From: "Chris Hurl" <munkah at hotmail.com> Date: Fri, 14 May 2004 12:40:39 -0700
Near General Strike Thwarted in British Columbia
On Wednesday, April 28 British Columbia's neo-(L)iberal provincial government introduced Bill 37, imposing cuts totaling over $200 million on over 43,000 striking hospital workers. The hospital workers were legislated back to work, but they didn't go back. By Friday, municipalities, hydro, public schools, colleges and universities and ferries had all been shut down in wildcat strikes, as thousands of workers joined the hospital employees in defiance of the back-to-work order. That's all it took to spark widespread organizing for a general strike, planned for the following week.
Last spring, the Hospital Employees Union (HEU) membership rejected a negotiated agreement that would have seen wage rollbacks to protect jobs. Since then, over 6,000 jobs have been lost with another 2,400 receiving layoff notices since January. The union, one of the most radical in British Columbia, was being busted under draconian legislation, Bill 29, enabling the provincial government to void collective agreements for thousands of health care workers and social workers. While thousands of health care workers were laid off, the provincial government contracted out their work to a multinational corporation, the Compass Group, who would pay workers half the wages and benefits. Nevertheless, they remained unionized. The largest private sector union in BC, the Industral Wood and Allied Workers (IWA) had made an arrangement with the government to establish a 'rat' union to take care of the new employees. But it did not stop there. In bargaining with the HEU, the Health Employers Association of BC demanded the further contracting out of up to 7,000 jobs and wage rollbacks of up to 40 percent. To add insult to injury, they also demanded retroactive paycuts, forcing those who were laid off to pay the difference in wages back to the employer. For all these reasons, the HEU went on strike on April 25, and when they were legislated back to work, thousands of workers joined them in solidarity.
Nothing had been planned for May Day here in Victoria, but as workers prepared to walk off the job, they converged at City Hall for a last minute march and rally. The crowd buzzed with discussion, rumours, and plans about what to do next. This was unprecedented. The last time this came close to happening was in 1983, and that was shut down in an abhorrant last minute deal by the union leadership. But thousands of people were ready to walk off the job on Monday with or without instruction from the leadership. As of Monday, the Canadian Union of Public Employees and the BC Government and Services Employees Union (BCGEU), representing tens of thousands of workers, were prepared to support widescale job action. Moreover, many private sector unions were organizing to walk out later in the week. In the words of a local bus driver, we were ready to "shut down the whole fucking province". The leadership was freaking out. They had not planned for this. But now they had to take control of the situation. Suddenly, action plans had been developed, a schedule for job action was brought to the public, as though this had been the plan of union leadership all along. While only a week ago, the idea of a general strike had been a fantasy maintained by a small minority, by Sunday everyone was prepared to walk off the job, and despite intensive media attacks, the public was overwhelmingly supportive.
But I guess history repeats itself. As we were preparing to help shut down the university, along with the other CUPE locals on campus, I received a phone call on Sunday night. The union leadership had struck a last minute deal with the provincial government. We were not to go out Monday. We were told that any action on Monday would jeopardize the agreement reached and go against the wishes of the HEU. Later, the deal made by the HEU was revealed, the elimination of the retroactive paycuts and the capping of additional contracting out to 600. The membership were overwhelmingly disgusted and despite attempts to push them back to work on Monday, they stayed out to the bitter end. Nevertheless, the general strike had been quashed. While most workers in other unions were outraged at the arrangement that had been made, they were told to return to work on Monday and they did. A small group of unions did go out. We cross-picketed, shutting down ferries, transit, public schools, and the municipal works yard in the morning. Many HEU members picketed their own union office, demanding that their president Chris Alnutt resign. (A few days ago the BC Federation of Labour office was also picketed). But we were running out of steam. As the day progressed, injunctions had been pushed on a number of sites, and others lost momentum. We gravitated back to the hospital where we held out until the end of the day. Gradually, our numbers diminished, until hospital security showed up and under the watchful eye of the police, began ripping apart signs and placards.
In retrospect, many people are asking what went wrong. Some argue that there was little organization or coordination. We should have set up an independent strike committee bringing together the rank and file of various unions and community groups, making decisions directly in order to move against any cooptation by the union leadership. Others argue that such a body would further enable cooptation by the leadership. Nevertheless, there was very little time to organize and the lines of communication were dominated by union leadership. Some argue that this was not a general strike at all, but revolved around a single issue, affecting a single union. While women's centres have been shut down, time limited social assistance has been implemented, rent controls have been eliminated, tuition fees have more than doubled and student grants have been eliminated, none of this was brought forward. These demands were never made. Irregardless, this is currently a critical period. There are lots of people who are pissed off. The question is whether that anger can be directed to build rank and file networks or whether it will remain a flash in the pan.