January 23, 2015

Genuine job creation action needed to combat Manitoba’s more accurate jobless rate of 8.3%

The overwhelming majority of Aboriginal people are workers and they among the most oppressed and exploited part of the working class in Manitoba, says the Communist Party.

Excluding Treaty First Nations workers living on reserves from the Labour Force Survey is an official reinforcement of the racist view that Aboriginal people do not value work or contribute to the economy.

Manitoba and other prairie provinces should stop bragging about their low jobless rate and end the long, agonizing jobs crisis. The racist exclusion of Aboriginal people from the labour force survey is a big reason why Manitoba, of all the prairie provinces, is a low-wage province.

The Communist Party of Canada – Manitoba demands that the Conservative government end the racist exclusion by immediately including all workers in the Labour Force Survey.

The truth is that for centuries Aboriginal people have been the backbone not just of the fur trade but of Manitoba’s industrial, mining, farm labour and manufacturing industries. And today their racist-inspired joblessness is a weapon for big business to depress wages for all workers.

Refusing to consider Aboriginal people as part of the working class, the Conservative government is whitewashing the real rate of unemployment for all workers.

This is a much more significant jobless crisis in areas with high numbers of Treaty Aboriginal people, such the Prairie provinces.

For example, in Manitoba, the official rate is 5.2% (35,000 jobless).Counting the labour force on reserves (at an estimated 70% jobless rate and 68.5 participation rate), Manitoba’s actual unemployment rate is an estimated 8.3 per cent, or about 60% higher ( 65,000 jobless actively looking for work).*

Aboriginal leaders report that unemployment rates reach 90 per cent on many reserves.

One of the biggest anchors dragging down wages in Manitoba is the high rate of unemployment.

The real rate of unemployment should include discouraged workers, people who simply have given up actively looking for work. The real rate of unemployment is higher than the official rate.

Adding the officially excluded working class in Manitoba means that the real rate is higher still.

The real challenge for working people is to mount a strong campaign for genuine job-creation policies, such as a shorter work week with no loss in pay or a plan to build 1,000 child care centres and 10,000 homes. All job creation initiatives and hiring must have affirmative action for Aboriginal nations which have higher rates of unemployment, which in all likelihood means all of them.

Unemployment is more than a reckless waste of labour power, it is “a constant dead weight upon the limbs of the working class in its struggle for existence with capital, a regulator for the keeping of wages down to the low level that suits the interests of capital.” (Engels,Socialism: Utopian and Scientific).

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Information: Darrell Rankin, Leader, Communist Party of Canada – Manitoba (204) 586-7824
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*Calculations for Manitoba:
In 2011, about 105,815 Treaty First Nation people lived in Manitoba.

105,815 Treaty FN in province = X
61,267       Treaty FN on reserves (X x 57.9%) = Y
50,300       Population 15 years old and over, assuming the proportion is the same as for the province Y x 82.1% = Z
34,456       Labour force, assuming the participation rate is the same as for the province. Z x 68.5% = ZZ
24,119       Number unemployed on reserves, assuming a 70% jobless rate. ZZ x 70%

679,200 Labour force without reserves
35,300       Number unemployed in province off-reserve – 5.2%

713,656 Labour force with reserves included
59,419       Total actual number jobless – 8.3%

Considering there are a high number of discouraged workers on reserves and the authoritative reports by First Nations leaders that rates often reach 90%, the 70% rate is probably the most accurate figure. This is a cautious figure.

Sources
1. http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-sa/99-011-x/2011001/tbl/tbl03-eng.cfm
2. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/lfss01b-eng.htm

Attached in pdf.
1. News release
2. Expanded summary and calculation of table information

January 15, 2015

Communist Party calls for elections to be a paid holiday

Premier Selinger’s proposal yesterday for a permanent voters list to replace the “costly” enumeration process is flawed and anti-democratic. The Premier is reported to believe that a permanent voters list will “increase voter turnout,” but facts contradict this belief.

Elections are the most important of all government spending, touching on core issues of democracy and governance. It is alarming that suddenly the two main parties in the Legislature are reportedly “eager” and “willing” to discuss or implement this proposal.

A permanent list is more likely to be inaccurate for the poor, students and discriminated groups, tilting elections in favour of the wealthy and those who face no discrimination.

The Premier needs to explain why turnout actually declined in the 2008 federal election, the first that used the National Register of Electors, to 59 per cent, the lowest in history. Studies show enumeration is better than a permanent voters list in terms of both accuracy and costs.

Inaccurate permanent lists are part of a pattern of voter suppression in North America which includes the effective disenfranchisement of about 500,000 people in Canada because of last year’s so-called Fair Elections Act.

A far better way to boost turnout is to make the provincial election a paid holiday. This would demonstrate the esteem Manitoban’s have in the electoral process.

Failure to make it a paid holiday and instead to create a permanent voters list will show how much the large parties truly value the full meaning of democracy. A full pubic discussion, with hearings across the province, are needed before “costly” enumeration is axed.

More paid holidays would also be a job-creating measure.*

Information: Darrell Rankin, Leader, Communist Party of Canada – Manitoba (204) 586-7824

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*Considering there are 250 work-days in a year, profits may decline by 1/250, or .4% because of lost production. Increased hiring to make up for this loss and to maintain market-share would boost hiring and payroll income, growing the domestic market and compensating profits in the long-run. More paid holidays (eg, International Women’s Day or International Workers’ Day) have the same economic effect as a shorter work week or reducing the pension age. The experience of Britain’s Ten-and-a-half Hours Bill (1848) and the 40 hour work week supports this contention. – DR