The Workers Platform

From December 2023 to August 2024, leaders and members of the East Van Workers Assembly held a campaign to build the Workers Platform.

This was an important step in uniting us around a political vision that truly represents the long-term interests of workers. The parties who claim to represent us constrict our imagination and restrict our political action. They try to sell us political platforms that are designed to pad the pockets of the rich. Even labour organisations tend toward conforming to the status quo rather than fighting for militant class demands between contract negotiations.

Assembly members identified that as workers we need our own political platform! A platform that represents workers long-term demands and presents a vision for what the economy and government could be if the balance of power was tipped in favour of the working class. A platform that offers a snapshot of what a new society run by and for the working class could look like.

The Platform:

Public ownership of the means of production.
Worker control over production.
Progressive national industrialization.
Production to serve human need and ecological sustainability.
Eliminate anti-worker and anti-union legislation.
Advance workers rights and welfare.
Democratize the workers movement.
Unions out of mainstream political parties.
Unions take up a working class political program such as the workers platform.

The process to build the Platform included:

Carrying out a broad reaching online survey
Conducting and document regular social investigation through the EVWA Research, Agitation, and Propaganda team.
Participating in and talking to workers during union strikes, picket lines, and actions through the Solidarity Workers Action Team.
Meeting with union locals and union organisers to learn about their challenges and struggles, and to discuss building a powerful workers movement.
Learning about the history of the workers movement, the state of the balance of forces, and how existing workers movements are struggling for change through educational and social events led by the EVWA.
And engaging EVWA members at monthly East Van Workers Assemblies!

Through collectively building the Workers Platform, we gave shape to a bold vision for working class positions on the economy, the government and unions – a vision to win all workers to, and with which to engage the workers movement.

Our Workers Platform addresses three fronts of struggle for workers: the economy, the government, and unions.

The Economic Front:

Despite being the ones who make profits for the rich through our labour, workers are subordinated to the interests of capitalists. Our economy is based on private ownership of the land and capital that is the basis of everything produced in this society. A few monopoly capitalists dominate entire sectors of production and distribution. Workers are getting a smaller and smaller share of the pie while we see record corporate profits, skyrocketing CEO pay, and a small group of uber wealthy families living extravagant lifestyles.

Workers hold little to no power over the production and distribution of products and provision of services. We have the productive capacity to sustainably provide comfortable and meaningful lives for all people. But because capitalists own and control all production and distribution infrastructure and access to raw materials, current productive capacity is designed and managed to enrich a small few rather than the majority. Only when we are organised and fight collectively for our interests can we assert any power over the economy.

The Political Front:

Workers are confronted at every turn with inadequacies from all levels of government: the Liberals under Justin Trudeau’s federal leadership and the NDP under David Eby’s provincial leadership. The government is failing in their responsibility to provide the things we need to work: safe public roads, rail, and marine infrastructure, public transportation systems, timely health care services, affordable and accessible childcare facilities, access to employment insurance or training and education funds, and dignified retirement programs. Just as bad, the legal system is pitted against workers in favour of the needs of business owners. For example bosses deploy scabs when we’re on strike, and are not legally required to give us paid sick leave. When it comes down to it, the government has our bosses’ back, not ours!

While in theory we live under a democratic parliamentary system, in reality our individual voices have no weight. Current political parties in Canada have few real differences, so our votes don’t change anything. Some workers believe the Conservatives under Pierre Poilievre would make a difference for the working class, when in reality he is silent on many pressing legislative changes, such as Bill C-58 that would ban the use of scabs! Further, his pro-war party will channel funds into brutal imperialist wars, away from things that workers actually need. It’s not the oppressed peoples of the world who restrict our freedoms, it’s the bosses who earn massive profits off of our work and pay us a pittance in return.

Unions:

Unions play an important role in defending the immediate interests of the working class, but the union movement has become disoriented. What were once militant organisations of labour fighting for the emancipation of the working class from exploitation, unions have been pressed into reformist struggle and contract negotiations.

Militant working class organisations once understood strikes as one of their primary tools for fighting the bosses, but today the “right to strike” is so narrow that it’s illegal for unions to strike except after the end of a contract. Because unions have legal obligations to respect labour law and the terms of their collective agreements, union leaders are careful to not break these rules to avoid fines or other penalties. Once given up, it’s hard to get these rights back, and any gains that workers make in one contract can be taken away in the next.

There are many committed working class fighters in the union movement, but instead of only fighting against the boss (the real enemy), they often end up having to struggle against pro-capitalist forces within the union. If workers are ever going to achieve more than just small reforms we will have to defeat the pro-capitalist political positions in our organisations.