Alberta Energy Sector Workers Held Hostage by Anti-Worker Governments and International Finance Speculators

“Alberta oil sands show signs of life” declared the Globe and Mail headline.[1] The article announced that “many” in the province see indications that the economy may be improving in the Alberta energy sector. Citing the announcement by Imperial Oil that it will precede with the $8 billion Kearl Lake mine and that the “run-up” in oil prices have contributed to the optimism the authors, quoting Grande Prairie Mayor Dwight Logan who said, “I'm hesitant to say this, but I feel like we've almost dodged a bullet,” were quick to point out that the reality may be quite different.

The effects of the global capitalist depression on Alberta energy sector workers are particularly acute and have been covered up and relegated to the back pages of the corporate media. In its place is substituted petty bourgeois gossip on mergers and acquisitions, speculation on stock market prices fluctuations and academic theories of “long-term” development and environmental calamity which all amount to nothing more then finance-academia titillation for the parasitically idle classes.

Creating a phoney atmosphere of stability within a real and deepening crisis of employment, access to EI and pensions and resource sell-out the mouthpieces of big oil attempt to ingratiate themselves with the power circles of Calgary energy finance. In an effort to absolve the Harper and Stelmach governments in alliance with the oil monopolies of any responsibility for the economic crisis, betrayal of a national energy policy and deflect criticism from a Made-In-Canada energy crisis the media with support from academia at the University of Calgary hide the true affects for Alberta workers.

Gil McGowan president of the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) said:

“Kearl Lake will create a couple of thousand short- to medium-term construction jobs - and in the current economic climate, that's a welcome thing."

“But over the longer term, this project is deeply troubling because it's focused exclusively on the extraction and export of raw bitumen. The real money - and the real jobs - in this business are in upgrading and refining. Unfortunately Kearl will be sending all of those benefits down the pipeline to Exxon refineries in the US Midwest and Gulf Coast.”[2]

With unemployment in Alberta now reaching 123,000 workers and EI benefits only covering a third of those unemployed, for the majority of out-of-work Albertans the situation is reaching crisis levels. Access to EI benefits are delayed for 10 weeks in Alberta throwing over 34,000 onto the welfare roll.[3] Thousands are losing their homes and rental suites. Workers’ savings are being depleted at a furious pace and debt loads incurred by boom inflation cycle are eating into retirement savings.

The AFL has called on the Western Premiers to convene a national pension summit to demand that the Harper minority Conservative government ensure that all Canadians have full access to pensions and EI benefits. The AFL President said:

"As a result of the global recession and the collapse in equity markets, it has become painfully obvious that our existing patchwork system is not up to the task of providing adequate retirement income for most Canadians."

"Workers in western Canada are being unfairly discriminated against by arbitrary rules that make it much harder for them to qualify for the EI benefits they've paid for. But it's not clear that the new pact between the federal Conservatives and Liberals will do anything to address this fundamental inequity,"

“Energy companies are also storing fuel on tankers, with some 62 million barrels estimated at sea, according to shipbrokers and traders.”[4] The U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration estimated in its May 12, 2009 Short-Term Energy Outlook report that globally, “there are also an additional 130 million barrels of crude oil in floating storage.”[5] Total global daily consumption is about 82 million barrels per day.

So what does this have to do with Alberta unemployment, access to EI and pensions?

This massive inventory of oil and LNG is speculatively traded on spot markets like a “hot potato” passing from one hand to the next but never leaving the tanker. This speculation is artificially pushing prices higher. By maintaining prices at artificially high levels the costs are passed onto Canadian workers who pay world market prices. In other words with all the energy, oil and natural gas that Canada has the costs to prop up global oil speculators and stabilize US oil production capacities are being subsidized by Canadian workers.

A Made-In-Canada domestic price is needed. Halt the shipment of raw bitumen to US upgraders and refineries. Create a national energy policy that forms the basis for industrial expansion in Canada and trade with the world. This will only occur when energy is placed into the hands of workers and the energy industry in nationalized. The necessity to remove the Harper regime at the first opportunity is urgent and can only be achieved on the basis of labour unity acting in its own interests first around a national program of industrial expansion based on the expansion energy.

Notes:
[1] Katherine O'Neill, Dawn Walton, “Alberta oil sands show signs of life”, Globe and Mail, June 22, 2009
[2] Gil McGowan, Statement on Kearl, May 26, 2009, http://www.afl.org/news/default.cfm?newsId=589
[3] Renata D'Aliesio, “As unemployment surges, Albertans waiting 10 weeks for EI”, Canwest News Service, June 21, 2009
[4] Edward McAllister, “Oil slips on dollar, U.S. industrial data, Reuters”, June 16, 2009
[5] US Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, “Short-Term energy Outlook, May 12, 2009, http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/pub/may09.pdf