SPC Report May 2016

[Socialist Party Head Office]

The Socialist Party Of Canada

Secretary's Report for May 2016

Email Report

– WSP (India) EC meeting minutes of April 2016 received with thanks.

– WSPUS centenary 7 July 2016 (Publication 100 hundred years World Socialist Party of the United States)

– Please note the Socialist Party of Canada's new address is now: PO Box 31024,Victoria, British

Columbia, Canada,V8N 6J3.

Good of the Movement

– Three introductory packages sent out.

– Southern Ontario (Toronto) socialist meeting held.

– The new issue of Imagine forthcoming.

– Upcoming summer socialist discussion meetings (Toronto) – see our web site for details.

Finances

– no expenses to report

Food For Thought

– Some Rabbis in Toronto recently held a public debate entitled “Putting God Second.” The question was asked: “Why are the great monotheistic faiths – Judaism, Christianity and Islam unable to fulfil their own self-professed goal of creating individuals infused with moral sensitivity and societies governed by the highest ethical standards.”

The significance of this question is that finally religious leaders have concluded that religion has failed to solve the world's problems, and nor could it; as Marx said, it was “the opiate of the people.”

Only when the majority grasp the central fact that superstition is a way of coping with the miseries of life and reject it can we really start to abolish the cause of all misery.

– An article in the Toronto Metro News of April 18th focused on unequal pay between the genders in the retail sector in Ontario. Though 60% of Ontario's retail workforce is female, men outnumber them in management. Sixty-five percent of males are in full time jobs, compared to 57% of women.

The average retail wages per hour in Ontario in 2015 were — managers in retail, food and accommodation: men $30.79; women $25.06. Salespeople and clerks: Men $15.51; women $13.10. Cashiers: men $12.34; women $11.84.

This will anger many people, both women and men, but it is pointless to fight for equality within capitalism, because its very nature causes it. Nor do the above facts mean the men earning more money don't live in poverty. Equality is a fine thing to desire and work for, but only in a society where all will stand equal in relation to the tools of production can it be produced.

– Actress Susan Sarandon recently made the following statement on MSNBC about Hillary Clinton accepting contributions from Wall Street, Big Pharma and Monsanto: “She's accepted money from all of those people. So what would make you think that once she gets in, she's going to suddenly go against the people that have given her millions and millions of dollars?” The answer being she isn't, nor would any successful Republican candidate.

This clearly demonstrates the connection between big business and elected politicians and how political office is bought. Therefore the interests of the wealthy will always remain a priority of politicians, which is another excellent reason to abolish the system which creates both the privileged and the political toadies.

– Under Ontario law 1.6 million workers in the province aren't entitled to a job-protected unpaid sick day. Small businesses with less than 50 employees don't have to give workers any sick days at all –paid or unpaid – leaving more than a million workers who are often already trapped in low wage jobs without any protection, according to a recent report by the Workers' Action Centre.

Under the province's Employment Standards Act workers are entitled to 10 emergency leave days a year, but that leave is unpaid and bosses can, if they want, legally demand their employees provide a doctor's letter. Doctors complain that this clogs up the clinics with cold-ridden patients who could have recovered at home.

There is a group called “The Decent Work and Health Network” which is campaigning for a policy change to all this, but their cause, tough well-meaning, is futile. Paying workers who are off sick cuts into profits, and under capitalism profits rule. If anything is sick and needs a major operation it's capitalism.

– SNC-Lavalin is eliminating 950 jobs around the world including 600 in Canada. The Montreal  based engineering and construction company says all of its employees affected have been notified, with most having already left.

The company said the downsizing in Canada mainly involves employees in Ontario and Alberta, followed by Quebec, and the trend follows the elimination of 4000 other jobs in 2014.

The company has 40,000 employees worldwide including 12,000 in Canada, most of whom are probably feeling very insecure. The above tends to confirm that there is no such thing as a secure job and that companies are forced to adapt to a weakening economy. Things don't get better under capitalism do they?

– An article by Jennifer Wells in the Toronto Star of April 23rd called attention to the fact that in the 3 years since the collapse of the garment factory in Bangladesh little has been done to improve the means of safety. To quote Wells, “the country is a long way from meeting its commitments under the sustainability compact it signed with the E.U. and the I.L.O. 3 months after Rana Plaza collapsed.”

According to Phil Robertson, Deputy Director for the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch, “the problem is Bangladesh's government is of the factory owners, by the factory owners, for the factory owners – and workers face intimidation, sexual harassment, long hours with low pay and hazardous and dangerous working conditions.”

Shades of New York's Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911 killing 146 workers confirms the futility of hoping things will improve under capitalism.

1911 drawing depicting the Triangle fire

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire

From Marx's Concept of Man by Erich Fromm, Chapter 5, On Alienation

For Marx, alienation in the process of work, from the product of work and from circumstances, is inseparably connected with alienation from oneself, from one's fellow man, and from nature.

To quote Marx: “a direct consequence of the alienation of man from the product of his labour, from his life activity and from his species life is that man is alienated from other men. When man confronts himself, he also confronts other men. What is true of man's relationship to his work, to the product of his work, and to himself, is also true of his relationship to other men, to their labour, and to the objects of their labour. In general the statement that man is alienated from his species life means that each man is alienated from others and that each of the others is likewise alienated from human life.”

Fromm concludes, “The alienated man is not only alienated from other men; he is alienated from the essence of humanity, from his “species-being,” both in his natural and spiritual qualities. This alienation from the human essence leads to an existential egotism, described by Marx, and man's human essence becoming “a means for his individual existence. It (alienated labour) alienates from man his own body, external nature, his mental life and his human life.”

It's been half a century since Fromm wrote Marx's Concept of Man, and a century more since Marx wrote his thoughts on the matter, yet we continue to see all too clearly how alienated people have become in the 'modern rage.'

For socialism, Steve and John.

[Author]

Posts