Glen Pearon’s ( http://glenpearson.ca) is doing a nice job with his blog. It is really great to see all the different unions coming together to fight these extreme and arbitrary demands.
Caterpillar is not a company; it is a group of executive buccaneers who are ruthlessly preying upon middle class workers. They are buying up companies around the world; using countries and states against each other to drive down labour costs to poverty levels. If the plant does move to Munice, Indiana, where wages are much lower, those workers will be exploited in the future by threats of moving the plant again to Mexico where Caterpillar has another facility. Fighting for London is a fight for all workers, including those in Indiana and Mexico.
To defeat buccaneer capitalism, I believe we need to take the fight to the senior executives in the United States. They have already shown their lack of respect for Canadian politicians, including the Prime Minister. They take our $5 million and then say the company is worth less than $299 million when they book the value at $1.3 billion. And they are certainly not fearful of any possible fines coming out of the Canada Investment Act. The US Steel fines clearly show that a few million dollars means nothing to corporations worth billions. To truly get these guys, the battle needs to pressure their profits; putting pressures on their network of 200 dealers around the world or having highly visible protests in the United States that makes the company look bad to the public and investors.
FCSD Studio 