The Greater Toronto Workers Assembly:
A Hopeful Experiment
With an initial discrediting of neoliberalism that followed in the wake of the near
financial meltdown, it now seems to be consolidating itself, as governments and mainstream political parties define their exit strategies of austerity. The recent and inspiring events in Madison, Wisconsin show that there remains a potential and necessity to respond,
both in terms of an immediate fight back, but in a deeper, wider, and more political way. But we are living in a kind of transitional era, where the old forms of working class organization and politics are sorely in need of a replacement, and the theoretical and practical bases of those replacements are still in the process of being born. The
Greater Toronto Workers Assembly is one attempt to create a working
class institution that tries to address this crisis within the class and
on the left on the level of a city, in this case, Toronto, in the
province of Ontario, Canada.
The Assembly seeks to do a number of things at the same time:
- Create and maintain an organization based on the common class
interests of unionized workers, the unorganized, the unemployed, people
in temporary and part-time jobs and other forms of precariousness, the
poor and student and community activists;
- Develop a common basis for socialist, anarchist and other groups and
individuals and others on the anti-capitalist left, to work together in
struggles, to contribute to building a common anti-capitalist political
movement;
- Create a centre of discussion, analysis and struggle, helping to
build resistance to the crisis measures, and contributing to moving it
to a higher level.
The Assembly was created in October 2009 and so far has had mixed
results. Inspired by American political activist Bill Fletcher, Jr, and
others, it is an exciting and creative way of trying to address some of
the chronic weaknesses of the left and working class movements. It has
brought together socialists and other radicals from across very
different movements in a unique common project. It has provided a new
space and reference point for public (and to a limited extent) private
sector union struggles and transformation efforts. And it has started a
number of campaigns and political initiatives.
It remains an experimental project, subject to important weaknesses
and pressures, which makes it tentative with no guarantee of survival in
the longer term. The lack of working class and, in particular trade
union militancy, and the general political environment of neoliberal
hegemony provide a larger political backdrop that is not conducive to
building a collective socialist or anti-capitalist project, based on the
working class. Different political traditions and views, lack of
collective experience working together, different priorities,
alternative visions of what the assembly is and should be, as well as
the contradictory nature and divisions within the working class base we
are trying to reach, all act as centrifugal or divisive forces making
the process difficult to sustain. Nonetheless, the Assembly has taken
some important beginning steps.
Why an Assembly?
The proposal for the Workers Assembly was raised by the Labour
Committee of the Socialist Project, a small group of left activists and
intellectuals, which saw itself as contributing towards the creation of a
larger, socialist political movement. It was based on a number of
concerns:
- The segmentation of the working class: The deep divisions in the
working class created by 30 years of neoliberalism — rooted in dramatic
labor market transformations — have contributed to huge differentials in
collective experiences and living and working situations, resulting in a
politically divided class. Indeed, the very notion of working class is
seen as strange and contested by many and needs to be rebuilt through
collective experiences of solidarity and struggle, along with political
education and organization;
- Decline and conservatism of the union movement: Unions deal with the
specific needs of their members in particular sectors. The neoliberal
period has reinforced this, leading them to ignore the needs of the rest
of the working class, the unemployed, those in communities (even trade
union members in communities), and those most oppressed by capital. (For
example, the otherwise exemplary struggle in Toronto, led by the local
labor council to raise the minimum wage, ignored demands of anti-poverty
movements to raise social service rates.). During this prolonged period
for the most part, they have refused to challenge their dependence on
employers through raising independent political demands and struggles.
Without a conscious political and organizational transformation, unions
can be defensive, isolated, and an easy target for employers.
- Social movements based in communities tend to be isolated from the
rest of the class: Social movements of the poor, unemployed, and other
segments of the working class tend to narrow their work to their own
particular issues and can begin to see their struggles as being apart
from the larger class, and in opposition to unionized workers. Many
become dependent on the state for provision of services. They are also
prone to a politics and ideology of a kind of semi-anarchism. Both
social movements and trade unions are locked into a practice
characterized by a series of demonstrations and protests. Real change
must go beyond this towards a larger political project that aims to
bring the class together and challenge the system as a whole.
- Divisions between groups and individuals in the socialist and
anti-capitalist left and their lack of a real presence in the political
life of working class people: There have been few spaces for the radical
left to work together on a common project of building a socialist or
anti-capitalist political movement larger than themselves and engage in
the necessary common experiences and theoretical work. A key element of
this is working to root their politics in the struggles of working
people.
The need for a different kind of working class organization was made
apparent in the wake of a series of public sector strikes that occurred
in southern Ontario in the summer of 2009. In Toronto, the “third
way” city administration demanded a series of contract concessions from
the municipal unions, regarding sick days and retirement benefits. Using
the same false arguments made against autoworkers in imposing
concessionary demands in the bankruptcy reorganization of the U.S.-based
auto companies (e.g. “autoworkers make $70 per hour”), they demonized
public sector workers. The municipal unions and the local labor council
did not educate and mobilize their members and did almost no education
with the public. The strikers were politically isolated and, even though
they fought off many of the concession demands, suffered a political
defeat — which left a feeling amongst many working people in the city,
that somehow, they were “privileged.”
What contributed to the problem was the fact that much of organized
labor in Toronto had been politically tied to the Mayor and the
left-center group of city counselors that remained silent throughout the
struggle. The latter’s politics were based on an alliance with a group
of business interests that fancied itself as “progressive,” even though
it was based in finance and real estate interests. The “neoliberal
urbanism” of the administration and the alliance with the formal
labor movement contributed to the isolation and political defeat of the
unions.
In the municipal elections that took place in the fall of 2011, the
administration and its allies suffered a stunning defeat at the hands of
a right-wing populist mayoralty candidate, with ties to Canada’s major
right-wing political establishment. The political isolation of the union
movement from the working class population of the city, the lack of a
left alternative to the social democratic/neoliberal alliance with the
official labor institutions and the demobilization and defensiveness of
the left in the face of the resurgent right, demonstrated the need for a
left/anti-capitalist political voice in the city and, in particular,
the labor movement.
Creating the Assembly
The Socialist Project sent out invitations to activists engaged in
working class communities, left trade union activists and colleagues on
the anti-capitalist left. It called for a meeting to propose the idea of
an Assembly to them. This allowed a committed core of people — beyond
the SP — to build toward the new project. From that core, the
organizers put together a series of consultations, given the name of
“consultas.” The idea was to consult with trade unionists, the
radical left and community-based workers’ movements, both to test the
ideas underlying the Assembly, but also to enrich and transform the
project.
There were three consultas. The first brought together workers
organizing inside unionized auto plants and anti-poverty organizers. It
explored the similarities, differences, and experiences of building
resistance and doing political education. Participants learned that
political organizing, mutual solidarity — and even building a common
class identity — require different kinds of approaches, depending on the
spaces in which we work.
The second brought together a group of left trade unionists to
discuss how to relate to the activist and progressive Toronto labor
council. Participants asked, “What can we provide that the labor council
can’t?” and, “How can we build a solidaristic relationship with the
Labour Council and its campaigns, while maintaining our political and
organizational independence?” It was a difficult but rewarding
discussion that explored the limits of the mainstream labor movement,
and talked about the need to provide a class-struggle approach to
employers and governments, and an anti-capitalist orientation to
political campaigns. It also emphasized the need to define the overall
labor movement in a broad and inclusive manner, which must include and
organize the unemployed, precarious workers and the poor.
The third brought together a small number of activists to discuss the
relationship between class and other forms of social identity under
capitalism.
Launch of the Assembly
The first Assembly was held over the first weekend of October 2009
and had mixed results. About 100 people attended from across the left
and key activist communities (anti-poverty, immigrant rights, left
rank-and-file members of the public sector labor movement, student
groups, environmentalists, etc.). But it was weak on private-sector
unionists, communities of color, indigenous groups and feminists.
Although the Assembly has come far since then, these components still
remain weak areas for the project.
The first few Assemblies — held approximately 3 months apart — dealt
with a series of questions that would set the project on its feet: the
nature of the organization, financing, the geographical space, the
vision statement, the form of internal organization, coordination of
leadership and Assembly campaigns.
There were differences over whether the Assembly would be a coalition
of existing organizations. This question was central to the entire
conception of the Assembly — and it has been a bone of contention
throughout the life of the organization. If it were to be a coalition,
it could never be more than a coordinating center for existing political
projects, some single-issue community movements, and other political
organizations of the left. The organizers had a different conception,
which was formally endorsed in the first two Assemblies: that the
organization would be made up of individual members, working to build a
different kind of politico/organizational form. While it was formally
endorsed and resolved, the nature of the organization and its
relationship to other ongoing political and organizational projects in
working class communities of Toronto still remains, at least in
practice, an issue.
The Assembly easily agreed that Toronto would be the central focus of
its activities, but it remained open to the formation of sister
projects in other cities. By the end of 2010, there were fledgling
efforts to create Assemblies in the Ontario cities of Kingston and
Ottawa.
The organization adopted a vision statement that provided a flavor of
the kind of project that the GTWA would hopefully become.
A number of working committees were established that have continued
to operate: Internal Education (which has organized a series of “Coffee
House” discussions on critical political issues for members and
supporters); Membership and Finance; a Labor Caucus, a Culture
Committee, and a Campaign Committee. The role of the latter was to
debate and discuss both criteria and suggestions for campaigns that
would become the central activity of the Assembly.
Over a series of months and through three Assemblies, the committee
organized a series of collective discussions that resulted in the
selection of a Free and Accessible Transit campaign. It was ratified in a
heated debate at the Assembly. The campaign was developed in the spirit
of the Right to the City campaigns being organized in some U.S. cities.
The idea is that public transit — central to the needs of working
people across the city, and a key strategic element in creating good
jobs, dealing with climate change, and structuring life in the city —
should be free of fares and treated as a non-commodified right for all
people. This is a highly charged and controversial demand, but forces
the Assembly to confront some of the key elements of neoliberal
urbanism, and engage in the process of political education and
mobilization of working class people of all strata.
Another theme of the campaign was accessibility — the availability of
transit to all communities in the city, especially the poor and people
in communities of color in outer and inner suburban areas and people
with disabilities.
The controversy stemmed from the reluctance of the defensive and
traditionally business-oriented transit union in the city of Toronto and
the reticence of the mainstream labor movement in Toronto to go beyond
the traditional corporatist approach of that union. This became less of a
factor as the neoliberal attacks on the labor movement and the public
sector started increasing in the ensuing months.
Over time, the transit campaign organized meetings in the downtown
and inner suburban areas, wrote and distributed educational materials,
co-organized a protest over accessibility and a street rally. It has
begun to participate in community activities and is co-sponsoring a
summer protest demanding free transit during smog and weather emergency
days.
The Labor Caucus initially organized itself as a kind of caucus for
union members, mostly based in the city’s public sector unions. But it
also included social activists close to working class communities in the
city and union activists whose main center of work was not in their
unions, but in social movements in communities, such as anti-poverty,
migrant workers, and non-status people. Initially, this enriched the
political orientation of the caucus and militated against a narrower
concern with the economic interests of individual union contract
battles. The labor caucus chose to focus on a campaign in defense of the
public sector unions and public services. This was also ratified by the
entire Assembly.
The Assembly Labor Caucus organized a number of forums on the need to
defend public sector unions, the rights of public sector workers,
public services and the importance of building alliances between public
sector unions and social service recipients. We held a labor conference
in February and agreed to organize a series of educationals on the
relationship of capitalism to challenges being faced by public sector
unionists, a flying squad, and a larger series of forums.
The Assembly also set up a committee to work on plans for doing
education during the G-20 protests in the summer of 2010. Later in the
history of the Assembly, a committee was set up to work on International
Solidarity issues and another called the Feminist Action Committee was
in the process of getting itself organized as I wrote this article.
The first few Assemblies experimented with an Interim Coordinating
Committee framework, where the Visions Statement and basic
organizational format was worked out. Later it became an elected
coordinating body, but it included most of the same folks that had
volunteered previously.
Assembly Challenges
The Assembly is very much a work in progress and faces a number of
key challenges which will determine its success of failure. They
include:
- Learning to grow together through political differences: A big
challenge for the Assembly is to create an environment where those of us
from different political experiences and ideological spaces can develop
common understandings and perspectives, while honestly airing our
differences. This can really happen only while we engage in ongoing
struggles and processes, and debate and summarize our experiences.
- One such experience was the protests against the G-20 meetings, held
last summer in the city. While we collectively participated in
educational activities, we had major differences over strategy and
tactics of the actual street protests, and in particular, how to relate
to those associated with trashing stores and mild forms of property
violence. The debates were extremely difficult and taught us a number of
important lessons in moving forward. It clarified and highlighted
important differences — and helped us develop key methods of maintaining
dialogue and debate. Many of us made mistakes in relating to those with
whom we differed during this experience, and not all of the political
differences would be resolvable (or even could be accommodated within
the Assembly project). We did end up working together to oppose the
massive police violence and state repression that continues against political activists and protesters.
- Within some of the committees of the Assembly, we have had political
debates that need to be resolved. For example, in the Labour Caucus,
there are differences regarding the level of emphasis we want to place
on working to transform the existing union movement, or working with
workers outside of organized unions.
- Responding to political openings and contexts: The election of a
right-wing populist mayor in Toronto and the likelihood of governments
of similar political orientations coming to power at the provincial and
federal levels place enormous pressures on working people in the city.
Like many U.S. locations, an era of austerity is beginning to unfold,
with attacks against public programs, the poor and unions a key feature.
Inspired by the Madison uprising, it seems that resistance is also
beginning to build in the labor movement in Toronto and among community
social activists. What role does a project like the Assembly have at a
moment like this? Should we concentrate on building the resistance
movement? What kind of educational role should we provide and how do we
find space to organize and deliver it? How do we balance working with
unions such as the public sector workers locals that are organizing
their own educational and mobilization campaigns, and the need to build
left and class-oriented movements within unions? What can we do to
create new relationships between social movements in communities and
unions, and how can we bring an anti-capitalist or socialist orientation
to them? How can we build our own movement through these experiences
and challenges? These are all critical questions we need to answer as we
look to operate in this new context.
- Different movements — different approaches and emphases: There are a
series of left and activist movements that operate outside the Assembly
— each of which have different kinds and levels of relation to the
Assembly. As other activists become more and more disenchanted with the
accommodation of social democracy with capital, some of them — who have
been traditionally part of the Canadian social democratic party, the NDP
– have been organizing left critiques of social democratic political
practice, but remain within the political orbit of the party. There are
socialist political groups who work within a seventies-type
Marxist-Leninist discourse, but do solid work with disadvantaged youth
and produce newspapers and leaflets. Finally, there are social movement
organizations that work within specific segments of the working class,
such as the poor, non-status people and precarious workers. Each of
these has its unique perspectives on how to build towards more radical
outcomes: advocates for the explicitly political projects have attended
Assembly events and even General Assemblies, but have not figured out
how best to relate to the project. The Assembly, for its part, has
welcomed many of those from these movements — but it isn’t clear how the
Assembly project can accommodate their participation. The social
movement groups tend to be preoccupied with their (important and
socially progressive) struggles, and tend to see the Assembly as a base
of support for them, but have not necessarily bought into the idea of
building a larger, class-based project. Those groups that are rooted in
particular forms of semi-anarchist world-views, reject some of the
premises of the Assembly, yet wish to maintain relations and forms of
participation and mutual support. These issues need to be worked out
over time.
- Differences over the nature of the Assembly: This question
contributes to a number of differences within the Assembly over the
nature of the project itself. While formally an individual membership
based organization, many activists from already-existing social
movements still see the Assembly as a kind of a coalition, and argue
that it should be more of a resource for them and a collective colleague
of their movements. This difference remains apparent in the continuing debate over dues.
- Gender and Race issues: Like much of the far left in the city, there
is a low level of participation from people of color. Feminists within
the Assembly have worked to increase the role and number of women
activists and have organized women to chair most of the General Assembly
activities. There is also a new Feminist Action Committee. The Assembly
is working hard to create a space where people of color and socialist
feminists are comfortable. As the Assembly expands its base outside of
the activist and academic left, it will increase the number of people of
color. An increasing percentage of unionized workers in Toronto are
people of color and women and the right-wing agenda of the new city
administration will hit immigrant communities hard. Some of the
campaigns — such as Transit — have already organized activities in these
communities.
Growth and Survival at the Dawn of the Age of Austerity
The principal challenge for this experiment to work in the longer
run, aside from the points raised above, is its ability to build a
beachhead for a class-based, anti-capitalist or socialist orientation
within the broader working class of Toronto. In an environment of
growing resistance which seems to be building as employers and
governments re-launch their neoliberal restructuring project, it means
creating a pole of reference that offers the potential of an
anti-capitalist politics, that can address the actual concerns of
unionists looking to transform their unions; people in working class
neighborhoods looking for decent paying and secure jobs and some
democratic input in transforming their communities, and working class
people who want to go beyond simply protesting. No such political option
exists today in Toronto, let alone Canada. Our ability to move in this
direction will be the real test of this experiment.
