“The labour disputes at the ports of Montreal and British Columbia represent a perfect storm. Our supply chains, already weakened in recent years, have been particularly challenged in recent months. Despite the federal government’s intervention in the rail disputes last summer, the current situation is increasingly looking like an economic catastrophe, requiring similar government action,” complained Alexandre Gagnon, Vice-President, Labour and Human Capital at the FCCQ. “The FCCQ is concerned that our entire Canadian economy is being jeopardized by these numerous labour disputes.”
Amid a rising wave of strikes reflecting the determination of workers across Canada to confront the surging cost of living, and repeated rejections of sellout agreements brought back by the union bureaucracies, the lockout has become the favoured means by which big business seeks to prompt direct government intervention on their side to enforce their concession demands. Their ability to do this results from the unions’ systematic suppression of the class struggle, including their efforts to isolate workers who manage to take strike action and close alliance with the big business Liberal government. Numerous union bureaucracies have repeatedly delayed calling all-out strikes despite overwhelming authorizations by the rank and file. At Canada Post, for example, 55,000 postal workers are being kept on the job by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) more than a week after their strike deadline despite delivering a strike vote of over 95 percent.
It is increasingly clear that every contract struggle is a fight not just against exploitative employers, but the Liberal government as well. With the backing of all the parties in Parliament and the union bureaucracy that is a key pillar of support for its rule, the Liberal government has run roughshod over the right to strike, wielding the cudgel of the Canada Industrial Relations Board in one hand and back-to-work legislation in the other.
The likelihood of government intervention against dockers in Montreal and BC is increased due to the strategic importance of these ports in North American supply chains, which serve as the basis for US and Canadian imperialism to project their power and assert their predatory interests around the world. The smooth operation of these ports is all the more critical with the Biden administration’s escalation of the war against Russia in Ukraine, and the shipment of materiel for Israel’s genocide in Gaza and expanding war in the Middle East.
Notwithstanding the impending threat of government intervention, Montreal and BC dockworkers have powerful allies at ports across Canada and the US, and throughout the working class, to beat back the ruling-class onslaught and fight for their just demands. Dockworkers north and south of the border confront the same transnational companies which operate on every continent and the same miserable working conditions. The millions of logistics workers across North America who move freight by sea, land and air also have a direct stake in this fight. Dockworkers at ports along the US East and Gulf coast, who had their strike shut down by the International Longshoremen’s Association in October after less than three days in a backroom deal between the White House, will once again be in a strike position as of January.
Longshore workers in British Columbia and Quebec must decisively reject Canadian and Quebec nationalism to unite their struggles and reach out to their brothers and sisters internationally in the US and beyond through the formation of rank-and-file committees, which can take control of their struggle out of the hands of the bureaucrats. By taking their fight into their own hands, dockers can appeal for a unified struggle, drawing in broader layers of the working class to fight for what workers need, not what the employers and government say is affordable.
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Publish date : 2024-11-11 11:21:00
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