Quebec Spring: no compromise – all out for victory!

May 27, 2012 By KD Tait Leave a Comment

For a general strike!

After the Arab Spring, the Quebec Spring. Mass protests by students opposed to a 75% rise in tuition fees have escalated into an inspirational social movement, resisting government attempts to crush the movement through a violent police crackdown.

Now the movement is at a crossroads. While hundreds of thousands continue to mobilise, some student leaders are preparing the ground for a compromise with the government.

This article looks at how students and youth can build on the movement’s success and what kind of resistance is necessary to prevent a sell-out and defeat the government.

Throughout this week mass demonstrations flared across Quebec as students marked 100 days of resistance to government attacks on Higher Education.

More than 200,000 students from three student federations have been engaged in three months of bitter struggle to stop tuition fees rising by more than £1000 a year.

A boycott was organised on 13 February, which rapidly snowballed into 14 continuous days of demonstrations in towns and cities across the province.

Students and workers unite

Students in Quebec have a radical tradition of defending education for themselves and future generations. Student strikes in 1996 and 2005 ensured that fees in Quebec remained significantly lower than elsewhere in Canada.

This knowledge is undoubtedly very important in convincing students that direct action and mass participation is what is necessary to mount a successful resistance.

But students alone cannot win against the government. That’s why the youth resistance of winter 2010 in Britain was ultimately defeated. Canadian students have not made the same mistake.

Trade unions have donated $90,000 to student federations, and opposition parties have been vocal in their support for the protests.

The implications of this social solidarity are already becoming apparent. The protests have succeeded in forcing a national debate on an unpopular government, which is mired in corruption scandals.

The strength of the movement is worrying for the government, but the growing links between students and the working-class movement threatens to move the struggle into a different league.

The two main unions, who both support the protests, organise more than a million workers in many different industries. Together they have the power to apply real economic pressure on Quebec Premier Jean Charest’s liberal government.

The potential power of a united students’ and workers’ movement is terrifying for the government. That’s why Charest has continuously escalated the repression against the movement.

Repression

Impotent in the face of a social uprising, the government has resorted to passing emergency laws (Bill 78) which ban unauthorised protest and limit the rights of education workers to strike.

The police have enthusiastically carried out this crackdown, staging mass arrests of protestors at many demonstrations and seriously injuring dozens of people.

In response to the passing of Bill 78, 400,000 people marched through the streets of Montreal.

Far from silencing the resistance, Bill 78 has provoked fury amongst huge numbers of Quebecois who were previously indifferent to the students’ demands.

Unsurprisingly business leaders welcomed the measures, acknowledging that they are not the potential allies of the movement, but committed to the defence of the status quo and a police force which exists to defend the interests of property-owners.

The government has declared its intention to ‘restore calm’ to Quebec society. The ‘calm’ that the capitalist representatives want to impose on us is the calm of rubber bullets, tear-gas and sound grenades.

No time for compromise

The attack on the right to strike and freedom of assembly is an attack on all of us. The measures demonstrate the weakness of the government – it has lost the argument and now resorts to violence to force through its pro-business agenda.

At the moment in which the movement threatens to unite much broader layers and escape the control of the big student federations, is the moment that Leo Bureau-Blouin, president of Quebec’s college student federation, had this to say:

“We are ready for a compromise — and if the Quebec government is ready for it too, I think we can come to something,”

“If the Quebec government agreed to move on the amount of the tuition fee hike, I think it would be a great step in the right direction.”

Bureau-Blouin, whose terms ends on 1 June fears that the movement is starting to escape the control of him and his fellow bureaucrats.

The government is on the defensive, we should press forward with our demands and accept nothing less than total victory.

Students now face enemies within and without the movement. Those who would compromise with the illegitimate government open the door to privatisation. They condemn generations of furture students to an overpriced, sub-standard education. They betray the sacrifices of tens of thousands who are fighting now to ensure social provision for the future.

It is at this critical time where the government will attempt to drive a wedge between ‘moderate’ and ‘hardline’ students. It will offer measly concessions to those who return to class, while intensifying repression against those who dare to remain on the streets.

We refuse all attempts at compromise and say that we must not back down in the face of state violence and divide-and-rule tactics.

If the movement is to succeed against those who now seek to demobilise and restrain the youth, then the question of democratic control of the movement must be considered our most urgent task.

The representatives of student federation CLASSE, which is committed to free education have insisted that any deal would have to be decided by democracy of the students. This means the general assemblies organised within university campuses and faculties.

This is positive and a lesson in democracy for the privileged bureaucrats of our own National Union of Students.

However, the movement has now grown beyond the limits of student unionism. The actions of the government are an attack on the working class of Quebec, and set a dangerous precedent.

If we back down in the face of this intimidation, we will simply send the message that repression works. If the students are beaten, the hospital and education workers will be next on Charest’s chopping block.

Escalate the struggle – all out for victory!

Hundreds of thousands of youth and workers have led a heroic resistance for three months. Their only support comes from the collective organisations of the working class and the declarations of solidarity from youth in struggles across the world.

The repression of their movement is not condemned by the world’s great powers – indeed Charest has the full support of the Canadian and US governments, determined to send the message that resistance is futile.

Resistence is necessary, victory is possible.

But this means that the Quebec youth must escalate their struggle – it needs to be turned into a class struggle against the government’s austerity.

If the social movement aims to win it must first win the ability to organise amongst the wider masses. Popular committees will draw in the unemployed, school students, non-union workers and pensioners.

Students should form joint strike committees in every school, university and workplace to enable the democratic control of united action between students and workers.

Regional committees composed of recallable delegates can co-ordinate national action and mobilise for an all-out offensive against the government.

These popular committees will pile the pressure on the official leaders of the students’ and workers’ unions. If these official leaders try to backtrack or sell-out, we’ll have the means to organise action independently.

Against the repression of the police and private mercenaries employed by the state and big business we call for the self-organised defence of our demonstrations, meetings and right to protest.

Together these tactics can provide the basis for a movement capable of combining democracy and unity in a class-wide resistance whose ultimate aim cannot be anything less than the fall of the Charest government.

This means a general strike, where the demands, tactics and aims are controlled through the democratic structures uniting the workers and youth.

Victory in Quebec will send the message that we reject austerity and we are prepared and capable of defeating any government that tries to make working people pay for the capitalists’ crisis.

REVOLUTION says:

Students and workers unite and fight – joint strike committees to prevent a sellout!
Down with police violence – for organised self-defence against the state!
For a general strike to bring down the government!
Victory to the Quebec Spring – for international solidarity!

PROTEST: Solidarity with Quebec Protestors

Wednesday 30 May, 6pm, Canada House, Trafalgar Sq

more info here

Filed Under: Education, International, News Tagged With: canada, education, General strike, international, protest, quebec spring, Students, Unions

Strikes, occupations and the rising of the enraged

November 7, 2011 By Anton Tsoika Leave a Comment

BRITAIN’S trade unions have called for a day of coordinated strike action on 30 November over the increasing pensions row in the public sector. Unison, Unite, the GMB, the TUC and the Fire Brigades Union were among those who gave notice of ballots for a day of industrial action. It is estimated that up to 3 million public sector workers, with at least 14 unions committing to strikes, will engage in some form of industrial action over government pension reforms. The strike follows the coalition’s ever deepening attacks on the public sector, universal education and welfare system.

For many of us witnessing these current events and hearing about them on the news, a general strike may be rather an abstract or lost concept. Is it still an appropriate action to take? Where does it take us? Why is one necessary?

Many have asked what power do ordinary people have in the face of the government and the police apparatus? Indeed we witnessed the brutal repression of those protesting for their right to free education during the student movement of 2010. Scenes of police kettles and the subsequent horse charges into defenseless students are proof of this.

The revival of social movements as the agent of change certainly looks like a very convincing argument as these events unfold. We are told that class politics and ideologies centred around industrial action were dead, assigned to the pages of history. Yet numbers alone won’t be enough to shake the foundations of the system we live in. Demonstrations and mass direct action can only do so much, as the antiwar movement of 2003 has taught us. We have to ask ourselves what we can do to actually stop the cuts and save the NHS, pensions, benefits and education. In sum, how to bring down the gvernment to save our welfare state.

The Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky said that a general strike always brings to the surface a question of the relationship of power.

The current coalition, through its ‘big society’ and ‘fairness’ can be seen mimicking the attacks of Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. What we are witnessing is the classic contradiction first argued by Karl Marx when he wrote about the relationship of capital to labour. In order for capitalism to survive as a system it must create an ideal economic market of exploitation. In times of crises it must burn out and retransform itself, no matter the human cost.

Thatcher focused on such national industries as the mines, the docks, the print. This time round, Cameron and Osborne place their beady little eyes upon the NHS, what remains of our free universal education and of course the welfare system at large.

They assume that society is best organized around the individual. Thatcher famously said: ‘there is no society, there is but the individual’. Those who see past these sickening views will understand why we must organize and fight.

In order to really defeat these cuts, we must draw our attention to the economic errors of the current system, yet make our battle political. This is what a general strike is all about. A general strike which stops production and services, will empower the working class and the social movement.

Despite the great potential for change, we should not let ourselves be fooled into thinking that a mass strike is the same as a general one. A strike in the public sector does not necessarily lead to a cross-sector general strike. A general strike will be opposed until pressure from below becomes too great to resist. Organizations of the rank and file based in and around the workplace, mass meetings, strike committees and local councils of action must be set up.

November 30 is our chance to award this movement a revolutionary character, a chance to build a new anti-capitalist party and a new society.

We need a general strike, launched from below and maintained from below by all those willing to fight for a new future.

Read more:

Call for a General Strike

#Occupy resists police brutality

N30: strike out on the road to resistance

Filed Under: Indepth, Magazine, News, Workers Tagged With: enraged, General strike, indignant, indignes, Lenin, marx, occupation, occupy, resistance, social movement, Thatcher

Sign our call for a general strike

June 22, 2011 By sean89bowiecat Leave a Comment

The Con-Dems are trying to wreck our services, our lives and our futures. In Egypt, Tunisia, Spain, France, Greece, Portugal, to name but a few, trade unions have organised general strikes supported by millions of people across their respective countries. We believe it is time for a general strike in this country too, with the aim of stopping the cuts and breaking the ConDem coalition.

We’d like as many young people as possible to sign the call for a general strike in the run up to the mass strike on 30 June and beyond. Here’s how you can help.

1) Sign the call

2) Ask all your friends to sign it to!

3) Post it on Twitter and Facebook, email it, share it around!

4) Sign up your friends by taking round this sign-up sheet, and email the details to [email protected]

Filed Under: Workers Tagged With: General strike

Youth take a hit for the bosses – time to fight back

June 17, 2011 By Sally Turner 1 Comment

As the government ramps up its slash-and-burn austerity, the numbers out of work are hitting the highest levels for decades. Among the millions for whom capitalism can find no useful work are more than 1 million 16-24 year olds, with 50% of young Black people unemployed.

A recent report revealed that there are only 3 regions in the country keen to increase employment for young people.

As hundreds of thousands of students return home looking for summer work, many employers have other ideas – fighting rising costs and low sales by cutting wages and jobs.

The survey found that West Yorkshire is the worst region for employing young people, with nearly two-thirds of companies saying they would not recruit within the age range of 18-24. This is incredibly worrying as the Tories cut EMA, triple tuition fees and yet young people can’t get the work to fund their education.

Recent data shows that tens of thousands of older workers are putting off retirement by remaining in employment beyond the state retirement age; this is due to pensions being cut massively, the pension age raised and wage-freezes which have meant in reality a 10% real-terms pay cut for millions of workers.

The effects of cuts to pay and pensions alongside profiteering by energy companies has contributed to a sharp rise in the number of workers taking on two or more jobs simply to earn enough money to feed their families. This means that around 25% of people in Britain are regularly working more than 50 hours a week.

However we should not blame older workers for taking up jobs instead of retiring. Vicious cuts to education and jobs have left a million 16-24 year-olds not in education, employment or training. With universities slowly becoming the privilege of the rich and working for your dole a harsh reality for youth, it is clear that the blame lies squarely with the bosses and their 18% pay rises.

Apparently “employers blamed a lack of experience and poor timekeeping. They also said poor verbal and spoken communication skills, a lack of drive and commitment, poor written skills and inappropriate dress and appearance were other factors.”

Of course, without opportunities to get experience and develop in a working environment they’re not going to be able to excel.

Work for young people under capitalism means call-centres, check-outs and shelf-stacking. It is no surprise that young people don’t reach their full potential when faced with menial work in bad conditions with worse pay.

All this is to say nothing of the unacceptable age discrimination - the consequences of stereotyping disabled people as “inarticulate, lazy and unmotivated” are rightly serious.

Yet employers are allowed to discriminate against young people and their work ethic using the most disparaging terms. This attitude is made official through the lower minimum wage rates for younger people doing the same work.

Ultimately this serves to reinforce young people’s dependence on their parents, which limits their ability to leave home to find work or study.

The credit crunch generation faces a job market which is ruthlessly shedding as many ‘surplus’ workers as possible as capitalists cut costs to protect their profits. Instead of gaining skills and experience, young people are swelling the ranks of the unemployed millions.

The Con-Dem’s way out of the crisis will come at the expense of our schools, jobs and public services – and young people have shown that we will fight back by any means necessary.

The Con-Dems are trying to wreck our services, our lives and our futures. In Egypt, Tunisia, Spain, France, Greece, Portugal, trade unions have organised general strikes supported by millions of people.

We believe it is time for a general strike in this country too, with the aim of stopping the cuts and breaking the ConDem coalition.

Add your name to the call here

Filed Under: Cuts, Education, Liberation, News, Youth Oppression Tagged With: education, General strike, jobs, pay cuts, Tuition Fees, Youth, youth oppression

Another general strike hits Greece – but is it enough to win?

June 15, 2011 By John Bowman 1 Comment

Mass anger has again hit the streets of Athens in a general strike against the austerity measures killing the country.

To comply with IMF and EU bailouts, the Greek parliament is voting on whether to accept yet another cuts package – this time equivalent to $40.5 billion.

But as in Ireland, it seems that cuts are having no impact on the country’s credit rating. Credit agency Standard & Poor have just graded it at CCC – the worst credit rating on their books. Worse even than Pakistan or Jamaica.

Today’s strike – bringing out hundreds of thousands of trade unionists, youth, families and communities out on to the demonstrations – is the tenth general strike in Greece since the crisis began.

Perhaps that is not surprising. The Greek economy is in utter chaos, with workers and the youth and poor paying the heaviest price. Unemployment is over 15 per cent, public sector wages have been cut by a quarter, and the working week has been extended.

Anger is growing at every section of capitalist society. Reporting from the protests today, Newsnight editor Paul Mason said the corporate media were coming under particular fire for their sea of propaganda aimed at portraying more cuts and more hardship as the only way out.

Greek society is furious at the ‘Socialist’ Papandreou government that have reneged on a promise not raise taxes, and their plans to privatise vast swathes of the country’s remaining public services.

They are angry too at countries such as Britain, and Germany in particular, whose governments are leading the charge for more Greek cuts in exchange for the EU bailouts. But protesters are showing solidarity with anti-cuts movements across Europe too. Young protesters have adopted the slogans taken up by the recent Spanish youth protests in which they occupied city centres in tents to demand jobs.

Today’s general strike shows the continuing determination of Greek youth and workers to fight the cuts. And they know that the EU and IMF alternative would make life hell for everyone. One MP has resigned stating that to vote for the cuts would be “as cruel as a tiger.”

However, some facts are becoming abundantly clear, the most obvious being that one- day general strikes, even ten one-day general strikes(!) are not sufficient to slow or halt the attacks in Greece.

That is because the crisis in Greece is so severe that capitalist solutions, be they the monetarist or Keynesian simply cannot resolve the situation without inflicting absolute misery on millions of Greeks.

The Greek prime minister has now offered to resign because of the strike and the violent clashes, in favour of a national unity government.

There is now a need of absolute urgency for an indefinite general strike: not to force negotiations, or even just to bring down the cutters in parliament, which has been achieved. But to defeat the entire offensive by the capitalists, overthrow them and nationalise the economy under workers’ control and bring an end to the very system of capitalism its self.

Filed Under: Cuts, International, Workers Tagged With: General strike

June 30: strike, march and organise to bring down the coalition

June 7, 2011 By Tom Guest 2 Comments

June 30th will see four unions bring nearly 1 million workers out on strike, in the largest co-ordinated action for decades.

The UCU, ATL, NUT- unions for lecturers, academics and school teachers- and the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) are balloting their members over the government’s proposed pension reforms.

Pay more for less

Currently teachers’ pensions are based on their final salary or what they are earning when they retire.

The Con-Dems want to change this so pensions are linked to average lifetime earnings.

Clearly this is a measure that will have serious implications for those approaching retirement, and will disproportionately affect women, who are more likely to be in precarious employment and are, throughout a career, more likely to lose earnings by taking time off to care for their children.

Workers are being bled dry: expected to work longer and pay more into their pensions only to receive less on retirement. The state pension will also be ‘simplified’ to a standard flat rate of £155 a week, making no distinction between poor and wealthy, and people will have to work longer to be eligible for it.

The implications for today’s youth, many already struggling to find decent jobs are terrifying.

Don’t believe the hype

Every time workers go on strike to defend their jobs and pay the government and the bosses’ media whips up a divide-and-rule frenzy around ‘selfish teachers wrecking the kids’ education’ or public servants trying to maintain their ‘gold-plated’ pensions at the expense of everyone else.

But while the threat to pensions is very real, the strikes are about much more than this.

The action on June 30th reflects the massive opposition to the Coalition’s austerity drive which claims to put the ‘national interest’ above all other concerns.

But as Vince Cable revealed when he threatened to punish workers if they took strike action, this ‘national interest’ in reality is nothing more than a euphemism for promoting the interests of profiteering bosses who demand the wholesale privatisation of our universities, our schools and our NHS.

What we say

The government seeks to destroy our welfare state and make millions of ordinary people pay for the bankers’ crisis.

These strikes represent the start of industrial resistance to the devastating consequences of the economic crisis. Since the financial crash in 2008, the bosses have taken advantage of the unions’ silence to destroy a million jobs and dump the cost of their crisis onto the young, the disabled and the poor.

In this context, the strikes are a promising and necessary development. To avoid June 30th becoming an act of symbolic resistance, we must make these strikes a springboard for a summer of anti-austerity activism which will galvanise momentum for a planned 4 million-strong autumn strike when the millions-strong Unison and Unite unions enter the field.

Many rank-and-file trade union members see the mass layoffs, pay cuts and attacks on pensions as part of a more general profit-driven assault on our services and standard of living: the tripling of university fees and Lansley’s Health and Social Care bill shows the government is determined to turn over the services we have fought and paid for to private companies who will run them in the interests of profit rather than public need.

The attempted pension reforms are part of the government’s strategy to reduce workers’ pay and conditions in order to make these services cheaper and more attractive to millionaire investors.

Breaking the unions in the public sector is vital to the government’s privatisation scheme. This has become obvious for thousands of trade unionists: the establishing of the rank-and-file Grass Roots Left within the Unite union is evidence that workers are increasingly willing to pull to the left of the trade union leadership as the question of the survival of public services puts the need for resistance to the fore.

The unions

Unite, in retreating from their ‘slower cuts good – fast cuts bad’ mantra of the 26th March demonstration, have joined the PCS union in a tangible shift in rhetoric, signing a joint statement stating their commitment to fighting ‘the vicious and unnecessary cuts being imposed by Government’ and to oppose ‘the wholesale privatisation of social and welfare services… The impact of these cuts on working people and the communities in which we live will be devastating with the most vulnerable facing a relentless attack on their dignity and social standing.’

Unite leader, Len McCluskey, speaking at the PCS conference, said ‘this is a capitalist crisis and they must foot the bill’ and promised to form ‘joint strike committees where we can.’ He went as far as arguing that ‘we need to work together… to mobilise… behind a different vision of how society should be, putting people before profit and… putting socialism back on the political agenda in this country.’

Trade union members and young people alike need to ensure that the trade union leadership stick to their rhetoric and fight the government all the way.

As Unite’s position has seemingly shifted so too the Unison trade union bureaucracy needs to be pressured into actively fighting the cuts rather than pushing their reformist vote Labour strategy. Rank-and-file organisation is needed to organise across unions and prevent the Trade Unions leaders from presenting minor concessions as victory.

Why it matters to youth and what can we do?

As students and young people we are tomorrow’s workers and pensioners. Strikes against pension reforms are as relevant to us as campaigns to save the NHS and opposition to cuts and fees in education.

To win, the strike action must be generalised: – by spreading solidarity action across all sections of society- non unionised, precarious and unemployed workers, and school, college and university students.

This unity will allow us to face down the government and build support for a general strike which can bring down the government and stop the cuts.

REVOLUTION will be on the pickets on the morning of June 30th and joining demonstrations around the country later in the day. We call on students in schools and colleges to walk out in solidarity on June 30th and join their teachers on the picket lines.

Young people need to invest the energies of last winter into a wider anti cuts movement. June 30th is the chance to do this; to strike, picket, march, and organise in our communities, anti-cuts groups and trade unions to bring down this millionaire coalition.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: alt, General strike, J30, june 30, NUT, PCS, strikes, UCU, Unison, unite

Militancy at the Tower Hamlets strike

April 5, 2011 By John Bowman

Mark Serwotka from the PCS unison says to Tower Hamlets strikers that he opposes every single cut, and that we need coordinated strike action across the whole public sector. He calls for all public sector unions to back PCS, UCU and NUT over plans to strike before the summers, as unionists stand up shouting “general strike!”

Filed Under: Uncategorized, Workers Tagged With: East London, General strike, NUT, PCS, strikes, Tower Hamlets, Unison

Tower Hamlets workers throw their weight behind call for general strike

March 30, 2011 By John Bowman

Teachers and council workers from Tower Hamlets called on their leaders to organise general strike action today in a mass rally after 2,000 trade unionists, joined by the local community marched against cuts.

Council workers in purple Unison jackets were joined by school banners, behind which marched school children, parents and lots of teachers carrying NUT placards.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Cuts, Workers Tagged With: East London, General strike, NUT, strikes, Tower Hamlets, Unison

In pictures: Tower Hamlets strike demo

March 30, 2011 By John Bowman

Thousands of teachers and council workers, singing and chanting, march through East London. The march was followed by a mass rally where workers called on trade union leaders to organise a general strike to bring down the government.