United in Struggle

The East Van Workers Assembly (EVWA) is disgusted but not surprised by the federal government’s decision to legislate back to work over 700 locked out members of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union Local 514 in BC and 1,200 dockworkers of the Montreal-based CUPE Longshoremen’s Union, Local 375. Yet again, the government has steamrolled over the legally protected union rights of workers in Canada and demonstrated that their ultimate allegiance lies only with the monopoly capitalist ruling class.

This latest assault comes less than three months after Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon rolled over like a dog for the CN/CP railway duopoly by imposing binding arbitration on the 9,000 workers of the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference. Dockworkers aren’t new to this game, either. Just last year, the government took the extraordinary step of establishing an Incident Response Group, an “emergency committee […] convene[d] in the event of a national crisis,” to squash a 13-day strike by terminal cargo workers at the Port of Vancouver. We are seeing a pattern of outright collusion between businesses backing their workers into a corner, and a government happy to step in and finish the job. What the BC Maritime Employers Association business cartel gets away with today is what all of our bosses will try tomorrow.

So where does that leave us? The Canadian Labour Congress’s official statement decries the situation as “not fair,” and pleads for “mutual respect and good-faith negotiations.” Any worker who’s actually stood up to their boss knows that mutual respect and good-faith are useless platitudes, and that “not fair” stopped working as an argument some time after kindergarten. Workers are pissed off and tired of being pushed around. We’ve seen that bending over backwards to appease the bosses does not work, and workers are looking for something more. Whether we work on the docks or not, it’s up to all of us to stand with our fellow workers, align the whole union movement behind ILWU 514 and CUPE 375, deepen the unity of our class, and carry forward the struggle. To fight back and defeat these ruling class attacks, workers need to organize, take hold of their unions to build a true movement, and exercise the real power of our class to strike and shut down the flow of profits – the only language the monopoly capitalists understand. 

Solidarity with the dockworkers!

Down with anti-union attacks!

Down with corporate-government collusion!

Unite and fight to win for all workers!

East Van Workers Assembly, November 13, 2024