Reprinted from PCDN, Volume 6 Number 33, March 18, 1976
An article appeared in the Toronto Star on March 15, written by a prominant labour aristocrat who apparently doesn’t know that if he throws himself before the wheels of the buses, trains and cars headed for the CLC demonstration against Trudeau’s fascist wage controls Bill C-73, he will invariably get run over. Now that the workers are organising to go to Ottawa and militantly demonstrate their complete contempt for the government’s latest and most desperate attack on their wages and living conditions, it appears that some of the labour aristocrats are having second thoughts about the whole thing. If this were not the case, why else would this man so desperately try and promote a sense of futility and hopelessness about this demonstration? Here is some of what the article had to say:
No matter what the number (of workers demonstrating in Ottawa on March 22 – Editor’s note) of course, it won’t erode the government’s...determination to maintain the controls. It could, on the contrary, stiffen the Trudeau Cabinet’s resolve particularly if the demonstration takes on any aspect of intimidation.
If the message is not clear enough yet, he goes on:
One can easily imagine Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, sitting with his cabinet across from the CLC officers during the submission of their annual brief to the government, gesturing to the `’mob’ (authors quotes) outside and asking CLC President Joe Morris: ’Is this the way you try to change our policies – through violence and intimidation?’
In other words, workers, why are you bothering to lose a days pay to go to a demonstration which at best, will have no effect on the Federal government’s “resolve”, to shift the burden of the economic crisis onto your backs, and at worst will only hurt your cause by making the Prime Minister more obstinate.
If we follow the logic of this argument, why should workers demonstrate, protest, organise rallies, etc., since the result of these activities will only harm their own cause? This of course is nonsense!
Trudeau and his class has carried out a concerted campaign to attack wages and living conditions of the working class in order to put the burden of the economic crises onto the backs of the workers. This was the case with the railway workers, postal workers, the teachers, and many others. The wage and price controls are an attempt to legalise and institutionalise this campaign. Under the circumstances the working class has no choice but to fight back or face utter destitution. So what is there to discuss with Trudeau? What negotiations will be harmed? Obviously none! The only reply to the controls can be a mighty no! Withdraw Bill C-73!
This “labour leader” would have us believe that this is impossible. His theme is that nothing can be done about any issue which arises in society. That our fate as well as our future lies in the hands of Trudeau and his class. The only thing we can do is send our representatives to Trudeau cap in hand and urge him to be reasonable. This is a disgrace to the workers in Canada. Workers in Canada have voiced their widespread opposition to the controls. Now is the time to develop this widespread opposition into a storm to make the rich pay. This is what this “labour leader” does not want to do.
The demonstration in Ottawa will voice the opposition of the working class to Bill C-73 as well as serve the notice that the rich must pay.
The first reason Joe Morris gives for not going to Ottawa in too strong a force, is that “violence and intimidation” is not going to change the position of the government and probably will only make it more determined and therefore hurt the negotiations between labour aristocrats and the government. But who is intimidating whom? When Mr. Trudeau announced the “wages and prices restraint” it was he who threatened the “full force of the law” for those who violated the rulings of the Anti-Inflation Board, which was set up to administer the guideline.
It is the monopoly capitalist state that wields its laws, its police, its army and its prisons against the workers to intimidate the workers and legalise the class oppression of the vast majority of Canadian people. The capitalist state is the organised violence of the monopoly capitalist class against the working class and other oppressed sections of the Canadian people.
Take one example. The Postal Workers recently waged a 42 day strike against the capitalist state. In the course of this struggle, Mr. Mackasey, on behalf of the Canadian state, used the organised violence of the state to try and break the union. Scabs were herded onto the job and reprisals were threatened against any union measures to oppose this. The bourgeois press viciously attacked the workers. In several cities, charges were laid against postal workers who defended their picket against the strike-breaking activities of the government and threatened with fines and jail sentences for defying the legislation. As well, in Ontario, it is an illegal act for the teachers to carry on their struggle by working to rule, that is by working strictly to their contract.
The workers for their part have no choice but to resist the attacks of the monopoly capitalist state. Not to resist means to be driven into ruin and utter impoverishment at the hands of the Canadian monopoly capitalists and their foreign masters. Yet it is this very resistance that our labour aristocrat is opposed to because it will hurt negotiations.
Thousands upon thousands of Canadian workers are going to Ottawa to serve notice that the rich must pay. No amount of fascist intimidation and suppression will force Canadian workers to peacefully and stoically submit to the ever increasing exploitation of the U.S. imperialists and Canadian monopoly capitalist state. This is the message Mr. Trudeau and his cabinet will get from the demonstration. And if in the view of our labour aristocrat, that amounts to intimidation and violence, then so be it.
Negotiations as such are not the issue. The Canadian monopoly capitalist state has declared war on the working and oppressed people of this country, in service of U.S. imperialism and is determined to shift the burden of economic crisis onto their backs. For the Canadian working class the question is one of making the rich pay.
We can ask our labour aristocrat, if a large militant demonstration demanding that the rich must pay will only “stiffen the resolve” of the lackey government. Then we must also stiffen our resolve and make the rich pay.