From: HANLY-AT-BrandonU.CA
Date: Fri, 01 Mar 1996 11:11:10 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Re: Canada


The article Adam posted seems reasonably accurate in that it does not differ
all that much from what has been in the Canadian press, although I haven't seen
mention of the concrete barriers. The former Ontario government was an NDP
government and although Labor has a reasonable amount of influence it was
a broadly based social democratic government. Although it started out as
reasonably progressive it quickly turned about and cracked down on labor and
initiated all kinds of cutbacks to cut the deficit in response to business
pressures. However, compared to the present government is was positively
"socialist"! The public service strike is still on and there have been problems
in jails because the guards are on strike and there are only skeleton staffs
on duty. The implication of the post seems to be that the union leadership of
the strike is more right wing than the rank and file. On the whole the opposite
is the case, particularly in some of the auto unions. Some of the rank and file
oppose such things as rent control since there are among the members landlords
and indeed there was a rank and file revolt that was successful in having some
unions pull out of arrangements by which financial support was given to the
NDP. The leaders of this revolt used the organizing techniques learned at
activist workshops to forward this right wing agenda, and it worked. So much
for the revolutionary masses versus the right wing labor bureaucrats. It is
true that left activists are often choked by the union bureaucracy but to
think that the rank and file are natural leftists whose bloom is cut off
by the right wing bureaucratic labor sellouts is pure romanticism as far as I
can see, at least in many instances it is.
  Cheers, Ken Hanly 
   Cheers, Ken Hanly



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