Up to now, we have seen that the basic goal of communists in the union movement is the transformation of the unions into class-struggle unions that will defend the workers and fight for the abolition of capitalism.
To achieve this goal, communists must unite with militant workers and gain the support of the rank and file. This will strengthen resistance to the reformist leadership, so that one day they will be swept out of office and replaced by workers who are faithful to their class.
In this final section, we will look at the ways and means that communists use to accomplish this task – the strategy and tactics involved in building a class-struggle movement in Canada.
Communists wage this struggle within the already existing union structures.
As Lenin put it: “We are waging a struggle against the ’labour aristocracy’ in the name of the masses of the workers and in order to win them over to our side.”
This battle demands that we carry out systematic education against the reformist ideas spread by the top union brass and bring Marxism-Leninism to the workers.
As well, in order to build up the class trend, communists build the working-class united front in the heat of the struggles. In other words, they build the greatest possible unity of all workers against the capitalists and their agents in the unions.
The Canadian working class has a great fighting tradition. For example, Canada is a frontliner in man-days lost to strikes. Many workers, like the 11,000 Inco miners, have over the last few years shown their strong fighting spirit and their readiness to make sacrifices.
But the workers’ movement does not spontaneously reach the conclusion that it is necessary to go beyond the economic struggle and seize political power. It is the role of the communist party to spread these revolutionary ideas and to orient the working class towards the overthrow of capitalism.
The communists must transform the spontaneous resistance movement into a class-conscious revolutionary movement. They must raise the class consciousness of the workers, especially in the unions, where the workers are already organized to fight the capitalists.
Communists raise the political consciousness of their class brothers through systematic education.
Through the distribution of their newspaper, their interventions at union meetings, their active involvement in the day-to-day battles, communists explain that all workers have the same interests and must unite in order to defend them. They fight the union bureaucrats’ reformist ideas by showing, for example, that the bourgeoisie and the workers have opposing interests. They demonstrate that class collaboration only serves the capitalists.
In the same way, they denounce the reformist parties as anti-worker parties and fight against the unions’ backing of the parties.
In the Quebec public sector Common Front struggle, communists, as they back the workers’ demands and propose orientations for the struggle, carry out political education among union members to show the real nature of the Parti Quebecois and its government. They show how this party’s only aim is to build up the Qu6b6cois bourgeoisie at the expense of the Qu6b6cois people’s living and working conditions. This work helps to consolidate the fighting potential of the Common Front and to unmask union leaders sold out to the PQ, like QFL president Louis Laberge.
Communists are organized in factory cells to coordinate their work. Their main task at this time is political education, with the aim of increasing their influence among union members and rallying the most determined. And so grows the core that leads the fight for a class union movement.
As they carry out political education, communists work to build the greatest possible unity of the workers against the bosses and their agents. Several political tendencies, different levels of class consciousness and political activity exist within the ranks of the working class. Many workers are not very open to revolutionary ideas and still have illusions about capitalist parties, like the NDP and the PQ. But workers all have a desire to fight against those who exploit them and those who betray them. Most of them would like to see a militant union movement to fight the capitalist class’s crisis measures. Many union activists, particularly on the local and regional levels, also fight to defend themselves against the capitalists. Though influenced by reformism, they often oppose the union top brass.
Communists work to unite all workers, activists and honest union leaders who want to fight the capitalists and not collaborate with them, no matter what their political allegiance. Together with these workers and activists, they build united action against the common enemy. They build the working-class united front. This united action aims to strengthen the working class’s fight and weaken the influence of the top bureaucrats.
The united front is built up around specific demands, like wage indexation, job security, or the repeal of anti-labour laws. It is built up on joint tactics. Thus, the united front relies on rank-and-file action, on workers’ participation and solidarity. It rejects class collaboration.
United actions for legitimate demands isolate top union leaders who refuse to cross the capitalists. Their betrayal becomes that much clearer, the class-conscious current grows stronger, the opposition within the unions becomes firmer and more united.
Sometimes, the developing class-struggle current manifests itself in an opposition slate, whose members run on a common election platform. We saw this at the recent convention of the CNTU Montreal Central Council where a slate made up of one communist and several progressive activists ran.
Another good example of united front work is the setting up of the railworkers’ organizing committees for this year’s negotiations. These committees are made up of many workers and unionists who want to fight the tentative agreement signed by the union bureaucrats and transform the unions.
In conjunction with political education, the united front tactic allows the class-struggle current to gradually build up in locals, federations and centrals to the point where it can defeat the union bureaucrats and who want to transform the unions.
As they build up the working-class united front, communists never stop doing their own work. They continue to publicize their political line and to popularize Marxism-Leninism, essential conditions for the overall advance of the revolutionary movement.
Thus we have seen that doing political education in the unions and building up the workers’ united front are the fundamental way that communists go about developing the class struggle trend in the unions. What does this mean today, with the deepening economic crisis, the capitalist offensive against the unions and the sell-out of the top union leadership? The program of the Workers’ Communist Party sets forth the following immediate tasks in order to advance towards class unions today:
A. Develop the unions’ fighting capacity.
B. Our Party fights to defend the union movement against all attacks by the capitalists and their state.
C. Organize unorganized workers.
E. Fight for the rights of workers of oppressed nationalities, and the rights of women workers.
F. Fight to develop international solidarity in the unions.
D. Fight for independent Canadian unions.
Our principal means of achieving independence for Canadian unions is to work for the dissaffiliation of whole Canadian sections from international unions. Such a decision would be taken by the workers concerned, either during a convention or by referendum. This would be the best way of assuring the unity and the strength of the newly independent unions.
Our Party supports workers’ struggles to win greater autonomy; for example, control over strike funds, the right to elect top leaders in Canada and the right to decisional conventions in Canada for Canadian sections. We are opposed to all forms of trusteeship, interference, control or arbitrary decision by the American leadership in our unions.