This is what they mean when they say there is a labour shortage... [U.S.] packinghouse workers fought concessions fiercely, waging 158 strikes involving 40,000 workers from 1983 to 1986. Through plant closures, long and bitter lockouts and relocation of plants, union membership was reduced from 50 per cent in 1980 to 21 per cent in 1986. By 1992, wages across the industry had been rolled back by 40 per cent, and production speeds doubled. The packinghouse monopolies then turned to the most marginalized sections of the working class, including undocumented workers, to fill the labour shortage they had created with their low wages, poor working conditions and relentless assaults on the rights of their workers. In Canada, a similar attack on packinghouse workers was underway. The bitter 1985 Gainers strike in Edmonton showed the determination of owners of monopoly capital to drive down wages and the spirit of resistance of Canadian workers to defend their rights. Following the 1988 Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, wages in Canadian packing plants came under direct attack from the U.S. The giant U.S. firms in the Canadian and global markets slashed wages by 40 per cent using the excuse of competition under free trade. Provincial governments in western Canada organized a massive expansion of livestock production on factory farms and used pay-the-rich schemes to hand over millions to the meatpacking monopolies to close older plants in eastern Canada and major western cities, while relocating to rural areas in the western provinces. In Manitoba for example, hog production was increased by 50 per cent from 1996 to 2001 aimed at global markets, with subsidies provided by the Manitoba government. Maple Leaf Packers opened a new pork plant in Brandon and imposed an $8 per hour starting wage, and then used that situation to extort 40 per cent wage cuts from workers across the country. Three years after driving the wages at its Brandon plant far below the Canadian standard, Maple Leaf applied for work permits for temporary foreign workers, citing labour shortages as the reason. New plants were also built in Alberta, including one by Tyson/IPB in Brooks, later sold to Neilson Brothers and now owned by the Brazilian monopoly JBS following the E. coli scandal. The Quebec monopoly Olymel built a huge modern plant in Red Deer with 1,800 workers and closed plants in Quebec. Then using the very real threat of transferring production out west extorted 30 per cent wage cuts from Quebec workers.
Posted on: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 01:28:31 +0000
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