PIRGspectives SPRING 1999

ARTICLES

• MIGRANT LABOUR
• IRAQ
• STEELTOWN LABOUR
• Why I don't do demonstrations

REVIEWS from the OPIRG RESOURCE CENTRE

• JUST TRANSPORTATION

Migrant Labourers in Mexico: The Other Face of a Beautiful Fruit, by Cindy McCulligh

A tomato is beautiful thing. Round, red, sweet, and soft, its appealing appearance is complemented by a versatile flavour which we consume with frequency and in many forms: fresh in salad, over pasta in sauce, sweetened up in the ketchup bottle. Beyond the grocery store beauty and eye-pleasing displays, however, travelling from your grocer in Hamilton to the fields in the United States, Mexico or other productive regions, that often less-than-tasty winter tomato has a history. Unfortunately, that history frequently involves the indiscriminate use of highly toxic pesticides as well as the overt exploitation of farm labourers.

Well, here we are 1 year later, 90,000 lives poorer, a million lies dumber, and faced with the same genocidal policies. It seems our occupation of Sheila Copps' constituency office last winter, our demands to be heard, our desperate pleas, and our "poignant protest"(Hamilton Spectator) at the Liberal budget christening were not enough to break the Canadian government's tacit agreement with US Secretary of State Madelaine Albright. Apparently, the war against Iraq is still "worth it"(Albright on 60 Minutes, May '96). Nor were our actions enough to compel sufficient numbers of people to act. The logic of one of the signs held outside Copps' office last winter, which read "Sanctions = Weapons of Mass Destruction", is inapplicable to the people of Iraq. Evidently, they don't count in this equation.

Let's take a look at some of the year's events here in Hamilton and abroad.

At the end of March we were privileged to have Dr. Larry Willms come to McMaster and speak about his trip to Iraq about a week after he had returned. He talked at length about his conversations with virtually helpless doctors and observations of enormous human tragedy. From supportive chemotherapy drugs to anesthetics, antibiotics and surgical gloves, essentials were frequently unavailable or in very short supply. Dr. Willms described the general collapse of the socio-economic fabric: the decline of Iraq's health ministry budget to 10% of its early 1990 level; the rise in prostitution and child labour; the destruction of vital infrastructure elements such as power, sewage and water facilities and the collapse of the dinar (from 3 $US to 1 dinar to 1 $US to 1500 dinars).

In April of '98 UNICEF published its "Situation Analysis of the State of Children and Women in Iraq - 1997", estimating "that about 1 million children under 5 were malnourished". The report showed deaths of children under 5 rise from 7000 in '89 to 27000 in '92 and on up to 57000 in '96. Iraqi GDP per capita fell from $US 3508 in 1990 to $US 761 in 1993, a drop of over 88%. A child with diarrhoea in 1990 had a 1 in 600 chance of dying; this rose to 1 in 50 by 1996 (for pneumonia, 1 in 60 in 1990 and 1 in 8 in 1996).

A sanctions review was also slated for April. Despite UNSCOM (UN weapons inspections commission) claims of renewed Iraqi cooperation after UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's palace inspection agreement (which saved Iraq from American aggression in February) and the continuation of death and deprivation under sanctions, no easing or lifting of the embargo occurred.

Further frustrations in the UNSCOM inspection process, including positive American tests for VX nerve gas on Iraqi missile fragments compared with French and Swiss negatives, and the installation of cameras and other spying devices by American intelligence, combined with the continuation of sanctions to lead the Iraqi regime to choose an end cooperation once again. This first occurred in August and intensified throughout the fall, culminating in new bombing threats from the Anglo-American coalition (backed by Canada and others) in early November. We had been meeting and organizing, holding movie nights and writing letters. We decided to start holding vigils in front of Hamilton City Hall once again.

When the bombing threats subsided with a new Iraqi compromise, we entered a short interim period, a fragile peace. UNSCOM began another wave of inspections in late November and early December and came out dissatisfied, providing a pretext for the criminal 4-day bombardment by US and British forces from December 16th through 19th. Reactions of outrage - both within and without governments around the world - were widespread, though no serious challenges - diplomatic or otherwise - were offered. The Global Movement held daily vigils at city hall in protest of this blatant act of aggression and in solidarity with the Iraqi people.

This brings us to the current period, riddled with American acts of "defense" of its self-imposed no-fly zones and jostling in the UN over the future of UNSCOM and overall policy on Iraq. Canada has just taken up its temporary seat on the 15 member United Nations Security Council and is poised to take positive actions to end Anglo-American aggression and the suffering of the Iraqi people and also propose fair, realistic plans for peace in the Middle East. Whether or not Canada in fact acts justly, constructively and compassionately on this matter depends, in large part, upon Canadians. To the end of helping Canadians understand the situation in Iraq, Canadian foreign policy in this area, and what they have to do to encourage a solution, the group is currently attempting to organize an evening of discussion where members of parliament, professors, students and the community can come together and talk about this important matter.

If you would like to join our email list, you can click here to e-mail us or Click here to visit our website. If you are interested in joining the Global Movement to End the War against Iraq you can go to OPIRG McMaster in Hamilton Hall room 210, or call 905-525-9140 ext. 27289, or email opirg@mcmaster.ca

Despite ample student participation on campus, our community involvement often ends at the gates that guard the ivory tower. Even after five years as a Mac undergrad, I keenly felt my ignorance of the broader Hamilton community and its rich civil society.

One of the most important of these groups, because of the sheer number of Hamiltonians it represents, is the Hamilton & District Labour Council (HDLC). This local manifestation of the Canadian Labour Congres (CLC) has a membership base of more than 50,000 workers, or close to 80% of the unionized workforce of the region.

Labour organizations and cooperation between them existed in Hamilton as early as the 1840s. The HDLC was officially founded in 1882 as the Hamilton Trades and Labour Council. The current incarnation was chartered in 1954, and it plays many roles in our community.

HDLC representatives serve on various committees and boards, including advisory panels at McMaster and Mohawk, the board of the District Health Council, the Community Services Board, and the Downtown Partnership.

Over the years it has played a more direct role in municipal politics by fielding and backing candidates in local elections. The HDLC puts together a Municipal Program, which candidates must endorse in order to get the council’s support.

Although the labour council spends some time on campaigns initiated by the CLC or the Ontario Federation of Labour, president Wayne Marston estimates that probably three quarters of its time is spent on local issues.

Another function of the council is to support member locals involved in disputes with employers. In the rare event that a member local is involved in strike action, its first line of support is its own national or international union. Customarily, the HDLC becomes involved at the local’s request after the strike has lasted more than 30 days.

The council has also participated in various community campaigns. Last summer it lent its support to residents of the North End in demanding a public inquiry into the Plastimet fire. The efforts to preserve St. Peter’s Hospital and the Hamilton Psychiatric Hospital have been of great concern, because various member locals represent the staff at those institutions.

The HDLC has been a staunch opponent of the Red Hill Creek Expressway, although in the early nineties it did support a compromise proposal that would have seen a reduced version of the freeway built. But in Marston’s words, “that died so we reverted to our regular position.”

Individual locals of CLC affiliated unions can select whether to join their local labour council. In Hamilton, each local gets to send 2 delegates for its first 150 members and 1 delegate for each 150 members after that, to a maximum of 15. The council functions by standard democratic procedures.

In fact, “in the union movement...you have the most democratic organizations in this country,” says Marston. At union local meetings, the members “can put any motion on the floor as long as it’s not a direct violation of the [union’s] constitution. Period. They want to put a motion on the floor that says we want to affiliate with the Marxist-Leninists or affiliate with Reform, either of which might be just as bad in some peoples’ view, then that’s that if there’s a majority vote. Now you take a look at Mike Harris’ Ontario. His own backbenchers can’t do anything, much less anyone else.”

I went to one of the first Hamilton rallies by the Ontario Public Service Employee's Union (OPSEU) against the Harris Government. An impressive crowd of union members marched from City Hall to the Howard Johnson's Hotel where Harris was speaking at a fund-raiser. I stood and listened to the crowd chant "Hey-Hey! Ho-Ho! Mike Harris has got to go!" over and over. I waited for them to stop and begin to do something. I'd missed the opening speeches at City Hall, perhaps something of substance was said there. Perhaps the intention of the protestors was simply to make a lot of noise and disrupt the proceedings inside. If that was the goal it doesn't seem to have worked. I only found it frustrating. But I waited, hoping that maybe eventually something would happen. I waited and waited. I went and got a coffee. I came back. They were still chanting "Mike Harris has got to go!" I left. And now, two years later, Mike Harris is still here.

I've attended, or stood by sympathetically, at demonstrations for prisoner's rights, the environment, anti-war issues and for economic justice. At these events I noticed that the protestors looked meek, weak, sad and few. From passers-by I gathered that the demonstrators evoked either feelings of pity, derision, or indifference.

I attended the "Days of Action" in Toronto (I'd also attended day one of the Hamilton rally, however I was carrying a three-year old on my shoulders the whole time and I didn't get to experience much.) and at first I feared it would be a total write-off. The first day, Friday, one of scattered protests throughout Toronto looked like nothing so much as tiny bands of frightened people waving their fists at impassive stone, steel and glass giants. The one exception was an exuberant gathering outside the Royal Ontario Museum where "arty" types had pedestrians dancing to the live music they were playing, and where the carnival effect of their costumes and "one-of-a kind" signs made me think about what might have been. On the second day, Saturday, the day of the massive parade and rally to Queen's Park, I got to what I'd thought was the meeting place and saw only a few small groups standing around waving signs. My stomach tightened. "It's flopped." I thought. Then I found out that I was a couple of blocks north of the designated area. I went up a hill and over a bridge and down below I saw thousands upon thousands of people. I got in with the crowd from Hamilton and we waited for the march to start. As we marched I kept out of attempted sing-alongs of "Solidarity Forever" and other classics from the working class songbook. (I don't know the words.)

As we made our way down University Avenue I began to feel more and more uplifted by being in the presence of hundreds of thousands of people who were taking a stand for decency. (Yes, it was hundreds of thousands, the crowd filled the Queen's Park lawn and was a solid mass of humanity all the way to Front Street.) By decency, I don't mean the white-bread jumble of confusion practiced by "social conservatives." I'm talking about respect for human rights, concern for the environment, belief in democracy, everything the Harris government is not. The word that came to my mind was "decency." I felt that we were many, strong, and united. I continued to feel that way during the songs, the speeches, everything, throughout the long afternoon. I especially remember a group perched atop a statue of some Victorian politician, two members of the group waving flags. One was the black flag of Anarchy, the other that of the First Nations. I wished I'd brought my camera. But still, I noticed, and I got a sense that many others noticed it too, there was no talk about specific solutions for the mess we had all found ourselves in. There was talk about "fighting back." But how? "Organize! Educate! Resist!" Around what? About what? How?

Still and all, I had a great time. I couldn't wait to see the media's reaction. The newspapers and television people had been a wee bit surprised at the one hundred thousand-person turnout in Hamilton. Even though the coverage had been generally negative it did convey respect for the numbers that had come out. It appeared, however, that the guardians of public opinion had learned their lessons by the time of the Toronto rally. In retrospect, it seems obvious. The capitalists (that's what they call themselves after all), who own the media would rather not give any recognition to their enemies' strength. The story was buried and subsequent smaller rallies are ignored even more successfully. My conclusion? Getting a crowd of like-minded people together to express solidarity is a great thing. Not being able to articulate specific plans of action frustrates people. The media can successfully ignore the largest political rally in the nation's history if it wants to. They will ignore everything else or denigrate it if they do cover it. You will not get your message across through the mass media.

One reason why I'm reluctant to take a visible stand for issues of social justice and human rights is a personal one. I'm a coward and I spent a considerable part of my apolitical twenties as an obnoxious public drunk, and I just feel that my appearance would be more of a liability than an asset should I be recognized by any of my numerous victims. However, had I been an upstanding model citizen in the past I'm afraid that I would still avoid demonstrations due to their total ineffectiveness. This includes not only those isolated protests attended by a few, courageous, eccentrically dressed social-assistance recipients. Alas, this also includes those large protest rallies organized by the labour movement, including the "Days of Action." One and all, I believe these demonstrations to be less than useless. They take up time, energy, resources and they accomplish nothing. The tiny demonstrations held by committed social activists merely reveal the isolation and powerlessness of activist opposition to the corporate agenda. At the same time, it is my impression that the large gatherings of tens of thousands that only express anger and disagreement without offering solutions and ultimatums show the disarray of the forces of the left. Five hundred thousand people at Parliament Hill chanting "Hey-hey! Ho-ho!" will not impress our enemies. After all, the forces of the status quo make it their job to disregard the wishes of millions of Canadians each and every day. Unless some new thinking is offered more pointless gatherings will only serve to dispirit and discourage their participants.

I think that one of the weaknesses of demonstrations comes out of a misconception of their past effectiveness. Perhaps the most effective example is the mass public protest against the Vietnam War in the United States. There is a belief that the widespread civil disobedience and huge demonstrations had at least as much to do with ending American involvement in Vietnam as did the military tenacity of the Vietnamese. Can one seriously argue that the American retreat, excruciatingly drawn-out and duplicitous, would have occurred in the absence of staggering losses in manpower and treasure? At best, the demonstrations were an additional irritant and then only when they turned violent. (Even here the authorities usually provided the violence.)

The same goes for those Civil Rights demonstrations of the sixties. Certainly, peaceful protest achieved a significant amount of nominal political equality for blacks in the United States. However as the Freedom Riders and the activists trying to register blacks to vote discovered, written guarantees of basic rights didn't mean that one could effectively use those rights. Frustration at the amount of abuse they endured for the limited gains that had been made began to make the situation extremely volatile. No one can deny that it was fear of a general social conflagration that made the political elites in the United States work more seriously at enforcing and expanding the basic human rights of blacks. All the accolades for non-violence are well taken. But we should not let our enthusiasm for non-violence distort our understanding of how things happened. Peaceful protest could accomplish something if the powers that be had the slightest concern for respecting the opinions of people with views different from their own. Mike Harris, Jean Chretien and their ilk have proven time and again that they do not. This does not mean that I am calling for violence. I'm saying that standing around, holding signs and chanting slogans is no way to effect change. Even the picketing at labour disputes has to be recognized as a secondary part of the whole process. Working class victories do not result from a few people wearing signs saying that the company is unfair. They are won by frightening employers with the economic damage caused by the withdrawing of labour from the production process. Pickets are used to bring striking workers together to share determination and to monitor the situation at the workplace. When we look at movements for social change we should always look behind the images of marches and speeches and try to find out where violence, the threat of violence, power, or the possibility of power had a role in bringing about concessions from ruling elites. Similarly, we should look at the role of dissension among the elites themselves before we get carried away imagining that through good behaviour we can get our message across in spite of all the obstacles. A good example of this was the interruption of the propaganda exercise on CNN, the "town hall" meeting about bombing Iraq, by peace activists. The fact of the matter is that CNN's owner, Ted Turner, was adamantly opposed to bombing and personally pleaded with Clinton not to go through with it. Was it really luck and perseverance that got those protestors on the air during what was supposed to be a tightly choreographed affair? Or did Turner allow those people to talk in between the hawkish flag waving that took up much of the event?

What should we do then? In the absence of violence, which is discrediting and likely doomed to defeat, protests can be effective if they are focused on specific and attainable goals. These demands must be clearly articulated to the target of the protest and they must be backed up with easily carried-out threats. I am as uncomfortable with all things military as the next person, however, with political activism we must think in strategic terms. Instead of resembling a mass of barbarians rushing out onto the field and getting slaughtered by a disciplined, skilled army, we must take an accounting of our strengths and abilities, and our weaknesses, and adapt ourselves to the realities of the situation. Blind loyalty to tactics that have never worked, ie; peaceful picketing, is suicide.

The biggest impediment to making mass rallies a focus for effecting real change is the current absence of a genuine left alternative to rally around. At the "Days of Action" in Toronto the organizers couldn't say that we should all organize to elect an NDP government to sweep all this Tory crap aside and implement our agenda. Many in the Ontario Federation of Labour didn't trust the NDP. I personally feel that disillusionment with the NDP is a reasonable position to hold. However, the alternative to political organization is mass protest to effect immediate change. By mass protest I don't mean quiet, polite marching and standing around saying nice things. I mean disruption. I mean shutting things down and keeping them down, and physically resisting efforts by your enemies to set things back up again. Even then, the absence of a political alternative makes mass protest a defensive, "reactionary" (I can't think of another word) thing. In the past, mass rallies frightened the rulers either because there was a chance that they could become violent, or because they were mobilized in support of a political movement that could conceivably alter the status quo. "Social Movements" focused around various individual causes are finding themselves lost among all the other pleas for attention and justice. In the absence of a political force through which their various separate agendas can be realized, they appear as just so many supplicants with their hands out for scraps of charity from the corporate establishment and a society bewildered and apathetic from the stresses neo-liberalism continues to impose.

In conclusion, I guess I'm saying that I will probably stay away from protests and marches until such a time as they become effective tactical weapons. (I realize that here I'm assuming someone else will be doing all this work. For the present, at least, I plead guilty.) I have no more illusions about getting a message out through public protest. If the demonstration is large, but mobilized behind an issue at odds with the agenda of the corporate media it will not be reported. If it is small than it will be merely another dispiriting embarrassment which the participants would do well to hope is not reported on. I would make an exception for festivals, concerts, discussions, and other venues to celebrate left culture and left issues. I think getting people out in large numbers, talking together, even dare I say it, spending money on books, bands, music, art and on worthy causes, would be a better use of energy than the futile activity that has been going on up to now.

Just Transportation: Dismantling Race & Class Barriers to Mobility edited by Robert D. Bullard and Glenn S. Johnson. Vancouver: New Society Publishers, 1997. 188 pages. REVIEWED BY SCOTT NEIGH

The Great HSR Strike of '98/'99 hurt. I met a man in his seventies who walked all the way from Stoney Creek to downtown Hamilton for a doctor's appointment, and a woman who lost her new job (found after three years of unemployment) because she couldn't get to work. The HSR's own figures state that more than 50,000 trips are made on the bus system every day, and of the people who take public transit, 85% depend on it.

Just Transportation is a collection of essays which discuss the environmental and social justice implications of transportation issues. I found it a little heavy on the regulatory and legal side, and since it was all American material, the technicalities were not directly relevant to Canada. Nonetheless, the exhaustive series of case studies was very informative. For one thing, it made me thankful. Hamilton's public transit may be a shadow of Paris, London, Glasgow, or Vancouver, but it is miles better than many cities in the U.S. And the HSR management may seem distant and unresponsive, but just imagine trying to influence the transit authorities in New York or Los Angeles, who have only pseudo-democratic oversight and budgets in excess of $3 billion annually.

Still, many of the problems discussed in this book are very relevant to Hamilton. In several of its examples, transportation money is being disproportionately invested in roads and freeways over public transit, to the advantage of rich suburbanites but the detriment of inner city inhabitants. We see this in Hamilton: according to numbers submitted to the Region's Budget Steering Committee in January, capital funding levels for car-friendly projects are already much higher than that for public transit. Worse, in the proposed 1999-2008 ten year capital budget the region wants to increase the spending on roads and the freeway by $6 million and reduce the levels for HSR and DARTS by almost $20 million compared to what was approved for 1998-2007.

One essay talks about a freeway in Los Angeles which will go through two neighbourhoods that are primarily white and middle class, and one which is mostly poor, black, and Latino. Almost all engineering efforts to mitigate the impact of the expressway are scheduled for the white neighbourhoods. There is also a history of development in New Orleans, where in the sixties a freeway planned for an old, white neighbourhood was blocked on the grounds of preserving its historical character, and then eventually routed through a nearby black neighbourhood where it destroyed many historically significant buildings and ruined the community's local economic life.

In Hamilton, we have the battle over the Red Hill Creek Expressway. It will predominantly help truck traffic from other places get to the United States more quickly, and perhaps make it easier to drive between Stoney Creek and Ancaster. It will destroy a huge natural area, kill tens of thousands of trees, and pave over the last natural connection between the Niagara Escarpment and Lake Ontario. Its siting will disproporionately affect poorer East Hamilton neighbourhoods, and its presence will suck money from other things, including public transit. Beyond the capital expenses, according to Regional Councillor Dave Braden, it will cost around $660 million over 75 years just in maintenance.

The inspiring message of these essays is that grassroots activism, augmented by legal and regulatory measures, can work. With the recent bus strike and the pending federal environmental assessment of the Expressway, transportation issues have a high profile in Hamilton-Wentworth. Local activists must take advantage of this spotlight and press for changes that will make our transportation patterns less environmentally destructive and more equitable.