{"id":3699,"date":"2020-09-07T15:22:21","date_gmt":"2020-09-07T19:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/?p=3699"},"modified":"2025-07-13T13:21:35","modified_gmt":"2025-07-13T17:21:35","slug":"labour-day-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/labour-day-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Labour Day 2020: Unlock labour\u2019s enormous potential to lead the struggle!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Labour<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

This Labour Day, working people and the labour movement are facing challenges not seen since the 1920s and \u201830s. A pandemic for which there is still no vaccine, an economic crisis that has left millions without work or wages, and a growing war danger \u2013 this time with nuclear and conventional weapons that could destroy the whole world. Add to this a climate change crisis that could make the planet uninhabitable, and it\u2019s a bleak picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, it\u2019s not written in stone. But changing direction will need the labour and people\u2019s movements to take decisive action to stop and reverse the reactionary corporate agenda that has brought us to the edge of the abyss. And it will require mass action to force Parliament to curb corporate power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pandemic demands that healthcare be recognized as a universal human right, and that private and for-profit health- care be abolished. In Canada this means that Medicare must be expanded to include pharmacare, dental and vision care, mental health care, and long-term care (where 82 percent of COVID deaths occurred in Canada) \u2013 which was proposed 30 years ago by the Romanow Commission. The greedy and powerful pharmaceutical companies that profiteer with high priced medicines and vaccines should be nationalized, and a new coronavirus vac- cine should be provided freely around the globe, as a human
right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The economic crisis \u2013 triggered by the pandemic but a built-in feature of capitalism \u2013 has generated huge profits for the biggest corporations and the super-rich. Elon Musk\u2019s fortune increased by $57 billion (US) this year. Jeff Bezos\u2019 fortune rose by $73 billion in 2020. The financial markets have increased by 30 percent since April 1, generating enormous wealth for the few while 7 million people \u2013 one-third of Canada\u2019s workforce \u2013 were unemployed and in desperate straits in the same period. According to Dimitry Anastakis, a historian at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, \u201cinequality is now greater than in the 1920s.\u201d Today the wealthiest 20 percent of Canadians control 67.4 percent of the country\u2019s wealth while the bottom 20 percent are drowning in debt and workers\u2019 real wages have not risen since 1975. We\u2019re not all in this together \u2013 by any stretch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cause? Neoliberal policies of free trade, privatization, deregulation, corporate tax cuts, attacks on labour and democratic rights, and vast increases in police and military spending.
The prescription? Reverse these policies. Tax the corporations and the rich; cut military spending; fund job creation; expand public services and social programs, including a universal public childcare system in Canada; and make post-secondary education free. Build affordable social housing across the country and expand value-added manufacturing and secondary industry. Close the tarsands, nationalize the oil companies and guarantee tarsands workers job in the new publicly-owned, renewable energy sector. And in the process, slash carbon emissions.
Raise wages and pensions and introduce a 32-hour work week for 40 hours pay and a guaran- teed annual livable income \u2013 not the subsistence income of social assistance. Get out of USMCA and all the job-killing corporate trade deals that have caused de-industrialization of Canada and continue to drive down real wages in this country and across the continent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Legislate EI reform that isn\u2019t a short-term fix but makes EI accessible to all the unemployed, including first-time job-seekers, for the full duration of unemployment at 90 percent of previous wages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strengthen labour and democratic rights by guaranteeing free collective bargaining and the right to strike, picket and organize in a Labour Bill of Rights. Enact plant closure legislation with teeth and protect workers\u2019 wages and pensions in bankruptcies. Defund and demilitarize the police and disarm most po- lice units. Put police under strict civilian control with the power to act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The threat of war and environmental catastrophe is also about profits \u2013 massive profits for mining companies, oil companies and the military-industrial complex in Canada. Public ownership of energy and resources, combined with a foreign policy of peace and disarmament and withdrawal from NATO, would free up billions of dollars for job creation and social spending, while making Canada and the world safer and more secure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s needed for a People\u2019s Recovery from this crisis is no secret. Much of this policy is al- ready in the CLC\u2019s policy book. It\u2019s in Unifor\u2019s policy book too, and in the policy books of the labour movement in Quebec. Everyone agrees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s missing is the fight. And that\u2019s the real issue for labour today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of \u201cco-operation with employers and right-wing governments,\u201d the labour movement must find its allies in this struggle against corporate greed and reaction, in the people\u2019s movements: the women\u2019s movement; the youth movement; unemployed and unorganized workers; with Indigenous, Black and racialized people; with immigrants and seniors; farmers and small business people; and with all those who are the victims of these policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working people need to be in this together. And the labour movement across Canada needs to unite them in a people\u2019s coalition to win the big struggle ahead for a People\u2019s Recovery.
Time is short \u2013 let\u2019s unlock labour\u2019s enormous capacity to unite and lead working people in a struggle for a future worth fighting for, for ourselves and for our children.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This Labour Day, working people and the labour movement are facing challenges not seen since the 1920s and \u201830s. <\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[106,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cpc","category-statements"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3699"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3701,"href":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3699\/revisions\/3701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}