The battle of Quebec

The 68,000 who demonstrated on Saturday, the ten to fifteen thousand who engaged in direct action on Friday and the 15 to 20,000 on Saturday — all of these figures were far bigger than organizers had predicted.

They were also bigger than the protests in Seattle, November 30, 1999, the "Battle in Seattle" which launched the current wave of anti-capitalist protests.

Most significantly, the labour participation in direct action, which began on Friday, escalated significantly on Saturday. Again, labour solidarity with young anti-capitalists involved bigger numbers than in Seattle.

The size and composition of the events shows that the "Teamster-Turtle" alliance that appeared at Seattle was not an aberration.

After the Washington protests last spring, there were pessimistic analyses of the movement that complained that since the labour participation was much weaker in Washington than in Seattle, the movement was in decline.

This pessimism has been exposed as completely groundless.

The breaking of a section of labour towards the anti-capitalist movement is politically the most significant aspect of the Quebec events. It has been the product of literally months of organizing and argument.

There was an anti-OAS (Organization of American States) action last June in Windsor, Ontario. Militants from the Canadian Auto Workers worked closely with anti-capitalist activists — including members of the International Socialists — to win the small group of anti-capitalists who were present to unite their direct action with the labour march of 5,000.

This was a critical moment. There were no more than about 700 young anti-capitalists present, only a small minority prepared to engage in direct action. Had they acted independently from labour, they would have been easy picking for the 5,000 cops present.

By uniting with the labour march, they were able to engage in direct actions and be supported by militant workers.

The links forged at that event have been nurtured ever since. The respect for the young activists inside a layer of the union movement led key militants to argue a) that there had to be labour present on April 20, the day of direct action and b) that the April 21 demonstration should break toward the perimeter and not away from it.

The second argument was lost. There was an official decision not to break toward the perimeter. But as a result of the argument, the "compromise" position — to form a labour affinity group and participate in the Friday direct actions — proved enormously successful. That action gave confidence to the thousands of union activists who defied their leaders, and joined young people in direct action the next day.

The movement is finding its feet, finding its leadership, finding its confidence. There is every reason to expect the coming months to see a flurry of activity that is a direct spin-off from the boost to confidence given by the magnificent Quebec events. In the anti-capitalist movement, that will mean a continuing focus on large protests outside meetings of corporate capitalism.

For labour, the continuing links with the movement are putting the question of the union bureaucracy into sharp focus. The situation is both promising and difficult. Promising is the new connections that are developing both between labour militants from different unions and the connections between those militants and the anti-capitalist movement.

Difficult is the as yet still small numbers who have worked closely with the anti-capitalist movement. This small number is up against a conservative and passive bureaucratic leadership that has to be fought.

But how we fight the union bureaucracy is itself a matter of some contention.

There has been much talk since the Quebec events of the conservative actions of the Quebec union leadership, in particular the Quebec Federation of Labour (FTQ) and its heavy-handed marshalls.

There is no question that the FTQ marshalls did everything in their power to divert Saturday's demonstration away from the fence.

But it is a little rich for activists from, for instance, Ontario, to get back on a train and complain about the Quebec bureaucracy.

Quebec militants need no lessons in the heavy-hand of their union leaders. From the many compromises with the PQ to last year's abandonment of the nurses, there is a long line of betrayals that have been fought and opposed by militant Quebec workers.

We need to turn our fire on our union leaders here at home. Who doesn't remember the shameful sell-out of the Ontario general strike movement, the abandonment of the magnificent teachers' strike, the passivity in the face of mass layoffs in auto?

Yes we have to challenge the union bureaucracy for the movement to go forward. But when this challenge is from activists in English Canada chastising Quebec union leaders, it rings a little hollow.

The real challenge for labour in English Canada is not FTQ marshalls, but a passive OFL and CLC leaderships.

Remember, it was Quebec organizations — student and worker — who massively out-mobilized everyone else for the FTAA protests.

There were thousands of students and workers from Ontario, the United States and the Maritimes.

But there were tens of thousands of Québécois students and workers from all over the province.

They provided the bulk of the crowd, they provided the bulk of the people engaged in direct action at the fence, and they were the vast majority of those beaten up and arrested by the cops.

In the coming months, there is every reason to expect our movement to grow.

But that growth will not last forever.

There is a crying need for a pan-Canadian organization to give shape and structure to the new mood of anti-capitalists.

There are anti-capitalist organizations in Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, Vancouver — indeed all across English Canad and Quebec — which have acquitted themselves admirably in the face of the FTAA challenge.

But if we are to defeat the FTAA we will need to strengthen these organizations, and deepen their connections with the mass of the working class.

In the 1960s, it was the Students for a Democratic Society — an openly revolutionary student organization involving tens of thousands in the United States — that was able to give shape to that decades growing radicalization.

Building a radical pan-Canadian organization will be the challenge of the coming months.