WORKERS' CONGRESS IN CANADA

vol. 1, no. 15

MONTRÉAL -- From November 29 to December 3, the Québec Federation of Labour (500 000 members) will hold its 29th Congress in the Province of Québec, the homeland of the French Canadian nation (7, 8 million inhabitants). For the leadership of the union, “whatever may be their status, workers must be respected”. One of the two main topics will be the amelioration of the pension plan. This was reported by Le Monde Ouvrier/September-October 2010.

On the other hand, Unity, the Communist Party of Ireland’s newspaper, mentioned in September that “French unions have launched a massive strike over President Nicolas Sarkozy’s deeply unpopular plans to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62 by 2018. Two million public and private sector workers, students and pensioners took part in over 200 street demonstrations across the country against the pension “reform”, which would also lift the age at which employees would be eligible for full pension payments from 65 to 67.”
(Photo PCF/Bagneux: people's demonstration in France in defence of the workers' pension plan, Fall 2010)

Meanwhile, a less developed country, Bolivia, according to news release has decided in May 2010 to decrease the retirement age from 65 to 58 years old, and will consider 56 for underground worker; each of worked years will count for two.

It goes side by side with the general demands of the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU). The union is not well-known in Canada and United States. So, just a reminder: WFTU has 72 millions members in 110 countries in Latin America, Asia, Africa and Middle-East. Its own 16th Congress will take place in Athens, Greece, April 6th to 9th 2011. Observers from Canada will be “on the spot”.

Unity, titled “We will not pay for their crisis” and forwarded the union statement that coincided with their International Day of Action, Tuesday 7th September. They demand: “to stop the expenditure on military equipments and this money to be granted to the unemployed and the poor [...] Through small and big struggles, the international working class will understand that the future of humanity can be drastically improved only through the abolition of the exploitation of man-by-man”.

At the European Seminar of Communist and Workers’ Parties in London, communists urge workers to organise and mobilise: “for increased taxes on wealth and monopoly profits [and] for the reduction of retirement ages and substantial increases in pensions”, (Unity, 14 August 2010).

The French WFTU affiliated, Front syndical de classe, remembered the words of the late General Confederation of Labour (CGT) General Secretary, Henri Krasucki: “There is nothing more harmful to the workers than class collaboration. It deprives them from their tools in the defence of their own interests and provokes division. Class struggle, on the contrary, is the basis for unity, its most powerful leitmotiv. To achieve it with success, while uniting the workers, we created the CGT. Class struggle is not an invention, it is a fact. It won’t stop just by denying it: to stop fighting equals a general surrender of the working class to exploitation and crushing.”

The reader will then understand that on October 1st, WFTU called rightly upon its members and friends in Ecuador to deepen and accelerate the transformations in the country for the best interest of the working class and its goals, and wishing a rapid recovery to the President Rafael Correa after the attempted Coup d’État.

What is generally called “US imperialism” was behind this plot. But there is another America. The CP USA People’s World published on October 2nd this piece: “Actor-singer Harry Belafonte remembered Dr. King’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial as well as his 1967 Riverside Church speech in New York City against the Vietnam war. He pointed out that Al Queda has as few as 50 members. “Do we really believe that sending 100,000 troops to kill innocent men and women in Afghanistan and Pakistan makes any sense?” he asked. Bring the troops home and use the trillions of tax dollars to rebuild schools, hospitals and affordable housing, he said.”

With a strange determination, the current General Secretary of the Communist Party USA, Sam Webb, wrote in this electronic bulletin: “For anyone to affix to the president singular or even the lion’s share of the blame for the present impasse reveals an incredible ignorance of class and, especially, racial dynamics.”

Then, to whom should we talk to if we want a strong and independent Canada, freed from the US giant corporations and as well the end of the war in Afghanistan? The Canadians are putting pressure on the federal government of Canada to bring home its troops for 1st of July 2011, as promised by the minority conservative power; but they want the war to stop now. Is somebody on the line in USA or should they wait for..? Well, it does not make sense not to involve the current President of USA.
(Photo: public meeting of the Communist party in Montréal. From left to right: Pierre Fontaine, president in Québec; the interpreter and Miguel Figueroa, the Canadian leader, Summer 2010. The party was gearing for a general strike in the Province of Québec)

At last, "Pour la KOMINTERN now!” is not a nationalist bulletin, but we were happy to read in Unity (March 6th, 2010) that the Communist Party of Ireland stands for a “socialist united Ireland” as a long-term goal. Actually, the father of Daniel Paquet’s grand mother, William Harris, was Irish: a tall and vigorous man who worked as a stevedore in the Québec City Harbour. His son, Joseph, was a member of the Communist Party of Canada and his daughter, Beatrice, got marry with Eugène Paquet, a trade-unionist and militant of the Confederation of Catholic Workers of Canada in the same city.

Workers of All Lands, Unite!

danieleugpaquet@yahoo.ca

La Vie Réelle in English: http://wwwlavienglish.blogspot.com/