Protest signs and work boots hang off a fence at the front gate of the Electro-Motive Diesel plant in London Ont. on Jan. 21 Photo: Mick Sweetman

By Alex Balch

There was little to celebrate this New Years Eve for workers at the Electro-Motive Canada (EMC) plant in London, Ontario. As midnight struck, the factory's 465 employees found themselves locked out of their workplace and forced into a labour dispute with one of the largest industrial equipment manufacturers in the world – Caterpillar Inc (CAT).

Common Cause supports the locked out workers of CAW Local 27 in their struggle for a living wage. The year of 2012 has begun with a blatant attack on the working class. Electromotive Canada (EMC), owned by Caterpillar, has demanded a 50 per cent wage cut and major pension and benefit concessions. When the workers refused to accept that offer the company locked them out at the start of the year. This shows that the capitalist class, aka the 1%, is only interested in their own profits and will stop at nothing to meet this goal.

The events at EMC will set the tone for the struggle against exploitation in London, Canada, and beyond. Whether this ends in victory or defeat, this struggle is important for all working people, but we must do everything we can to win. If mobilized, the power of the labour movement can stop the bosses in their tracks.

Between October 22 and October 25, Common Cause organized a speaking tour entitled “Class War On The Workfloor” in four Ontario cities (Hamilton, Toronto, Kitchener & London). The speaker was postal worker, anarchist and rank-and-file trouble maker, Rachael Stafford, from Edmonton.

Un argument pour que les survivantes(s) de viol et de violence domestique deviennent des militantes(s) syndicalistes

Liberté Locke, une militante au syndicat des travailleurs de Starbuck, écrit dans cet article la similarité entre la violence au travail et la violence sexuelle. Elle explique en effet que les agresseurs sexuels et les patrons utilisent les mêmes techniques de contrôle et qu’il nous est nécessaire de se battre contre ces deux formes d’oppression.

AVERTISSEMENT: Cet article parle du sujet de la violence sexuelle.

J’ai été violée par mon chum le 18 Août, 2006. La journée suivante, je retenais mes larmes pendant que je mentais à un inconnu au téléphone expliquant pourquoi je devais manquer ma 2e entrevue pour un emploi que j’avais besoin désespérément. Quand j’ai finalement raccroché, je reçu un nouveau message texte. ‘’ Ce n’est pas terminé. Ce ne sera jamais terminé entre nous...’’

On strike, locked out, and legislated back to work, postal workers have experienced first hand the bosses’ agenda of taking away rights workers fought for decades ago. Because postal workers are not alone in facing cutbacks, exploitation, greedy bosses, and the like, we have a lot in common with other workers, and we stand to learn a lot from each others’ struggles. The rules of the game are changing, and workers will have to start taking matters into our own hands instead of relying on elected officials in our unions or governments to make wise decisions for us.

September 3, 2011

Common Cause, an Ontario organization of working-class anarchists, would like to commend you as you embark on your historic strike against your employers.

Many of us are current or former college students and workers in the education sector and some have been on strike ourselves as unionized workers at Ontario universities.

We know that your fight is just and support you 100% as you fight for better wages and working conditions from the wealth that as workers you helped produce.

We are walking the same picket lines that you are at colleges across Ontario because while we may not be part of your bargaining unit we are all part of the same class – the working class.

We will stand with you no matter what your employers or the government try to do to break your strike and bust your union.

This summer we stood with the striking workers at Air Canada and Canada Post as the federal government forced them back to work with legislation.

by Bruce 'the Bruiser' Darden

Before the Lockout

In the spring of 2011, during the rotating strikes and subsequent lockout of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), anarchists living in southern Ontario attempted to organize support and solidarity for their working class brothers and sisters. Specifically, members of Common Cause took an active role organizing community solidarity and fightback in Toronto and Hamilton. These members did not organize under the banner of Common Cause, but participated in the activities planned by the mass organizations that these members are a part of—especially Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP); the Greater Toronto Workers' Assembly (GTWA); Steel City Solidarity (a solidarity network in Hamilton); and CUPE Locals 3902 & 3907.

June 3, 2011

Denis Lemelin
National President
Canadian Union of Postal Workers
377 Bank St.
Ottawa, ON K2P 1Y3

Brother Lemelin,

We wish to send all of the 48,000 members of CUPW our solidarity in your struggle against Canada Post's attack on CUPW member's working conditions and wages.

We are with you in your fight to prevent a two-tiered workforce where new hires are only paid 75% of what other workers make for doing the same work. Equal pay for equal work is a corner-stone of the labour movement and must never be compromised.

By Greg Macdougall
Originally published at rabble.ca | May 19, 2011

Postal service in Canadian cities is in jeopardy from next week if last-minute negotiations between Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) do not succeed in coming to an agreement. The possibility of a strike by the union or lockout by management comes into effect on midnight May 24, with a 72-hours notice being given before any such action is taken.

by Ajamu Nangwaya

BASICS Issue #23 (Nov / Dec 2010)

“Hegel remarks somewhere that all facts and personages of great importance in world history occur, as it were twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.”
– Karl Marx, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

The above quotation could have been referring to the affection for Keynesian economics by the bureaucrats in Ontario’s trade unions (organized labour).

Keynesianism is a fiscal policy approach that believes the state’s management of the overall injection of spending into the economy by government, businesses and consumers is critical to achieving full employment and economic prosperity.