WAM it to the Bosses! Elect Julius Arscott - OFL Secretary-Treasurer
The Workers’ Action Movement, a grass roots alliance of labour activists that fights concessions bargaining and demands greater union democracy, is running a candidate for Secretary-Treasurer of the Ontario Federation of Labour. He is Julius Arscott, an Executive Board Member of the Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union, and a long-time delegate to the Toronto and York Region Labour Council. Julius, an employee of the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks since 2000, has been a leading proponent of mass action to smash Bill 124, two-tier wages/benefits, and all threats to Greenbelt lands. The election will occur at the OFL convention in Toronto’s Sheraton Centre Hotel, November 20-24, 2023. Past WAM candidates for OFL Executive received up to 36 per cent of the votes cast.
Across the country and around the world there is a labour awakening. Strikes to contend with the rising cost of living and growing job insecurity are shaking the establishment. From giant grocery chains to sprawling dockyards, from federal public services to salt mines, to railway car makers, to liquor stores, to movie and TV production sets, workers are standing up. Who will be next to take job action: teachers, truck drivers, nurses, auto workers?
Many who choose to strike do so only after turning down flawed tentative agreements recommended by conservative union leaders. Meanwhile the bosses bank billions in profit and serve the interests of the war mongering, nature-destroying ruling capitalist class.
Isn't it time to WAM it to the bosses and the bureaucrats?
The WAM campaign focusses on the need to mobilize opposition to the agenda of the Doug Ford Conservative government and its wealthy Bay Street backers. After decades of concessions bargaining, stagnant wages and increasingly precarious employment, the labour movement has withered. Youths, immigrants and people of colour are increasingly precarious workers. They find little reason to be engaged in their unions, if they are lucky enough to belong to one.
WAM is calling out the leadership of Labour for its weak response to Doug Ford’s cuts to public services and to his attacks on vulnerable people. Token rallies, and cavalcades of trucks circling Queen’s Park won’t cut it. The leaders of the OFL and affiliated labour unions have done too little to mobilize and engage the membership.
A WAM-led OFL would encourage affiliated unions to increase compensation demands in bargaining with the employer, insist on a permanent annual Cost of Living Adjustment, end two-tier benefits and wages, and combat racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and unsafe conditions in the work place. It would actively support social justice movements by going beyond polite protest outside the doors of the Ontario Legislature. A WAM-led OFL would plan a counter-offensive to the bosses, including escalating job actions, up to a province-wide general strike to bring down the Ford government and force an early election.
It’s time for an organized Left Opposition
The Workers' Action Movement has an ambitious goal -- to break the hold of capitalist austerity and to end the downward spiral of concessions bargaining.
WAM seeks to establish a cross-union, class struggle workers' movement that is anti-capitalist, anti-austerity, anti-concessions, anti-authoritarian, and pro-union democracy.
WAM strives for change based on policies, not on personalities. We aim to replace mis-leaders on political grounds; to affirm union democracy principles from the bottom up; and to build an independent, class struggle movement from below that is inclusive, transparent and accountable. That means changing the overall direction of our unions, and supporting union activists who battle concessions and anti-democratic practices. Not confined to union members, WAM aims to work with social justice movements, and welcomes all workers and activists from those movements.
Ours is a body of union radicals that emerged from the Take Back the CLC campaign in May 2014. That organizing effort contributed significantly to the defeat of Ken Georgetti - the first time an incumbent CLC president lost. Subsequently, WAM activists won elections in OPSEU and other unions.
WAM helped to organize mass picketing and blockades at postal facilities in 2018 when the Justin Trudeau Liberal government outlawed the rotating strike of CUPW that stood up for equal pay, postal banking and a fleet of electric vehicles. WAM recently rallied to stop education and health service cuts in Ontario.
To win these fights mass job action is needed. Sadly, a potential general strike in Ontario in November 2022 stopped short. Needed is leadership that will advance the movement.
The Workers' Action Movement is trying to make a difference, but it cannot substitute for the mass organizations. Our ideas are strong, but our resources are modest. That is why we are trying to change the leadership and overall direction of the existing unions, from the bottom up. Unions have enormous resources. Potentially, militant, democratic unions are the key to unlocking the power of the working class to create a better world for all. Join WAM. Donate now to our WAM OFL election campaign. Together we can win. But how?
One task is to overcome bureaucratic splits in the labour movement. A few years ago, some union leaders didn't like what the OFL executive was doing, so they stopped paying dues to the OFL. That was just an excuse for being unwilling to debate in a principled way, and being unwilling to build a common front against austerity. Recently, the CLC, Unifor and other labour bodies crossed the class line by pushing ‘strategic voting,’ that is, by backing the Liberal Party. That hurt the NDP and Labour.
Unions in Canada encompass 28.7% of the work force, 10% less than in 1983. In Ontario only 24.7% are organized. Average wages are lower now than in a generation. Morale is lower still. 15% of workers over the age of 45 say that they will never retire. Another 25% say they will work part-time to the end.
Union leaders talk about preventing 'right to work' laws (which would end compulsory union dues deduction). But that talk sidesteps the need to fight to recover wages, benefits and pensions lost to high inflation and to concessions bargaining.
Can we fight to win?
There is plenty of evidence to show that where a good, strong lead is provided, large numbers of people are willing to fight the capitalist agenda of growing social inequality.
What is lacking, at the top, is a will to fight, or even a willingness to allow the ranks to discuss and to decide to fight.
How can workers organize in a non-sectarian way to challenge both the bosses and the labour fakers, and go forward? We need to organize, at the base of every union, and be linked to activist community groups. Join WAM. Donate. Endorse our candidate, Julius Arscott. We need militant, democratic, accountable, rank and file union leaders.
Then we can WAM it to the bosses, and change the world.
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