Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Kyoto Be Damned


Alberta won't follow federal Kyoto guidelines

This is news? We knew this all along, its the other issue King Ralph has said he will battle Ottawa over, the other being health care of course. Unfortunately for the Tyrant of Alberta, this battle will be a waste of money like the battle against gay rights, and the battle against the Firearms Registry. After all resources may be under provincial control but the Environment and international accords are Federal jurisdiction. The only person who doesn't know about Alberta's much publicized opposition to Kyoto is apparently the Federal Environment Minister.
Dion did not appear to be aware of Alberta's objections, saying he thought they had been resolved.

Bad Mining Companies

Another Canadian Mining company again cuts corners and costs in order to make a profit at the expense of the environment, its workers and the community. As my mother says 'haste makes waste', and with gold stocks rising on speculation of a rise in the price of gold, we can expect more of this. Fed Printing Press Fueling Gold $500


And its not like this kind of spill hasn't happened before, the last time Cambior poisioned a river in Guyana.


Leak at Cambior mine in Suriname -no pollution but output cut

Reports say that work at the site later resumed at reduced tonnage and that the leak of ore and water laced with cyanide was contained within the site and had no impact on the environment.
The leak bears stark similarities to another incident involving Cambior Inc, when its Omai Gold Mines Limited tailings dam collapsed in Guyana and spilled 3.2 million cubic metres of cyanide-tainted waste into the Omai River and then into the country's largest river, the Essequibo. The mine is in the Brokopondo district, some 80 km south of Paramaribo. The concession measures some 170 km² and is bordered by the Suriname River, the Saramacca River in the West and the Van Blommenstein reservoir in the South. Already, the Suriname media, recalling the huge disaster in Guyana, has warned the authorities in Paramaribo to take extra precautions and monitor the company's operations. Cambior's gold mining operations in Guyana came to an end earlier this year.

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

The New Multitude

In their book Empire, Michael Hardt and Tony Negri argue that the new proletatariat is the Multitude, the migratory labourers, the international sans papier, the immigrants who flood Europe and America, legally or illegally, economic refugees one and all, to create the new black market in unregistered alien workers.

Hardt and Negri went on to write a second book about this new international proletariat of globalization, called wait for it....Multitude....In the US a growing jingoism arises as America outsources jobs overseas while millions of Mexican workers enter the country to find work in the low paying unregulated job market. But in a new twist on the multitude, comes the case of auto workers in Oshawa who spend hours on the commute to work.


Oshawa has been haven for migratory workers

New breed of auto labourers commutes for hours because of plant cutbacks

Laid off from his GM job in St. Catharines 4½ years ago, Mr. Demoe took advantage of his preferential-hiring status to pick up a job putting together Impala doors in Oshawa. Every night at 7:30, he gets into one of the vans for which parking spots are reserved in GM's Oshawa lot. He doesn't get home until 8:30 the next morning.

The growing number of auto workers who make such long commutes has shattered the "company town" stereotype often associated with the industry: that employees and their car factories overwhelmingly share the same hometown.

Some workers shrug off the travel as a necessary burden to maintain their quality of life. However, critics say such commutes are detrimental both to employees' health and the province's economic well-being.

Sym Gill, director of pensions and benefits at CAW, said some employees make a weekly rather than daily commute, spending even less time with family back home. Instead of returning at the end of their shifts, they find a place to stay near the plant from Monday to Friday, returning home for the weekend. In a way, such workers bring the "company town" stereotype full circle, as they spend more time living in the town of the plant than their own homes.

This could also apply to Newfoundland workers who left their province to find work in Fort McMurray Tar Sands operations, or to others now rushing into the province to find work.

It could apply to those Alberta construction workers who also commute to Fort McMurray daily and weekly. On Highway 63 the widowmaker. A road so bad that even the oil companies have complained to the Alberta Government to widen it. Like the satanic mills of old, or the sweatshops at the turn of last century, the actual conditions of this killer highway constitute a death sentence for workers.


Death's icy grip
An Edmonton man was killed Saturday morning after he lost control of his pickup truck on an icy patch of Highway 63 and plunged into the House River south of Fort McMurray, say RCMP. Kimball said Highway 63 is notorious for being a dangerous road. He took a picture of a sanding truck that drove past the scene about noon and questioned why it hadn't been there earlier in the morning when the road was icy.Rebkowich said there have been several accidents on the road lately. "Drivers are just in such a hurry. There's lots of speeding on the highway," he said.

While they are not the sans papier illegal immigrants, capitalism relies upon this new movement of workers to create what it calls the new era of flexible working conditions.

The new multitude is the movement of labour in the era of outsorucing, cuts in production, and privatization. What capitalist apologists call having multiple
career options.

Towards an Ontological Definition of the Multitude

by Antonio Negri (Translated by Arianna Bove)



The multitude is a class concept. In fact, the multitude is always productive and always in motion. When considered from a temporal point of view, the multitude is exploited in production; even when regarded from the spatial point of view, the multitude is exploited in so far as it constitutes productive society, social cooperation for production.

The class concept of multitude must be regarded differently from the concept of working class. The concept of the working class is a limited one both from the point of view of production (since it essentially includes industrial workers), and from that of social cooperation (given that it comprises only a small quantity of the workers who operate in the complex of social production). Luxemburg's polemic against the narrow-minded workerism of the Second International and against the theory of labour aristocracies was an anticipation of the name of the multitude; unsurprisingly Luxemburg doubled the polemic against labour aristocracies with that against the emerging nationalism of the worker's movement of her time.

If we pose the multitude as a class concept, the notion of exploitation will be defined as exploitation of cooperation: cooperation not of individuals but of singularities, exploitation of the whole of singularities, of the networks that compose the whole and of the whole that comprises of the networks etc. Note here that the "modern" conception of exploitation (as described by Marx) is functional to a notion of production the agents of which are individuals. It is only so long as there are individuals who work that labour is measurable by the law of value. Even the concept of mass (as an indefinite multiple of individuals) is a concept of measure, or, rather, has been construed in the political economy of labour for this purpose. In this sense the mass is the correlative of capital as much as the people is that of sovereignty we need to add here that it is not by chance that the concept of the people is a measure, especially in the refined Keynesian and welfares version of political economy.

On the other hand, the exploitation of the multitude is incommensurable, in other words, it is a power that is confronted with singularities that are out of measure and with a cooperation that is beyond measure.

If the historical shift is defined as epochal (ontologically so), then the criteria or dispositifs of measure valid for an epoch will radically be put under question. We are living through this shift, and it is not certain whether new criteria and dispositifs of measure are being proposed.


"The Multitude and the Metropolis"*
Toni Negri

1. ‘Generalising’ the strike.
It is interesting to note how, on the occasion of the Spring and Summer 2002 struggles in Italy, the project of ‘generalising’ the strike of the movement of precarious and socially diffuse workers, men and women, seemed to be harmlessly and uselessly subsumed beneath the workers’ ‘general strike’. After this experience, many comrades who participated in the struggle began to realise that whilst the workers’ strike was ‘damaging’ to the employer, the social strike passed without notice through the folds of the global working day. It neither damaged the masters nor helped the mobile and flexible workers. This realisation raised a series of questions: how do we understand how the socially diffuse worker fights; how can he concretely subvert in the space of the metropolis his subordination to production and the violence of exploitation? How does the metropolis present itself to the multitude and is it right to say that the metropolis is to the multitude what the factory used to be to the working class?
In fact this hypothesis presents us with a problem, one not simply raised by the obvious differences between social and workers’ struggles in terms of their immediate efficacy. It also raises a more pertinent and general question: if the metropolis is invested by the capitalist relation of valorisation and exploitation, how can we grasp, inside it, the antagonism of the metropolitan multitude? In the 60’s and 70’s, as these problems emerged in relation to working class struggles and the changes in metropolitan life, often very effective responses were given. We will summarise these later. For the time being, we just want to underline how these responses were concerned with an external relation between working class and other metropolitan layers of wage and/or intellectual labour. The problem today is posed differently because the various sections of the labour force appear to exist in the metropolitan hybrid as an internal relation and immediately as multitude: a whole of singularities, a multiplicity of groups and subjectivities, who mould the (antagonistic) shape of metropolitan spaces.


No News is Good News

MODBLOG UPDATE

Be still my beating heart...... Is this anyway to run a service????

Update (11/22/05 @ 7:11PM CT): The ModBlog file server has returned online. We are performing necessary maintenance on the server now. Once this process is complete, ModBlog will return online.

Update (11/22/05 @ 12:17AM CT): We are very, very sorry for the extended delay. Unfortunately, the person that is capable of repairing the problem was traveling over the weekend, and was unable to tend to the problem. We are now working as fast as possible to put ModBlog back online, and that should happen very soon. Frequent updates will follow this post until ModBlog is fully back online.

Update (11/17/05 @ 4:30AM CT): ModBlog will return online later today. We greatly apologize for ModBlog's downtime, and we are taking steps to ensure that this cause will not be an issue in the future. Complete details regarding ModBlog's downtime will be posted once it re-opens. We truly appreciate your patience, and we look forward to seeing you back at ModBlog!

All the Newz that didn't Fit

Well stupid Mod Blog is down now for a record five days and that's the second time in two months. So my Red Between the Lines blog of short comments on the newz is missing in action. So I will post here some of my short comments on all the newz that should have gone there.

Private pension solvency deteriorating: regulator

Yep capitalism in Canada is at it again, underfunding their pension funds in order to invest in the stock market to make a quick profit on one hand and to offset their failure to put before tax profits into their workers pensions. Remember thats 'before' tax profits, investing in pensions is a tax write off. Instead regluators have found that Canadian corporations, like their counterparts elsewhere in the G8, have rather relied on the casino capitalism of the stock market to make up their short falls. The result of course is Air Canada, Stelco, and now GM who face a crisis and use their failure to invest in their pension plans as the reason to declare bankruptcy. The latest review of the 1,300 pension plans it regulates (about a tenth of all pension plans) shows a "marked deterioration" in average solvency ratios, according to a new pension update from the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI). Dickson estimates that 72 per cent of federal defined benefit plans (which guarantee a certain pension benefit at a certain date) were less than fully funded in June, compared to 53 per cent last December.She warned plan sponsors not to count on higher interest rates or strong stock markets to solve all their funding problems. "In this environment, disclosure to members, and member awareness regarding the health of their plan, is key," she said.

Lord Black Calls for Legal Aid
The same American prosecutor responsible for indicting Scotter Libby,
Patrick Fitzgerald, has indicted Lord Black for fraud, and Lord Black can't find a lawyer to show up in court today. Hmm must be tough times for the media mogul, he can run but he can't hide, lets see he isn't welcome back in the UK, or the US, so I guess we're stuck with him till they extradite him . Note to Edward Greenspan the Lords lawyer, make sure he packs dear Barbara Amiel with him, we don't want her left behind since she benefited from his ill gotten gains. She has the largest shoe collection after Imelda Marcos.

Another Tax Break for the Rich

In her auditor general report Shelia Fraser finds that low and behold the reason that the Feds have not gotten taxes from Income Trusts is well, Canada Revenue didn't ask for them. And for those rich enough to have RRSP's Revenue Canada didn't bother to monitor this tax dodge either.
Fraser also chided:The Canada Revenue Agency, saying it wasn't policing the 175,000 trusts to make sure all taxes are being paid and wasn't monitoring RRSP accounts well enough to ensure taxpayers weren't contributing too much. Hmmm but if you owe them a measly hunderd bucks they are after you like you're Al Capone.

Study shows drop in federal jobs
The report shows that Newfoundland and Labrador's share of federal jobs is lower than the national average. It also says wages of federal workers working locally are several thousand dollars lower, on average, than nationally. Researcher Alison Coffin says since 1981 there has been a 25 per cent decrease in total federal government employment in the province The Federal Department of Public Works issued a statement calling for a moritorium on hiring more 'white males' last week, in favour of hiring more minorities and women. This sparked a major controversy, noted in the blogosphere and on CTV Mike Duffy's show crediting blogmiester Calgary Grit yesterday for firing off flack at Scott Brison the Public Works Minister over this. Brison recanted in the house today, after all he is a white male, even if as a gay man he could qualify as a minority. Now how will Public Works define hiring more folks and creating more jobs in Newfoundland? Next time they define minorities for quota's they had better include Newfies.

When bureaucrats go wild

Top bureaucrat in federal Public Works and Government Services bans hiring of white men — but policy didn’t last

Editor’s note: This item is a little different than what normally appears in “Courtside View” in that it’s not a court case. But it was bizarre enough to qualify for inclusion.

Public Works Minister Scott Brison moved quickly to reverse a policy put forth by the top bureaucrat in his department.

The bureaucrat recently sent a memo requiring all new hires until April 2006 to be “persons who are visible minorities, aboriginal peoples with disabilities and women.” In other words, white men need not apply.

The memo was leaked, and Brison quickly announced he had rejected the policy.

“When I became aware of the directive, I took immediate action and ended it,” he was quoted as saying in the Halifax Chronicle-Herald. “I support the whole policy of inclusion but I do not support discriminating against any group in hiring practice.”

Brison expressed support for diversity, but said the memo simply went too far.

“We believe in having a public service that reflects the diversity of Canada, but you don’t get there through discriminatory hiring practice,” he said.


CUPE takes union members to court

They call themselves a 'social union' to differentiate themselves from those nasty business unions. But when the workers wildcat and sieze the national office of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, to protest a sell out contract, well just like them nasty business unions CUPE takes its members to court.
Union leader guilty of mischief

Choice In Day Care
Yep this election the Conservatives will offer Canadian parents the made in Alberta Day Care plan that gives you money to spend on public or private day care. Of course this will not solve the need for more public daycare spaces or better pay for childcare workers, nor will it ensure your children are safe in the laregly self regulated private daycare industry. Safety violations force day care closure. Caveat Emptor.

Second Hand Fumes Worse Than Second Hand Smoke
It amuses me as a smoker when the anti-tobacco lobby, which never attacks the industry just us smokers, worries about the impact of second hand smoke on us missing the other thousands of deadlier toxins we are all exposed to. They are now calling for a ban on parents smoking at home or in cars around their children.
Second-hand smoke campaigns target great outdoors For their next move, anti-tobacco advocates say they want governments to address what they consider a form of child abuse: parents who smoke in their own cars or homes with children present.
I won't argue here about the veracity of research on secondhand smoke, instead I would draw your attention to this item of research. Fumes inside school buses hurt kids: study

So while you ban smoking around kids lets let them play outside, in the fresh, cough cough, air of Toronto, with its smog alerts, and blame their ailments on the dreaded cigarette while we pack them off to school in their non smoking diesel buses.

According to the study, pollutants found in the air inside school buses can:
  • Aggravate asthma, leading to more frequent and severe asthma attacks.

  • Increase the number of respiratory infections.

  • Reduce lung function.

  • Aggravate and induce allergies.

  • Increase school-day and workday absences.

  • Increase emergency-room visits, hospital admissions and premature deaths.

  • Contribute to the development of chronic heart and lung diseases including lung cancer and asthma.
  • The study's author, Kim Perrotta, says school buses seem to be self-polluting. Emissions from the engine compartment and tailpipe can get into the cabin.
Gee these symptoms sound just like the ones the anti-smoking fear mongers use about second hand smoke. Do ya think there may be more toxins around oh say car exhaust, chemical plants, industrial smokestacks, etc. that could also account for these symptoms, more than say secondhand smoke. Naaaa

Charest, Klein look for change to health care
Oh dear what might that be? Klein says he and Premier Charest agreed health care needs to change."We are going to continue to defend vigorously a public health care system within which the private sector may play a role," Charest says.
There's the so called Third Way, now you know.

Policing the Police
"Every cops a criminal and every sinner a saint" Sympathy for the Devil, the Rolling Stones.
In the world of news one can always find stories floating around that complement each other here is case in point.
RCMP understaffed and undertrained, auditor general finds The result is: Racist e-mail spurs probes among RCMP, police A clear case for some much lacking diversity, tolerance, and human rights training.

What's good for GM is bad for Workers

The saying used to be 'What's good for GM is good for America', well this morning what's good for GM is bad for workers across North America. GM announced it is cutting its nose to spite its face, laying off 36,000 workers and closing plants across North America, including one of its most productive.

GM to shut star Oshawa plant

Auto maker to slash 3,900 jobs in Canada

General Motors Corp. admitted yesterday that it has too many underproductive factories, so it will shut 12 of them, including one of its crown jewels in Oshawa, Ont. -- a plant that leads auto-industry quality rankings and is one of the most productive in North America.

The world's largest auto maker will wipe out about 3,900 jobs in Canada and 30,000 overall. But the decision to close the Oshawa No. 2 car plant in the city that Canadian automotive pioneer Sam McLaughlin made famous is the one that stunned industry players yesterday.

Among them was Canadian Auto Workers union president Buzz Hargrove, who received the news in a private meeting with Michael Grimaldi, the president of General Motors of Canada Ltd.

"These are tough times for General Motors, but we've got to fight like hell to save them from themselves," Mr. Hargrove said. "Not putting in a new product in your best plant is not the greatest strategy to revive North America."

The moves will reduce GM's employment here to a little more than 16,000.

That number is just above the threshold at which the federal and Ontario governments would require the auto maker to give back some of the $435-million in financial assistance they doled out this year.

The government money underpins $2.5-billion in investments at the Canadian operations, including the Oshawa plant.

Some industry sources and observers said GM had to make some moves in Canada to assure the United Auto Workers union that U.S. plants were not the only ones affected.

The crisis facing GM and the Big Three Automakers in the U.S. is the crisis of outsourcing and globalization. Ford and Chrysler are less vulnerable due to their takeover by European carmakers, Volvo in Fords case and Dahlmer Benz in Chrsylers. Only GM remains untainted by globalization. It remains the sole American car maker, though its recent problems have been a direct result of outsourcing its Delphi operations which have now come back to bite it.

Delphi was GM parts, and was sold off in order to save GM money last time it faced an economic crisis of its own making. Now Delphi is facing bankruptcy, and is threatening its workers with ending their pension and medical benefits. Once it declares bankruptcy all that money will be available for Delphi, and GM to revinvest in the new imporved Delphi. In the US this means that taxpayers will then have to pay for the pension and medical benefits that Delphi workers should have received from Delphi.

This is the old switcheroo, the new three card monty, that corporations are playing in North America. Declare bankruptcy, grab the pension and benefit funds and use the capital to intice investors to refloat the company. Its worked for the airlines, both Northwestern and Air Canada, so why not for the auto industry.

In Canada GM and the other two North American auto makers don't face a Delphi problem, as secondary outsourcing has been well developed here as the non Union Mana Corporation has proven. Magna was the model for Delphi, but Magna was also the competitor to Delphi. And lets not forget in Canada the auto industry is subsidized by the State, more so than in the U.S. Those subsidies include health care costs, which are lower in Canada than the U.S.

$435M auto investment still on track

The GM job cuts will not affect the Ontario government's plan to invest $435-million in the company as part of a project to upgrade the infrastructure and research capacities of the automaker's plants in the province.

The federal government is contributing $200-million to the $2.5-billion project, with the remainder coming from GM.

"The 2.5-billion investment, I've been assured by GM, is moving forward," said Joseph Cordiano, Minister of Economic Development and Trade.

Dalton McGuinty, the Premier, defended his government's management of the auto sector in the face of growing attacks from the Tory opposition.

He said that while the Ontario plants produce 25% of North American output for GM, they will only be subject to 10% of the job reductions.


GM for the past decade has relied less upon its automotive operations to make a profit than it has GMAC, its credit business. It is GM's credit business that has made the company profits, just as GE has made profits from its credit business, enough so that it can own and operate its manufacturing business as well as media giant NBC.

This then is the nature of the new capitalism of the past two decades, the move away from production to investment. It is the wild and wooly world of casino capitalism where the stock market, finance capital, dominates over productive captial. Globalization is not about corporations moving production around the globe as much as it is about capital moving to where it can make record profits.

Mike Swanson: Wall Street Window

There was a time when General Motors represented the might of America. In the 1940's and 1950's it was one of the most innovative companies in the world and was considered a lynchpin of our economy.

An old mantra of the stock market was "where GM goes so goes the country." Stock traders used GM stock as a leading indicator for the economy and the rest of the market. My favorite stock market book, Stan Wanstein's Secrets to Profiting in Bull and Bear Markets, which was written in the 1980's, has a whole section on tracking GM.

People don't think of GM like that anymore. The United States is no longer a leading industrial power. We import most of our goods and are now the world's largest debtor nation. Since George Bush has been President our country has borrowed more money from foreign nations than was borrowed during all of the administrations that came before him combined! Bush didn't create this trend, but he has certainly helped accelerate it.

It's an incredible statistic, but it's true. The old notion of going to work in an industrial plant and earning a middle class standard of living is gone. Where I live, textile plants are shutting down all around me. Those that worked in them are getting jobs in retail for half the pay they had before. The service industry is now what offers jobs.

Now we do have one big import, but unfortunately that import is the US dollar and debt. Even though interest rates have been rising over the past year, the Fed has actually been flooding the economy with so much money that it has more than offset its interest rate increases.


On Faux News this morning the unadulterated glee of its business commentators was palpable as they mourned the passing of GM, looking forward to what they can pick off its bones with their vulture hedge funds.

Cradle to Grave benefits are over, they declared, American workers had it good for too long, now they have to face reality, they chortled with glee. The new global economy has no place for pensions, medicare benefits, entitlements or the expectation of life long work with one company.

This was the paternalistic capitalism of the past, the glory years of the post war economic boom of the sixties and seventies is past. Well tell us something we don't know. Well actually most workers don't, and their unions fail to understand this is what class war looks like.

So wrapped up in their tripartite bargaining, the big business unions continue to deny that capitalism has changed, that the social agenda has changed. There is no social contract with capitalism, that social contract ensured workers of steady employment and beneftis, including pensions. Capitalism declared war on that social agenda in the past two decades, as it moved towards global trading agreements, outsourcing, privatization, and the dominance of shareholder interests over corporate paternatalism.


Union leader says Canada PM to help save GM jobs

Canadian Auto Workers President Buzz Hargrove said on Tuesday he would team up with the Canadian prime minister to keep General Motors (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) from closing a key plant and slashing thousands of jobs. Hargrove said Prime Minister Paul Martin had called him on Monday after the world's largest automaker said it would cut about 3,900 jobs in Canada and shut its plant in Oshawa, Ontario.


The reality is that Canada has bailed out the Big Three before, and is currently bailing them out before these cuts. DaimlerChrysler confirms $768M investment in Canadian operations

While Hargrove does his pass the cap for GM dance, perhaps we should ask him why his union has organized more southern Ontario casino workers than it has workers at Magna or Toyota and Honda plants.

When push comes to shove Hargrove is quick to grab his Canadian Auto Pact bullhorn and denounce 'foreign' car manufacturers in Canada, that is Toyota and Honda. They currently are the largest sales leaders in North America and Canada, yet they remain out of his reach. And they too get generous state subsidies.

Oshawa's Seen It Before

But the question I wonder about is was there really a need to make these giant cuts at all? There were lots of GM cars sold in 2005. Many dealerships sold out their stock, for heaven's sake! Whatever the reason, everybody seems to be buying the storyline out of Detroit.

But when the dust settles on this, and the fine print is studied, you'd think Hargrove and others would want some answers. Are these jobs actually being eliminated or are they being outsourced?

Meanwhile, the federal government's trade experts must investigate this -- much like they do with the softwood lumber issue.

The Canadian trade people need to look because the men and women of Oshawa and St. Catharines deserve to know. "This plant makes all the money and they are shutting us down," yelled one autoworker angrily on the way into work.

He wants to know why? Does Mexico, or other places where you can get around union rates, benefit?

This is not about car manufacturing, NAFTA or even outsourcing of jobs. Or else GM would not have planned to close its most efficient North American plant in Oshawa. Nor would it close any Canadian plants if it was simply about car production, as Canadian GM sales were the sole source of profit for GM for the last year. Record sales of GM happened in Canada. Hey we build em we buy em.

This is about the new capitalist economy, the shareholder/investor economy of Fianance capitalism. Capitalism in this decadent period cannot survive merely on the production of goods for profit. In order to maintain record profits it must move more money into capital to produce more money (m-c-m) to produce more and higher profits. Mothball production in the G8 countries and invest in production abroad in the newly industrializing economies,like China.

In the old G8 economies banking and credit, finance captial is the source of capitalisms strength. What is good for GMAC is Good for American Shareholders is the new axiom. The workers in the G8 countries are just replacable cogs in the machine, as anyone at Rover will tell you.

Hargrove's handwringing and soliciting State subsidies are a temporary fix to the long term slow death of production in North America. He would be better off to challenge the State and the Corporations with the threat that CAW will take over the plants themselves and run them under workers control. But even Buzz ain't that radical.

And of course Buzz, Georgetti, and the rest of the house of Labour continue to battle the day to day shibolleths of capitalism without learning the historical lessons of the class war. They have ignored those lessons so aptly outlined by Dr.Karl Marx.


The Interests of Capital and Wage-Labour are diametrically opposed
Effect of growth of productive Capital on Wages


We thus see that, even if we keep ourselves within the relation of capital and wage-labor, the interests of capitals and the interests of wage-labor are diameterically opposed to each other.

A rapid growth of capital is synonymous with a rapid growth of profits. Profits can grow rapidly only when the price of labor — the relative wages — decrease just as rapidly. Relative wages may fall, although real wages rise simultaneously with nominal wages, with the money value of labor, provided only that the real wage does not rise in the same proportion as the profit. If, for instance, in good business years wages rise 5 per cent, while profits rise 30 per cent, the proportional, the relative wage has not increased, but decreased.

If, therefore, the income of the worker increased with the rapid growth of capital, there is at the same time a widening of the social chasm that divides the worker from the capitalist, and increase in the power of capital over labor, a greater dependence of labor upon capital.

To say that "the worker has an interest in the rapid growth of capital", means only this: that the more speedily the worker augments the wealth of the capitalist, the larger will be the crumbs which fall to him, the greater will be the number of workers than can be called into existence, the more can the mass of slaves dependent upon capital be increased.

We have thus seen that even the most favorable situation for the working class, namely, the most rapid growth of capital, however much it may improve the material life of the worker, does not abolish the antagonism between his interests and the interests of the capitalist. Profit and wages remain as before, in inverse proportion.

If capital grows rapidly, wages may rise, but the profit of capital rises disproportionately faster. The material position of the worker has improved, but at the cost of his social position. The social chasm that separates him from the capitalist has widened.

Finally, to say that "the most favorable condition for wage-labor is the fastest possible growth of productive capital", is the same as to say: the quicker the working class multiplies and augments the power inimical to it — the wealth of another which lords over that class — the more favorable will be the conditions under which it will be permitted to toil anew at the multiplication of bourgeois wealth, at the enlargement of the power of capital, content thus to forge for itself the golden chains by which the bourgeoisie drags it in its train.

Growth of productive capital and rise of wages, are they really so indissolubly united as the bourgeois economists maintain? We must not believe their mere words. We dare not believe them even when they claim that the fatter capital is the more will its slave be pampered. The bourgeoisie is too much enlightened, it keeps its accounts much too carefully, to share the prejudices of the feudal lord, who makes an ostentatious display of the magnificence of his retinue. The conditions of existence of the bourgeoisie compel it to attend carefully to its bookkeeping. We must therefore examine more closely into the following question:

In what manner does the growth of productive capital affect wages?

If as a whole, the productive capital of bourgeois society grows, there takes place a more many-sided accumulation of labor. The individual capitals increase in number and in magnitude. The multiplications of individual capitals increases the competition among capitalists. The increasing magnitude of increasing capitals provides the means of leading more powerful armies of workers with more gigantic instruments of war upon the industrial battlefield.

The one capitalist can drive the other from the field and carry off his capital only by selling more cheaply. In order to sell more cheaply without ruining himself, he must produce more cheaply — i.e., increase the productive forces of labor as much as possible.

But the productive forces of labor is increased above all by a greater division of labor and by a more general introduction and constant improvement of machinery. The larger the army of workers among whom the labor is subdivided, the more gigantic the scale upon which machinery is introduced, the more in proportion does the cost of production decrease, the more fruitful is the labor. And so there arises among the capitalists a universal rivalry for the increase of the division of labor and of machinery and for their exploitation upon the greatest possible scale.

If, now, by a greater division of labor, by the application and improvement of new machines, by a more advantageous exploitation of the forces of nature on a larger scale, a capitalist has found the means of producing with the same amount of labor (whether it be direct or accumulated labor) a larger amount of products of commodities than his competitors — if, for instance, he can produce a whole yard of linen in the same labor-time in which his competitors weave half-a-yard — how will this capitalist act?

He could keep on selling half-a-yard of linen at old market price; but this would not have the effect of driving his opponents from the field and enlarging his own market. But his need of a market has increased in the same measure in which his productive power has extended. The more powerful and costly means of production that he has called into existence enable him, it is true, to sell his wares more cheaply, but they compel him at the same time to sell more wares, to get control of a very much greater market for his commodities; consequently, this capitalist will sell his half-yard of linen more cheaply than his competitors.

But the capitalist will not sell the whole yard so cheaply as his competitors sell the half-yard, although the production of the whole yard costs him no more than does that of the half-yard to the others. Otherwise, he would make no extra profit, and would get back in exchange only the cost of production. He might obtain a greater income from having set in motion a larger capital, but not from having made a greater profit on his capital than the others. Moreover, he attains the object he is aiming at if he prices his goods only a small percentage lower than his competitors. He drives them off the field, he wrests from them at least part of their market, by underselling them.

And finally, let us remember that the current price always stands either above or below the cost of production, according as the sale of a commodity takes place in the favorable or unfavorable period of the industry. According as the market price of the yard of linen stands above or below its former cost of production, will the percentage vary at which the capitalist who has made use of the new and more faithful means of production sell above his real cost of production.

But the privilege of our capitalist is not of long duration. Other competing capitalists introduce the same machines, the same division of labor, and introduce them upon the same or even upon a greater scale. And finally this introduction becomes so universal that the price of the linen is lowered not only below its old, but even below its new cost of production.

The capitalists therefore find themselves, in their mutual relations, in the same situation in which they were before the introduction of the new means of production; and if they are by these means enabled to offer double the product at the old price, they are now forced to furnish double the product for less than the old price. Having arrived at the new point, the new cost of production, the battle for supremacy in the market has to be fought out anew. Given more division of labor and more machinery, and there results a greater scale upon which division of labor and machinery are exploited. And competition again brings the same reaction against this result.


Karl Marx
Wage Labour and Capital





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Beware the Boogey Man


Ralph Strikes Back
Private Health Care is Still On the Agenda

Klein, dubbed "The Wrangler" in the Canadian Health Care Manager Journal's seventh-annual national awards, was recently given the honour for his tenacity in tackling health-care issues with the province's yet-to-be-introduced Third Way health-care proposal.'
Wrangler' premier nabs health award

Canadians deserve better health system : Klein

canada.com
Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Ralph Klein says Alberta is trying to find ways of addressing non-emergency health issues outside of the current public system.

The Alberta premier says his province is exploring ways to address a recent Supreme Court decision declaring inordinate wait times unconstitutional and opening the way to private health care.

Klein says Canadians deserve better access to a health system that provides quality services when they need it.

Sitting on billions of surplus dollars, and having cut hospital beds, privatized laundry and support services in hospitals, laid off nurses and doctors, and reduced access to post secondary education in the last decade is the reason Alberta and the rest of Canada has a hospitalization crisis. Privatizing health care is NOT going to increase access, funding and reforming the billing system is. Something the Klein government is ideologically opposed to. Funds are clearly not the problem in Alberta. King Klein and his neo-cons on the other hand are.

Health-care boogeyman label unfair, says Klein

No its not, its accurate.

This all began over six years ago with Bill 11. The Liberal Government of the Day did not confront the imminent privatization that Bill 11 opened the door to.
The failure of the Klein Reich in Alberta, the Fraser Institute, the NCC and its spokesman Stephen Harper, and assorted right wing lobbyists to convince Canadians that privatization of health care was neccasary during those years was due to the effective popular mobilization of mass opposition. The Canadian liberal-left stymied the right wing by equating 'privatization' with 'Americanization'.

As the outspoken leader of the neo-con putsch against the public sector and public services, Klein is now spouting his 'Third Way' as an alternative to both the Canadian and American models of health care delivery.
"If the Canadian system is unsustainable, which it is, and the American system is unacceptable, which it is, let's find a third way," said Klein.

That Third Way is still privatization. Having been whupped by the left, the neo-cons in Canada, under Kleins leadership, have adopted a new model of privatization to sell Canadians. It is the Euro model. Former Reform/Alliance leader Presto Manning and former Klein Klone and Ontario Premier Mike Harris announced during the last federal election this model of health care reform on behalf of the right wing think tank the Fraser Institute.

Klein still has to tell us what his Third Way is. Even his much lauded 'tell it like it is' speechifying in Ottawa yesterday didn't say what this term means. And he was of course speaking to the converted as his speech was held at the Ottawa Establishment old boys club, the Canadian Empire Club. Whose president is a federal Conservative Strategist.

To some it up for the past six years the Klein Reich in Alberta has tried by hook or crook to come up with plans to expand the privatization of health care, but have faced a resistance from Albertans, as well as other Canadians. His Third Way is just a new label on the same old bottle of cutting costs by devolving them to Albertans directly through private insurance, cost recovery, user fees, medicare accounts and private public partnerships.

While other provinces have their share of P3's, notably Quebec, and services not covered by medicare, only Alberta has the outspoken leadership of the right wing in Canada promoting privatization.

Yes Virginia there is a boogey man and his name is Ralph Klein.

Health should be key election issue: Klein

I couldn't agree more.....cause here it comes.....more privatization through the back door....Ralph's Third Way.....

Vancouver primary care facility charges $1,200 to join, plus $2,300 a year










Friday, November 18, 2005

Public Health Care The Election Issue

If I Lie May My Nose Grow

Well King Ralph kind of said that about his intentions around Privatizing Health Care in Alberta, just in time for the Federal Election.

"I've got to be honest. You know, I can't tell a lie, because you (reporters) would be on my case. "So I'll explain exactly what we are doing (in terms of proposed health-care reforms)... the process that we are going through and I hope that people will understand that and I hope that the federal Liberals will not use it as political fodder." The comments were greeted with resignation within the federal Conservative party.” I’m disappointed, but I'm not surprised," said a senior Conservative organizer in Ontario.

Private health grist for election mill?

Klein expects issue to be raised on Eastern tour

James Baxter, The Edmonton Journal, Wednesday, November 16, 2005


Oh goodie we will finally find out what the Kings great but still secret plan is for Health Care reform. Cause ever since Bill 11 its been all about privatizing health care. So that’s six years that the volk in the Alberta Reich have waited for our glorious leader to let us know that the plan is. But the irony is that we will find out cause he intends to tell the ‘Eastern Bastards’ his plan. Sure, right, and I have a bridge in Southern Alberta for sale. He actually will tell them exactly what we know, that privatization is coming, soon, well actually after we get another study done, plus another conference, until we can fill a room with our experts who will say privatize or die trying, and well you get the picture. It ain’t happening, privatization is Alberta’s poison pill,agianst the Federal Government. Where it used to be oil, King Klein has made his Bunker Hill (pardon the pun), Health Care. He intends to privatize health care as he began back in 1995, though by no means as much as has been done in Quebec since that time. Even after Bill 11 the whole Klein Health Care agenda has been to see how far they can push privatization under the existing Canada Health Act. While tinkering here and there the whole Klein agenda has been about bluff and bluster. There have been lots of studies, conferences, studies, consultants, more conferences, focus groups, the Mazankowski Report, Report on Mazankowski, recommendations, recommendations shelved. And whenever a Health Care announcement like the Klein ‘Third Way’ is made, then it is studied to death, more focus groups, etc. And the plan is well so generalized you could read anything into it. And don’t be putting any wagers on it cause with a mere shift in the wind, a bit of a blast from editorial writers, a protest organized by Friends of Medicare, and finger to the wind the Klein Reich quickly goes about changing the offending comments, oh like personal medical accounts, and then sneaks it in the back door.

Such is the case with AON Consultants who got a rigged bid contract to look at privatizing Alberta Health Care, and low and behold if they had not presented the Klein Krew with a recommendation about personal medical accounts.

Should the Harper be worried? You betcha, so should Martin. Cause Health Care has become the single issue the NDP can claim the high ground on and actually make THE ELECTION ISSUE.

Harold Jansen, a political scientist at the University of Lethbridge, said Harper may not have much to fear from Klein's health-care plans this time around. He does not expect health care to be the hot-button issue it was in 2004. For the federal Liberals to attack Alberta, he said, they will also have to challenge moves toward privatization that Quebec and British Columbia have already made. "I think health care is more or less old news now. The difference is that the private health-care genie is now out of the bottle," he said, referring to the Supreme Court decision earlier this year that upheld a patient's right to pay for medical care to end suffering when waiting times are too long. "I think it would be hard (for Martin) to demonize Alberta."

And he would be wrong about it NOT being THE Election issue. It will be, because it is the Liberals Achilles heel, without it they cannot entice soft social democrats, red liberals, with the boogeyman of the Conservatives. And as the polls show its going to be another minority government, or at least could be if the NDP get enough votes. To do that they have to make the Privatization of Health Care the issue. It’s what differentiates them from the Liberals. They gave the Liberals the chance to challenge the Supreme Court ruling by amending the Canada Health Act. And the Liberals blew it, they called the bluff , read the polls and figured they could chance a Christmas election.

The NDP attack on the Liberals last election over this was muted by the demonizing of the Harper by the Liberals. They played their trump card about Harpers secret agenda for Health Care. Sorry can’t use that again, because as Jansen says the cat is out of the bag, privatization of health care is the political reality today in Canada and the Liberals are no more prepared to confront it than the Tories are.

If it was only Klein the Federal Liberals would confront the issue, using Alberta as their whipping boy. But they can’t because Quebec sets the Federal Agenda, and is on the road to privatization as well. Asymmetrical privatization of health care is the Liberals downfall, as it is the Harpers. Harper has Klein as his albatross, Martin has Quebec. It is here where the Liberals cut down by Adscam, cannot risk challenging their provincial cousins. Nor can they afford to give the BQ and PQ anymore ammunition to use against them. In this case any attack on Quebec’s privatization of medical services would leave them open to accusations of interference in Quebec’s affairs.

The NDP on the other hand have no qualms about imposing a federalist solution where it is warranted. They did this with the NEP in Alberta in the 1980’s and could use Health Care as the issue on which to impose a Federalist model that would offend both Quebec and Alberta, but not their supporters or soft left Liberals or even Red Tories.

To do that the NDP has to make the Canada Health Act the issue, amending it, strengthen it, attaching strings to Federal Funding, all in the name of ending the biggest loophole in the Act, that it fails to mention privatization.

By making the issue strengthening the Canada Health Act to end privatization they can appeal that it can be done asymmetrically as each province has violated the Act in uncommon ways. That is services that are privatized are sufficiently different in each province that a federal act ending privatization would impact differently in B.C. than in Quebec, or Alberta, or PEI.

The Liberals made NAFTA the issue in the 1988 election and stole the show from the NDP. Last election Martin made Health Care the eleventh hour issue to differentiate the Liberals from Harpers Conservatives. This time this issue for the Liberals, Tories and Bloc is Gomery and Adscam. It’s an issue that the NDP left to the other opposition parties to pick the flesh off the bones of the Liberals.

Instead they have made the Democratic Deficit the issue, as well as health care and the environment. In the upcoming election Health Care is issue number one for the NDP. It’s why they cannot support the current Liberal regime. Then to deal with Gomery it’s their ethics package. Even the issue of Aboriginal Self Government, can be covered with the Broadbent Ethics package. And unlike the Liberals the NDP could make the seque to Aboriginal Self Government, while the Liberals are the party of the Department of Indian Affairs.

Finally with the climate change conference happening during the first weeks of the Election, the environment, Jacks personal peccadillo takes centre stage.

The NDP could not ask for a better time or a better election to actually make real gains in seats. Its there’s to lose. And they won’t if they make Health Care, Ethics, and the Environment their issues. Leaving the infighting to the other three.

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Quebec Nationalism is Dead!

Long Live the Quebec Class Struggle!

I have commented in my other blog on the recent shift to the right amongst the Quebec bourgeoisie including its Sovereignist arm.Quebec's Right Wing Manifesto.

Even the Federal BQ party has now back pedaled over Quebec Independence being the road to socialism;
BQ says Quebecs Future is NOT Socialism.

In the Monthly Review Richard Fidler reports on this phenomena and the failure of the Quebec left to move beyond its sovereignist agenda for an independent social democratic Quebec...not a workers revolution in Quebec.

So I am not alone in assessing the failure of the Quebec Left to mobilize around a class strugle agenda. Instead like their counterparts in English Canada they fail to address the need for a common class struggle in both countries. Instead they opt to renew their faith in sovereignty, as if it was a viable alternative to English Monopoly Capitalism. Except that is the past . Such nonsense died during the Quiet Revolution and Trudeaus election as Prime Minister in 1968. I guess some folks are just late in getting the news.

Others who read the writing on the wall such as former Tory/BQ/PQ/ millionare lawyer Mssr. Bouchard, read it only too well and are now prepared to live with Quebec as part of Canada in the age of Global Capitalism. Quebec has its own bourgeois now, congratulations you are a sovereign capital in the age of global capitalism.

Too bad the Quebec left is still living in the past, time to wake up and smell the coffee.


PQ's Rightward Shift Opens Space for New Left Party in Quebec
by Richard Fidler

In the past, the PQ's support for sovereignty gave it a radical image. Deprived of direct support by big capital, which is unanimously opposed to Quebec independence, the PQ had to pitch its appeal to the unions and popular movements. Today, notwithstanding the hopes of Dubuc's SPQ-Libre, the unions, while generally sympathetic to sovereignty, are much more diffident about the PQ. This offers some important possibilities for the new left party, although there is little indication so far of movement within the labour movement toward a clear break with the PQ.

However, most of the Quebec left, including both OC and (to a lesser degree) the UFP, does not conceive of politics in class terms. Political debate is expressed in terms of conflicting "values," not class conflict. A current example of this is the Manifeste pour un Québec solidaire, a response to the Bouchard manifesto initiated by UFP and OC leaders, which was published on November 1 under the signatures of a wide range of personalities including some PQ and BQ parliamentarians. (See www.pourunquebecsolidaire.org/index.php?manifeste for the text.)

While offering a compelling point-by-point rebuttal of each of the hot-button demands in the Bouchard manifesto, it does not explain the class basis of the program of the "lucides" or present a clear anticapitalist alternative perspective. Its acknowledged inspiration is Scandinavian social-democracy, not socialism. Our vision of Quebec, it says, is "humanist, watchful of the environment and sustainable development, the common good and collective rights." It sees the central economic issue as one of distribution of wealth, not control of its production.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Telus Workers Defiant

Despite a second round of sell out bargaining by the TWU leadership in B.C. the workers on the line in Edmonton remain defiant, against Telus and against the sell out leadership of their union.

"I am strong, stronger now than when we walked out. If this lock out has proven anything to me its where I stand, what I am willing to do to fight for my rights. And I am willing to stay out for six more weeks or three month, or whatever it takes." said a picketer I talked to on the line yesterday. They were joined in by head nods and similar comments from the other defiant workers on the line in front of the Telus Building on Jasper Avenue. "I got married while on the picket line, bought a new truck, and the only difference from before the lock out is that now I have more debt."

A second contract was agreed to last weekend by the TWU bargaining committee, after the first contract vote was rejected by 50.03% of the workers. And the scabs of course got to vote, but due to the union screw ups workers in Northern Alberta were underrepresented in the vote in Edmonton, so now the union is doing a mail in vote. Screw ups are still happening as the picketing workers await their ballots, which are due today. Failure to get their votes in with a small timeline after getting their ballots, will mean that they don't count. The workers figure that their union leadership wants the vote to pass. But in Edmonton these workers who have spent their lives for the last nine weeks on the line are just as sceptical about this contract as the previous two, the last one they rejected, and the original Telus offer they rejected, preceding the lock out.
The new collective agreement still allows for the contracting out of work by Telus.

THIS FIGHT IS ABOUT CONTRACTING OUT.

"This fight is about contracting out, its a fight that will determine the fate of the labour movement in Canada." said the Telus worker on the line. While the media has reported that only janitor and maintenance services will be contracted out under the agreement, the Telus workers in Edmonton, many who work in customer service say that their jobs too are under the gun. Telus is already using call centres in Manilla and India to supply customer service saving millions by management estimates, and allowing Telus to rack up record profits. "If this contract goes through that will be the death of Telus workers in B.C.", says the picketer. The contract lasts five years, and by that time these workers figure that most of Telus will be contracted out to call centres abroad. Since B.C. is the largest customer service centre for Telus, the workers know the writing is on the wall. "Telus has said it will continue to use call centres, and not hire new staff, they will simply keep us working, and fill our jobs through contracting out and attrition. As the baby boomers retire, their jobs will go overseas." Another concern raised by the workers in Edmonton is that Manilla and India are centres of Identity Theft. The call centres abroad have full access to all your personal account information including social security numbers and credit card accounts.

Telus has no direct supervision over the accounts handled offshore, like they do here. Little coverage in the media has focused on these very serious security concerns raised by the Telus Workers.

THE DEATH OF TWU-A Union Commits Suicide

The workers predict that if this contract passes it will mean the death of their union and their union rights. "The agreement does not recognize our right to a grievance procedure, if we want to grieve we have to take it to a manager. If we are grieving against that manager we have to find another one to place the grievance with. So that leaves the union without any grievance procedure without any representation for our grievances", says the Telus picket.

Besides the ability to represent workers through collective bargaining, the key power workers have through a union is their ability to grieve violations of the collective agreement, or grieve over apparent violations of human rights laws etc. The grievance procedure is the core of labour relations and labour law, it presumes natural justice as well as common law applies in the workplace and the union gains the right to represent its members through this procedure. They have given up the right to wobble the job, to wildcat, giving management all rights to run the workplace except where it violates the collective agreement. To give up the right to process grievances to management means that the union effectively is failing to represent its members and sets it up to be challenged under labour law for failing in 'its duty to represent". Why any union would agree to what is essentially a suicide pact with management is beyond me and beyond the Telus rank and file.

"I hate to say this but we had it better under IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) ", says the Telus worker. "We had a better contract ten years ago than the one we got five years ago imposed on us, and the one we are being offered now."

Before Telus bought B.C. Telephones its workers were represented by IBEW which had union representation rights for workers with Alberta Government Telephones (AGT) which was privatized to create Telus. And they represented Edmonton Telephones workers, which the City of Edmonton sold to Telus on the promise that the company would remain in Edmonton and its Headquarters would be in Edmonton. That lasted two years and with the purchase of B.C. Telephones it moved lock stock and barrel to Vancouver.

There the workers were represented by a local trades based craft union, the Telecommunications Workers Union (TWU). This union was the union for B.C. Tel employees, and was not a national or international union. Its union culture was locally based. With the merger came a vote on union representation. IBEW which also is a business craft based union, had failed to represent the growing membership of non-trades workers, mainly women, who made up the majority of operators, call centre, and customer service workers. As well IBEW as a quizzling business union in Edmonton had historically identified with management, what was good for Ed Tel was good for IBEW, until Telus took over.

For five years Telus workers have been without a contract because TWU was outmanuvered by Telus Management, and they still bargained as if they were a small union local within B.C. instead of a national bargaining union for the second largest phone company in Canada. This Vancouver based bargaining, allowed management to stall TWU in contract talks, giving it a virtual free hand to make profits while not increasing costs, that is workers wages and benefits.

In the past year Telus shares have risen in price and in each of the last three quarters Telus has reported record profit taking. During this lock out Telus has saved millions in wages and benefits, so much so its been able to outsource more work overseas and pay scabs record wages and give them gifts like ipods, DVD players etc., and of course payout overtime, and pay for private security goons. Despite all that Telus shares today are the highest they have been at for a year.
Telus Q3 earnings up on stronger wireless results

The union has signed an agreement that is no different that what they were offered when they walked out. "There is no way I am agreeing to this, I am stronger than that, if it takes month walking the line I will stay out, this contract is not what we want, its why we walked out," says the Telus picketer.

The contract allows for continuing contracting out via atrition, it does not grant an amnesty to those fired during the lock out, many of the militant rank and file leadership, instead their firings will be ajudicated by a labour Tribunal under the Canada Labour Act. While there are wage increases, and recognition of union representation rights for Telus Mobility workers, the contract itself last fives years.

"By then B.C. Telus will be contracted out, there will no longer be a B.C. Telus, the union will be busted, thats what they have to understand, thats why no matter the vote, I will stay and fight. Edmonton and Calgary will be here, but B.C. will be contracted out. Thats what this fight is all about, the fight to stop contracting out of our work. This is a fight for the whole labour movement", says the Telus Worker as fellow workers on the line nod in agreement.

Telus gears up for life after work stoppage

CEO hopeful latest deal will be ratified; profit, sales increase despite labour woes

Mr. Entwistle, hoping that workers accept the contract this time, is gearing up for life after the labour disruption. His plans include the rollout of a new TV service, launch of a voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) service for consumers, and implementing efficiency and productivity measures, such as contracting out certain non-core jobs.