BY EUGENE W. PLAWIUK,
The famous dictum; "those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it" should be remembered by those in the labour movement. Next month the Annual AFL CLC week long school is once again offering a Labour History course and once again we will be scrambling to fill it up.
Is it because the presenters are dreadful academic bores dressed out in tweeds, and droning on and on about dates, times and places none of us is interested in? Do we here the word history and have flashbacks to our days younger days in school when this was a 'mickey mouse' class at best? Is it because we all know that history is only made by the victors, it is a tale of knights and kings, and not often about the common folk?
Rest assured that those who teach Labour History at the annual school are far from boring. Brother Jim Selby, the regular instructor for this course over the past few years can carouse with the best of them and still make class animated and interesting. So perhaps its the fact that our history is boring. We all know that Canadian history is sooo booooring. Yet the history of working people in this country is the history of struggle and sacrifice, and is very rarely told in school or documented on CBC.
So why is it that year after year this course barely gets enough students registered in it? We are forced year after year to cut it back from a week long to a joint course with such erudite subjects as labour law. A thriller that one. Our so called 'tool courses': advanced shop stewarding, advanced health and safety, etc. fill to overflowing with students. Hmmm, is there something you are perhaps trying to tell us. That we no longer view our history as workers as important as grievances or collective bargaining? Are you telling us that learning about our past, how we won the right to collective bargaining, or the origins of grievance procedures is less of a 'tool' course than those classes that deal with the here and now?
Does that mean that the lessons of the Gainers Strike ten years ago has no effect on UFCW 280 P today? That the lessons learned during the Suncor strike has little impact on CEP negotiations in the oil industry today?
Twenty years ago this October hundreds of thousands of workers across Canada held a General Strike against the Trudeau governments wage and price controls. That Day of Action was called by the CLC. What were the lessons learned then, and why haven't we seen the same call go out to stop the cuts of the Chretien Government and it's pals the Klein and Harris governments?
Labour history is living history, it is the memory of the workers movement of this country and across the world. It is the history we have made, that our parents and grandparents made when they fought for the eight hour day, for unemployment insurance, CPP and Medicare. It is not some lost and forgotten history of Empires or Kings and Queens that has little impact on our lives. It is the stuff our lives are made of today. Labour history reminds us of the struggles we have won and lost, to create a social democratic country rather than a ruthless capitalist one.
Today we face an unprecedented attack on our social safety net. A social safety net that was created from workers struggles. From our blood, sweat and tears. It is being ravished for the sake of 'global economics'. We are told that we are dinosaurs and reactionaries if we defend our right to a social safety net. Yet the real dinosaurs, those that call for supply side or trickle down economics forget that these 'brilliant new ideas' led to the Wall Street Crash and depression that our parents and grandparents experienced. That is history; our story.
Labour History should be a mandatory course, not an option. It is the ultimate tool course. It teaches us our history, it is the voice of those who came before us speaking to us about the lessons we have learned as workers, as a class. That voice fades as our parents and grandparents pass on. But the lessons of that history do not fade as we are forced to fight once again to defend our past gains and win new struggles. All the courses on collective bargaining and grievances, are like will o whisps if we fail to learn the lessons of our own history.
The bosses are on the offensive and they intend to smash the labour movement by right to work laws, contracting out and downsizing. They intend to create a vast army of unemployed and underemployed workers as cheap labour. History is repeating itself. Sweatshops and child labour have reared their ugly heads again. Homework is piece work. And we have to recreate our labour movement to address these issues. Labour History is the ultimate tool course to combat the new management strategies of the nineties.
Originally published Labour News, November, 1996.