Open Letter from Labour Scholars on the Economic Crisis

Brothers and sisters,

More than a year ago, an unprecedented housing boom in the US went bust, triggering a financial crisis that has recently led to large-scale bank failures and enormous government bailouts. This crisis affects not just the financial markets and not just the US. Banks are failing in Europe and in Latin America, as well. Stock markets are plummeting around the world. Governments have bailed out banks in many European countries. Central banks are pouring vast amounts of money into financial circuits that have been deserted by private credit. Moreover, growth is slowing dramatically. Economic activity has actually reached recession levels in a number of countries, and unemployment rates are rising.

The first sector of the Canadian economy that was hit by this crisis was manufacturing. A wave of speculation in resource prices, propelled by money fleeing the plummeting housing and financial markets, pushed the Canadian dollar up sharply and, in turn, drove exports and jobs in export industries down. Though this short-lived boom in resources is already over, the manufacturing jobs that have been lost there won't be coming back. Instead, we are seeing job losses spreading to other sectors. As is the case in many other countries, Canada is on the brink of recession. Moreover, falling stock prices and a severe tightening of credit indicate that the financial crisis is spilling over from Wall Street to Bay Street.

Given the firm grip that profits-first and balanced-budget dogmas have over Parliament Hill and the Bank of Canada, our politicians' reaction to Bay Street calamities is easy to imagine: throw tax dollars and credit at financial investors to cover their losses while gutting public services and jobs to avoid budget deficits. Such misguided policies are a sure recipe to push an economy that is already ailing into deep recession or even depression. More lay-offs, wage cuts and the evaporation of private and public sector pension plans will follow.

The large-scale interventions that we have already seen in the US and Europe, and we can expect to see in Canada soon, are fundamentally at odds with free market propaganda, which provided an ideological cover for an unprecedented accumulation of profit and wealth in the hands of the few at the expense of the many. Working people who created this wealth by the sweat of their brows and the effort of their brains, and who are now destined to carry the burden of the crisis, will see the fruits of their labour benefit no one but the people on Bay Street. While the breadth and depth of this crisis should not be minimized, it can also provide an opening for very necessary economic and social change. And organized labour can significantly contribute towards such change.

We, the signatories, urge that:

• Unions make a major effort to inform their members as well as non-union workers about the economic situation. Undermining the legitimacy of free market ideology is a precondition for a struggle for progressive change that can benefit everyone. Discussion and understanding of economic developments are others. Educationals on the current economic situation are an important contribution to develop workers' capacities to successfully engage in union struggles.
• Unions prepare and lead actions against lay-offs, spending cuts and concessions. Such actions are essential if we are to prevent Bay Street from placing the burden of the crisis on the residents of Main Street.
• Unions help to build activist coalitions that can engage in economic issues beyond the workplace and collective bargaining. Such coalitions should plan and mobilize for demonstrations that claim public control over the financial sector and a major remake of fiscal policies from bailing out private banks towards policies for jobs, social justice and ecological sustainability.
• Unions that are involved in the management of pension funds should inform their members about the state of these funds and develop strategies to their members' pensions. Such strategies could play an important role in a fundamental redirection of fiscal policies, away from balanced-budget dogmas – which cause fiscal transfers that place the weight of financial burdens on those at the bottom – towards taxing the rich in order to expand public services and create universal social programs and protections, including publicly-funded pensions, childcare and post-secondary education.

Greg Albo, York University Bryan Evans, Ryerson University
Ingo Schmidt, Athabasca University
David Camfield, University of Manitoba
Étienne Cantin, Université Laval
Sam Gindin, York University
Cy Gonick, University of Manitoba
Adam Hanieh, York University
Jerry Kachur, University of Alberta
Dennis Pilon, University of Victoria
Chris Roberts, Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
Richard Roman, University of Toronto (retired)
Stephanie Ross, York University
Edward H. Shaffer, University of Alberta (retired)
Sid Shniad, Research Director, Telecommunications Workers Union

Building a strong trade union movement in Saskatchewan

This special supplement to the Oct.\Nov. 1977 issue of Next Year Country was published at a time of mass action and when there was an influential Marxist current in Saskatchewan's trade unions. The radical left today is very weak among most trade unions and militancy is low.

One of the necessities of our times is to rebuild a militant and organized left in the trade union movement. You can judge for yourself whether this document has anything to suggest to us now.



Below is a link to a contemporary Labour Platform from the Ontario-based Socialist Project.

   Labour Platform Link 

The Robin Hood Tax

A tiny tax on bankers that would give billions to tackle poverty and climate change, here and abroad.

It sounds complicated, but actually it isn’t. A tiny tax on bankers has the power to raise hundreds of billions every year – giving a vital boost to the NHS, our schools, and the fight against child poverty – as well as tackling poverty and climate change around the world.

Not complicated. Just brilliant.

The Robin Hood Tax Website here.

Time for the left to get serious

Bill Fletcher at the National Convention of the Democratic Socialists of America, November 2009.


Bill Fletcher, Jr "The Economic Crisis" from Frank Llewellyn on Vimeo.

Norman Bethune: Canadian Medical Hall of Fame

Dr. Norman Bethune was inducted into the Canadian Hall of Fame in 1998. This is his entry and video.

Born: March 30, 1890, Gravenhurst, Ontario

Died: November 12, 1939

Education: M.D. - University of Toronto, 1916
Category: Mobile Blood

In 1890, Norman Bethune was born in Gravenhurst, Ontario. He went to the University of Toronto, where his education was interrupted when he enlisted as a stretcher bearer in World War I. He received his M.D. in 1916. Dr. Bethune's impact on medicine can be categorized into three distinct areas. Bethune wrote extensively on the development of new surgical instruments, helping to establish a body of work that would be an essential reference for any surgeon.

In 1938, while living in China, Bethune proposed a universal health care system for Canada. Although the suggestion was not readily accepted, Bethune's good works abroad and compelling recommendations would eventually find a place in the Canadian medical system. And finally, Bethune is probably most remembered as being the first to introduce the mobile blood bank to the battlefield, where he performed countless blood transfusions in the midst of heavy fighting. A doctor to the very end, Bethune died of blood poisoning in 1939, while ministering to a Chinese Army. Canada remembers Bethune as a medical genius, China reveres him as a saint.

Honoré Jackson: Prairie Visionary

Jackson, William Henry (1861–1952)

Read the  first definitive biography of this complex political man, who served as Louis Riel’s secretary in 1885, and went on to be a labour leader in Chicago and a “capitalist” in New York City.

Born in Toronto to a Methodist family and raised in Wingham, Ontario, William Henry Jackson attended the University of Toronto before moving to Prince Albert, where he began to sympathize with the Métis and their struggle against the Canadian government. Jackson became personal secretary to Louis Riel, was captured by the Canadian militia during the 1885 Resistance, and was convicted of treason and sentenced to an insane asylum near Winnipeg. When he escaped to the United States, joining the labour union movement, he told everyone that he was Métis and modified his name to the Métis-sounding Honoré Jaxon.

After a lively career as a politically radical public figure in Chicago – where he befriended, among others, the revolutionary architect Frank Lloyd Wright – Jaxon eventually moved to New York City to attempt life as a real estate developer. His ongoing project was to collect as many books, newspapers and pamphlets relating to the Métis people as possible, in an attempt to establish a library for their use. However, he was evicted from his basement apartment at the age of ninety. His entire collection was dispersed, most of it to the New York City garbage dump, the remainder sold. He died a month later, in early 1952.

Book available from Coteau Books.

The Saskatchewan Farmer-Labor Group

The Movement Grows to Power

"THE YEAR 1932 saw the Saskatchewan farmers and the socialist movement united in a national attempt to establish socialism in Canada. Joining with other groups in the rest of Canada did not greatly affect the Saskatchewan movement beyond giving it a base from which to take part in national elections. The Saskatchewan group called itself the Farmer-Labor Group, and did not officially adopt the name Coöperative Commonwealth Federation for provincial usage until 1935. The new C.C.F. was to remain essentially a federation of provincial parties, each of which had its own approach to socialism and politics and did not interfere with the activities of other provincial sections.

The creation of a mass socialist party in Saskatchewan was not, therefore, the local extension of a new national movement but, rather, an endemic movement having its roots in Saskatchewan. A small group of convinced socialists in key positions in the farmers' movement prompted action in the face of the double catastrophe of depression and drought. These socialists attempted to use this opportune moment to make a drastic change in the thinking and organized actions of farmers and workers."
- S.M. Lipset, Agrarian Socialism

Photo: George Williams speaking at a wheat pool picnic, 1930

George William's letter to Farmer-Labor supporters

(click image for larger format)

An American Socialist in Saskatchewan

by Joseph K. Roberts
Regina

My father was vice-president of Standard Oil (Indiana), and, like my schoolmate Don Rumsfeld, I was supposed to go on via Princeton to a corporate or government job. Like Rumsfeld, too, by pursuing higher education and exploiting the class privileged American selective service system, I managed to skip both the Korean and wars.

But in the age of the Cold War, McCarthyism and the restoration of corporate control after the Great Depression, my family's plan for me went wrong. The main reason was Hugh Wilson. It was this professor of politics who introduced me to the realities of corporate power and the distortions of democracy. Wilson sent me on to Columbia to Robert Lynd, who in his turn helped me to broaden my understanding of class and power in America.

Studying public law and government allowed me to take classes in sociology, history, economics and law, as well as public administration. Among my formative experiences was a year-long class on social change with Herbert Marcuse. For me, academic work demanded direct action. Wilson had helped found the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, a radical departure from the Cold War-compromised American Civil Liberties Union. I became versed in some of the more pressing First Amendment cases. In the New York of the time, there was also a strong peace movement that opposed nuclear testing.

In my doctoral dissertation, I examined the role of the oil industry in the Suez Crisis of 1956. During this period of academic and political activity, Lynd introduced me to Leo Huberman, who along with Paul Sweezy was the founder and co-editor of Monthly Review. This was the beginning of a critical relationship that has shaped my understanding, my teaching and my perspective to this day.

My wife required fieldwork for her anthropology degree, and, with the aid of a Ford Foundation grant, she chose Sierra Leone -- so, in 1961 we set off for Africa. It was an opportunity to Learn about imperialism firsthand. Britain was then in the process of relinquishing colonies like Sierra Leone--without, of course, abandoning its interests in those places.

Shortly after I returned to the U.S., President Kennedy was mysteriously assassinated. He and his entourage were idols of many American liberals, but for me he was not the enemy, but the escalator, of the Vietnam War.

From Michigan State to the University of Regina

In 1964, I went to Michigan State University to teach. The university's political-science department had established itself as a government contractor in the 1950s, attempting to create an administration in South Vietnam that was Loyal to the U.S. As the war intensified, the university campus saw the birth of an opposition, in tandem with the already vigorous civil-rights movement. At first the environment was distinctly unfriendly, but in the spring of 1965, the first big campus "teach-in" was held at the neighbouring University of Michigan. This served to bolster our efforts at MSU.

In 1965, Hugh Wilson was invited by Dallas Smythe, an economist trained at the University of California, Berkeley, to the newly created University of Saskatchewan, Regina Campus, as a visiting professor. Smythe was born in Regina and had been employed in the Federal Communications Commission until the Cold War forced him out. He then got a job in the Communications Department at the University of Illinois. Appalled by the Cuban Missile Crisis, Smythe accepted an invitation to head up the newly created social-science faculty at the Regina campus. Prompted by Wilson, Smythe then called me up and offered me a job.

Saskatchewan Transportation Company

Established in 1946

Created by an order-in-council on April 1, 1946, the provincial government of premier T.C. "Tommy" Douglas established a crown corporation called the "Saskatchewan Transportation Company". It was mandated to provide bus services between major centres and to as much of the dispersed rural population as possible in a fiscally responsible manner.

Photograph courtesy of Alex Regiec
History of Intercity Buses

ATU Local 1374

Jack

Communist Manifestoon

Socialist History: The Red Menace

The Red Menace was published by the Toronto-based Libertarian Socialist Collective between 1976 and 1980.

The collective publishing The Red Menace described its political orientation as follows: “We want to overthrow the capitalist system and build a new world in which freedom and creativity can flourish, a world in which people are in control, in which they run things democratically and collectively. A libertarian socialist world.”

The Red Menace appeared in magazine format for the first two issues of 52 pages and 44 pages respectively; the subsequent three issues were in tabloid format, with 24, 32, and 16 pages respectively.

The Red Menace online.

Fair Vote Canada: Saskatchewan Chapter AGM

The Saskatchewan Chapter of Fair Vote Canada will be holding its Annual General Meeting (AGM) in two stages.

The first meeting will be held in Regina, Saturday, February 20th.

Cathedral Neighbourhood Centre
2900 13th Avenue
The Boardroom
2:00 pm to 4:00 pm

The second meeting will be held a week later, February 27th in Saskatoon.

Amigos Cantina
632 - 10th Street East (one block east of Broadway)
The back room
2:00 pm to 4:00 pm

With our parliament in a sorry state many Canadians are looking for solutions. We think this is an exciting time for supporters of proportional representation.

We hope all Fair Vote members in Saskatchewan can find the time to attend. We would like to take this opportunity to talk about what we have been up to during our first year of operation and what we would like to accomplish in the coming year. We have some ambitious plans for 2010 and we need some energetic and dedicated people to lend a hand.

Gord Hunter

President

Fair Vote Canada – Saskatchewan Chapter

Saskatchewan youth art for the environment

I love the submissions over the past few years found at the Climate Change Saskatchewan art contest page.

Visit here to view them all.

Regina forum on the coup in Honduras

The Coup in Honduras: Popular Resistance and Canadian Imperialism

What: Report back from Human Rights delegation to Honduras

When: 7pm, Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Where: University of Regina, Room CL112

Jeffery R. Webber will report back from his meetings in Honduras with trade unionists, peasants, and other activists involved in the popular resistance against the coup government. He will also discuss the role of the Canadian government lending support to an illegal regime principally in an effort to protect Canadian mining investments in the country.

Jeffery R. Webber is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Regina. He has three books forthcoming this year: Red October: Left-Indigenous Struggles in Modern Bolivia; The Paradox of Evismo: Rebellion to Reform in Bolivian Politics; and The Resurgence of Latin American Radicalism: Between Cracks in the Empire and an Izquierda Permitida (co-edited with Barry Carr).