Canadian progressive power-couple Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein joined several panelists-and about 150 people in a packed Innis Town Hall-to watch Lewis and Klein’s film The Take, and discuss labour and unions last Wednesday. The documentary (which Lewis directed and Klein wrote) documents the response of labour groups in Argentina when the country collapsed into bankruptcy several years ago. Unlike North American unions, which have a tradition of withholding labour in strikes to attain their goals, Argentine workers began occupying factories and producing goods, often against the business owner’s will.
“We have to get a lot more impatient,” Lewis said in his introduction before the film started. “There’s nothing natural about poverty.” Lewis also described his experiences showing the film in Europe and how it has inspired labour activists to action.
The Take follows workers who are part of the National Movement of Occupied Factories, who (as Marx would describe it) ‘seize the means of production’ amidst the country’s economic turmoil. The film comments on already familiar themes of progressive rhetoric, including institutions like the International Monetary Fund and scenes of protestors clashing with police in the streets. But the film also covers the more specific issues of labour in Argentina, where some of the workers are obviously disenchanted with the political system: one tells the filmmakers, “I can’t get what I want by voting.”
Most of the discussion following the film was skeptical of the relevance of the Argentine experience to Canada.
During the panel discussion, Mike York, a representative of the Carpenter’s Union, said, “We’ve had great success this year in unionizing the construction industry, but manufacturing is starting to crash.”
A member of the audience from the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty said, “If this isn’t a nation-wide movement, then the capitalists will just move in and take over.”
“This isn’t limited to manufacturing,” said another audience member. “The Linux operating system on computers is based on cooperation as well.”
“This should prompt us to think that organizing shouldn’t be limited to just getting a better severance package,” Lewis said, “but rather, smashing the sense that factory closings and things like that are inevitable. We also need to change the country’s bankruptcy laws,” said Lewis, a reference to the federal NDP’s “Workers First Bill” (C-281) which would give worker pensions and benefits priority over paying back creditors when a company declares bankruptcy.
Sirine Kalache, 28, said, “I’m not sure of the relevancy of this to Canada-can this sort of thing be copied in Toronto? I’m skeptical.”
Robert Ramsay, a U of T student, was also skeptical.
“Our labour history is quite different,” he said. “We might have more success using institutional means. If Canadian workers did the same thing as those in the documentary, the reaction of the government might be quite bad.”
Judy Koch, 58, said, “While this showed what workers can do, they didn’t go far enough. They should have taken over the government.”
