This is the text from the leaflet Common Cause distributed at the March 21, 2009 JobsFirst! labour rally in Hamilton, Ontario. The pdf is available below for download.

They Didn't Share the Wealth, Why Should We Share the Pain

For the past 30 years the rich got richer off our backs. Speed-ups, wage cuts, longer hours, precarious jobs, cuts to social services. The rich got super-profits and the rest of us got insecurity, poverty and debt. Governments have been only too happy to lend a hand.

Now that they've squandered their ill-gotten gains (along with our savings) on the global financial casino, they want to squeeze us even more to make up their losses! Layoffs, concessions, cutbacks...they are turning their crisis into our pain.

They say capitalism is broken. We say capitalism never worked for us and it is not our job to fix it now! While the unions and the NDP attempt to walk the line between fixing capitalism or supporting us, the reality is that there is no middle ground; a return to a normal rate of exploitation and misery cannot solve our problems. Their system is the problem!

So we say enough! We can be just as one-sided. We want our needs met and we could care less for their profits and their system. We want health and a clean environment, community, free time, meaningful work, housing: freedom and control over our own lives for all! For the unemployed, for students, for migrant workers, for precarious workers, for stay-at-home parents, for the factory and office workers who desire less work and more life! We want everything for us and nothing for them!

Against privatization and nationalization, we want socialization of the economy. We want to decide democratically, in workplace and community councils, how and what to produce. Our livelihoods, our communities and our environment are too important to be left in the hands of Big Business and Big Government. They need us but we don't need them!

And we know that marching alone is absolutely not enough. From Argentina to Guadeloupe, to France, Greece and the Six Nations, all who have eyes can see that fighting to win requires widespread direct action and solidarity. The General Strike, workplace and school occupations, neighbourhood assemblies, blockades and further resistance...these are the means which have proven their worth time and again in struggle. Relying on official representatives and their system has gotten us into this mess; we have no choice but to go on without or despite them.

Discuss on the Ontario forum of the Anarchist Black Cat forums.