C.U.P.W: From union to revolutionary peoples' front

 

The year was 1981, the strike lasted 42 days and the strikers were members of CUPW.

 

The postal workers struck for Maternity benefits for the women members of their Union and they won. The unions’ victory set a standard which the Canadian government was forced to live up to by implementing a maternity/paternal program through employment insurance.

 

The 1981 strike, By CUPW members is just one example of how CUPW, since its creation in 1965, has been at the forefront when it comes to developing our Canadian identity. It was in 1965 at a National convention for postal workers of The Post Office Department of The Government of Canada, now know as Canada Post, that the desire of the workers to be part of the building of a caring, compassionate and communal oriented society found its footing. At the convention, the workers turffed union officials who did not back the 1965 strike for better wages and moved toward more democracy within the union by voting to give the union membership control over strike votes.

 

 This democratization of the union led to great gains for workers, in terms of better wages, benefits and working conditions.It also led to improvements in the area of social justice. In 1992 the union negotiated an education fund for its members and in 1995, it negotiated with Canada post to take over a child care fund to help members most in need with accessible and affordable child care. This desire of CUPW members to democratize their workplaces and society as a whole can also be seen in the fact that they were the first Canadian union to support the boycott of South African apartheid and of Israeli apartheid. CUPW  have spoken out in support of activists facing repression from the state, including well known anarchist, Jaggi sign, both in 2001 when he was jailed at the Summit of the Americas for a teddy bear catapult that wasn’t even his and again last year when he was charged for encouraging people to dismantle obstacles to democracy. CUPW members have also successfully defended against attempts to privatize Canada post that started in 1986 

 

The state, especially a state on a trajectory towards absolute fascism, has a habit of picking on individuals and organizations that have successes at organizing people in attempts to democratize workplaces and society as a whole in a way which sees people and workers being creators of their own realities in free and voluntary association with others. I have seen firsthand the truthfulness of this statement and have lost some privileges and some organizing abilities as a result of having faced state repression since my first political arrest at the Summit of the Americas in 2001. I am only one individual but if my friends and I have witnessed a organizing void of some degree as a result of state repression against me, what do we think will happen to society as a whole if the state is successful in destroying an organization of 54,000 that has a history of making workplaces and society as a whole, a better place to live??

 

Whether they want the title or not, it cannot be denied that CUPW is one of the vanguard organizations that is fighting against global fascism and austerity. I Say one of the organization because today’s vanguard is not like the vanguard people conceive of when they read “Marx” or “nine days that shook the world”. Today’s vanguard is more decentralized the world over with different vanguard fronts around the world creating their own realities based on living in conditions of varying degrees of fascism and austerity. Each vanguard front around the world has differing degrees of needs and abilities and faces differing amounts of obstacles when it comes to keeping their eyes on the prize. When we look around the world, from remnants of the Tahrir square revolution to the ongoing Palestinian resistance to “the indignant ones” in Spain, from the Honduras resistance, to Wisconsin, to the CUPW struggle here in Canada, we can see that this global hodgepodge of vanguard fronts is loosely tied together in what could be describes as a federation of voluntary association. If we want to understand today’s revolutionary vanguard fronts, we not only need to understand that it’s structural makeup is different then what many of us have conceived of as a vanguard but we need to realize that part of the anti-communist propaganda of the cold war era was to have the westerners view of a vanguard as some kind of monster that would steal away our babies. The fact is, a vanguard is not a scary monster that is going to steal our babies, I vanguard is nothing more than a position at the forefront of new developments or ideas. Having an individual or organization take a position on the forefront, is not a bad thing, it is necessary if we as society want to move somewhere other than here. I understand that there are some subcultures out there who are afraid to move forward and would rather just continue a lifestyle of radical politics and bourgeois culture where they can wear their patchy clothes, drink there colt 45 and show distain for any type of authority, but there is a difference between the real world and a subculture.

 

There are 2 types of authority, one is agreed upon and the other is coercive.  Agreed upon authority happens with a sense of social responsibility on the side of those in authority and those agreeing to the authority. This can be seen when an organization in a position of authority engages its members in debates, discussions and democratic decision making processes while getting input from non members on how the organization should function as an organization within broader society. These attributes are definitely seen in CUPW.

 

If CUPW wants to win their strike, I think they need to see themselves as more than just a traditional labor union, They need to see themselves as a revolutionary organization that is at the forefront of the Canadian struggle against fascism and austerity. This means that they not only need to act responsibly with themselves but also with other members of society who want to work with them to create a progressive and qualitative break with the status quo. To do this, CUPW members need to engage society in the same discussions and debates they themselves engage in. We need to see CUPW have roving pickets, information pickets, affinity groups, flying squads, peoples’ assemblies and education nights open to the public. Not only should they put on education sessions about their own struggle but also session on how to win. This is not just CUPW’s Fight, This has become a fight where we will all bear the brunt of the outcome whether that is liberation or absolute fascism and because of that, it has become our fight too. If this fight is to be won, it is not enough that we support our CUPW comrades, we must become associate members of CUPW and we must work with CUPW as associates to get the job done: the job of victory that is. I personally believe if we are to win, we must be willing to risk everything and willing to educate ourselves on what would be needed to organize not just a strong CUPW strike but also a Canadian wide General Strike. I hope I am wrong, but I think that in order to win this fight, there needs to be a General Strike.

 

So in the next couple weeks, please do what you can to help CUPW win this fight. If CUPW wins, we all win, if CUPW were to loose, then we all lose. Onwards to victory comrades!!!! Onwards to victory!!!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Aaron Doncaster