguing in favour.

The majority unfortunately fell prey to the ongoing fear mongering about the rise of Stephen Harper and the Tories, conveniently forgetting the past 12 years of Liberal Rule that has pushed neoliberalsim even further than the Mulroney Tories.

The illusion that the CAW leadership is more progressive than the rest of the labour movement can now sadly be put to rest. It is clear that the leadership is taking the union further to the right by giving Martin a platform.

Beyond this other things were noticeable at this council meeting. Perhaps most worrisome was the use of the term “Alternative Financing Initiatives” to describe Public- Private-Partnerships. This is shift away from maintaining a principled stand against privatisation.

The next steps for autoworkers will be to publicly cut against the leadership by endorsing and supporting NDP candidates in their ridings.

Of course backing the NDP is not the whole battle. We know the way in which they can sell-out when in office.

But they are our party, not like the Liberals and Tories who are simply creatures of Bay Street.

And it is clear that the need for a left caucus in the CAW couldn't be greater.