Next steps for the Global City

The last few weeks in Toronto have shown us that living in a global city means that a conflict half way around the world in a place like Sri Lanka can appear in our streets in technicolour, forcing us to face issues that seemed remote only days before.  The global city will make another appearance on Monday at 1:30 pm in Queen's Park with a march to free recentyly arrested Aung San Suu Kyi.  Yet another sign of the global city was the extraordinary stewards' meeting held at the Metro Convention Centre on May 7 where more than 1,000 shop stewards and union officials discussed a common response to the economic crisis.  The diversity you can see in the photo is a sign of how our movements are changing with the participation of people from all around the world.

The steward's meeting adopted a focus on fighting to improve EI, talking to members and mobilizing for a planned June 17 mass rally to tell the federal government to take positive action on the economic  crisis.  Hopefully the recent series of escalating Tamil protests leading to the highly successful Sunday evening blockade of the Gardiner Expressway will be instructive to the changing labour movement that one mass action does not a movement make and fighting for this government to take action in the interest of workers will require a long and militant struggle.

Signs are that the leadership of the Toronto and York District Labour Council understands that labour has to go back to its roots and organize on the ground if anything is going to change.  It's not just the labour movement but almost all social movements that became bureaucratized and out of touch with the people they were supposedly serving over the last couple of decades. 

But given the blatant assault on workers' rights that Harper is obviously engaging in the context of the economic crisis, it is the labour movement that will be put to the test.  What we learned in the Tamil demonstrations is that young second generation immigrants who do not share the fears of their elders can inspire older immigrants to come out fighting.   We have never seen such prolonged, committed and disciplined protests in Toronto before, not to mention huge. 

People who have come here from all over the world have a wealth of knowledge about social struggle that those of us who have never known hunger, state repression, or profound insecurity can never even imagine.  From the people's power of the Phillipines, to the popular education and mobilization of Latin America, immigrants from the Global South can profoundly enrich movements here if we make space for and welcome their leadership.

Some of the youth leadership of the Tamil demostrations were already student leaders and others will no doubt now move into leadership positions.  They will bring the confidence and skills they learned over the last few months into the student, labour and other movements. 

Fighting racism in our movements is not only politically correct, it is strategically essential.  Just like in the 1960's when traditional movements, after initial resistance,  were revitalized by a newly radicalized youth and women's movement, so today, our movements can be transformed.   The Labour Council Stewards' Meeting is a good sign of what is to come.