The Greater Toronto Workers' Assembly organized an Occupy Toronto debrief on Friday, January 27th at the Beit Zatoun.
The panel aimed to address the following questions: Is this the beginning of a new community/labour coalition that we've been waiting for? Will the Occupy movement be able to sustain itself and help awaken a dormant labour movement? How did the Occupy Toronto experience measure up with other Occupations? How did the existing Toronto far-left respond to Occupy at first, and then once it coalesced? Will Occupy be co-opted, or indeed, is it co-optable? The speakers were all part of Occupy Toronto.
The first speaker, Lana Goldberg spoke about her experiences with Occupy and the day-to-day work, including the Action and Outreach committee, the Finance and the Legal Committee. Some work was done around outreaching to the unions and they were able to get financial support from the unions.
She said the relationship between Occupy and labour weren’t too strong. There wasn’t a lot of labour people in the park and there was some anti-union sentiment amongst some of the Occupy people. A lot of work was done in the committees to challenge these sentiments. She spoke about the work being done post-eviction Occupy.
Lana Goldberg by FTGU
Megan Kinch said Occupy wasn’t really a left project or space. She spoke about the differences and similarities between Occupy and the traditional left. Occupy had a diverse grouping of people who had different political views and as a result was not a safe left space. But that this was not necessarily a bad thing.
She talked about the advantages of the Occupy space and about the importance of working with people who have different views from leftists. Initially Occupy was middle class university students, but this shifted as people from different socio-economic backgrounds joined. She stressed the importance of doing continued long-term education and organizational work if the left wants a voice in the movement.
Megan Kinch by FTGU
Brendan Bruce spoke about labour’s relationship to the Occupy movement. He talked about SEIU and the Occupy Washington and how the union tried to take over the Occupy movement there, then moved onto Occupy Toronto’s experience with the labour movement and their lack of support in fighting their eviction from the park. However, there was tremendous support from the rank and file such as the Air Canada workers. He says Occupy has shown the assembly model of democracy works rather than having labour leaders tell workers what they should do.
Brendan Bruce by FTGU
For Paul Gray, Occupy has called into question the assumptions socialists have. He talked about Engels attack on social democracy and how this relates to Occupy. He argues that the Occupy movement is the logical result for the entire historic arc of social democracy and asks whether the barricade is obsolete and if it isn’t what that means for socialist strategy.
Paul Gray by FTGU
