 New
Democratic Party leader Jack Layton :
Ppoke to convention
delegates at mid-afternoon. His speech
called for a national public
child care program; a law to outlaw
the hiring of workers into
strikebound workplaces; a $10
Federal minimum wage; travel
allowances for construction workers.
He said the current
(Conservative Party) federal government is
“taking the country
in the wrong direction.” It refuses to invest
government money
in post-secondary education, childcare and
seniors care. It
gave a $14 billion tax cut to the largest of Canada’s
large
corporations in its latest mini-budget, including to oil and gas
companies involved in the huge oil extraction projects in the
Alberta tar sands.
Layton said he would announce new party policies that would
transform Canadian
politics, centred on environmental issues.
By the end of his
speech, he had delivered the equivalent of the
milquetoast proposals with
which Al Gore concludes his popular
film “An Inconvenient Truth.” Hardly groundbreaking policy.
Layton spoke of the recent election
in Australia and the victory of the Labour Party.
He praised the new prime
minister there, Kevin Rudd, for his party’s program for
expanding “green
collar” jobs. He praised the German government for
its climate-related
energy programs and the rise of its new, “green”
manufacturing enterprises.
Layton said the labour movement in
the U.S. has allied with the Democratic Party
to launch a program that will
“transform the U.S. economy,” called the
“Apollo program.” Hillary Clinton
is headed in a positive direction.
Likewise, he said, the newly-elected NDP
government in Manitoba
has embarked on a “green economy” program.
He said he will soon present a bill
to Parliament that will set targets
for greenhouse gas reductions. He did
not say what those would be,
nor how anything meaningful would be achieved.
The speech seemed very much aimed to
address the rapid gains by
the Green Party in electoral polls that now see
this party polling neck a
and neck with the NDP
.
The number of delegates had
grown to 900
by the second day. Today, delegates spent
the day in three workshops—political action,
environment, and
the impact on labour of changes to the global economy.
(Left LL692 Brian Glaum and Dave Mcrae)
The session on political action heard three presentations.
The first was a short presentation of recent polling results
by the BC Federation of Labour. These indicate a
disturbingly high level of satisfaction with the right wing
provincial government of Liberal premier Gordon Campbell.
But they also showed persistent dissatisfaction with declining
social services and quality of life issues under that same government.
Tom Snider, political action director of UNITE-HERE in the
United States, gave a presentation of the successes and difficulties
that his union has had in organizing workers and using the political
process to do so.
The third speaker was a member of the Canadian Union of
Postal Workers in Kamloops, BC. She described the campaign
of the local labour council for a $10 per hour minimum wage.
The campaign has reached many young workers in the city,
including drawing support from non-union workers and their
friends and families. Campaign activity is focused on petitions
and postcards. The $10 minimum wage is an ongoing campaign
of the BC Federation of Labour. Convention delegates fanned
out into downtown Vancouver during the lunch break to petition.
Workshop on the changing workforce
Two professors spoke at the next workshop, “Organizing to
meet the
challenge of the global
economy.” One is a well-known researcher
into labour standards. The other is an author of a 2006
review of
federal labour law. The latter began his presentation by
remarking
that none of the federal political parties have shown any
interest in
the results of his review.
They presented statistics and information that describe important
in the composition of the workforce in Canada and in its
conditions of work
including the decline of rates of unionization in
traditional manufacturing industries, increase in
participation of
women in the workforce, relative decline of wages over
the past
20 years, and so on. Their conclusions centered on the
need to
force governments to introduce improvements to laws
governing
workplace rights, the right to organize unions, and so
on.
The challenge of climate change
Three presenters delivered challenging presentations on
the climate
change calamity facing humanity.
David Foster is member of the International Executive of
the
United Steelworkers of America (USW) and a director of
the
Blue-Green Alliance. The latter is an alliance in the
United States
of the USW and the Sierra Club. He presented some
startling figures
of the climate change challenge, based on figures drawn
from the
four reports issued this year by the Intergovernmental
Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC).
Foster focused his presentation on the solutions that the
Alliance proposes, namely, the creation of a “carbon
exchange”
market whereby companies would purchase pollution permits
from a
government agency, and the funds raised would be directed
to
social investments that improve energy efficiency, reduce
carbon
emissions, and compensate workers for job loss or
dislocation.
This would amount to a pollution tax, with the underlying
assumption
being that companies would have a financial incentive to
reduce pollution.
Matt Horn took a detailed look at the missions situation
in British Columbia.
His principle solution that he offered was the imposition
of steep
carbon taxes. He spoke favourably of a recent policy
announcement
from the BC government projecting reductions by 33% over
the
next 13 years.
Day Three of BC Federation of Labour Convention
The
third and final day of the BC Federation of Labour convention
was devoted to guest speakers and discussion of resolutions.
The convention debated a large number of resolutions, including
some termed “emergency.” The discussions on them were informative,
and there was near-to unanimous agreement on all of them. They
covered such issues as workplace safety for super-exploited
farmworkers, opposition to provincial government cuts to
health care programs, and a recent announcement of the
closing of a wood-processing factory in the Vancouver region that
will be the 42nd wood facility to close in BC since the election
of
the Liberal Party in 2001.
(NDP Leader Carol James Met with delegates including
District 250 Directing Business Representative
Stan Pickthall With LL1857 Walter Gerlach left and LL11Andrew Tricker)
NDP
leader Carole James spoke of her participation in the
$10 minimum
wage
campaign and the fight to defend elderly
victims of
government
cutbacks to social programs,
and what
the province of BC would look like with an NDP Government.
|
