OUR PRINCIPLES
1. Democracy and freedom
Despite the constant praise of the political class and the mainstream media for our country’s “democratic” institutions (parliament, the House of Commons, etc.), we know that these are nothing more than facades that have nothing to do with real democracy. How much power does the average worker really have over the major political decisions that affect his or her life? We are limited to voting once every four years for one or another of careerist loudmouths who, as soon as they come to power, abandon all their fine electoral promises and meekly fall in line behind the interests of corporations and the big banks – the real rulers of this country.
Workers’ Alliance defends the prospect of a truly democratic system. A system where ordinary people don’t just vote for a representative every four years, but hold real power over the decisions that affect them: from everyday life in the shop and in the neighbourhood, to economic planning and foreign policy decisions. In the meantime, we continue to defend what little democracy is possible under the current system. We demand transparency from governments, institutions and corporations, and the right of the people to be properly informed. We defend the freedom to form independent associations and organizations, and the freedom of expression, protest and demonstration.
2. Equality and unity
We stand for equality for all workers, regardless of nationality or demographic specificity. We seek to unite on the basis of social class, beyond the national, cultural, gender and other divisions that cut across it. We reject the “divide and conquer” policies embodied in the culture wars, inventing ever more preposterous criteria for division to shatter our unity. We oppose retrograde ideologies (racism, sexism, etc.) within the class, and defend the right of all to participate in the struggle without discrimination.
We are fighting for the prospect of a truly egalitarian world, free from socio-economic inequalities, national divisions and imperialist wars. True freedom will only be possible when workers take themselves the leadership of society, independently from monopolies, banks, corporations and other parasitic institutions that perpetuate inequality and prevent the majority of humanity from leading a dignified life.
3. Class against class
We stand up for workers and defend their right to fight for better working and living conditions. We recognize that the legal apparatus is only a historical compromise, and that it is morally right to act beyond the labour code when necessary. We reject class collaboration and the subservience of the labour movement to electoral parties sold out to the established order. We believe in the need for our own organizations, independent of state-imposed structures.
We defend workers’ centrality – the strategic principle according to which the working class must play the decisive role in the movement to overcome capitalism. Fundamental social change can only come through the solid organization of workers in defence of class interests.
OUR GOALS
The working classes are determined to fight injustice. Whether it’s the struggles waged by centralized trade unions in the economic and political spheres, widespread outbursts of discontent such as the freedom convoy movement, or the struggles waged by migrant diasporas against imperialist aggression on their nations, we see that the current order of things is provoking the anger of the people.
However, popular movements will always face limits if we fail to innovate in our methods. On the one hand, we fail to inscribe ourselves in the continuity of a broader political project. One day we’re demonstrating for Palestine, the next against corruption, the next for trade union negotiations. We run from one struggle to the next without making any headway – without building a structure that would allow us to sustain our strike force. In short, we’re content to mobilize without organizing. Without channelling struggles into organizations capable of re-launching new waves of struggle, consolidating and growing to repeat until victory is achieved, we fall into movementism. We jump from one movement to another without being able to link them through practice and reinforce class power over the long term.
On the other hand, even if struggles sometimes lead to organizations and serve broader political projects, they fail to do so for our own class, and are instead recuperated by reactionary class forces. We can think of the freedom convoy movement, which although it had working-class participation, was ultimately channelled into the conservative faction of the ruling class (Poilievre and co.). We can also think of the student strikes of 2012, which in the end mainly benefited the petty-bourgeoisie’s social-democratic project and the Québec Solidaire political party. In all cases, the working class, though an integral part of these movements, failed to learn how to direct them in its own interests.
That’s why our main objective is to constitute the working class as an independent political force1. Acting as an independent political force means first of all conceiving ourselves as a class (having class consciousness), understanding the us as the working class rather than the nation, belonging to one side or the other of the culture war, or other secondary divisions. It then means equipping ourselves with the tools to act independently and collectively as a class, powerful organizations capable of rivalling the bosses and the state. For their part, the big bosses who control the economy are well organized to defend their interests and pull the strings of politics in their favour. If we are to be able to confront it, we need to: A. Solidly organize the working class, and B. Educate and politically mobilize the working class.
A. Solidly organise the working class
Above all, this means building the working class’s basic defence organizations, the trade unions. Unfortunately, decades of absence of class-based unionism have eroded the unions’ ability to assume this fundamental role. Unable to adapt to the changing realities of the world of work2, union membership is low (29%) and falling. Many of the unions that do exist are undemocratic organizations, with minimal or no member involvement. Where there is involvement, it is generally in the sense of mobilization (demonstrations, picket lines) and rarely in the sense of organization. Sometimes, even formal democracy (assemblies, elections, etc.) is limited, particularly in some international unions.3
Unions have accepted the legal apparatus as legitimate, rather than understanding it as a simple historical compromise. While it is just to recognize that the gains made by the workers movement of the past, such a legal recognition of unions, the right to strike, etc., are precious achievements that were wrested from the bourgeoisie through struggle, it must also be recognized that these gains are conditional on the balance of power exercised by the class.
Unfortunately, the current trade union movement too often makes the mistake of relying mainly on these legal gains rather than on building a real power balance. Even the most militant and grassroots unions are stuck in this industrial peace mentality, where all militancy must respect the rules of the bourgeois game. This problem is exacerbated by the heavy weight played by permanent staff within the unions, too often university-educated individuals pursuing careerist ambitions, trained in a “human resources” mentality. The state, however, does not limit itself to playing by the rules of its own game, and can crush even legal union struggles via back-to-work legislation or other bureaucratic stratagems. Even if it is proven that the state is acting unconstitutionally, the judicialization of struggles always gives the benefit of the doubt to the management side. With delays of several years before a settlement is reached, members are demobilized and the damage is done.
What we need are unions that are truly capable of fulfilling their role, unions of class struggle. Firstly, this means combative unions, taking a firm stand for the greatest possible gains for their members, unafraid to carry out strikes, disruptive actions and political campaigns in defence of the class – all the time, not just during contract negotiation periods. Secondly, it means democratic unions in which members are genuinely organized within the union structure, are involved in strategic discussions, and where the will of the rank and file is really what drives union action. Finally, it means militant unions, based on the absolute interests of the working class as a whole rather than the narrow interests of their own members, and capable of taking action that goes beyond what is permitted by the state.
B. Educate and politically mobilize the working class
The trade union is the basic defence organization of the working class, an essential tool without which it would be impossible to compete with the ruling class. However, unions are inherently limited, and if left to their own devices, they will not be able to overcome their limitations. Just look at the state of today’s trade union movement, which has been left to its own devices since the waves of political militancy of the 70s and 80s. Unionism spontaneously leads only to union consciousness. If we want to have class consciousness, then we also need to have class organization, which doesn’t just defend interests “on the job”, but also the interests of workers in society as a whole. This will not come from a spontaneous development of the trade union movement, but from an impulse from outside.
While recognizing the essential role of trade unions, we need to fight against narrow unionism and go beyond union consciousness. This means educating the working class to understand their own interests and form their own opinions independently of the mainstream media. How, for example, do we train militants capable of standing up to the confident, knowledgeable, career union officials used to running union structures? How do we get workers to grasp the nature of neo-liberal reforms and see beyond the lies of politicians? How can we ensure that unions situate their struggles within an internationalist horizon, in solidarity with peoples elsewhere in the world who are oppressed by Canadian imperialism? This implies a vast effort of political education to learn to detect our own class interests, understand our history, and develop our capacities.
In part, this means fulfilling the independent political role that the current major trade-union centres and labour institutions, such as the Canadian Labour Congress, currently fail to fulfil. It means constituting our solid and democratic organisation, our vibrant assemblies and industrial caucuses, and creating a truly independent forum though which to educate and mobilise the working class. Only class conscious and independently organized workers have the ability to lead the labour movement and exercise its power for the entire class.
From this point of view, there is no better school than struggle. It is through political struggle that the working class learns in practice who its friends and enemies are. We must aim to mobilize the working class in political campaigns, going beyond the narrow framework of working conditions. We must learn to fight against shop closures, neo-liberal reforms, closed work permits, real estate speculation – in short, to fight against the ruling class in all spheres of social life, and ultimately for the complete overthrow of the established order.
OUR STRATEGY
If we want to establish ourselves as an independent political force, then we have to learn to fight with our own means, to wage a workers’ political struggle. This means not only looking beyond economic struggles to other spheres of social life, but above all, reappropriating our own methods of struggle.
What gives the working class real clout and a historic role is its control over production. In our society, the means of production are owned by a minority who reap the profits, but the process of manufacturing goods is divided among millions of workers. The minority who own enrich themselves at the expense of the majority who work. The self-aware working class can use its control over production – strike – not just for gains at work, but to defend its interests in society as a whole. That’s where the potential for real power lies: in our ability to lead political strikes.
The role of the state is, first and foremost, to preserve the economic domination of the ruling class, and this largely involves repressing the right to strike. Historically, going on strike, even for economic reasons, was downright illegal, and the state severely repressed trade unionism. Eventually, this became untenable: faced with the dynamism and combativeness of the workers movement, it was better to open the pressure-cooker valve than to contain the pressure until it exploded. The State opted to supervise unionism to ensure that it didn’t interfere too much with the smooth running of society and, above all, that it didn’t threaten the very existence of capitalism. The result today is a body of legislation – the Labour Code – the product of a social peace pact between employers and unions.
Unions have, unfortunately, bent over backwards and submitted to these pacifying and demobilizing laws. Often, they even trust the state and promote policies that strengthen the state’s role in society (social democracy)4. They ignore the main issue, the balance of power between classes, and focus their efforts on parliamentary lobbying. When they fail to achieve their objective in this way, they retreat and are content to tell themselves that they have done “everything in their power.”
Recovering the tool of the political strike to re-establish the balance of power of the working class is necessary. But we can’t just shout radical slogans from outside the union movement like dissatisfied customers – calling for a political strike won’t bring about a political strike. Nor can we be content to remain isolated in micro-organizations with membership in the double digits and no influence in society. To improve the union movement, you have to be in the union movement. To have better unionists, you have to be the better unionists. It’s easy to criticize when you’re outside the movement, but when you’re confronted with its realities, its concrete problems, it’s not so simple. The reality is that a good number of trade unionists are well-meaning people, genuinely dedicated to the class, who shouldn’t be alienated by an ultra-radical posture. They simply face the same limitations we do.
What we’re proposing is a long-term process, one that will take years to complete. To achieve this, we can’t simply scatter ourselves across the various unions without coordination or a common strategy. In concrete terms, our aim (to build the working class into an independent political force) means that Workers’ Alliance aims to act as a political centre to organize the deployment of political strike militants in the labour movement. Here’s how we propose to get there:
- 1. Organize on the basis of industry caucuses or committees to plan the expansion and consolidation of class-struggle unionism. Caucuses can be used to increase union density by industry through the formation of new unions, to reform existing unions to make them combative, democratic and militant, and to promote inter-union unity and coordination.
- 2. Conduct combative political campaigns against state attacks on the working class (labour code reforms, privatizations, etc.). In so doing, encourage unions to fight politically and adopt militant tactics rather than limiting themselves to lobbying and communication campaigns.
- 3. Provide a centre for education and information on workplace organization, political issues (political strikes, the political and social role of trade unionism, workers’ history) and current workers’ struggles. Collectivize experiences and deepen our understanding of workers’ political struggles.
By taking this three-pronged approach, we can learn how to organize and lead the working class in grassroots defence organizations (unions), lead large-scale political struggles and deepen our understanding of the trade union movement. By combining these three fronts, we can eventually lead political strikes for workers’ power.
1—When we use the word politics here, it is in the broad sense – the organization of social life – and not in the sense of political institutions (parties, parliaments, municipalities, etc.). We are talking about waging political struggles, not lobbying or partisan politics.
2—Although some speak of neo-liberalism as an extraordinary state of exception, changes in labour relations have always been a tool used by the ruling class to counter unionism and ensure its rate of profit is maintained. What has really changed is the capacity of the trade union movement to adapt to new realities (placement agencies, migrant workers, privatization and reform of the public sector, etc.).
3—International unions are distinct from “Canadian” or Quebecois unions by the fact that their management is located in the US, and often possess veto powers over the local assemblies.
4—Our comrades in Manitoba and British Columbia can testify that there’s nothing good about being governed by the social democrats (NDP). Full of fine promises in opposition, they are the first to betray workers as soon as they come to power.