A-Infos (en) Canada, Anarchist Common Cause's free paper Linchpin Issue #9

A newly designed issue of Linchpin, Common Cause's free paper, is now out for April/May. 
               As the recession deepens, employers continue to discard their workers, many 
of whom are experiencing the inadequacy of government safety nets for the first time. This 
issue reviews steel and auto worker responses in Hamilton and Windsor. It also provides an 
anarchist perspective on health care as the McGuinty government quietly leaves hospitals 
with no choice but to layoff staff, introduce service fees or allow services to erode.
Sarah Lawrance of Ottawa's EXILE Infoshop explains the staples of anarchist activity as 
educational and liberatory. Kim Mackrael of the Indigenous Peoples Solidary Network shines 
a light on the latest indications the Harper government wants to undermine Barriere Lake's 
autonomy.

Pick up a copy of Linchpin in Toronto at Toronto Women's Bookstore (73 Harbord), in Ottawa 
at EXILE Infoshop (256 Bank St), in Hamilton at Sky Dragon Centre 27 King William), and in 
London at Empowerment Infoshop (636 Queens Ave). Or download the pdf file linked below.

Solidarity,

Andrew Loucks
Editor

This paper is published by Common Cause, an Ontario wide anarchist federation. At the 
first Common Cause Ontario conference held in Toronto we agreed to a basic policy 
document, a constitution, and a basic publication plan both online in terms of a website 
(www.linchpin.ca), and a free printed newspaper which will be distributed in large numbers.
Attachment	Size issue9-2.pdf http://linchpin.ca/files/issue9-2_0.pdf

Linchpin  www.linchpin.ca Apr- May 09 | Issue 9 struggle changes everything FREE

Fighting Back Makes A Difference -- 1500 laid off in Hamilton, Workers occupy parts plant 
in Windsor

Mick Black
LINCHPIN
O     n March 4, U.S. Steel Canada, formerly
       known as Stelco, announced the shut
down of its Hamilton mill and closing most of
its Lake Erie operations, affecting up to 1,500
jobs according to the company.
   U.S. Steel has already laid off close to 700 of
the 1,700 hourly employees in Hamilton, where
it shut down its blast furnace in November.
Between October and March Ontario lost
160,000 jobs, including more than 3,900 in the
Hamilton area.
   The government response has offered workers
nothing. Early on, McGuinty promised that
US Steel would honour pensions for workers.
But the Hamilton Spectator reports that up to
300 workers only months from 30 years of
employment qualification mark will be denied
company pensions, which pay out about $2,650
a month. The Employment Insurance maximum
pays less than $2000.
   Speaking to The Marxist Leninist Daily,
Steelworkers Local 1005 President and former
Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist)
canidate Rolf Gerstenberger exclaimed,
"This shutdown is socially irresponsible! Our
members cannot and will not accept these anti-
social attacks."
    Gerstenberger is calling for emergency
measures and nationalization by the government:
"One such measure in this situation could be
an emergency government takeover of the
wholesale market in steel. All steel sold in
Canada during this emergency would first have
to come from Canadian production with mills
working at full capacity....If U.S. Steel or the
other foreign monopolies do not agree with
this, they should hand over the mills and other
facilities to the government for one dollar."
  Unfortunately for Hamilton steelworkers, even
if the government and other political parties
had any intention of nationalizing industry
away from the capitalists, the exploitation of
workers that a capitalist economy is based on
would continue.
   A statement issued by the Hamilton branch of Common Cause and handed out to hundreds of
steelworkers and other labour activists reads, in part: "Against privatization and 
nationalization,
we want socialization of the economy. We want to decide democratically, in workplace and
community councils, how and what to produce. Our livelihoods, our communities and our
environment are too important to be left in the hands of big business and big government. They
need us but we don't need them!"
   Meanwhile, in Windsor, Ontario, workers at a auto parts plant Aradco, which produces 
parts for Chrysler, were notified that they were laid off without receiving adequate 
severance packages or other benefits. 64% voted to reject an offer from Chrysler that 
would have provided them with $205,000 out of a total of $1.7-million in back pay, 
vacation pay, severance and termination pay that they are owed.

   Workers immediately set up a picket line, blocking efforts by Chrysler to move 
machinery out of the plant. After several days of picketing and blocking trucks from 
taking the parts, about a dozen workers stormed and occupied the shuttered plant, welding 
the doors shut and occupying the plant overnight. A crowd of about 500 gathered for a 
workers' rights rally outside Aradco in the morning. The workers, smoking cigarettes, 
wearing ballcaps and waving CAW flags, clambered onto the plant roof. The crowd whistled
and roared. One of them carried a cardboard placard reading "Fighting
back makes a difference."
    The workers forced Chrysler to agree to pay a total compensation of
$400,000 ­ almost double the original offer ­ but still falling far short of
the total amount owed. Could they have won more if they had been able
to extend the struggle to all workers in Windsor and other auto plants
in a wave of plant occupations and general strikes? We won't know for
sure until we try, but such mass action certainly holds more hope for
more meaningful change when compared to the massive concessionary
contracts that CAW President Ken Lewenza is churning out with the big
three auto-manufacturers.
    We need to turn the tide on the attacks on workers by following the
example of the rank and file at Aradco and extend and deepen that
fighting spirit, spreading from mass pickets to workplace occupations,
mass protests and general strikes as in France, where 2 million workers
took to the streets against growing unemployment.
Fighting back does make a difference, and events like the Aradco
struggle show that workers can mobilize a mass, militant movement
against the attacks on them by the bosses. What we need now is the
confidence, strategy and organization to take it further and on a
much larger scale ­ not simply as isolated local unions but as a mass
movement of working class people ­ turning factory occupations into
worker controlled factories that produce for the communities we live in,
not for the benefit of a parasitic capitalist class.
With Files from The Marxist Leninist Daily and The Windsor Star.
_________________________________________
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