Reprinted from PCDN, Volume 6 Number 28, March 6, 1976
“Every Worker onto the Hill” is the slogan issued by the militant trade-unionists in Ontario in response to the demonstration called by CLC for March 22nd to be held on Parliament Hill. All our members and supporters across Canada should support and work for this slogan in the coming two weeks. Party comrades should get the union locals in Ontario and Quebec to organise their own Every Worker onto the Hill Committees and make arrangements to get the workers to Parliament Hill to demonstrate against Bill C-73. In the work-places which are unorganised, our comrades should organise Every Worker onto the Hill Committees and get the unorganised to vigorously participate in the demonstration. Party comrades should also mobilise others, particularly the students, to participate in the demonstration. Let thousands upon thousands of workers militantly march to Parliament and declare to the U.S. imperialist dominated state and its government headed by Trudeau that the workers will fight every inch of the way to Make the Rich Pay for their economic crisis and Defeat the Government’s suppression of the resistance movement against the attempt by the state to make the workers pay for the economic crisis.
Ever since Trudeau introduced his Bill C-73 and imposed it onto the working class, the workers have been waging a vigorous resistance movement. From demonstrations of thousands of people like the one in Montreal in November and in Regina in early February, workers have also waged strike struggles. With the coming contracts of 1.2 million workers this year, workers’ strike struggles will broaden in scope and deepen in militancy. Millions of workers in this country are facing the organised attacks of the state and are courageously resisting. Even the trade union big wigs issued declarations and statements to “oppose” Bill C-73 to the extent that the CLC executive has passed a resolution that as a protest it would no longer sit on the government committees.
But the trade union big wigs are making these statements more for show than for actually deploying the entire working class in this historic class struggle, the immediate aim of which is to Make the Rich Pay while the ultimate goal is the overthrow of the capitalist system. Trade union big wigs support the capitalist system and are attempting to confine the struggle of the working class against Bill C-73 to “challenging the constitutionality of the bill” etc. As far as the entire working class is concerned, whether the Bill bears the label of bourgeois “constitutionality” and “legality” or not, the Bill is against the entire working class and is the means by which the Trudeau government is “legalising” the shifting of the burden of the economic crisis of imperialism onto the backs of the workers.
Joe Morris and his crew are going to “appeal” to the Trudeau cabinet on March 22nd. We wrote in our editorial on March 2nd: “Joe Morris, President of the CLC is going to lead a delegation of the CLC to meet Trudeau and his cabinet on March 22nd. We ask: What is Joe Morris going to say to Trudeau and his cabinet that he couldn’t say without meeting them? There is only one thing workers demand: Withdraw Bill C-73. This can best be done through struggle and without meeting Trudeau and his cabinet. But, we are afraid Joe Morris and his crew are going to tell Trudeau and his cabinet that they will do everything to stifle the struggle of the Canadian workers against Bill C-73. It is a disgrace to the workers’ movement, organised and unorganised. We suggest that Joe Morris and his delegation should not disgrace the workers’ movement by meeting Trudeau and his cabinet who are responsible for passing this dastardly Bill. The only attitude the workers can take towards Trudeau and his cabinet is total opposition.” Just over a week earlier, workers from the Ottawa-Hull area told CLC that instead of making “appeals” to the cabinet, they should call upon the workers to wage an uncompromising struggle against Bill C-73 and against all attempts of the state to shift the burden of the economic crisis onto the backs of the workers.
But in spite of CLC, workers are getting organised. Already, in the Ottawa-Hull area, a Full-Time Committee has come into being. Its programme is two-fold: 1. coordinate the demonstration against Bill C-73 to be held on March 22nd and 2. establish local committees against wage controls in all locals in order to coordinate struggle against wage controls. This committee will continue functioning after March 22nd. All the local committees in other areas of Ontario and Quebec as well as elsewhere who want to learn from the experience of this committee and receive assistance in organising themselves should phone 233-7820 in Ottawa.
EVERY WORKER ONTO THE HILL!