Danny Boy Nationalizes AbitibiBowater

Newfoundland seizes assets of AbitibiBowater
Bravo Danny Williams, now one more step to take to really be a socialist, put the AbitibiBowater Inc., mill and hydro plant under worker/community control. Of course the usual media whiners are comparing Danny to Hugo Chavez, however when capital abandons its community responsibilities then the state has the right to take over the real capital (production facilities) in order to insure they are not sold off or removed. Danny Williams has nationalized not only the money losing side of the operation but the profitable hydro plant, that is what really hurts Abitibibowater. However lets understand that the Newfoundland's nationalization of the AbitibiBowater Inc., facilities does not mean they will actually end up under public ownership of the community and workers. In fact the state could sell them off to the highest bidder. The union and community needs to publicly lobby for worker control and public ownership.

Revisiting his campaign theme of "no more giveaways," Mr. Williams wished the company well, but said it will leave the province with the same resource rights it had on arrival: none.
"The legislature in Newfoundland and Labrador is paramount in this jurisdiction and we stand by that," he told the CBC.
"If Abitibi wants to launch any legal challenge, then that's up to them; we have no control over that. I'm sure, though, they will get legal opinions that indicate that our legislature has full authority to do what it's done."
The legislation gives the provincial cabinet the authority to set compensation for the company's physical assets. Mr. Williams said his government will try to hammer out a deal with AbitibiBowater, but will set its own figure if an agreement cannot be reached.
He also said that the "honourable thing" would have been for the company to have handed over its assets "free of charge."
Robert Leckey, an expert in constitutional law at McGill University in Montreal, noted that provinces have broad authority to expropriate.
"It sounds perfectly permissible to me," he said. "The legislature has the power to state in the legislation that it can offer no compensation."

That being said cudo's to Danny Boy for doing the right thing.

There is no indication that the government's plan will save any of the jobs that will be lost in Grand Falls-Windsor since AbitibiBowater announced earlier this month it was closing the mill after workers rejected concessions.
Mr. Williams said he is looking for a new owner, but acknowledged the lumber industry is currently enduring tough times.
Gary Healey, the national representative representing unionized workers at the mill, applauded the government's move.
"It certainly sends a message to any corporation that wants to operate in Newfoundland that they must behave and act in a responsible way and develop the resources for the people who actually live in the province," Mr. Healey said.
"The days of acting like carpet-baggers are over."

Now lets do that to other industries demanding bail outs. Like Chrysler, which is threatening to shut down productive plants in Ontario, as well as in the U.S. and Mexico. Over to you Dalton McGuinty.

SEE:
Danny Millions State Capitalist
Chrysler Black Mail

tags
Premier, Danny Williams, Newfoundland, AbitibiBowater,

Auto Solution II

Up the road without a map
KEN LEWENZA
national president, Canadian Auto Workers union
November 20, 2008
Your editorial demands CAW concessions as part of any deal to restructure the North American auto industry (Keeping A Foot In The Car Door - Nov. 19).
The CAW was the first major player in the North American industry to respond pro-actively to the devastating effects of the financial crisis and credit crunch. Our new three-year contract freezes wages, suspends cost of living protection, and introduces, once fully implemented, savings totalling $300-million per year (or more than $10,000 per worker, per year) for Canadian auto makers.
Auto labour costs are significantly lower in Canada than in the U.S., Germany and Japan - yet our productivity is higher (at least 10 per cent better than in America).
We didn't write the free trade deals, we don't manage the companies, we don't design the vehicles - we just build them. The best thing we can do as auto workers is to keep building vehicles in the most efficient, high-quality plants in the hemisphere, at competitive costs.

CAW Ken Lewenza says; "We didn't write the free trade deals, we don't manage the companies, we don't design the vehicles - we just build them." And that's the problem. The solution to the auto crisis is not more concessions from the workers, thats been tried and it hasn't worked. Just as federal provincial aid have not helped because we lack a made in Canada Industrial strategy.

Jim Stanford, chief economist at the CAW, said newly signed contracts between the union and the Canadian arms of the Detroit automakers include several unprecedented givebacks, such as an 18-month suspension in cost-of-living increases.
A lack of policy attention from governments in both Canada and the United States have contributed to Detroit's collapse as much as anything else, he said.
"In Japan and Germany and Korea and now China, governments proactively nurture and support high-value export industries like autos. In North America, for the last two decades, we haven't bothered."

Rather the solution is right in front of all of us the workers should control auto manufacturing in Canada they should manage and design the cars not just 'build them'.

Ken if you don't want to discuss concessions then you better start talking about workers control of the means of production.

If there is to be a bailout, let it be for us, the workers. Who dare say we’re unqualified? In the 1920s Italian workers at Fiat and Alfa Romeo took over the plants, and they made cars without bosses. Even as we speak, workers in Venezuela are taking over plants and running them.

And I would add to that the Paris Revolution of 1968 and the Hot Autumn of 1969 when auto workers in France and Italy along with student radicals took over factories and universities and put them under worker control.

Capitalism is in a crisis it is time to socialize capital under workers control.

November 20, 2008
A suggestion for Big Three and UAW (updated)
Michael Nadler
My conceptual solution to the auto company bailout question is as follows:
The federal government makes a one-time only injection of the requested $25 billion into the Big Three in return for a proportionate ownership stake in the companies. Based on the current market capitalization of GM and Ford and my estimate of the market value of privately-held Chrysler, that would give the government about 80% ownership in the 3 companies. (A discount from the market price could be justified for such an investment, providing a higher ownership stake.)
The $25 billion cash injection is conditioned on the United Auto Workers (UAW) accepting a gift of the 80% (or higher) ownership stake from the government, giving the UAW absolute control of the 3 auto companies which will then be exempted from any anti-trust restrictions on consolidations, etc. The fate of the Big 3 and its workers will then be entirely in the hands of the UAW, which could strike the appropriate balance between compensation and competitiveness, as well as the many other issues that will determine the fate of the auto companies it now owns, the jobs they provide and the workers it represents. In that regard, the obligations of the PBGC might be limited as part of this grand bargain.


Workers' control of the means of production?
One of the most influential books on my political outlook when I was first getting politically aware was Geoff Hodgson's The Democratic Economy, published by Pelican Books in 1984. In it he advocated an economy predominantly consisting of worker-owned enterprises: market collectivism, to use a phrase of Jaroslav Vanek. In a Market Collectivist economy, argues Hodgson(p.177), "The workers are self-managed: they do not work under the direct or indirect control of a capitalist...the workers (collectively) own the product of their labour, which they bring to the market for sale."

SEE:
We Own GM
Auto Solution


tags
MGuinty, GM, concesssion bargaining, unions, trade union, Marx, Ontario, Corporate Welfare, Canada, cars, automobilie, production, taxes, tax credit, investment, environment, hybrid, self-valorization,, self-management,, workers control,, autoworkers,, KEN LEWENZA,,CAW, Big Three Auto,, libertarian socialism, automobile, Frank Stronach, Magna, business unions, auto parts, workers, layoffs, plant-closings, workers-control, unions, labour, Canada

We Own GM

Since the Big Three have already accepted taxpayer bail outs over the past five years, and now are delinquint on thier pension payments for their workers, why bail them out, we already own them. Time to make them publicly owned under workers control.

As the Toronto Star reported Saturday, GM's actuaries estimated the pension plan for hourly workers would have been short $4.9 billion if the company had gone out of business at the end of November, 2007. But because the pension fund is heavily invested in stocks, the recent fall in stock markets would have left the fund short another $1.5 billion, assuming no other changes in the meantime.

Paul Duxbury, an actuary who has advised GM pensioners in the past, said yesterday that such a shortfall would cost Ontario's guarantee fund as much as $3 billion, if the province provided the money.

The General Motors of Canada Ltd. pension funds had a shortfall of $4.5-billion as of last November - before the stock market collapse - creating a massive financial headache for the Ontario government and pension cuts for retired employees if the company falls into bankruptcy protection.
Senior GM officials revealed the shortfall between the assets in the company's unionized and salaried plans and their liabilities in a meeting yesterday with the editorial board of The Globe and Mail. The shortfalls are measured on a solvency deficiency basis, which would apply if the plans have to be wound up in the event of bankruptcy.

SEE:
Auto Solution
Whiners and Losers
Business Unionism Offers No Solution To Capitalist Crisis
Concessions Don't Work
And Then There Was One
Pension Rip Off
Buzz Off
Unions=Competitiveness
McGuinty Corporate Welfare
Is Delphi the Oracle of things to come?
How Ford Screwed Up
What's good for GM is bad for Workers
Unions the State and Capital
Chrysler Made In Canada?



tags MGuinty, GM, concesssion bargaining, unions, trade union, Marx, Ontario, Corporate Welfare, Canada, cars, automobilie, production, taxes, taxcredit, investment, environment, hybrid, self-valorization,, self-management,, workers control,, autoworkers,, Buzz Hargrove,,CAW, Big Three Auto,, libertarian socialism, automobile, Frank Stronach, Magna, business unions, auto parts, workers, layoffs, plant-closings, workers-control, unions, labour, Canada

Auto Solution

In the U.S. the debate over the failure of the big three automakers has devolved into an argument over bail-out or bankruptcy. As usual the Republicans arguing in favour of bankruptcy and opposing a bail out claim that part of the Big Three's failure is the high cost of production. They attack the UAW for being part of the problem with their retiree pension plans, healthcare costs and wage demands.

Make union pay cuts mandatory for auto aid

They claim that that Toyota and other import car manufactureres in the U.S. can produce cars cheaper then America's own. Well that is true. However the elephant in the room in this debate is the fact where Toyota and other import auto manufacturers set up shop is in Right To Work States, states which use right to work laws to ban unions.

As for Health Care costs this is the other elephant, in Canada and around the world the government provides health care except in two countries America and China. In the US the healthcare cost is a burden born by business and labour.

So what would a solution be do ya think? Hmm how about passing the the proposed first union contract law that was pending in the Senate; Employee Free Choice Act. You know the one that in the last days of the Presidential campaign became an issue for McCain.
And instead of either Clinton's of Obama's weak tea HealthCare reform, a universal healthcare program was adopted in the U.S. like it is in Canada.

Unionization of Toyota and other import car companies American workers would level the playing field as would creating a universal healthcare program.

While these would go a long way to really changing the auto industry in North America the only real solution is nationalization the auto industry under workers control. Something no one is talking about, including the UAW and CAW.

CAW President Ken Lewenza said the failure of even one of those companies would be a "devastating blow to the economy, a devastating blow to consumers out there and quite frankly devastating to our members."
Ontario, especially, would suffer, he told CTV Newsnet.
"It's not even imaginable what would happen in communities like Oshawa, Windsor, St. Catharines, Oakville. These communities are dominated by the auto industry."
Lewenza said the union has done its part to respond to the Detroit Three's shrinking market share, giving up hundreds of millions of dollars in concessions in collective bargaining.
However, Lewenza didn't blame management either, saying "nobody anticipated at the beginning of this business year we would be selling 12 to 13 million vehicles in the United States, when most people were anticipating 16 or 17."

Oh come on now quit apologizing for your bosses incompetence. What part of Climate Crisis did you miss? I mean for christ sakes the NDP proposes a Green Vehicle plan three years ago and what does CAW get fromall its politcal pull and lobbying? An investment in GM by the Ontario Government for a Camaro plant. Is that counter intuitive or what.

If we are going to produce green vehicles then it will take a complete restructuring of the industry based not on concession bargaining but on workers control and workers ownership.



SEE:
Whiners and Losers
Business Unionism Offers No Solution To Capitalist Crisis
Concessions Don't Work
And Then There Was One
October Surprise Was The Market Crash
No Austrians In Foxholes
Pension Rip Off


tags
MGuinty, GM, concesssion bargaining, unions, trade union, Marx, Ontario, Corporate Welfare, Canada, cars, automobilie, production, taxes, taxcredit, investment, environment, hybrid, self-valorization,, self-management,, workers control,, autoworkers,, Buzz Hargrove,,CAW, Big Three Auto,, libertarian socialism, automobile, Frank Stronach, Magna, business unions, auto parts, workers, layoffs, plant-closings, workers-control, unions, labour, Canada

Whiners and Losers

This is the same line used by the provincial tories in Alberta since the days of King Klein; the government should not pick winners and lossers iin the capitalist marketplace. But of course it does, as we have seen with Alberta's support of privatiziation initiatives like K-Bro contracting outhospital laundry services, not to mention of course oil and gas development royalty and tax holidays, and dare I say investment in the mythical CO2 coal extraction process that will supposedly reduce methane gas.

Now the Feds are denying the obvious as Jim Flaherty explains about a pending bail out for the auto industry in Canada, with nary a recongition that yes he indeed just did pick winners and losers in Canada's auto industry. Canada: Government is open to selective industry support

Mr. Flaherty said most economists would consider a bailout unwise, since such a
package puts government in the dicey business of choosing winners and losers.
Rather, he said, he would be guided by which plants have the best chance of
remaining viable over the long term.
"So if General Motors is going to build a hybrid car in Oshawa, people can understand that that is a good investment for the longer term. Operating a large truck plant, pickup trucks - probably not a good investment of taxpayers' money," Mr. Flaherty said.
His top priority, however, is to ensure that banks are lending to each other, and that credit is
available to corporate and household borrowers at a decent price. A
well-functioning credit market, he said, will help the manufacturing sector as
much as any kind of direct aid.
David Paterson, vice-president of corporate and environmental affairs for
General Motors of Canada Ltd., said the largest auto maker in Canada has not
outlined specific proposals to Ottawa, but supports calls for both immediate
assistance and a longer-term Canadian program similar to an existing $25-billion
fund Washington created this year. That fund is supposed to help the industry
develop more environmentally friendly technologies.
Mr. Paterson said GM is in the midst of transforming its business in Canada
to meet the sustainability objective Mr. Flaherty has outlined.

There ya go Jim ya picked a winner. But of course this is not a real industrial policy, nor what is needed to create a Made In Canada Auto Industry. Which of course is workers control of production through 'workers cooperatives owning the factories. Now that would be worth taxpayers dollars. Anything is else is the same old same old neo-con crap; public funding of private capitalism.

SEE:

Concessions Don't Work

And Then There Was One

October Surprise Was The Market Crash

No Austrians In Foxholes

Pension Rip Off

Deja Vu

The Failure of Privatization



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Nationalize The Oil Patch

Under workers control!

A publicly owned Petro-Alberta would have a democratically elected board of directors, including representatives of the workers, consumer advocates, environmentalists, and the public.

Share ownership by the public and the workers, union investment with profit sharing and public debentures.

The Stelmach government should tax energy companies' profits up to nearly 100 per cent and the government should take ownership of part of the oil sector, rather than adopt the tamer recommendations of the royalty review panel, an Edmonton-based think tank said today.

In stark contrast to the energy industry's complaints that the review's proposed hikes go way too far and would cripple the economy, The University of Alberta's Parkland Institute said Albertans deserve to capture at least 90 per cent of available economic rent on oilsands project.

The left-leaning institute also noted that the nationalized oil companies in Norway, China, Korea and Japan have taken stakes in Alberta's oilpatch, and that a predecessor to energy giant EnCana was once partly province-owned.

"Public ownership is the best way to capture royalties, as 100 per cent goes to the owners, the people of Alberta," the report says.

Parkland research director Diana Gibson says Albertans should expect the same kind of return on the province‘s resources as an oil and gas executive earning a multimillion-dollar paycheque would get for his shareholders.

Selling Albertans Short: Alberta's Royalty Review Panel fails the public interest by Diana Gibson, Parkland Institute October 17, 2007
Release View Executive Summary Download Report (pdf)

SEE:

It's Time to Take Back Our Oil and Gas

NDP And Workers Control

Nationalize the Oil Industry

I Am Malcontent

Who Will Decide About Royalties

The Myth of the NEP

Aren't you sorry you sold your shares

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