Articles & theory
29 January 2011
From Hamilton to Cairo: Build the resistance
The electrifying images of mass protests in Cairo calling for an end to the brutal regime of Hosni Mubarak have sent a jolt around the world.
Inspired by the events that overthrew the Tunisian president Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, people in Egypt, Jordan, Yemen and Algeria are rising up.
They want régime change – they want jobs, food, an end to oppression – and they have put the fear into their rulers. Yet only weeks ago, there was no sense that this could happen
in Egypt, or in Tunisia. No one could have predicted how this spirit of resistance could spread like wildfire.
The struggle now unfolding in Egypt and other countries in the region is a fight against the priorities of a system that has produced unprecedented wealth for those at the top of society, while driving the vast majority into greater and greater hardship.
How does this connect with battles taking place in Canada?
For years, employers – both private and public sector – have put the boots to workers, pushing 25% cuts in pay and benefits and trying to push the cost of the economic crisis onto workers. Bosses are increasingly relying on lockouts to starve workers into submission.
In Hamilton, US Steel shut down the blast furnace, then locked out 900 workers in their attempt to get rid of pension indexing for retirees and defined benefit pensions for new hires.
But there has been resistance to these attacks. At Vale Inco in Sudbury, at St. Mary’s Cement, Infinity Rubber in Etobicoke, ECP in Brantford and at the Sears warehouse in Vaughan,
workers have shown their willingness to fight back against concessions.
But time and time again, despite workers standing firm against employer attacks, union leaders have at best sat aside from the fight – leaving strikers literally for years – and at worst
have sold their members terrible deals.
The spirit of resistance exists in Canada as elsewhere. Workers have sacrificed a lot to try to hold the line against greedy employers. Understanding why union leaders behave as they do – and more importantly, how union activists can push them further – is key to rebuilding a serious fightback.
Lessons from the past
The last time capitalism entered a crisis this deep, the labour movement underwent a huge transformation.
The great waves of organizing by the newly-born industrial unions that emerged out of the Great Depression lead to the victories that are today seen as fundamental to the labour movement as we know it.
At that time, the leaders who wanted to keep to “business as usual” – despite an unprecedented crisis for workers and intensely brutal employer tactics – were left behind as great numbers of workers sought a way forward.
The process of renewal of workers’ struggles and organization came out of this situation.
Today, we see many similarities: the response of union leaders to the biggest post-war assault on workers and the welfare state is frustratingly slow, to put it mildly.
Frustration with union leaders can lead to two opposite dangers for activists in unions and on the left. Some draw the conclusion that if the union officials won’t fight, all we can do is denounce them from the sidelines.
The opposite danger is to decide that the union leadership is irrelevant and that we should just ignore them and build our own actions.
Both of these views – that union leaders are omnipotent, or that they don’t count – can lead to dead ends. If they’re all-powerful, then rank and file action doesn’t matter. If they don’t
count, then we don’t need to put demands on them.
One of the key tasks confronting activists now is to combine pressure on the leadership with independent rank and file action to create a dynamic that can strengthen the fightback and the self-confidence of workers to move independently when the leaders won’t move.
Militancy and leadership
The scale of the attacks on workers has forced a section of the union leaders to act.
This is incredibly important. Every call for action that comes from the top is an opportunity to mobilize on the ground. When such a call comes, we have to go all-out to build it and bring as many people into activity as possible.
When the OFL and other sections of the unions called a demonstration against the G20, it ensured there were many tens of thousands out – with a much broader layer of people involved than if it had just been called by the left.
When the OFL put out the call to mobilize for the Hamilton Day of Action in support of Local 1005, it meant that 46 buses were booked across the province and it pulled in many union locals who otherwise might not have been involved.
But we also know that the direction and momentum of the fight can’t be left to that section of the union leadership that at a given time is prepared to fight.
An official call for a demo like the Hamilton Day of Action is important: while the official backing of the action helps create a critical mass and a focus, the anger and independent initiatives can go beyond what the organizers plan or expect.
Official and unofficial action can feed off each other and create a dynamic that pushes the leadership forward, while creating an opportunity for ordinary people to gain strength and confidence.
Keep up the pressure
The Hamilton Day of Action has become a rallying cry for those in the labour movement who want to see decisive action to reverse the one-sided fight of the past years.
But the locked out workers at US Steel have a big fight ahead of them. Keeping the momentum going is vital.
Many union leaders will be satisfied with having organized a symbolic show of strength, and will now want things to return to “normal”.
They will fret about how much “their” union is spending on buses, and they will try to dampen down expectations of what can be achieved.
But those leaders who understand that a much greater and more determined fight is urgently needed, may look for a way to keep momentum going.
What activists in the unions and on the left do now can make a difference. A key task will be to keep up the pressure for more action in the fight against US Steel.
With major public sector fights looming – for example at Canada Post and in the City of Toronto – the fight in Hamilton can be a signpost for rebuilding a serious fight.
Broaden solidarity
Many union locals and labour councils have already passed motions and donations in support of Steelworkers in Hamilton.
These make a big difference in allowing workers to outlast the employers in the lockout.
But along with these important steps, we need to bring the fight out of Hamilton to reach a bigger audience. This isn’t just Hamilton’s fight:
• Get a 1005 speaker to your next union local meeting: When people hear what US Steel is doing to these workers – some of whom have worked there for 40 years – they feel a direct connection to the fight.
• Organize a ‘plant-gate’ collection at your workplace (or at your campus): It used to be automatic that if a group of workers went out on strike or were locked out, they would organize delegations to the entrance of another workplace with leaflets and a bucket.
This way, other workers hear directly what is happening in that particular fight, and it brings the spirit of that fight into more workplaces.
If you organize a plantgate, get 1005 members out with you. No one can represent the situation better than the workers themselves.
These seemingly small things can continue to build momentum in the fight around Local 1005 – but they also build pressure on the union leadership.
We know from bitter experience that the union leaders will vacillate and drive the fight into a dead end if we let them.
Fifteen years ago on this day, 100,000 people demonstrated in Hamilton in what people knew should develop into a province-wide general strike that could have defeated Mike Harris.
Instead, union leaders wound the fight down, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
We have an opportunity now to rebuild the movement – but this time, at the heart of the mobilization we need strong rank and file networks.
A socialist alternative
In every country where union officials have been pushed into calling mass action – whether in France or Greece or Ireland – the left has played a key role in pushing the movement forward and strengthening rank and file initiative.
Networks of rank-and-file workers within each union, prepared to answer a call for solidarity and to fight within their union to build it – are vital if we are to strengthen resistance.
Within that, we need socialists arguing that workers should not pay for capitalism’s crisis.
There is an alternative – a socialist alternative based on producing for human need instead of capitalist greed. That alternative can only be put out there if socialists are organized
and stuck into every fight.
