Rally outside New Horizons seniors facility in Campbell River, BC, March 2, 2014. The Clash of Rights and the Necessity for Peoples Empowerment Seniors care is not a private matter; it is a public service and should be a concern of the entire society. Seniors care and security in retirement are modern rights for all and important features of modern definitions of the rights of all, as people have rights by virtue of being human. As a modern right of all, seniors care is situated within the realm of public interest and cannot be considered a private matter. An attack on workers rights is not a private matter, just as any criminal activity is not a private matter but a public one that concerns the entire society. Workers rights fall within the realm of modern definitions, as workers have rights as the producers of all goods and services; as such, workers rights are a matter of concern for everyone, are situated within the realm of the public interest and cannot be considered a private matter. Participants at a public meeting in Campbell River on January 29, asked the Island Health Board to intervene to stop the mass layoffs at New Horizons. The Board refused to assume its social responsibility towards the workers and seniors and defend the public interest. The BC Minister of Health likewise dismissed calls to intervene saying the mass firings and disruption to the lives of seniors are private business decisions of the owners and worker-trafficking contractor. The owners of New Horizons say they have no choice but to deprive workers of their rights and harm the interests of seniors because the return on their investment is inadequate. The owners insist their right to a better private profit trumps the rights of workers and seniors. They have taken drastic measures to increase their claim on the public funds provided to run the facility and lessen the claim of workers who provide the care and create the value this care generates for society. The owners of New Horizons consider their private right and concern for profit superior to any public concern for the rights of workers and seniors. Island Health and the Liberal government support the owners outlook on rights and the private nature of their business decisions even when those decisions fall within the realm of the public interest. This clash of rights is a prominent feature of a society struggling to become modern. The old rights of private ownership of the previous economy based on petty production persist today within the modern economy of industrial mass production. The old rights of the previous society are in mortal combat with the modern rights of the working class who are the actual producers, the rights of the people by virtue of being human, and the general interests of society. No matter how much harm may occur, the outmoded right to own privately the basic sectors of the socialized economy has unleashed a neo-liberal drive to privatize more and more of the public services necessary to meet the needs of the people within a modern society. This retrogressive attack occurs out of desperation to maintain private profit as dominant in a modern socialized economy, a public socially integrated economy that is in contradiction with the old relations of production that refuse to give way to the new. This modern economy features production and services that span the entire society encompassing every member in an integrated whole. The production of goods and services is socialized, meaning it is public in all its aspects except the lingering outmoded feature of private ownership. The viewpoint that the right to private profit trumps both the public interest and the rights of the actual producers of goods and services is the outlook of those who are desperately clinging to their obsolete class privilege. They are a block to society solving its problems and becoming truly modern where the rights of all are affirmed and guaranteed. The actions of the private owners of New Horizons and Sunridge Place, a monopoly controlling 18 seniors care facilities primarily funded with public money, are an affront to the people and cannot be tolerated. At the very least, Island Health and the government should immediately remove the owners from any authority and contact with the two facilities and establish a public authority to assume control. The refusal of Island Health and the government to uphold their social responsibilities and affirm the public interest means they are unfit to be in positions of public authority and should be removed. Their refusal to uphold public right and the will of the people, yet they still cling to the reins of government, reveals the inadequacy of the current form of governance and the necessity for democratic renewal. The duty of the working class and its allies is to organize consciously a battle to defend the rights of all, win their empowerment over economic and political affairs, and establish a modern public authority and system of democratic governance with the power to deprive the forces of obsolete class privilege of their power to block democratic renewal and their power to deprive people of their rights. cpcml.ca/BCW2014/BC0204.HTM#1
Posted on: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 17:56:12 +0000