photo essay: Toronto IWD march

On March 3, women from across Toronto took to the streets for International Women's Day.

The march included labour and community groups, opposition from inside and outside Parliament/City Council, and people of all ages.

As the organizers explained, the austerity agenda is worsening the lives of women, who already face endemic problems of violence. "Over the past year, the 99% has faced attacks on our rights as workers and the right to decent jobs, while austerity-driven political agendas have moved forward to slash public spending, targeting the very services upon which we rely during times of economic uncertainty.  Women and other marginalized people are disproportionately affected by cuts to public services, which deepen socio-economic marginalization. Our services mitigate socio-economic inequity and are vital to an equitable society." 

This year's theme--"Reclaim our city: good jobs, services, dignity. Together we are stronger"--built on the organizing of the past year.

Women have been at the heart of resistance movements, from the Egyptian revolution to anti-austerity fights in Toronto. Last year, IWD organizers were one of the first to confront Rob Ford over his cuts that threaten women's access to public services. Since then a year of organizing has dented the Ford agenda--stopping some budget cuts, stalling the sell off of social housing, and leading to a rebirth of the public transit debate. Ford is trying to get around the opposition by attacking the jobs on which public services depend, like contracting out cleaners. The march connected the fight for public services with the defence of the jobs that provide them, and included cleaners and library workers at the front of the march--who are campaigning to save jobs and public services.

Slogans also make links were also made to broader issues, like "childcare not warfare". While Harper is wasting billions on fighter jets, battle ships and wars from Afghanistan and Libya to threats against Syria and Iran--he still refuses to fund a national, publicly-funded child care program.

The march passed by City Hall, where people left messages in chalk connecting local with global, from "save transit city", to "status for all", to "free Palestinian female prisoners" (for more information, come to Israeli Apartheid Week)

By uniting women and men from across the city in defence of good jobs, public services and dignity, IWD left a strong message for Ford, Harper and the rest of the 1%: expect resistance.

“Defend our education: support teaching assistants”

Organized in just a week, hundreds of people representing a broad layer of the University of Toronto community united for the rally “Defend our Education: support teaching assistants”. As the Governing Council—the 1% on campus—met in a private meeting under chandeliers, the 99% on campus rallied outside in the lead up to CUPE 3902’s February 24 strike date.

Undergraduates were at the forefront of the rally. CUPE 3902 supported the student day of action against tuition fees, and students are reciprocating.  OPIRG-Toronto made a video supporting TA's, and "Undergrads for 3902" has organized a letter writing campaign. As one of their members explained, “we need a politics of solidarity. They support us every day of the year, and we need to stand with them when they need us. The interests are not opposed, they are aligned. We will not be crossing the picket line, we will be joining it.”

She and others brought 1000 letters signed by undergrads supporting CUPE 3902, and after demands from the crowd they were let through a police barrier into Simcoe Hall to deliver the petitions to the Governing Council. Meanwhile CUPE3902 hoisted a banner on helium balloons up to the window where the Governing Council was meeting.

Students wore stickers saying, “I hate my tuition, but I love my TA”. While tuition has been rising, so too have so too have tutorial sizes—a quarter have over 50 students, and a hundred have over 100 students. This undermines the ability of TAs to respond to undergrad’s educational needs, and reducing tutorial and lab sizes is a main demand of CUPE 3902. As an international student and member of CUPE 3902 explained: “We have been reduced to grading machines. If I’m in the fight it’s because I’m concerned about the quality of education at this university.”

As another placard read, “their working environment is our learning environment." CUPE 3902 is also demanding better graduate student funding, which benefits both grad students and undergrads. Because of insufficient graduate student funding (PhD students only receive funding for four or five years, when it takes an average of six years to complete), grad students need to take on extra jobs, undermining the time they have to devote to research and teaching. For international students who can only legally work on campus, this even threatens their ability to stay in the country. 

There was support from other unions on campus, including Steelworkers 1998 (administrative and technical workers), Unite HERE 75 (food service workers), CUPE 2484 (childcare workers). There was also a broader support, including a Toronto city worker from CUPE 416, Toronto Steelworkers, CUPE Ontario president Fred Hahn, and Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario chairperson Sandy Hudson—who led the crowd in chanting, “TAs and lecturers under attack, what do we do: unite, fight back.”

WHAT YOU CAN DO

1) Contact Provost Cheryl Misak (416-978-2122, provost@utoronto.ca) and Vice-President of Human Resources Angela Hildyard (416-978-4865, angela.hildyard@utoronto.ca) and tell them you support CUPE 3902. Copy vc1@cupe3902.org so they know you support them

2) Stay updated: visit cupe3902.org and follow @cupe3902

3) If there’s a strike: don’t cross the picket line, join it

photo essay: Feb1 student day of action

On February 1, students across the country took to the streets for a day of action, organized by the Canadian Federation of Students.

In Toronto, thousands of students from multiple campuses converged at the University of Toronto, marched through downtown and rallied at Queen's Park.

  

Students are facing skyrocketing tuition and massive levels of debt. 

  

On top of chronic education cutbacks and underfunding, students are being made to pay for the economic crisis they did not create. But as they chanted, "they say cut back, we say fight back", and "education is a right, we will not give up the fight."

In Ontario, Premier Dalton McGuinty campaigned on a promise to reduce tuition fees by 30%, but this only applies to a fraction of students. The size of the demonstration in Toronto, and the chants directed at McGuinty ("Dalton, you liar, tuition's getting higher") shows that students weren't fooled. In their thousands, students demanded a reduction of tuition fees for all, a dropping of the student debt, and an increase in education funding.

Students also made links with other issues, chanting and face-painting "drop fees, not bombs". The money for accessible education exists, but it's being wasted on fighter jets, tar sands, prisons, and tax breaks for the 1%.

The labour movement supported the day of action, including members of CUPE, Steelworkers, Toronto District Labour Council and the Ontario Federation of Labour.

This solidarity is crucial. More than 4,000 teaching assistance, graduate-student instructors, lab demonstrators, invigilators and writing instructors at the University of Toronto (represented by CUPE 3902) unanimously voted to set a strike deadline of February 24 if the administration fails to offer them a reasonable contract. They are asking for smaller class sizes, adequate compensation and better funding--in other words, they are trying to improve education.

There is already solidarity growing for CUPE 3902, from a campus organizing meeting drawing the links between students, TAs and food service workers, to an undergraduate-led campaign by OPIRG. As their video states, "CUPE 3902's proposals will improve the quality of education at UofT. What's good for CUPE 3902 members is good for undergraduate students." The February 1 day of action showed the strength and solidarity of the 99% on campus, which will be crucial in the weeks and months ahead to win accessible, high quality public education.

Mass organizing dents Ford's agenda -- now it's time to defend jobs

With a majority of 23-21, an amended budget passed at City Hall last night revoked millions in planned cuts to Toronto public services -- from pools to daycare spaces to shelter. This is the result of a year of mass organizing, which now needs to protect the jobs on which further public services depend.

Timeline of resistance

The change in council was the result of a year of mass campaigns uniting labour and community groups. As I wrote before:

"On his inauguration on a cold December day, 150 people protested. On his first council meeting, a temper tantrum about 'left-wing pinkos' by his invited guest Don Cherry sparked protest by councillors, while thousands of people across the city got 'left-wing pinko' buttons that they continue to wear with pride. In March organizers of International Women's Day confronted Rob Ford about his cuts to public services, and that weekend thousands marched for public services and jobs. On April 9 unions joined with student and community groups to bring 10,000 people into the streets of Toronto, transforming Ford's motto 'respect for taxpayers' into 'respect for communities, public services and good jobs.'

Many people saw the election of Ford as a sign of a right-wing surge across the city that could not be stopped. But by bringing thousands of people into the streets just a few months into his mandate, the April 9 showed there was mass opposition to austerity and division, and this mood has continued to grow.

Instead of dividing the city, Ford's boycott of Pride in June backfired and isolated him. In July a petition by Toronto Public Library Workers Union became a lightning rod when Margaret Atwood called on her supporters to sign. On July 28 the first marathon deputations spoke overwhelmingly against cuts revealing that the so-called 'Ford Nation' of citizens demanding austerity was non-existent. Instead August revealed a 'Jack Nation' as thousands of Torontonians covered City Hall in a rainbow of progressive messages to honour the life of Jack Layton and pledge to continue the fight for a better world. In September hundreds gathered at local organizing meetings -- the Stop the Cuts meeting in the west, and a town hall meeting in the east -- to discuss the cuts and organize against them."

In September a poll found a majority of Torontonians in all wards were against the cuts and that Ford's popularity was plummeting. Ford announced a delay of some cuts, hoping the opposition would dissipate, but on September 26 a second labour/community rally organized by Respect Toronto brought thousands more to protest outside City Hall.

In October and November, Occupy Toronto organized a series of marches to City Hall -- hearing from library workers, social housing advocates and others against the Ford agenda -- and on December 3 hundreds of labour and community activists held a mass meeting in Scarborough to protect jobs and services. This year of organizing by labour and community groups won a majority on council to revoke millions of cuts, as a third mass protest occurred outside City Hall.

Protect services to protect jobs

While Ford has been attacking city services directly through budget cuts, he is attacking them indirectly through job cuts. It was the attack on striking city workers that Ford rode to office, and his early actions included contracting out garbage workers and taking away transit workers' right to strike. As Ford has faced increased opposition to cuts to services, he has began scapegoating workers -- claiming that, "the gravy is the number of employees we have at City Hall." While some services were saved through the budget, there is an escalating campaign against the jobs on which services depend -- from York transit workers, to library workers, to city workers. To save the Toronto services on which we all depend, we need to protect the jobs that provide them.

Women and the Egyptian revolution

2011 is ending as it began: with images of thousands of Egyptian women and men standing up against a Western-backed military regime--from a 10,000-strong march of women two days ago, to another mass Friday march today. These make it clear that the Egyptian revolution is ongoing, and that women continue to play a central role.
The Western media are used to depicting Arab and Muslim women as passive victims in need of forced liberation (justifying the war in Afghanistan). While the Egyptian revolution busted this and other myths, the New York Times was still puzzled by the active participation of women against the regime--and claimed they have been otherwise peripheral to the political process. While official political structures have excluded women, they have been at the heart of the revolutionary process--from the movements leading up to the January uprising, to the strikes and protests that have kept it going.

PRELUDE TO REVOLUTION

As prominent Egyptian socialist Gigi Ibrahim explained in a talk last March, the Egyptian revolution began after a decade of struggles for Palestine solidarity, civil liberties, and economic justice. In December 2006 women textile workers began a strike in Mahalla:

"Some 3,000 women garment workers stormed into the main spinning and weaving sheds and demanded that their male colleagues stop work. "Where are the men? Here are the women!" they chanted. Then 10,000 workers gathered in the factory courtyard and once again women were at the forefront."  

This built the unity and confidence of women and men to challenge the regime, and triggered a wave of strikes over the next few years leading up to the revolution. It also produced a solidarity movements like the April 6 Youth Movement co-founded by Asmaa Mahfouz.

UPRISING

On January 25, Asmaa Mahfouz released a video that went viral, calling on people to go to Tahrir against the regime. Women were central to the uprising, leading chants and confronting riot police. 

Through the process of women and men uniting to change the world, they also changed themselves. Longtime feminist activist Nawal el-Saadawi described the mood inside Tahrir Square during the 18 days that toppled Mubarak:

“All the differences between Egyptians evaporated because of the revolution. Muslims and Christians were together, women and men were together. There was equality between all. The revolution washed away all the discriminations that was forced on us by the regime.”  

SOCIOECONOMIC DEMANDS

The January uprising not only toppled Mubarak but unearthed an accumulation of grievances, including women's rights, and the people of Egypt have continued the revolution for socioeconomic change. On International Women’s Day there was a mass rally in Tahrir Square demanding women’s rights:

“Women workers are demanding an end to discrimination in hiring and promotions, and want government-funded child care…On March 8, International Women’s Day, some 1,000 women and their male supporters rallied in Cairo to demand, among other things, that women be allowed to run for president and become judges.”

Women are also playing an important role in the workers movement, whose mass strikes were key to toppling Mubarak and remain central to challenging the military dictatorship. Dr. Mona Mina, a longtime activist and member of Doctors Without Rights, helped organize a national doctor’s strike in May—demanding higher wages for all workers and increased funding for health care—and was recently elected to the leadership of the union, in an election that challenged the Muslim Brotherhood.
As socialist Hossam El-Hamalawy explained, the Brotherhood are not a homogeneous reactionary block as portrayed in the media. Their leadership support neo-liberalism and have tried to call off strikes and demonstrations, but much of the youth of their membership have been part of the revolution and can be won to more progressive politics. When the regime and its allies attacked the Revolutionary Socialists, numerous groups came to their defence.

EXPOSING AND CHALLENGING THE REGIME 

Just six months ago when I had to chance to visit Egypt, there was widespread support for the military and a belief that "the people and the army are one", though some of the radical street art challenged this notion. But faced with ongoing strikes and demonstrations pushing the revolution forward, the military has lashed out at the strengths of the revolution—banning strikes, burning a Coptic Church in an attempt to provoke sectarian divisions, and attacking women—including forced virginity tests under threats of electrocution earlier in the year. As this video from The Real News show, there has been brutal crackdowns by the military regime every month since the toppling of Mubarak. The regime is a key pillar of US control of the region, so the US has continued to supply it with weapons, and it's only because of the recent international outcry and mass mobilization of women that Hilary Clinton claimed to have been "shocked" by the recent brutal beatings.
But the march of women and the demonstration today show these attacks have only increased the determination of ordinary Egyptian women and men to unite and fight for a better world--of democracy, economic justice, and women's liberation. 

Bad medicine: Harper's prescription for privatizing Medicare

The Harper government has announced a new funding arrangement for Medicare, which after 2016 will be tied to economic growth in the nominal GDP. According to one estimate, this will translate into $21 billion in cuts to health care funding over 10 years. 

          By unilaterally imposing health care funding cuts on the provinces, the Harper government is putting its own brand on a familiar prescription for privatization: scapegoat Medicare, ignore private health costs, pretend you don’t have any money, and then cut public health care to encourage privatization. 

1) SCAPEGOAT MEDICARE

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, fresh off his attack on Muslim women, was the first Tory to open the campaign against Medicare--scapegoating it for cuts to social services. Suddenly a public education advocate, he claimed that public health care costs are soaring and devouring provincial budgets, Kenney stated that "For some of the provinces, if they continue in that trajectory, there will be nothing left for education, for universities, for anything else." 

            This is a common myth, repeated by the corporate media, that manipulates statistics created by decades of Tory and Liberal cuts at both federal and provincial levels. The relative rise in provincial health care budgets is a statistical effect from greater cutbacks elsewhere. According to the 2011 report, “Neat, plausible and wrong: the myth of health care unsustainability” by Canadian Doctors for Medicare (CDM): 

“The change in share of provincial budgets is not primarily due to increased health care spending. It is the result of decreases in other provincial spending to accommodate political decisions to cut taxes…Deep cuts in federal transfers to the provinces in the mid-1990s were compounded by provincial tax cutting policies in the latter part of the decade, causing significant reductions in total provincial budgets. Provincial revenues have fallen almost $30 billion since 1997, causing decreases in other government program spending through cuts to education, social services, and municipalities…It is tax cuts that have ‘crowded out’ these priorities, not Medicare”

 2) IGNORE PRIVATE INEFFICIENCIES

          Overall health costs have increased, but it’s crucial to differentiate between public and private. While Medicare costs have been constant and sustainable over 30 years, overall health costs have increased—from those sources not covered by Medicare. As the CDM report explains: “The real cost driver is precisely the thing that critics of Medicare tout as the solution: private health care. Currently 30% of all health spending is in the private sector, up from 24% in 1975…the overall cost of care has been driven most significantly by the rising cost of pharmaceuticals.”

          If we want to control rising health care costs, we need to control the profit-driven private sector, federally and provincially. It’s estimated that developing a universal public pharmacare program could save $10 billion annually. But federal governments have refused to make this “efficiency”. Meanwhile a year ago the BC government slashed funding for the Therapeutics Initiative—an independent evidence-based review board that helped promote safe and affordable pharmaceuticals. 

3) PRETEND THERE’S NO MONEY

          While ignoring the heightened costs of private medicine, the Tories are using the economic crisis to justify cutting public health care, claiming there’s no money to cover it. According to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, "We all realize that public finances relate to revenues and we can't pretend that we can spend money that we don't have." This ignores massive tax cuts, bank bailouts and military spending sprees. While the new health plan could cut $21 billion from health, the Tories gave a $69 billion bank bailout, are wasting $220 billion on tax cuts, and have been going on a military spending spree—from $30 billion fighter jets, to $25 billion warships--as part of a $490 billion military plan.  

4) CUT THE PUBLIC TO PROMOTE THE PRIVATE

          But the Tories don’t want to debate the spending priorities of the 1%, so they’ve chosen to unilaterally impose cuts to the provinces, to encourage privatization. According to Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq, “This investment also provides the opportunity to put the divisive issues funding behind us to allow us all to focus on the real issue--how to improve the system so you can ensure timely access to health care when needed.” In other words, the government is trying to bury the question of federal funding—which initially comprised 50% of Medicare’s funding—in order to starve the provinces and encourage “timely access” through privatization, a strategy many provincial governments are happy to oblige. 

OCCUPY MEDICARE

          This passive aggressive approach is similar to Harper's campaign against abortion: claim to "not open the debate" while imposing cuts anyways. But this is based on a position of weakness: an overwhelming majority of people support public health care, the legacy of a grassroots movement that won Medicare and continues to defend it. Public health care is not a divisive issue, it unites us, as do other issues.  

          The funding is there, not only for public health care but for all the social determinants of health: income and social equality, housing and food security, education and a clean environment. But to occupy health and health care, we need to move beyond the 1% world of tax cuts, bank bailouts, military spending and profit-driven medicine.

Attawapiskat, Katrina and imperialism

In September 2005, hundreds of thousands of people surrounded the White House under the banner "make levees, not war"--connecting the anti-war and climate justice movements in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Of all the people I saw, one captured the moment best and let me take her photo: an African-American woman holding up a hand-made sign saying "No Iraqis left me on a roof to die"-- contemporizing Mohammed Ali's famous quote against the Vietnam War. While the US government demonizes Arabs and Muslims, and spends billions on war and occupation, the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina showed that the major threat was at home--in the form of poverty, racism, environmental destruction, and cut-backs.

ATTAWAPISKAT: CANADA'S KATRINA

     "This is the Native people's Katrina moment", said an Attawapiskat resident in reaction to the current crisis. Both juxtaposed oppression and opulence--from the black community of New Orlean's 9th Ward who were left to die on rooftops in the shadow of the wealthy French Quarter, to the indigenous community of Attawapiskat who were left to die in tents in the shadow of the richest diamond mine in the Western world. Both were symptomatic of a much broader problem stemming from slavery and colonialism. As NDP Member of Parliament Charlie Angus described, in a series of articles that helped highlight the crisis:

"Attawapiskat is the tip of the iceberg for the numerous Bantustan-style homelands of the far north. Years of chronic under funding and bureaucratic indifference has created a Haiti north where dying in slow motion on ice-filled shantytown is considered the norm."

     Both government responses seemed incompetent, but were ideologically-driven: first ignoring a tragedy that affected poor and racialized communities, then scapegoating them as criminals (for accessing food or allegedly mismanaging funds), then cramming them into a sports complex, and then trying to forcibly relocate them. Both emergencies became opportunities for disaster capitalism. As Robert Lovelace explained, 

"The tragedy at Attawapiskat was not only predictable it was planned. The current government has promoted an ideological solution to the "Indian problem" ever since the Conservative's incubation as the Reform Party. Their strategy needs a tipping point to convince the Canadian public that it is the only, and more importantly the final, solution. If it not Kashechewan or Attawapiskat, it will be some other community taken to the depth of despair. The plan is to dissolve Reserve communities through offering them up as private property to individual band members and turning Bands into municipalities. One more step away from the legal titles and rights protected under Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution and one more step toward complete economic and social chaos in Indian country."

OIL, PRISONS AND WARFARE

     To push its austerity agenda the Harper government claims to have no money and demands ordinary people pay for the economic crisis. The accusation that the people of Attawapiskat mismanaged funds is part of this broader narrative, with a specific racist focus on First Nations. The specific accusation of mismanaging $90 million was demolished by this article, and it's worth putting the $90 million into the broader context of government spending. 
     While the Harper government claims that $0.09 billion was generous for all the needs of Attawapiskat, it spends $1.4 billion on subsidizing the tar sands--which destroys indigenous lands. It plans on spending $10 billion on prison expansion--and will incarcerate a greater number of indigenous people if its draconian Bill C-10 is passed. And the Harper government plans on wasting billions on oil wars abroad--from $15 billion on fighters jets (the potential real cost of $30 billion is too big to fit on the graph), to $25 billion on naval warships. 
     Harper justifies the massive military spending on the claim that "the major threat is Islamicism", and that we need to continue the occupation of Afghanistan into its second decade. But to paraphrase--no Afghans left the people of Attawapiskat in tents to die.


SELF-DETERMINATION

     Another justification for militarism is that it can impose democracy, women's rights or development on communities who supposedly lack the ability to do so on their own. The inherent paternalism in this motive has accompanied Canadian military interventions from Afghanistan, to Haiti, to Libya, and builds on the colonialism on which Canada is based. Because the poverty and oppression that produce humanitarian crises are themselves products of colonialism and imperialism, sending more troops does not solve the problem and instead reinforces the denial of self-determination, whether in Haiti or Haiti north. So if the NDP does convince Harper to send the military to Attawaspiskat, it will become a photo-op to justify military spending and wars abroad, while doing nothing to decolonize at home. Instead we need to support the people of Attawapiskat to meet their own needs, as we collectively challenge the tar sands economy, the war and austerity of the Harper government, and colonialism. As Lovelace explained:

"The antidote for poverty is self-determination and no one can give you that. You have to stand up and take action yourself to make it happen. Colonialism does not give way on its own; it must be defeated through vigorous and enlightened opposition...Only through a convergence of our own self-determination and a willingness of Canada to decolonize can real change take place."