Another year is drawing to a close and tradition insists that 2012 is up for review

Dear Editor; Another year is drawing to a close and tradition insists that 2012 is up for review. The year is bracketed by two hopeful events. The first of these events was the rally by thousands of workers and the efforts of trade unions in January in support of sustaining the jobs at London’s Electro-Motive plant and in support of the Charter right to free collective bargaining. These efforts fell to the destructive forces of neo-liberalism, unbridled greed and globalization. The end of year and ongoing event, with the outcome still ahead of us, is the “Idle No More” campaign. In light of this First Nations lead campaign the face of seeking social justice and a civil society may change forever. Unions have witnessed the significant successes of government, corporate forces and right wing extremist media working tirelessly to disenfranchise workers and the union representatives that work in the interests of all workers. Some of the rallying cries of the attacks on workers in 2012 were austerity, pensions, public service employee compensation, right to work, return to work legislation, bill 115 and bill 377. Regan, Thatcher and Mulroney represent the pioneers of the modern day method of governing by ideology and the politics of division instead of governing in the collective good. The present day ilk of Regan, Thatcher and Mulroney have far exceeded the move to the right that these well known predecessors could have hoped for and it is in this context that this annual review is done. In 2012 we hear of the likes of Walker of Wisconsin, McGuinty of Ontario, Stephen Harper, Snyder of Michigan and the never ending demands for austerity measures. In looking at this list we see the paradigm shift that now sets 2012 apart. The approach by government and corporations is not to negotiate with workers or meet in the realm of free collective bargaining or try to find anything close to a position where collaboration may be reached. Instead it is, in 2012, to take the most repugnant nature of the right wing belligerently forward by cowardly changing legislation to undermine any and all organizations that may stand in opposition to right wing oppression of the rights of working people and the unions that democratically represent them. In 2012 workers and unions worked very hard to elect people that would work to secure their rights and maybe turn back the attacks. For this effort unions are called undemocratic special interest groups, but when people like the republicans in the Michigan state legislature ram through right to work legislation solely to undermine union membership it is strangely labeled as fair and democratic. If there is a common descriptor of 2012 it is the undeniable effort of the right to secure a perverted version of a future where only the reactionary version of conservatives and republicans survives and the recognition that “The Labour Movement is the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress”, as noted by Martin Luther King, no longer exists. With Wal-Mart workers demanding justice, unions seeking mergers to increase density, teachers fighting bill 115, workers in Michigan pushing back on right to work legislation, workers striving to hold onto collective bargaining rights and workers across the world fighting austerity in 2012 there is always hope that the improvements made in workers lives over the last 150 years won’t be lost. At the end of 2012 let there be no mistake that the goals of the right and many corporations and governments, if not all, is to push the rights that workers enjoy right off the map and to a place where there will no longer be anyone to fight for those rights. Dave Trumble, Kincardine