The decision marks yet another miserable capitulation by the union bureaucracy to the pro-war, pro-austerity Liberal government, which made clear its intention to employ ruthless state repression if dockers had resumed strike action.
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Although the government intervened in the dispute early on and the employers have been baying for state action against the dockers from day-one, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union opposes any strategy to mobilize the working class to oppose a government-dictated settlement, whether imposed by a back-to-work law or some other means.
As a consequence of their fight for wage increases at least equal to inflation and improved job protections demands shared by all workers, private and public sector alike the dockworkers find themselves pitted in a direct political confrontation with the trade union-backed Liberal government, the repressive apparatus of the capitalist state and all corporate Canada.
With the resumption of the strike, the dockworkers face a head on clash with the federal Liberal government, which, with the connivance of the union apparatus, last week sought to break the dockers’ strike by invoking a seldom used provision of Canada’s pro-employer Labour Code