On the day before the OFL rally in London, community members and allied trade unionists in Toronto, Hamilton, Peterborough and Kingston held a coordinated day of action against CAT retailer Battlefield CAT-Rentals. This action was carried out to show how simple it is for those outside CAW 27 to show solidarity with their working class brothers and sisters, and to hopefully inspire other people to get involved in broadening the battle against Caterpillar to include new fronts.

Below is the text of a broadsheet that was handed out at the rally in London on January 21st. You can download the broadsheet here:

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On Friday, January 20th cities across Ontario held information pickets in support of the workers in an attempt to mobilize community members to act against a union-busting employer. Secondary pickets—against Battlefield Cat Rental—were held in Toronto, Hamilton, Peterborough, and Kingston.

In Toronto, workers and neighbours from Common Cause, Greater Toronto Workers' Assembly, the Industrial Workers of the World, and CUPE 416 held picket lines while passing out handbills and talking to workers entering the truck yard. In Peterborough, the Occupy movement teamed up with IWW Peterborough Solidarity Network to sing labour songs at the gates and was congratulated by an ex-CAW 27 worker worker for helping out with the struggle. Steel City Solidarity, CUPE 3906, and members of Common Cause unfurled a 'Occupy Caterpillar' banner and handed out flyers to passing traffic in Hamilton. These groups include unionized and non-unionized workers, students, retirees, and people on OW and ODSP – we support Caterpillar workers because our struggles as working class people are all connected.

The Kingston Labour Council passed a motion in support of the secondary pickets, and headed out to the Battlefield Rental yards with Occupy Kingston holding a short secondary picket as well. During Saturday's rally in London, PSAC 610 will be doing a fax blitz on Caterpillar. These workers show that direct workplace actions can be used not just in contracts or grievances, but against the devastating effects of austerity throughout our communities. Further actions are necessary. Labour leaders have not led - we need to organize and resist ourselves!

All of us have been facing extremely hard times in our workplaces with wages being clawed back, longer hours, unstable employment without benefits. It's beginning to seem like good, stable jobs are a thing of the past. It's up to us to defend those good jobs that still remain – or else soon there won't be any left. If all of us want to have a brighter future, we need to stand together. Every workplace struggle is important - so join Electro-Motive workers on the picket lines, bring warm clothes, coffee, and most of all – solidarity. If you don't live in London, organize solidarity actions, mobilize your communities, and bring the fight to Caterpillar where you live and work!

We've already had a successful information picket, but true success demands that plant workers at Electro-Motive raise the level of resistance. The CAW has a long history of militant struggle—including plant occupations at Brampton's Caterpillar factory in 1991—and it's up to all workers to revive these methods to ensure they can maintain the gains that in the past workers struggled so hard to win.

Caterpillar's multi-billion dollar profits were not made by the CEO, the bosses or the managers, but stolen from the workers in the factories and now they want more – we cannot allow them to take it! The factory is nothing without the employees who make it run. It's time to take and hold the very machinery that they've used to pillage and steal from you. Employers like Caterpillar destroy our workplaces and communities – it's time to fight back together:

SOLIDARITY WITH ELECTRO-MOTIVE WORKERS!
NO WAGE CUTS! NO CONCESSIONS!
STRUGGLE CHANGE'S EVERYTHING!