Manitoba Employers Launching New Round of Attacks on Labour

Workers at Motor Coach Industries (MCI) recently rejected the company's demands for major concessions by a vote of 57 percent. The employer responded on Friday that it will close its Winnipeg bus manufacturing plants in the Fall of 2003, throwing 1,300 employees out of their jobs. An MCI spokesperson stated that the only possibility to avoid the plant closures was for the government to organize another vote by the workers on the company's proposals. MCI has launched a public campaign to blame the union for its decision to leave Winnipeg and is seeking government assistance to force the union to agree to another vote on the company's final offer.

The company's final offer demanded a three-year wage freeze, a 40 percent reduction in wages to new employees, the right to contract out any work it deems fit and a veto clause in the contract giving the company the right to overrule any union rights or provisions that it believed contradicted its own rights. In return for these concessions and $20 million in government handouts, MCI promised to consolidate all of its North American operations in Winnipeg through 2009, despite earlier claims that it was being forced to consolidate south of the border due to the U.S. Buy America Act.

MCI has also been blackmailing its workers in Pembina, North Dakota to make concessions, promising to consolidate its operations there if they complied. It now appears that it intends to close that plant, as well, and relocate its entire operation to a southern "right to work" state, likely with a non-unionized workforce.

MCI's method of brinkmanship "negotiating" appears to be emerging as a pattern amongst Manitoba manufacturers. In the past year Buhler Industries used the threat of relocation in the U.S. in an attempt to force major concessions on its employees. That dispute led to the termination of all unionized jobs and their replacement with a new, non-union workforce.

It is clear that this new, aggressive stance by employers has been made possible, in large part, by the increased mobility of capital enabled by the North American Free trade Agreement (NAFTA). Even local business organizations have acknowledged this fact. What is not clear is how workers should organize to resist this onslaught.

It is admirable that workers in Manitoba are fed up with granting concessions to their employers and are determined to fight back. However, all of their efforts to date have ended in failure, and even governments have been unable to halt the exodus of manufacturing jobs from the province, despite their willingness to throw millions of dollars at the companies to encourage them to stay.

The challenge facing workers today is how to ensure that their economic struggles can become something more than symbolic. The old methods of bargaining are rapidly becoming ineffective. Calling on the federal and provincial governments to protect the rights and interests of workers has proven equally futile. If workers are to be effective they must develop new strategies and tactics and figure out how their economic struggles fit into the overall struggle against the neo-liberal agenda.