More than 15,000 trade unionists and supporters descended upon downtown London, Ontario on January 21 in an overwhelming display of solidarity with the members of CAW Local 27. Dubbed a “London Day of Action Against Corporate Greed,” the rally was held in Victoria Park, the site of last year’s Occupy London tent city. The downtown location served as a powerful symbolic connection to a movement inspired to defend the interests of “99 percent.”
“For workers across the province, Electro-Motive/Caterpillar has become the poster child of the greedy one percent,” said OFL President Sid Ryan. “This lockout represents everything that is wrong with a Harper government that rewards greedy corporations with public tax dollars while they bulldoze their workers in pursuit of obscene profits.”
Electro-Motive Diesel, a subsidiary of U.S. industrial giant Caterpillar Inc., locked-out its 500 Canadian employees on New Year’s Day in an attempt to force them to accept a pay cut of over 50 percent, dropping hourly wages for some from $35 to $16.50. This wage cut was one part of a $30 million concession package tabled in a year in which Caterpillar enjoyed multi-billion-dollar profits and a 20 percent boost to production over 2010. The company, known for bringing in scab labour to break unions, is rumoured to be planning to move production to a U.S. plant in Indiana where workers get paid even less.
When word of the lockout spread, Ryan contacted CAW President Ken Lewenza to offer support and issued a media release promising labour movement support in preventing scabs from crossing picket lines. Ryan and new OFL Officers Nancy Hutchison and Irwin Nanda each visited the picket line within the first few days of the lockout. When the CAW announced plans for a solidarity rally on January 21, the OFL swung into action to promote it as a full-fledged Day of Action. An OFL call-out, poster and various online materials helped to raise awareness and build momentum for the day.
The thousands of protesters piled onto 70 buses that were met by ten thousand more who travelled by car or came out from the community. Buses travelled to London from 20 communities as far away as Niagara, Ottawa and Sudbury. American workers even drove in from the GE Plant in Erie, Pennsylvania and the Caterpillar plant in La Grange, Illinois to support their locked-out Canadian counterparts.
The rally was addressed by representatives of the CAW, the locked-out workers, their families, community members and London Mayor Joe Fontana. Labour movement speakers included London and District Labour Council President Patty Dalton, OFL President Sid Ryan, CLC President Ken Georgetti, and CUPE President Paul Moist. Interim NDP Leader Nycole Turmel also delivered solidarity greetings and was joined on the stage by several NDP MPPs and federal leadership candidates. Occupy activists joined the rally to strong applause. After the rally, thousands made their way to the CAW Local 27 picket line on the outskirts of London where they closed down the road in solidarity with the locked-out workers.
For workers across the province, fighting Electro-Motive/Caterpillar means fighting every greedy, foreign-owned corporation that buys up Canadian companies in order to gut wages and benefits or move production out of the country. The Investment Canada Act is intended to protect national interests by requiring “consideration of a ‘net benefit’ to Canada when approving foreign takeovers of Canadian companies.” However, as with U.S. Steel last year, and so many other companies, the Harper government has proven itself to be unwilling to enforce the Act or, as in the case with Caterpillar, even disclose the terms of the purchase.
The London Day of Action sought to draw attention to Harper’s failure to protect Canadian jobs and interests. It also called upon Premier Dalton McGuinty to support fair collective bargaining by banning the use of scabs in labour disputes.
“This isn’t simply about protecting the jobs of 500 workers, it is about taking a stand against the worst kind of state-sponsored corporate greed,” said CAW President Ken Lewenza. “Prime Minister Harper is spending billions of taxpayer dollars to subsidize tax cuts for profit-rich corporations that simply take our cash and our jobs. It is time he stood up for Canadians.”
The energy and solidarity at the rally was palpable and those who attended agreed that it served to mark the beginning of a year of renewed labour militancy and resistance against corporate greed. The message for all employers in the private and public sectors was simple: “support decent jobs and benefits or it won’t be business as usual in Ontario.”
