[mobglob-discuss] "Health Workers and the rest of BC lost..."

[Alan Ward]

HEALTH WORKERS AND THE REST OF BC LOST WHEN
BC FED LEADERSHIP PUT AN END TO HEU STRIKE

Affected most are people in service jobs, women and New Canadians –

          by Alicia Barsallo
         Vancouver-Kingsway NDP


These past three years of iniquitous BC Liberal government have found our
provincial labour leadership increasingly soft when it comes to dealing with
government abuse, and increasingly indifferent when it comes to acting on
behalf of  ordinary British Columbians.

One by one our social services have been destroyed and our resources,
privatized.  We have seen people lose their jobs, children gradually lose
their right to public education, seniors and handicapped citizens be
abandoned to their fate.  But, after organizing a few rallies, the BC
Federation of Labour leadership has remained quiet.

Quiet is bad enough, but on Sunday May 2nd BC’s labour leadership did worse.

The BC Fed leaders went against the interests of working people when they
acted to quash the swell of grassroots support for the HEU struggle.

The BC Fed leadership pleaded with Campbell to come to the table on a Sunday
night at the eleventh hour, only to come out with a “deal” that did not do
justice to the people on the picket lines.  The “deal” that imposed a 15%
pay cut on HEU workers – mostly women – affected wages that had been barely
keeping them and their families above the poverty line.

In only a few days of the strike, the HEU had received a province-wide
groundswell of solidarity both from unions in the public and private sector
and the public in general.

The BC Federation of Labour leadership could have simply offered the
Federation’s unconditional respect of HEU picket lines, following the
example of the teachers, CUPE, transit, and other unions.

After all it took general strikes and the intense mobilization of the
citizenry to prevent the privatization of water in Bolivia and the
privatization of health care in El Salvador.  And here, the HEU strike
became a point of convergence, the promise of a province-wide battle in
defence of public health care.

But the spontaneous action coalition that had just been formed through acts
of solidarity by union locals and other members of the community was left
without a voice.

BC was left with only the provincial election to get back at the BC
Liberals... as if through elections alone we could subdue powerful
transnationals for whose benefit our services and resources are being
privatized.

Do BC Federation of Labour leaders have any idea what it is to work for $10
an hour under the constant fear of having your job disappear?

Have BC Federation of Labour leaders ever considered that it is the task of
the labour movement to use its organizing power to fight injustice?