Tag: Toronto Airport Workers’ Council

Exposing the Intolerance and Censorship of Social Democracy, Part Three: Critique of the Lack of Reference to the Class of Employers and to the Health Implications of Living Under Their Dominance

Introduction

This is the continuation of a four-part series of posts. For the context of where the following fits into my participation and withdrawal from the organization Social Housing Green Deal, see the first part Exposing the Intolerance and Censorship of Social Democracy, Part One: The Working Class, Housing and the Police.

Christoph Henning’s words (2005) express the nature of some so-called leftist social organizations in Toronto, such as Social Housing Green Deal.  From Philosophy after Marx: 100 Years of Misreadings and the Normative Turn in Political Philosophy, page 77:

We will see that Marxian theory, whose import was already lost in the developments discussed above, not only continued to be given a new thematic framework, but also displayed a ‘changing function’. A mode of thinking that operates within complex and dynamic socio-economic structures of development was replaced by a simplified rationale of domination. In functional terms, this led to a transformation of theory. Theory went from being a critical companion of politics to being an instrument by which to ideologically affirm a political voluntarism that was practised in a largely unreflected manner.

Before the May 2 Social Housing Green Deal zoom meeting I had drafted a critical analysis of two motioned items that were on the agenda. The first motion I discussed in the second post. This post is about the other motion. I sent my critical comments to Ms. Jessup, moderator and administrator, for the group. The motion was to support the statement by the grassroots organization “Suppress the Virus Now Coalition.”

The first motion, as I indicated in my previous post, was more or less rubber-stamped. I had the impression that Ms. Jessup wanted the motion by the Suppress the Virus Now Coalition also to be rubber-stamped. However, I, Ms. Jessup and another zoom member had to leave soon.

I managed to have the motion tabled until the next meeting. That meeting was postponed, however, until May 23. I will describe why I did not attend that meeting in the final post of this series.

Second Critique: The Motion to Support the Statement Made By Suppress the Virus Now Coalition

This is what I wrote: 

There is a controversial claim in this statement.

“ANY PANDEMIC STRATEGY THAT RESIGNS ITSELF TO AVOIDABLE SICKNESS AND DEATH IS RACIST, ANTI-BLACK, ANTI-INDIGENOUS, SEXIST, ABLEIST, AGEIST, AND UNACCEPTABLE.”

Acquiescence to avoidable sickness has been the rule, not the exception. This does not mean that there have not been struggles over health and safety in the workplace. There have been constant struggles, but currently the unionized sector of the labour movement has often rested content with rhetoric than dealing with the reality of just how unsafe working conditions were even before the pandemic.

Thus, in a recent nod to the number of injured and dead workers in Canada, the Toronto Airport Workers Council (TAWC, an organization “committed to speaking up for workers at YYZ [Toronto Pearson Airport], TAWC posted the following on its Facebook page on April 28—the Canadian national day of mourning for workers killed on the job: “Photos of the GTAA Administration building of the flags lowered at half-mast as a mark of respect on this National day of mourning.”

My response: “It would be more relevant if all measures to eliminate processes and procedures that treat workers as means for the benefit of employers were instituted–in other words, the elimination of a society organized on the basis of the class power of employers. How many workers have been injured and died at Pearson because of the pursuit of profit?

Flying a flag at half-mast is hardly a symbol of respect if all measures to eliminate dangerous working conditions are not pursued. Have such dangerous working conditions been eliminated at Pearson?”

There were 2 likes and 0 comments.

I had another “debate” on TAWC over the issue of health and safety at Pearson earlier, but I will spare the reader any further references unless someone wants to read it.

Some Canadian statistics before the pandemic (from my blog):

Official statistics:

  1. “More than 1000 employees die every year in Canada on the job, and about 630,000 are injured every year (Bob Barnetson, 2010, The Political Economy of Workplace Injury in Canada. Edmonton: Athabasca University Press, p. 2). The same year as the publication of that work saw 554 homicides (Tina Mahonny, 2011, Homicide in Canada, 2010. Ottawa: Statistics Canada, p. 1) —the number of employee deaths at work under the power of employers was around double the number of murders.”

    Non-official statistics:

  2. Steven Bittle, Ashley Chen and Jasmine Hébert report a much higher figure in their article (Fall 2018), ““Work-Related Deaths in Canada,”, pages 159-187, in Labour/Le Travail, Volume 82, page 186:

“Relying on a range of data sources, and adopting a broad definition of what constitutes a work-related fatality, we generated a revised estimate of the number of annual work-related fatalities. Based on our analysis, we estimate that the number of annual work-related fatalities in Canada is at least ten to thirteen times higher than the approximately 900 to 1,000 annual average fatalities reported by the AWBC [The Canadian Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada]. This makes work-related fatalities one of the leading causes of death in this country.”

Has there really been any social movement to address this carnage? Not that I am aware of. Resignation to sickness, injury and death at work (and outside work due to preventable diseases such as cancer) is part of parcel of Canadian culture (and many other national cultures). To then call it racist, etc seems to be an inadequate characterization of the situation of many workers in Canada. There may indeed be higher differentials of injury, disease and death among coloured workers, etc. (which requires more detailed data), but the general nature of the problem is not racist, etc but economic: workers, whatever their colour, gender, etc., are subject to the control of a class of workers, and there is no real and effective political organization that questions such control and aims to abolish the conditions that make it eminently reasonable (from an employer’s point of view) to engage in actions that injury, make sick or kill workers.

From Bob Barnetson, The Political Economy of Workplace Injury in Canada, page 2):

“Perspectives on workplace injury

How you react to the vast number of workers injured and killed each year reflects your values and beliefs. Are these injures inevitable? Are they just the cost of doing business? One way to look at workplace injuries is from an economic perspective. This view sees the risk of injury as minimal, unavoidable and, ultimately, acceptable. Is it the price we (or at least workers) must pay for a “healthy” economy? If we are going to lower the risk of injury, we need to ensure the cost is less than the benefit we’ll receive. And the people best positioned to decide that are employers.

This economic perspective dominates the debate about workplace health and safety. It is the lingua franca of employers, bureaucrats, politicians, and most academics. There are, of course, alternative perspectives. An alternative advanced by workers views workplace injuries as the result of choices employers make in order to maximize profitability. Contrary to the slogan “safety pays,” it is usually cheaper for employers to organize work unsafely. This is especially true if employers can (with the tacit consent of government) pass along the cost of occupational injuries and disease to workers.”

The kind of social process called working for an employer (being an employee) that characterizes our working lives is a threat to our health in various ways, Logically, if we take seriously the claim that “ANY [PANDEMIC[ STRATEGY THAT RESIGNS ITSELF TO AVOIDABLE SICKNESS AND DEATH,” should be opposed, then we should be fighting to create an organization and a movement that fights against a social organization dominated by a class of employers (and the associated economic, political and social structures) and for a socialist society that eliminates class relations—period. Otherwise, any other strategy simply “resigns itself to avoidable sickness and death”–regardless of the pandemic, and regardless of its differentiated impact on race, gender and so forth. In fact, what has happened during the pandemic merely highlights the continuity with past practice—and the acquiescence of those who have failed to oppose a society dominated by a class of employers.

Just as an aside. The list of demands: how effective are they really? Are there any priorities? Are there some that need to be implemented right away? Or are all on the same level? If on different levels, should they not have been organized in some fashion to reflect the level of priorities? And not only priorities but power to achieve each demand? What organizations and supports currently exist that are more relevant for achieving each specific demand? Or all all organizations and supports on the same level?

End of my commentary

The “Suppress the Virus Now Coalition” also wrote the following: 

The Suppress The Virus Now Coalition is a network of community groups, labour groups, and individuals in Ontario. We have come together out of a shared concern about the Ontario provincial and Canadian federal governments’ approach to the COVID-19 crisis since the pandemic hit in March 2020. Now, as the second wave drags on, we demand that those governments stop prioritizing corporate profits over the health and well-being of our communities. We refuse to endorse any approach that accepts the needless death of elderly people and those living and working in long-term care; of disabled, chronically ill, and immunocompromised loved ones; of Indigenous Peoples in Ontario and across the country; of the Black, migrant, and racialized communities who have borne the brunt of COVID-19 infections in the GTA; of underhoused, precariously housed, and houseless neighbours; of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated community members; and of the health-care and other essential workers who are on the front lines.

ANY PANDEMIC STRATEGY THAT RESIGNS ITSELF TO AVOIDABLE SICKNESS AND DEATH IS RACIST, ANTI-BLACK, ANTI-INDIGENOUS, SEXIST, ABLEIST, AGEIST, AND UNACCEPTABLE. IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE #COVIDzero CAMPAIGN LAUNCHED BY HEALTH-CARE WORKERS, WE DEMAND THAT OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS EXPLICITLY ADOPT THE HUMANE GOAL OF ELIMINATING COMMUNITY SPREAD OF COVID-19.

Policing, threats, and rhetoric that blames individuals for systemic failures and conditions outside of their control are neither effective nor ethical tactics to deal with this pandemic. Instead, we must turn to principles of solidarity and community care, and toward robust, expansive, and inclusive social supports so that we can all make it through this crisis. Social and economic inequalities have been exacerbated by the pandemic, but rather than returning to a “normal” where a select few lives are privileged over others, we must build the conditions for all to live and thrive. This rebuilding must centre the needs of those most impacted by the pandemic and by the ongoing violence of the Canadian state.

We call for a just, equitable #COVIDzero approach that includes (but is not limited to): 

  • At least seven employer-paid sick days for all workers on a permanent basis, plus an additional 14 paid sick days during public health emergencies.

  • Adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) for all workers, including respirator masks (e.g. N95s, FFP2s) for all workers in indoor workplaces until COVID community transmission ends, now that we know the virus can remain airborne indoors for hours.

  • The right of all workers to refuse work due to unsafe workplace conditions, and to be eligible for income supports like the Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB) after such work refusals.

  • Expanded eligibility for pandemic-related state assistance such as the CRB, including for temporary migrant workers, undocumented people, gig economy workers, sex workers, and others.

  • An immediate ban on evictions; rent cancellation and forgiveness of arrears; a moratorium on encampment policing; and safe, accessible winter housing for unhoused people who want it.

  • An immediate end to the criminalization, racial profiling, and raids that harm migrant and non-migrant sex workers, including anti-trafficking initiatives and repressive bylaws affecting sex workers and workers in massage parlours.

  • Safe and accessible options for isolation when home isolation is not an option, and transparent communication about options that are already in existence.

  • Immediate investment to improve ventilation, reduce class sizes, and offer COVID testing to students and education workers; and robust assistance for students, educators, caregivers, and families when school closures are necessary, like now.

  • Redistributing 50% of all police budgets toward resourcing social and health supports in Black, Indigenous, and people of colour communities.

  • An immediate end to deportations, and regularization and full immigration status now for all migrants, refugees, international students, workers (including temporary or seasonal migrants), and undocumented people in the country.

  • Immediate federal support and funding for clean water access, appropriate health care, and COVID supports for all Indigenous people on and off reserve, and the recognition of Indigenous sovereignty across the country, including heeding demands to immediately classify oil, mineral, and gas extraction as non-essential work, and to hit pause on extraction, exploration, and environmental assessment processes.

  • Immediate decarceration of people from provincial, federal, and immigration detention facilities, and simultaneous access to sanitation and protective equipment, harm reduction supplies, free communication resources, and appropriate and consensual post-incarceration support for all incarcerated people.

  • Permanently increasing Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) rates to match CERB ($2,000/month).

  • Making temporary, uneven pandemic pay boosts permanent by raising the minimum wage for all.

  • Taking profit out of long-term care, replacing for-profit corporations with an entirely non-profit and public system. Enforcing national standards that ensure that long-term care workers – who are disproportionately racialized women – have a living wage, health and wellness benefits, and a safe and secure job, in order to provide high-quality care to residents.

  • Making public transit safe by halting fare inspection, investing in mask distribution, and putting more buses on high-traffic routes to allow for physical distancing.

  • Increasing research and supports dedicated to COVID “long-haulers,” people still suffering from the effects of the virus months after infection.

  • Greater involvement of community groups in public health decision-making, respecting communities’ knowledge about their own life circumstances, and more consistently inviting their representatives into decision-making processes led by researchers and civic officials.

As the pandemic puts our society’s racial and class divides on ruthless display, it is urgent that we all show up with our neighbours to demand a just, equitable pathway to #COVIDzero that leaves no one behind.

To add your name (individual and/or organization) to this statement, and/or to get involved with the coalition’s work, please complete this short form.

We are an Ontario-based group, but the need for a just, equitable #COVIDzero strategy transcends local boundaries. We invite collaboration with people struggling towards the same goal elsewhere. We also encourage groups outside Ontario to adopt and adapt this statement freely for your own purposes.

In Ontario, here are some ways you can plug into powerful community organizing and take action:

  • Follow, boost, and contribute to groups like the Encampment Support Network, People’s Defence Toronto, and Keep Your Rent Toronto that are fighting for housing justice.

  • Volunteer with and donate to Toronto Indigenous Harm Reduction, providing encampment support and working to mitigate the harms of the catastrophic overdose crisis.

  • Join the Migrant Rights Network to demand justice, safety, and #StatusForAll migrants.

  • Support the labour organizing of the Workers Action Centre and the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change to ensure that no one is left behind.

  • Take action with 15 & Fairness and the Decent Work and Health Network to demand paid sick days for all.

  • Learn more about the work of COVID Long Haulers Support Group Canada, a large grassroots organization of COVID survivors experiencing debilitating effects months after infection, and sign the support group’s petition demanding recognition, research, and rehabilitation for Long COVID sufferers.

  • Get involved with the Toronto Prisoners Rights Project to fight for justice for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people, and take action to demand decarceration.

  • Demand better for residents and workers in long-term care, by following the work of the Ontario Nurses’ Association, Canadian Union of Public Employees, and Unifor, and contributing to their calls to action.

  • Follow and boost Green Jobs Oshawa’s campaign for domestic PPE production, crucial long-term healthcare organizing by the Ontario Health Coalition and the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions, and the campaign to #MakeReveraPublic.

  • Write to elected officials to express your support for the demands of the Wet’suwet’en Chiefs who are calling for a stop to resource extraction projects as COVID-19 outbreaks recur in B.C. work camps.

  • Protect public sector jobs and collective bargaining with the Toronto & York Region Labour Council by adding your voice to their Forward Together campaign.

  • Join TTC Riders to demand adequate funding for safe and physically distanced public transit options.

  • Call the Minister of Children, Community, and Social Services to demand increased social assistance rates.

  • Demand that the Ontario legislature adopt an intersectional gender equity approach to its pandemic response

Conclusion

My general criticism on this blog has been and will continue to be that the so-called radical left fail to connect up a general criticism of a society dominated by a class of employers–with the associated oppressive and exploitative economic, political and social structures–and particular issues. The organization Suppress the Virus Now Coalition failed to do just that.

The pandemic should have been an occasion to develop a movement against the systemic nature of capitalist society. There has really been no such movement–in part undoubtedly because grass-roots social movements fail to link the particular issues surrounding the pandemic with the general issue of the impossibility of maximizing the health of workers, citizens, immigrants and migrant workers in the context of a society dominated by a class of employers.

My comments and criticisms were never addressed. My criticisms, in effect, were censored. I leave it to the reader to decide whether such censorship expresses the democratic nature of some (if not many) grassroots organizations–or if it expresses something else. 

The last post of this series will include further comments and questions about “The People’s Pandemic Shutdown.” 

The Pearson Survey of the 50,000 Employees at the Toronto International Airport: A Document Expressing the Ideology of Employers

The following is based on the report Understanding the Pearson workforce: Canada’s first airport workforce survey: Summary report, October 2019. The survey consists of a sample of 3,582 employees at the Toronto Pearson airport from a variety of positions, with the statistical expectation that these employees would be representative of the 50,000 workers who work at the airport.

Of course, since this report was written before COVID, the situation has changed at the airport, but it is still useful to look at the report.

The background to the survey expresses its limitations since it was initiated by the Greater Toronto Airport Authority GTAA).

The Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA) is the operator of Pearson Airport.

The Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA) is the operator of Pearson Airport.

The GTAA undertook a workforce survey—the first survey of its kind at any airport in Canada—to provide a baseline to understand more about the airport’s complex work environment, including who the workers are and how they get to their jobs. The information obtained from the survey will inform future work to identify gaps and support planning and programming to meet the airport’s transit and workforce needs. The survey was undertaken by Northstar Research Partners (Northstar) and developed in consultation with the Toronto Airport Workers Council (TAWC), a collective
of union representatives from across the airport that work together to address issues that impact airport workers.

The report was written with the support of the Peel-Halton Workforce Development Group and Northstar.

The GTAA is itself an employer. According to its Facebook web page, “The Toronto Airport Workers Council is committed to speaking up for workers at YYZ.” According to the Toronto Pearson web page, “The Toronto Airport Workers’ Council (TAWC) is the collective voice of Pearson’s 50,000 workers and its largest unions.”

Since the GTAA is an employer, its consultations, like consultations with union reps, expresses the power of employers to define issues and to express points of view that favour their interests–and not those of the working class. Given the power of the GTAA as a representative of employers as a whole at the Toronto Pearson Airport and its power as a particular employer, it is understandable that TAWC, in order to at least have some of its concerns recognized and perhaps addressed, decided to be a consultant  in the survey.

The report implicitly uses the standard of better paying, (unionized?), stable (permanent) and full-time positions as the basis for determining inadequacies in the employment situation of the workers at the airport. These better paying (unionized?), stable (permanent) and full-time positions are, apparently, the “good jobs” or “decent work” that social democrats refer to when they justify the goals that they pursue.

Consider, for example, the situation of workers at the airport who are part-time or who receive the minimum wage (as the report notes, these two categories of workers often overlap). The report states (page 4):

As noted above, there is an opportunity to identify and support career path development, in this case to less precarious jobs. Moreover, there appears to be some mitigation of the possible impacts of these aspects of employment precarity on these employees at Pearson.

Less precarious jobs (full-time/permanent), with better pay, thus constitute the standard of evaluation in the report.

I have criticized this standard in various posts. It is, of course, better to have a permanent position for most workers. Full-time work is also often preferable for workers than part-time work if they are going to meet their financial obligations and live some kind of enjoyable life outside of work. Receiving higher wages while working the same number of hours, obviously, is also preferable. However, nowhere in the report is their a hint of criticizing this standard.

This standard fails to criticize the fact that workers are Pearson International Airport are things to be used by

400-plus companies—public and private, large and small [pages 1 and 5].

(There are multiple page references to the same passage sometimes since the report includes the executive summary.)

There is not even a hint of the treatment of workers as things in the report (see The Money Circuit of Capital for a description of how workers are mere means to be used by employers, whether private or public.)  There is also not even a hint that the workers at Toronto Pearson are controlled and exploited (see the posts The Rate of Exploitation of Workers at Air Canada, One of the Largest Private Employers in Canada ,  Management Rights, Part Four: Private Sector Collective Agreement, Ontario    and   Employers as Dictators, Part One).

The report in fact idealizes the working lives of 50,000 workers at Pearson. Apart from the issue of precarity, there is a lack of critical distancing from the class point of view of employers.

Thus, the report states (pages 1 and 5):

Employers include airport service providers, retail partners, airline and agency partners, to name a few, and all have a role in ensuring Pearson is a great place to work.

I fail to see how working for one or more of the 400+ employers at Pearson can ever result in Pearson being “a great place to work.” How can a workplace be a great place to work when the workers are used as a means to ends that they do not define? How can it be a great place to work when the workers are controlled, oppressed and exploited? The document is more ideology than anything else. Given that Air Canada workers are oppressed and exploited, it is undoubtedly also the case  that the other 400+ employers oppress and exploit their workers. How could it be a great place to work under such conditions?

Consider the workplace survey about workers’ attitudes towards working at Pearson. The report states (pages 2 and 23):

The majority of employees believe that Pearson provides not only a good job today, but also opportunity to grow and advance. This is especially true of younger employees who are early in their careers and see a path forward within the airport employment community.

Since the standard of evaluation for determining what constitutes a “good job” is one where work is permanent, full-time and better paying (unionized?), there is little wonder that “the majority of employees believe that Pearson provides … a good job today.”

Before becoming workers, working-class children in schools have been indoctrinated into believing that working for an employer is natural. Consider my posts concerning indoctrination of students in schools; the school history curriculum fails to provide opportunities for an historical understanding of the emergence of a class of employers and employees in Canada (see, for example, A Case of Silent Indoctrination, Part One: The Manitoba History Curricula and Its Lack of History of Employers and Employees ; this is one of several posts on the silencing of such an understanding in various Canadian provinces and territories). The lack of such an understanding is reflected in the silence concerning the power of employers to dictate to workers in various ways and to exploit them at Pearson International Airport.

Unions, in turn, have not even provided an opportunity for workers to question this dogma. Their reference to “fair contracts” and “decent work” reinforce such standards of evaluation. Is there any wonder that the majority of workers at Pearson use such low standards to determine whether their job is good or not?

Professor Tufts, a geographer professor at York University and spokesman for the Toronto Airport Workers’ Council (TAWC), refers to the “data being in.” Yes, but there is no data that provides for an examination of the extent to which workers at Pearson Airport would consider that they have good jobs by working for an employer on a permanent and full-time basis with a wage somewhat higher than the minimum wage–if they also believed explicitly that they were being oppressed and exploited by the employers at Pearson Airport.

Professor Tufts has some interesting things to say about the purpose of this report. He says the following (Professor Tufts on the Pearson Airport Workforce Survey):

We want to know … how their careers are developing in the future, and how we can better help their careers develop at the airport and make Pearson a place where it’s not just a place to come to work to survive, but it’s a place where you come to build a career and thrive. And this survey is the first stop to getting something to talk about, to come together and talk about how we can better solutions.

Count on Pearson and Toronto Airport Workers’ Council to make the airport a great place to work.

I would not count on that. The Toronto Airport Workers’ Council may stimulate the improvement of working conditions at Pearson, but improved working conditions are hardly the same as “a great place to work.” Of course, workers should struggle to improve their own working conditions. However, Professor Tuft, like most union reps here in Toronto, assumes that it is really possible to create a good workplace environment on the basis of working for a particular employer in the context of the class power of employers so that the workplace is “a great place to work.” I deny that categorically.

Professor Tufts and the authors of the report assume that working for an employer and working at a great place are mutually compatible. As noted above, in referring to the money circuit of capital, workers are ultimately things to be used for the benefit of employers. They are also exploited. These facts limit improvements in working conditions–including workers’ control of their own working lives at work. These facts also means that workers necessarily lack control over a large area of their work at Pearson International Airport–a fact hidden behind the rhetoric of “a great place to work.”

These facts, on the other hand, are expressed in management rights’ clauses (explicitly in collective agreements if present but implicitly otherwise because arbitrators assume that management has dictatorial powers to direct the workforce, with the collective agreement only limiting such power). .

The report–and Professor Tufts’ commentary on it–express at best a social-democratic point of view, where it becomes possible to improve working conditions, but always within the limits of the power of employers as a class that use and exploit workers for their own benefit.

For the authors of the report and for Professor Tufts, improvement of working conditions, while leaving the power of employers generally intact, means the same thing as making Pearson “a great place to work.”

Now, TAWC may have thought that their participation in the consultation process may benefit the Pearson Airport workers’ interests. There is nothing wrong with that; in fact, the attempt to improve workers’ conditions is to be praised. On the other hand, by not engaging in a critique of the report, TAWC simultaneously–although implicitly–justifies the continued oppression and exploitation of Pearson Airport workers.

Do not the workers at Toronto Pearson International Airport deserve more? Do they not deserve a critical analysis of the report? Does TAWC provide such a critical analysis to the workers?

What do you think?

Unions and the Coronavirus Pandemic: A Critique of a Social-Democratic View, Part One

Professor Tuft (geography professor, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada), in an article published on the Socialist Project’s website (Covid-19 and ‘Actually Existing’ Unions), argues that unions will be in crisis as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Unions exist financially because of union dues, and with the increased level of unemployment among unionized workers, unions have experienced substantial reductions in the flow of union dues, at least here in Canada. As a consequence, they have begun to lay off union staff.

I will address Professor Tuft’s solution to this problem in a follow-up post, but in this post I will address his reference Sam Gindin’s call for a restructuring of unions. Mr. Gindin was the former research director of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) union

Before looking at Professor Tuft’s analysis and recommendations, let us pause to look at Professor Tuft’s reference to Mr. Gindin’s call for a renewed union movement (The Coronavirus and the Crisis This Time).  The union movement, Mr. Gindin argues:

The failure of unions over the past few decades both in organizing and in addressing their members’ needs is inseparable from their stubborn commitment to a fragmented, defensive unionism within society as it currently exists, as opposed to a class-struggle trade unionism based on broader solidarities and more ambitiously radical visions. This calls for not just ‘better’ unions, but for different and more politicized unions.

The view that unions need to develop “broader solidarities” and “more radical visions” certainly forms an essential element of the renewal of organized labour’s contribution to a new socialist movement. However, I have indicated before that Mr. Gindin seems opposed to questioning the limitations of present unions in relation to the limitations of collective bargaining and collective agreements (see The Contradictions of Social Democracy: Mr. Gindin’s Musings on the Closure of GM’s Oshawa Plant). Broader solidarities can arise without becoming radical; an example of that is the Toronto Airport Workers’ Council (TAWC), an organization that cuts across unions at Toronto’s Pearson Airport. Such an organization, of course, should be welcomed since it does have the potentiality to create common bonds among workers who belong to different unions. However, there is no basis for assuming that such common bonds will generate a more radical vision (see The Toronto Airport Workers’ Council (TAWC): One Step Forward and Two Steps Backward?).

Mr. Gindin also asserts the following:

Andrew Murray, chief of staff at the British/Irish union UNITE has noted the difference between a left that is ‘focused’ on the working class and one that is ‘rooted’ in it. The greatest weakness of the socialist left is its limited embeddedness in unions and working-class communities. Only if the left can overcome this gap – which is a cultural gap as much as it is a political one – is there any possibility of witnessing the development of a coherent, confident, and independently defiant working class with the capacity and capacity-inspired vision to fundamentally challenge capitalism.

There is undoubtedly much to be said of such an analysis. Radicals who cannot find a way to address the concerns, interests and needs of regular working people will stand on the sidelines and have little impact on the working class. However, Mr. Gindin fails to see the need to do the opposite–to stand with one foot outside of working-class communities, who for so long have been shaped by the concerns, interests and needs of the class of employers. Being too close to working-class communities and working-class organizations (like unions) can easily limit the development of the capacities of workers to develop a radical vision that contributes to the creation of an effective movement against the class of employers. Mr. Gindin himself, as I have argued elsewhere (see The Socialist Project’s Critique of Doug Ford’s Attack on Local Democracy Falls Short), has been too close to the union movement, failing to engage in its criticism when it is warranted. We need to develop an environment in the labour and union movements where discussion of important issues–such as whether working for an employer can ever really be characterized as “decent” or whether any wage or contract can ever really be considered “fair”–can emerge without heaping abuse on those who raise such issues.

Mr. Gindin’s reference to “inward development” following on the coronavirus–focusing on organization at the local and national level rather than at the international level–may or may not turn out to be radical (see his article Inoculating Against Globalization: Coronavirus and the Search for Alternatives). Those who look only to international developments to resolve our problems without connecting them to organization and action at the level of the city, the region and the nation will likely vastly underestimate the difficulties that lie ahead. The basis for a powerful international working-class movement must have deep roots in the working class at the local level. Indeed, the local level itself is relative and, unless artificially separated off from the wider world and context, must lead to that wider world and context if we are to come to grips with that local level theoretically and practically. From John Dewey (2004), Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education,  pages 229-230):

… local or home geography is the natural starting point in the reconstructive development of the natural environment, it is an intellectual starting point for moving out into the unknown, not an end in itself. When not treated as a basis for getting at the large world beyond, the study of the home geography becomes as deadly as do object lessons which simply summarize the properties of familiar objects. The reason is the same. The imagination is not fed, but is held down to
recapitulating, cataloguing, and refining what is already known. But when the familiar fences that mark the limits of the village proprietors are signs that introduce an understanding of the boundaries of great nations, even fences are lighted with meaning. Sunlight, air, running water, inequality of earth’s surface, varied industries, civil officers and their duties–all these things are found in the local environment. Treated as if their meaning began and ended in those confines, they are curious facts to be laboriously learned. As instruments for extending the limits of experience, bringing within its scope peoples and things otherwise strange and unknown, they are transfigured by the use to which they are put. Sunlight, wind, stream, commerce, political relations come from afar and lead the thoughts afar. To follow their course is to enlarge the mind not by stuffing it with additional information, but by remaking the meaning of what was previously a matter of course.

Starting at the local level does not end there but gains in meaning as the conditions for the existence of that local level become more evident, just as the larger picture gains in depth by being routed in diverse ways to our immediate lives (page 143):

Nor are the activities in which a person engages, whether intelligently or not, exclusive properties of himself; they are something in which he engages and partakes. Other things, the independent changes of other things and persons, cooperate and hinder. The individual’s act may be initial in a course of events, but the outcome depends upon the interaction of his response with energies supplied by other agencies.

However, that means that taboo issues that unions and the so-called progressive left either ignore or actively suppress need to see the light of day–such as just how legitimate any person or organization can claim that they represent “fairness” in the context of an economic and political system dominated by a class of employers.

To make good on the simultaneous focusing on the local and the global, it is necessary to begin to develop class analysis at the local level such as the local, regional and national class structure as well as local conditions of exploitation (rate of exploitation) and class oppression. Class organization also involves class analysis.  Let us hope that Mr. Gindin (and others) start this important analysis. Otherwise, reference to the local is just rhetoric.

Professor Tuft’s brief reference to Mr. Gindin’s call for a radical restructuring of unions, then, is far from adequate. By merely referring Mr. Gindin’s call for a radical restructuring of unions without analyzing the adequacy of such a call, Professor Tuft skirts the issue of the nature of such radical reconstruction. By doing so, Professor Tuft can then proceed to focus on what is typical of his approach: reform of unions and the nature of such reformed unions rather than radically reconstructed unions and the nature of such radically reconstructed unions. Unfortunately, then, Professor Tuft’s call for reformed unions already has limitations.

A further post will shift to investigating Professor Tuft’s analysis of the probable situation of unions in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic here in Canada as well as his proposed solution.

The Silences of the Social-Democratic Left on the Standards They Use in Relation to Health and Safety

I had a debate on the Facebook page of the Toronto Airport Workers Council (TAWC), an organization designed to facilitate communication and common actions among unions at the Toronto International Pearson Airport. The issue was health and safety and workers’ compensation. In Canada, most workers who work for an employer are covered by workers’ compensation–a fund derived from premiums that employers pay, based on the rate and extent of accidents in the particular industry as well as the accident record of particular employers. Being covered by workers’ compensation means that, if an injury (or disease) is work related, then the worker has the right to be compensated.

The following conversation occurred on October 18, 2019, first with an anonymous member of TAWC and then with the TAWC member Mike Corrado (who is also the general chairperson of the central region of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW):

Premier Ford [of Ontario,Canada] says he cares about safety, but after the 5th temp agency worker death at Fiera Foods Company, he still refuses to take action. Legislation already exists to stop companies from treating temp workers’ lives as disposable. Tell FordNationto implement this law, now! VISIT: www.15andFairness.org

Fred Harris Are there any statistics about now many non-temporary agency workers have died since 1999? Or even during Doug Ford’s term as premier? Is one death one too many in that situation? If so, what is being done about it? Why the focus exclusively on temporary workers? Certainly, that issue should be addressed–but what about those who supposedly have :”good jobs” (unionized, for example)? Do they not still die needlessly in the context of an economy dominated by a class of employers?

Tawc Yyz Thats far too many questions to realistically answer on this post.

Fred Harris Let us assume that this is the case. There are six questions in the above post. Take any question and answer it. Or perhaps one question per week? Or per month? Every two months?

Should not at least one question be answered now? If not, why not?

Take any of the six questions and answer it. Or is one quetion “too much” to realistically answer on this post?”

I remember when I worked at one of those so-called “decent jobs” that much of the social-democratic left talk about. One night, a few days after the brewery was “inspected” (mysteriously the brewery was advised of the inspection beforehand so that the machinery, etc. could be cleaned), a worker lost a couple of fingers when his glove got caught in a chain on the conveyor belt. Not long afterwards, we started to produce beer again.

I guess non-temporary workers have it so good that the issue of whether workers will ever be safe under working conditions controlled in large part by employers should not be brought up? That the general issue of the unsafe working conditions in various forms should not be brought up? Or is that too many questions to answer in a post? If so, then feel free to answer it on my blog.

That temporary workers are more subject to the possibility of unsafe working conditions than regular working conditions is probably true (I worked as a substitute teacher–a temporary worker–though not for a temp agency) for a number of years. That did not prevent me from questioning the more general question.

Mike Corrado The brewery workers were fully covered under worker’s compensation or WSIB whereas temp workers aren’t afforded with the same rights!

Open Letter to Premier Ford
October 8, 2019

RE: Urgent action required after fifth temp worker death at Fiera Foods

Dear Premier Doug Ford,

As you know, on Wednesday, September 25, Enrico Miranda, a father of two, was killed on the job. As you also know, Mr. Miranda is the fifth temporary agency worker who has died on the job at Fiera Foods or an affiliated company.

Shockingly, it has been almost two weeks since his death and yet we have heard nothing from you. You have chosen to remain silent, despite having the power to implement legislation that could have prevented this tragedy.

Mr. Ford, this is the second worker killed at Fiera Foods under your watch.

Had you implemented Section 83(4) of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act – legislation which has already passed, but simply needs your signature – Mr. Miranda might still be alive today.

That’s why we are writing to you to demand that you immediately enact this existing law that will make companies using temp agencies financially responsible under the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act for workplace deaths and injuries.

Laws like this will make companies like Fiera Foods think twice before putting temp workers into harm’s way.

There’s no more time to waste, and we need you to take action to make sure this is the last temp agency worker death.

Implement Section 83(4) of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act – right now!

We expect to hear from you right away, and certainly no later than Friday, October 11.

Ontarians deserve to know whether their premier will stand up for workers – or whether he will remain silent and continue allowing companies to treat their workers’ lives as disposable.

Fred Harris Yes, the brewery workers were “fully covered under worker’s compensation or WSIB”–and is this compensation for the man who lost his two fingers?

Furthermore, substitute teachers (at least in Manitoba) are not covered by workers compensation.

In addition, the answer that “being fully covered under workers’ compensation” (or not) skirts the question of whether workers, whether covered or not, can ever be safe under conditions that are dominated by a class of employers.

Why shift the issue to being “fully covered under worker’s compensation or WSIB” or not to the issue of whether human safety is really possible under conditions dominated by a class of employers?

Of course, this does not mean that workers who are not covered by worker’s compensation should not struggle to obtain coverage (and others should support such struggle). However, the standard is itself ‘workers who are covered by worker’s compensation or WSIB”–an inadequate standard,.

Let us assume that all workers who work for employers are covered by worker’s compensation. On such a view, then workers would be safe? If not, why not? How many workers have suffered injury at the airport in the last five years? Two years? One year? Do they qualify for worker’s compensation?

Finally, legislation can prevent some injuries and deaths–but hardly all injuries and deaths under existing conditions of domination of the economy by a class of employers and the social structures that go along with that domination. Human beings are things to be used by employers–like machines. Given that situation, there are bound to be injuries and deaths. Or why is it that there around 1000 deaths at work a year in Canada and over 600,000 injuries?

No further response was forthcoming. Was my question about whether being covered by workers’ compensation was an adequate standard out of line? Do not workers deserve an answer to the question? Why the silence?

To be fair to Mike Corrado, at least he broke the silence typical of much of the social-democratic left. Unfortunately, he chose to then revert back to the silence so typical of the social-democratic left when it comes to the power of employers as a class.

Furthermore, Mr. Corrado’s position with respect to the power of employers as a class shines through on the same Facebook page just prior to the Canadian federal elections held on October 21, 2019:

Election Day is Monday. Family values, workers rights, healthcare, pharmacare, the economy, privatization, electoral reform, the environment and the wealthy paying their fair share are at stake and so is my child’s future!

I too am for workers’ rights, healhcare, pharmacare, etc. But what does Mr. Corrado mean by “the wealthy paying their fare share?” This is a social-democratic slogan or cliche. What does it mean? There is no elaboration about what it means. The slogan implies that the wealthy should continue to be wealthy–but only that they should “pay their fair share.” As long as they pay “their fair share,” they can continue to treat workers as things at work. They can continue to make decisions about what to produce, how to produce, when to produce and where to produce. They can continue to dictate to workers (subject to the collective agreement). They can continue to make decisions concerning how much of their wealth will be reinvested and how much will be personally consumed (determining thereby the rate of accumulation and the level of economy growth and the quality of that growth).

Just as the social-democratic left are silent concerning the adequacy of the standard of workers’ compensation, so too they are silent concerning the legitimacy of the existence of a class of persons who make decisions that affect, directly and indirectly, the lives of millions of workers.

Why the silence? Why are not workers constantly talking about these issues?

Employers as Dictators, Part Three

The social-democratic left in Toronto, undoubtedly like social-democratic reformists throughout the world, continue to ignore criticisms of their attempt to equate positive reforms with the realization of adequate forms through such rhetoric as “decent work.”

Consider Elizabeth Anderson’s critique of the power of employers, page 130:

Private government at work embeds inequalities in authority,
standing, and esteem in the organizations upon which people
depend for their livelihood. Those consigned to the status of
wage worker for life have no real way out: while they can quit
any given employer, often at great cost and risk, they cannot
opt out of the wage labor system that structurally degrades and
demeans them.

The social-democratic left, however, create all kinds of euphemisms for this fact of economic dictatorship: “decent work,” “fairness,” “fair contracts,” “economic justice,” “fair compensation”  and the like. In a recent post on Facebook by Tina Faibish (president of local 552 of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, or OPSEU), for example, we read: “Willowdale wants decent work!”: There are people with signs saying “Minimum wage of $15 and decent work for all.” The signs also say “$15 and Fairness.”

We certainly need to fight for a higher minimum wage and improved working conditions, but why is it that the social-democratic left need to embellish such demands with such absurd claims as “decent work” and “fairness”? They apparently cannot even face the reality that employers dictate to workers every day in one way or another and that the daily lives of workers, whether they receive a higher minimum wage and improved working conditions, is decidedly not decent work and not fair.

The social-democratic left, however, would have to make a radical break with their own ideology. They, however, undoubtedly will cling to their ideology all the more in order to fend off having to face up to the reality which most people face on a daily basis. They seem incapable of dealing with that reality. They either react with hostility against those who criticize their reformist ideology (calling their critics “condescending pricks,” for example), or they will remain silent.

Thus, I made the following comment on Facebook about the issue of decent work:

Such low expectations–working for an employer=decent work? Good luck being used as a thing for employers–with or without a collective agreement. Management clauses (implicit or explicit in collective agreements) enable management–a minority–to dictate to the majority. Such is decent work in a society dominated by employers–a lack of economic democracy and the existence of dictatorship.

The response by the social-democratic left? Silence. They refuse to consider that they share the same assumptions as their conservative opponents, namely, that working for an employer can be fair and decent.

Furthermore, there is a contradictory view of whether working for an employer is decent. Thus, on the Toronto Airport Workers’ Council Facebook page, there is reference to the death of an airport worker, 24-year old Kenrick Darrell Hudson, in Charlotte Douglas International Airport in Charlotte, North Carolina on August 12, 2019, where a luggage vehicle flipped, pinning the worker and killing him:

Sending love and solidarity from YYZ to the friends, family, and coworkers of the worker that lost his life last night in Charlotte.

Work smart, stay safe, and look out for one another. Airport workers across the globe share the same goal, we all want to go home safely at the end of the day.

It is difficult to see how the goal of going “home safely at the end of the day” can be achieved under conditions dictated by a class of employers and the ultimate goal of profit. After all, human beings are means to the end of profit and not their own ends (see The Money Circuit of Capital). Indeed, in a video presentation of the airport, one construction worker pointed out that “It’s like a racetrack out there” (Airline employee killed after luggage vehicle flips).

Ironically (and sadly), a few days after TAWC sent the above message to workers and family in Charlotte, North Carolina, there was an accident at the Toronto Pearson International Airport:

INCIDENT Baggage handler trapped under a tractor. Extricated by Toronto Pearson Fire. Transported to trauma centre by Peel Paramedics with serious injuries. Scene being held for investigation. Occurred on the ramp between T1 & T3.

How can safety ever be first when profit is the priority? When human beings are “costs” like other things? Was the work of that dead employee decent work before the accident but not decent afterwards? How can work be decent if it involves the possible injury of workers due to social conditions over which they lack control?

Social democrats should answer these questions, should they not?

The Contradictions of Unions: Reformist and Radical Assessments

Steven Tufts, in an article first published on Wednesday, September 11, 2019, on The Star website, and republished on the Socialist Project website on September 25 (Pension Plans Should Not Invest in Companies That Harm Working People), tries to show that, despite unions consciously disassociating themselves from investments that harm workers, their own pension fund managers may pursue policies that contradict such conscious disassociation.

(As an aside, Professor Tufts is a representative of the Toronto Airport Workers’ Council (TAWC).

He writes:

For example, Caesar’s Entertainment partnered with Oxford Properties, the real-estate investment arm of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS). Community groups lead by No Casino Toronto did successfully mobilize against these proposals, which divided council at the time. Members of CUPE Local 79 also deputed against the proposals as front-line city workers would have had to deal with the negative social and economic impacts of gambling.

At the same time, fund managers at OMERS, the pension fund of Local 79 members, deputed on the economic virtues of casino development. Here we see the contradictions of pension fund investments that negatively impact the very workers making contributions.

However, Professor Tufts does not question how unions can escape this situation. Pension funds generally have to invest money in some capitalist companies, and those companies are expected to obtain a profit. If this is the case, then there is a typical social-reformist strategy of opposing particular kinds of investments or particular kinds of employers while implicitly accepting the need for capitalist investments in general or the need for a set of employers.

In other words, does not any investment “harm workers?” Professor Tuft remains silent on how workers can escape this contradiction. Of course, there are degrees of harm of workers by employers, with some employers definitely treating workers worse than other employers. However, do not all employers harm workers by necessarily treating them as things to be used to obtain more money (private sector) or by excluding them from the right to determine the purpose of their work (public sector)? (See The Money Circuit of Capital).

Professor Tuft further states:

All workers deserve pensions, but pension funds for some built on tax cuts and privatization schemes are neither just nor sustainable over the long term. Unions continue to shield themselves against efforts to politicize pension investments, but this has a cost.

This criticism aims at the neoliberal model of “tax cuts and privatization schemes.” What if the pension schemes did not rely on such tax cuts and privatization schemes? What happens if they relied on merely–exploiting other workers in a non-neoliberal way (as they did before the emergence of neoliberalism)? Would that eliminate the contradiction between workers’ interests as workers and their interests as future retirees? I fail to see how it would.

Indeed, Professor Tuft states:

It is time for union leaders to confront pension plans that seek to transform our cities in ways that harm working people.

Surely, all pension plans, whether private or public, are riveted with the basic contradiction of being funded by workers while being used to exploit and oppress other workers. This contradiction cannot be abolished without abolishing the situation where a class of employers exploits and oppresses a class of workers called employees.

If this basic contradiction is acknowledged, then variations in levels of harm to working people can then be assessed. However, as it stands, Professor Tufts’ article implies that there can be “pension plans that seek to transform our cities in ways that” do not harm working people. Such a view is typical of reformist policies that fail to address the harm necessarily caused to workers because of the existence of a class of employers and the accompanying economic and political structure.

By not acknowledging the general harm that all employers pose for working people, Professor Tuft does not acknowledge the need to create organizations that oppose the class power of employers as such.

Obviously, some employers are better than others. However, the social-democratic left never get around to criticizing employers as such. They remind me of movies and television programs. Often, particular police officers or particular companies are presented as bad–but not the police function as such or employers as such.

Despite Professor Tuft’s evident desire to go beyond the limitations of union principles, he evidently operates within them implicitly since he assumes that workers’ pension plans can somehow magically overcome the contradiction of exploiting and oppressing workers by not following the neoliberal model–as if the capitalist relations of exploitation and oppression did not exist before the emergence of neoliberalism.

Should we not go beyond the limits of neoliberalism and challenge the economic and political power of the class of employers?

Working For an Employer is Dangerous for your Health, Part Four

There was an article published in the weekly Star Metro Toronto on September 4, 2019 on a health and safety issue. I will quote the article in full in order to provide the context and details of the incident:

TTC [Toronto Transit Commission] fined more than $330,000 in worker’s death

Dedes suffered major injuries after being crushed between rail car and pickup truck

Ben Spurr (Transportation Reporter)

The TTC has pleaded guilty to one count of violating workplace safety legislation in the 2017 death of track maintenance worker Tom Dedes.

‘At a hearing Tuesday in a small courtroom on the second floor of Old City Hall, prosecutors working on behalf of the Ministry of Labour agreed to drop two other charges laid against the transit agency in /Dedes’ death.

As part of its guilty plea, the TTC agreed to pay a fine of $263,000, which was the amount prosecutors recommended, Including a mandatory 25 percent victim surcharge, the total amount the transit agency will pay is $331, 250.

Each of the charges, which are non-criminal provincial offenses, carried a maximum fine of $500,000 at the time they were laid [emphasis added].

Speaking outside the courtroom, Tom’s brother George Dedes said the TTC plea, which came with a promise to improve worker safety, would give his family some closure after two years of anguish.

“It signals that they are taking steps to address the issues, which is good news,” he said.

“You want some accountability. They’ve done what they had to do. Honestly what else could they do? They can’t bring him back. They can’t change what happened.”

Dedes, an 18-year veteran who was 50 at the time of his death, suffered major injuries in an accident at the TTC’s McCowan Yard in Scarborough at around 2:18 a.m. on October 1, 2017.

According to an agreed-upon statement of facts that was read into the court record, at the time of the accident Dedes and a crew of workers were preparing to head out on a job to replace a section of track on the Scarborough RT.

They were loading equipment from a pickup truck onto a work railcar, but as they were about to leave they discovered a power pack–a hydraulic unit used in track welding–on the flatbed of the car was dead.

They moved the truck closer to the car to try to jump-start the battery pack by attaching it to the truck engine with jumper cables. The cables were too short, however, and they had to lift the pack off the flatbed using a crane.

Once it was successfully boosted, they hoisted the pack back onto the flatbed, and some of the workers got into the pickup truck.

The car operators’ view was obstructed and he couldn’t see the truck. He began advancing the car just as Dedes was walking around the back of the truck to the rear driver’s side door.

Because the rail car was on a curved track, its tail end swung out and struck Dedes, crushing him against the pickup truck. He died in the hospital eight day later.

Last September, nearly a year after his death, the ministry charged the TTC with three offences under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, including violating regulations that require employers to ensure adequate lighting, and to provide markings or barriers to protect workers from vehicles.

Those two charges were withdrawn Tuesday and the TTC pleaded guilty to the third charge: failing to take every reasonable precaution to protect workers–specifically failing to provide a qualified employee to monitor work car movements.

The TTC says Dedes’ death has already prompted it to improve safety at its McCowan Yard and other facilities. Among the steps the agency has taken are upgrading lighting, installing visual markings and a barrier around the railcar track area, and retraining employees.

Contrast this with the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 113: (By Ben Spurr, Transportation Reporter

Tues., Sept. 3, 2019, The Star): 

TTC PLEADS GUILTY TO ONTARIO MINISTRY OF LABOUR OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY ACT VIOLATION REGARDING THE DEATH OF ATU LOCAL 113 BROTHER TOM DEDES

ATU Local 113 President Carlos Santos today released the following statement to members regarding the TTC pleading guilty to a violation of the Ontario Ministry of Labour Occupational Health and Safety Act that resulted in the death of our Brother Tom Dedes who worked as a track maintenance worker:

“This is a sad day for our union as we continue to grieve for Tom Dedes, an ATU Local 113 member who left us too soon. Today, we offer our deepest condolences and support to Tom Dedes’ family, friends and co-workers.

The TTC today finally admitted guilt for violating the Ontario Ministry of Labour Occupational Health and Safety Act by ‘failing to take every precaution reasonable in the circumstances for the protection of a worker.’

Today’s guilty plea is further evidence the TTC must do more to protect its workers. ATU Local 113 will continue to support our union representatives on the Joint Health and Safety Committee to ensure the TTC is held accountable and exercises due diligence with implementing all recommended changes to create a safer workplace for all.

The TTC’s admission of guilt and the resulting fine is a somewhat hollow victory for Tom Dedes’ family, friends and co-workers who still deal with the tragic events and will continue to deal with the circumstances of his loss for the rest of their lives.

The TTC should have ended this case much sooner. The TTC legal team had possession of all the reports, statements and Ontario Ministry of Labour documents for a long time, but waited until attending court, one month shy of two years since the incident occurred, to admit guilt and settle. As is usual in these cases, the only people who come out ahead are the TTC’s lawyers as the TTC continues to waste taxpayers’ money fighting cases dealing with important health and safety matters.

For the TTC, the case is over when the fine is paid. However, for those left behind who continue to work day after day at the TTC, the situation is far from over.

For almost two years, family, friends, co-workers and investigators have dealt with trauma. Thoughts of that night, reliving the experience throughout the investigation and anticipating reliving the events in an unfamiliar court environment have caused many sleepless nights and stressful days for those involved. Looking at these experiences, our union’s position is that the TTC failed to provide an adequate support system for the employees who witnessed the incident and experienced trauma, which is unacceptable.

The file is closed on the case, but the work is not done. Now, we move forward. We learn from this horrible lesson and do our best to ensure another group of workers does not need to go through this experience.

We remember Tom Dedes and we continue to offer support, kindness and understanding to those still suffering. We look ahead and do our jobs safely. We have the right to work safe and come home safe. Now, more than ever, members need to have an awareness of their work environment and exercise their rights if, at any time, they do not feel safe.

ATU Local 113 will continue to fight for the TTC to provide a safer workplace and proper support for all workers who experience trauma.”

The emphasis of the union is, on the one hand, the emotional aspect of the death and, on the other, the moral irresponsibility of TTC management for ensuring safety and in providing timely closure for family and friends of those who die.

Although the union’s attitude is certainly more humane than the attitude of TTC management, it is debatable whether that is all that can be learned from this situation. To say the following by the ATU union fails to address the issue of the power of management as representative of employers:

We look ahead and do our jobs safely. We have the right to work safe and come home safe. Now, more than ever, members need to have an awareness of their work environment and exercise their rights if, at any time, they do not feel safe.

This fails to take into account the level of fear characteristic of the work environment, whether implicit or explicit. Workers know, even though they rarely explicitly admit it, that they are economically dependent on employers in general and their specific employer in particular. This economic dependence often prevents them from asserting their “rights” out of fear of retaliation by management.

Secondly, the inadequacy of worker rights with regard to safety are not even acknowledged. Yes, workers have the right to refuse to work if they consider the work to be unusually unsafe–but if their work is usually unsafe, they have no right to refuse to work. Thus, when I worked as a teacher, the educational assistants were informed that they could not refuse to work with students who were violent in one way or another because such situations formed part of their normal duties.

Thirdly, the union avoids the issue of the extent to which workers can engage in work that is unsafe no matter how many precautions they take since it is employers and their managerial representatives who generally provide the working context for work and not workers.

Fourthly, the union does not even bring up the issue of the charge(s) not being criminal charges. In the case of deaths caused by individual citizens, charges can have a criminal character. Why are they not here? Why the silence over the issue by the union?

The inadequacy of the union point of view can also be seen in an exchange I recently had the Toronto Airport Workers’ Council (TAWC) Facebook page with someone concerning safety at work. The following exchange occurred:

Jonathan Horchata Delgado Give the crews the proper training and guidance they need in an environment that encourages it. Your accident rates will plummet. You’re only as good as the training you have.

Fred Harris The view that “accidents” are caused mainly by a lack of training is a myth. Employers control many conditions over which workers have no control–and employers in the private sector are out to obtain as much profit as they can. There is hardly any wonder that people are injured or die.

As I wrote on my blog:

I submitted an article for the popular education journal Our Schools/Our Selves concerning the issue of safety (and the lack of critical thinking skills that is embodied in two Ontario curricula on Equity and Social Justice). In that article, I quote:

More than 1000 employees die every year in Canada on the job, and about 630,000 are injured every year (Bob Barnetson, 2010, The Political Economy of Workplace Injury in Canada. Edmonton: Athabasca University Press, p. 2). The same year as the publication of that work saw 554 homicides (Tina Mahonny, 2011, Homicide in Canada, 2010. Ottawa: Statistics Canada, p. 1) —the number of employee deaths at work under the power of employers was around double the number of murders.

Murders are the focus of the social media and the criminal legal system. Inquiries into murders do occur, and some are very thorough. On the other hand, inquiries into the extent to which the pursuit of profit played a major role in the death of employees (or the extent to which the undemocratic nature of work of public-sector employers) are lacking. There is an implicit assumption that such deaths are acceptable and the cost of living in the modern world. Should not those concerned with social justice query such an assumption? Is there much discussion concerning the facts? Or is there silence over such facts? Should those concerned with social justice inquire into the ‘perspectives and values’ of curriculum designers? Should they attempt to “detect bias” in such documents?

Should not the issue of the relation between the pursuit of profit and needless deaths be a focus for public discussion on an ongoing basis if social justice is to be addressed? Where is the public discussion over the issue? Indeed, if critical thinking is to lead to “issues of power and justice in society,” you would expect to see inquiry into the power of employers and the relation of that power to the death, dismemberment and injury of workers. Is there any reference to such an issue in the two curricula documents?

Are not workers in our society bought and sold on a market called the labour market? As long as they are, they are “costs” to employers, and as costs employers tend to try to reduce such costs in order to obtain more profit (in the private sector). One of the ways in which they can reduce costs is by not spending much money on equipment and training that relates to safety. The temptation will always be there as long as employers exist and have control over workers. See (The Money Circuit of Capital) for an explanation.)”

The view, furthermore, that employers can invade our privacy any way they like because other employers do it is absurd; it assumes that what employers do in the first place is somehow legitimate.

 

Jonathan Horchata Delgado Fred Harris i agree that employers shouldn’t be invading privacy, as it breeds a culture of fear and mistrust, and big gap between managers and crews, and I see your point about training, but, well trained staff with good resources, even if the equipment isn’t top tier, shouldn’t be a deciding factor in safety. Companies are always about profits, true. I still believe that if you’re trained and feel you have access to proper resources, and skill is nurtured, your accident rate would still be low. I’m speaking from experience once working for probably the worst company for equipment, and we had nearly zero accidents. Also, in the military, which many good companies utilize or training matrixes, teach the human factor is the main quotient in accidents. Not disagreeing in total with you, but I wouldn’t blanket accidents and training as a myth completely. 

Fred Harris I did not say that it was “entirely” a myth–but to view training as the deciding factor in accidents is a myth.

And the view that “if you’re trained and feel you have access to proper resources, and skill is nurtured, your accident rates would still be low.” It is not about “feeling you have access to proper resources” but actually having such resources–and that is in the hands of employers, in general–employers whose aim is profit.

Furthermore, workers are “costs” for employers, and as costs, the “cost” for probable accidents is factored into determining whether to cut corners, etc.

Of course, some training can reduce accidents–but the idea that it is mainly the fault of workers that “accidents” occur is a myth.

Further evidence of the limitations of the union point of view is the posts on the TAWC Facebook page about “accidents.” The reference is to a worker killed when a luggage vehicle flipped over, pinned and killed at the North Carolina Charlotte-Douglas International Airport:

https://www.fox46charlotte.com/news/airline-employee-killed-after-luggage-vehicle-flips-pins-worker-at-clt-airport

At the above link, it says: One of the construction workers at the airport said: “It’s like a racetrack out there.” The reporter explains: “He was referring to how busy the tarmac is out there, with so much traffic in the area.”  Why would it be like a “racetrack” out on the tarmac? Perhaps because it was more profitable for the various airlines than a less intensive workplace? One of the ways that employers can obtain more profit is by increasing the level of intensity of work.

The union, however, never mentioned this factor as a social cause in the accident. There will be an investigation, but it is highly doubtful that the accident will be linked to the pursuit of profit. Since, however, workers are mere means for obtaining more money (see The Money Circuit of Capital), it is understandable why the tarmack would be like a racetrack.

American Airlines, of course, expressed the following rhetoric:

American Airlines is deeply saddened by the death of one of our team members from Piedmont Airlines late last night. Right now our priority is caring for his family, and for our team in Charlotte.

Let us now listen to the union point of view in relation to safety in general:

TAWC commented on its Facebook page:

Sending love and solidarity from YYZ to the friends, family, and coworkers of the worker that lost his life last night in Charlotte.

Work smart, stay safe, and look out for one another. Airport workers across the globe share the same goal, we all want to go home safely at the end of the day.

On August 14, 2019, the TAWC made a comment about another “accident”–this time a Delta tug operator was killed on the job:

Work Smart!
Work Safe!

Deepest sympathies to yet another fallen airport worker

Solidarity is undoubtedly important. And working as safe as you can is also important. But how can workers really work safe (and smart) when they are subject to pressure to work as fast as possible in order to make as much profit as possible for the employers (or in order to minimize costs in the case of both public sector and private sector employers)? It remains a mystery to me.

The Toronto Airport Workers’ Council had the following on their Facebook site on August 19, 2019:

Another serious accident involving a baggage tractor. This time it’s one of our YYZ colleagues.

We wish a speedy recovery to our YYZ Coworker.

Work Smart! Work Safe!

On a Twitter linked to this, Tom Podeloc posted:

INCIDENT Baggage handler trapped under a tractor. Extricated by Toronto Pearson Fire. Transported to trauma centre by Peel Paramedics with serious injuries. Scene being held for investigation. Occurred on the ramp between T1 & T3.

Of course, union references to such incidents and the call for both solidarity and more training is important. However, is this really enough? Should not union reps recognize that the existence of a class of employers and the existence of social structures that support their existence necessarily contribute to death and injury?  Why do the unions ignore the existence of a class of employers as such, the social structures that support them and the deadly consequences that flow from their continued existence?

It is hardly enough to call for solidarity and to work safely. Workers cannot work safely as long as employers as a class exist and as long as their exist social structures that support the existence of such a class of employers.

Workers deserve better than a call for solidarity on the basis of the continued existence of a class of employers–they deserve to be treated as human beings–an impossibility under the given social structures and relations. Full solidarity demands questioning the power of employers as such. Otherwise, human carnage, injury and suffering will continue needlessly.

Employers as Dictators, Part Two

Union reps typically refer to fair compensation in order to justify their short-term actions. Of course, there is nothing wrong with short-term goals as such, but when they are presented as the same as what should be a long-term goal (fairness and freedom), then such goals become an ideology that justifies the power of employers as a class.

Contrast, for example, the following quote from Ms. Anderson’s book and a discussion I had with a union rep.

From Elizabeth Anderson, Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (And Why We Don’t Talk about it), page 40:

I expect that this description of communist dictatorships in our midst, pervasively governing our lives, open to a far greater degree of control than the state, would be deeply surprising to most people. Certainly many U.S. CEOs, who think of themselves as libertarian individualists, would be surprised to see themselves depicted as dictators of little communist governments. Why do we not recognize such a pervasive part of our social landscape for what it is? Should we not subject these forms of government to at least as much critical scrutiny as we pay to the democratic state?

The social-democratic left do not engage in “critical scrutiny” of the “forms of government” of employers. Rather, they use as their standard improved working conditions relative to immediate working conditions–but they leave out any reference to the need to critique the dictatorship of employers.

Thus, I had a conversation with a union rep on Facebook–Dave Janssen–on the issue of fair compensation. Mr. Janssen, according to the Facebook page, “is an integral leader with the TAWC [Toronto Airport Workers’ Council] and the IAMAW [International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers] . He continuously strives to improve safety standards and the overall working conditions for the 49,000+ workers at Toronto Pearson [International Airport].”

Here is the following conservation:

Dan Janssen is at Toronto Pearson International Airport.

June 23 at 1:59 PM · Mississauga ·

Today was the Safety Expo event at Terminal 3 for the Canadian Airports Safety Week. It was a great opportunity to speak to my coworkers at YYZ [Toronto Pearson International Airport] about the importance of coming together to improve working conditions. Amazing to see so much support for flight attendants, as they need a change to federal labour laws that will ensure they are fairly compensated for their work. TAWC: Toronto Airport Workers’ Council [Facebook page]

9 Comments

Fred Harris What determines being “fairly compensated?” Can labour laws really ever “ensure they are fairly compensated?” Or is this an illusion? A cliche? Can any amount of money be considered “fairly compensated” when the people receiving the money are used as things for other persons’ purposes?

Please explain what “fairly compensated” means. Otherwise, the reference to “fairly compensated” is a cliche and does workers a disservice.

Dan Janssen For flight attendants, being fairly compensated means actually being paid for hours worked. The current model used around the world allows FAs to be paid only when the door of the aircraft is closed prior to pushback, not for any time spent prior to the flight departing.

Fred Harris It is more fairly compensated if they are paid for hours worked. How is it fairly compensated if they receive such pay?

When I worked in a brewery, we were paid for hours worked according to that definition (of course, not for travel to and from work). If we were paid for travel time and for hours worked, would we then have been fairly compensated?

I fail to see how that can be so. Firstly, we were things to be used by employers for the end of profit–no matter what our current pay. Secondly, of course the question arises: where does the profit come from except from the workers’ labour in the first place.

Thirdly, even if there were no profit, flight attendants would still be things to be used for purposes external to their own lives; it is not they who democratically control their own working lives.

Fourthly, flight attendants operate within a social division of labour that is determined by the general structure of the economy. They are not free to choose different kinds of activities, within the limits of their time and abilities and those of other workers because they are economically dependent on an employer.

They are unfree in various ways.

Fighting for higher earnings is always necessary–to refer to “fairly compensated”–that does workers a disservice. How can any compensation be adequate to such a lack of freedom when working for an employer?

Dan Janssen I see where you are coming from. This campaign for fair compensation has been resonating with all of our coworkers in support of flight attendants since it was launched. We are open to suggestions if you would like to put forward any ideas.

Fred Harris My suggestion is: cease referring to it as fair compensation. Use the relative term “fairer” and explain why there can be no such fair compensation. Explain that workers deserve much more than that–to control their own working lives and that a fight for increasing compensation for flight attendants is one step in a link of steps to eliminate the power of employers over workers and over our lives in general.

In other words, what is needed is an approach that links up, explicitly, one particular fight against employers with a general fight against employers.

Another aspect would be to start a discussion–or campaign–to question both explicit and implicit management clauses in collective agreements. Why do they exist? Why do employers have such power? What are the implications of managerial power for the limitations of legal union power?

What of collecting several management rights clauses in various collective agreements at the airport and having discussions over such clauses via emails, to the general membership, asking them what they think about this power? What of steward training that shows the limitations of collective agreements in relation to the power of unions?

Why not expand such discussions by linking them to other aspects of power by employers (their legal power, their political power, their social power and so forth)?

Fred Harris Any responses to the suggestions?

Dan Janssen Yes Fred, please come out to one of our TAWC open meetings and put your ideas forward to the council to be actioned. Our meetings are open to all airport workers, unionized or not and anyone can bring forward ideas, events, actions, etc. Decisions are made as a group. Message the page with your email and we will add you to our email list.

Fred Harris Another suggestion: Have a discussion (both among union reps and among the general membership of various unions) concerning the lack of discussion about the origin and nature of employers in the Ontario history curriculum (and the origin and nature of employees, of course, since employers without employees is impossible).

In other words, have a discussion about this issue in order to counter the silent indoctrination of hundreds of thousands of students concerning their probable future lives as subordinates to the power of the class of employers–unless they organize not only to oppose that power but to overcome it.

Fred Harris Not really feasible. I already attempted to question the idea of $15 and Fairness” at a public forum, and despite raising my hand a number of times to ask a question, I was not recognized by the chair–Sean Smith.

Secondly, I have experienced hostility by union members (rather, union reps) before concerning such ideas. I doubt that my ideas would be taken seriously if I broached the issue.

To be fair to Mr. Janssen, he did invite me to attend the Toronto Airport Workers’ Council (TAWC), but as I indicated above, in a public forum, I was not recognized by Sean Smith (a member of another union, Unifor), and Mr. Smith is a member of TAWC. Indeed, on the TAWC Facebook page, along with Mr. Janssen and others, there is a short passage about Dan Janssen and Sean Smith : ” Sean Smith (UNIFOR) and Dan Janssen (IAMAW) spent some time going over the history, past actions and structure of the Toronto Airport Workers’ Council to a captive audience of MAN [Manchester International Airport) workers from various companies and job functions.”

Although it is possible that Mr. Smith inadvertently did not recognize me when I raised my hand several times to ask the question about why the campaign for $15 and “Fairness” had the campaign linked to the concept of fairness, I am skeptical about such a view. I was sitting on an end chair in a direct line of sight with Mr. Smith. Furthermore, when one of the members of the audience who was instrumental in campaigning for the $15 and “fairness” raised her hand (Pam Frache), she was not only recognized by the chair but spoke for much longer than normal.

Given my skepticism about Mr. Smith’s attitude towards my views, and given the close relation between Mr. Smith and TAWC, it is unlikely that my views would be taken seriously at such meetings. Mr. Janssen’s invitation, then, though it may look democratic, may be less so.

Or perhaps I am wrong. Should I attend such meetings despite the probable ridicule of my views? What do you think? Any suggestions about what should be done?

The Toronto Airport Workers’ Council (TAWC): One Step Forward and Two Steps Backward?

I thought it appropriate, on May 1, the International Workers’ Day, to refer to something that disturbed me on Facebook yesterday–a post by the Toronto Airport Workers’ Council (TAWC), which included some remarks (and a video) by Howard Eng.
Howard Eng is the CEO of the Greater Toronto Airport Authority, the operator and manager of Toronto Pearson International Airport, the largest airport in Canada, with between 40,000 and 50,000 workers.

The step forward is the effort and success by some union members at the airport in creating a workers’ organization that not only cuts across union jurisdictions–the Toronto Airport Workers’ Council–but also makes efforts to create solidarity among airport workers across countries.

The two steps backward is the obvious reliance on representatives of employers in achieving goals of the TAWC. It is not that any workers’ organization should not make compromises; it is how such compromises are dealt with internally within the union membership which determines whether such compromise is worthwhile.

Compromise with management needs to be explained as a tactical necessity for the time being because of the superior forces of management at the time–and not justified in somehow expressing common interests. Workers, ultimately, do not have common interests with employers (unless it is argued that it is in the interests of workers to be treated as things for purposes which they themselves do not define. See https://theabolitionary.ca/the-money-circuit-of-capital/ for an explanation of how workers are necessarily treated as things by employers, whether in the private or public sector.)

A video featuring a short speech by him was posted, without comment, on the Facebook page for the Toronto Airport Workers’ Council (TAWC). There was also a picture of Mr. Eng and a woman (presumably a union rep) in front of a YYZ solidarity banner (YYZ is the city airport code for Toronto Pearson International Airport).


On the Facebook page, it is stated (and Mr. Eng is quoted. See https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=tawc%3A%20toronto%20airport%20workers’%20council&epa=SEARCH_BOX ):

The GTAA and the TAWC have been working to collect data on the makeup of our workforce, on best practices used by other airport when dealing with labour issues, and on safety initiatives. He was glad he “has the support of the unions, working collaboratively together to move forward, not just for our airport but for everyone that works here.”


Howard didn’t shy away from speaking about the difficult times we have had over the years and the challenges that have come. He asked for patience and to keep bringing forward our issues so that we can do our best to come up with solutions to address them.


Howard finished by stating: “change takes time. Let’s work together to make this a better place to work for the 50,000 that work here.”

This statement by Mr. Eng is typical employer rhetoric: workers and management are, ultimately, one big family, and need to cooperate to achieve a common goal. There is no comment by union representatives on the Facebook page to counter this rhetoric.

I did make some comments concerning this.

My first comment:

Did any of the workshops aim to counter the ideology expressed by this representative of employers? Or was there silence over the issue?

There was one reply:

Alex Ceric Change does not take time. I’s a very simple decision to improve the live of the workers. And when that decision is made the change is instantaneous. What takes time is for them do drop off a cookie crumb here and a cookie crumb there until it amounts to one single improvement.

I just wrote a reply:

This is pure rhetoric. The bottom line is profit at the airport, is it not? Safety comes second to that bottom line. Or does it not?

Besides, it is not just a question of change but what kind of change but also who makes the decision to change and how that decision is made.


Mr. Eng has power to make change, within limits. Who gave him that power? Why does he have it? Does his possession of power imply that a majority of workers have less power?


And on a technical note: change always takes time. No change is “instantaneous.” Please explain how any change is instantaneous.

Finally, the issue of Mr. Eng’s rhetoric that implies that management and workers have ultimately the same interest. What is TAWC’s position on such rhetoric? What is it doing to counteract such rhetoric, if anything?

My second comment:

I wonder how it is possible to address the problem of health and safety at a workplace when those who actually do the work are treated as things at work. To address health and safety requires democratic control over the workplace–for regular workers to be the “decision makers,” including determining who are the decision makers.

To refer to “opportunity to speak with the decision makers” sounds very anti-democratic, does it not? Who is the majority at the airport? The workers or the decision makers? If the decision makers are a minority and are not elected–would we not call that a dictatorship at the political level? And yet there is utter silence about the issue when it comes to the economic level.

Why is that?

No one has responded.

I have little doubt that many union reps at the airport, if they read this, will consider the writer to be a “condescending prick” (as CUPE local 3902 rep Wayne Dealy once called me). (CUPE is the Canadian Union of Public Employees). I would prefer to be called that and bring up issues which they hide rather than not be called that and remain silent over such issues. We workers deserve far more than the rhetoric of Howard Eng.

Do we workers not deserve more than such rhetoric?