Hargrove's "progressive blather" masks ambitions

Comment from Peter Leibovitch, Hamilton steelworker

Peter Leibovitch is a millwright at Stelco's Lake Erie plant near Port Dover, Ont. He was elected President of United Steelworkers of America, Local 8782 three times and is now serving as Vice President and is a leading activist in the union nationally. He served as an advisor to Ontario NDP leader Howard Hampton in 1997 and 1998.

  Mark Twain had a saying that a lie is halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on. That's what has happened with the story of the CAW raid on the SEIU.
  The big business media ever eager to promote the delusion of Buzz as the champion of the left repeated his claim that the raid was a fight for democracy. He called the SEIU a reactionary dictatorial American Union. But the truth is the SEIU is one of the most progressive unions in the U.S. The progressive journals are full of praise for the initiative taken by the SEIU. That union has recruited more women and visible minorities than any other union on the continent.
  While Buzz was conspiring against them they were leading massive strikes like the Justice for Janitors Campaign in California. The SEIU led the organizing work for welfare recipients in New York City. It was under the leadership of the past Int'l President of SEIU John Sweeney that the AFL-CIO got rid of its cold-war conservative leadership and put in militants to lead the American Labour movement. When Buzz calls this leadership concessionary he shows how out of touch he is.
  In fact at no time did the American's ever tell Ken Brown and the SEIU not to fight against employers. Buzz and Brown are trying to hoodwink the rank and file. We'll see what the members think when they notice that Brown and his cohorts are the same people who negotiated and serviced them before, only now they wear CAW hats. Buzz may need a lot of hype from his admirers at the National Pest and Toronto Star if nothing much changes for those who answered the siren call of the CAW.
  Despite the progressive blather Buzz's bread and butter in recent years has been to belittle the Social Democratic movement and organized labour. The right-wing media love it. His brand of nationalism is hypocritical and divisive. For example a group of CAW militants were chanting Yankee Go Home in front of an SEIU headquarters. Why not Yankee GM or Yankee Ford or Yankee Chrysler. No. Buzz works closely with those American Bosses. Buzz praised the super merger of Daimler Benz with Chrysler.
  His attacks on the NDP is just left opportunism. His members in the Big Three have flown the coop politically. They are voting Tory, Liberal and Alliance. Behind left rhetoric Buzz takes a pass on the hard fight to win his members away from right. In fact he often seems to echo Harris in his talk about democracy in the workplace.
  On page one of the National Post he recently attacked the Federal NDP as not being progressive enough and said he was considering withdrawing CAW funding from the party. He is doing the same thing nationally that he did in Ontario in the last provincial election. Threatening to leave the Party is an old whine with Buzz. The time has probably come to call his bluff.

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