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NEW CENTURY, NEW LABOUR STRUGGLES
(This editorial is from the Jan. 16-31/2000 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)
WE MAY BE INTO A NEW MILLENNIUM, but some things haven't changed, including the realities of class struggle. Despite high-sounding phrases about the "common values which unite us all," the fact is that workers and bosses remain sharply divided by opposing class interests.
In Calgary, for example, access to information technologies unheard of a generation ago gives advantages to both sides in the bitter Herald strike. For the employer, Conrad Black, tech change offers a way to drastically reduce the size of his workforce and to keep a close electronic eye on the remaining wage slaves at their computers. And for the members of CEPU and GCIU fighting for a fair contract, access to the internet allows them to set up a surprisingly effective "cyberspace picket line." We urge readers to keep on top of this ground-breaking struggle by regularly checking out <www.heraldunion.com> on the Web.
Meanwhile, in Atlantic Canada, coal miners and their families are battling to save this vital industry from elimination - or at the very least to win a decent set of layoff provisions. The capitalist media pundits sniff that "Most will have to struggle to find jobs, and may have to move elsewhere to do so - a common enough pattern in Canadian history." (Globe and Mail, Jan. 11/2000) Maybe so, but isn't that precisely the problem with capitalism? Wealthy shareholders never have to move anywhere (unless it's to some tropical land to evade taxes!), while working people just have to keep "goin' down the road." Not much in common there!
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