Participating in large-scale actions organized by the global justice movement or groups like the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) has become a common, empowering and moving experience for many activists. Yet, there is often a void that is felt when we return to our local communities. Very often we fall back into a way of discussing and doing politics that is very far removed from the actual practice of the more engaging actions we just participated in.

With the fear of being reduced to a group of summit-hoppers, a group of activists in Sudbury who were connected with the Ontario Common Front began to organize. We were trying to find ways of avoiding becoming nothing more than a group of talkivists, that is people who stand around, make the same old speeches, and then go home and wait for the ‘other world’ we all talk about to develop.

Agreeing that more action was needed than talk, we turned to the work of the not so heralded forms of anti-poverty activism that were being done on a daily basis through direct action casework by groups like OCAP in Toronto and the Tenant Action Group (TAG) in Belleville, to name a few (see list below). Real victories were being won in these cities, and real change was being made in the lives of people through these actions. Direct action casework was being done in ways that ignored bureaucratic trappings and collective actions were being used to gain real victories, and win demands immediately for people who needed results.

We began to organize ourselves under the name Sudbury Coalition Against Poverty (S-CAP), and decided that we would start doing direct action support work in our community. Very few of us had ever done this type of work before but it was quite clear that the only way real victories could be won against the current ruling neo-liberal politics and its institutions was to put ourselves into direct confrontation with them and disrupt their ‘business as usual’ way of doing things. If we allow ourselves to be trapped into following the procedures that these institutions offer then we are not only making our fight almost impossible, we are also legitimating the authority that these institutions try and use to rule over us and centralize power in society. In our direct action support work we began to interfere with this bureaucratic process.Simply put, we began making it impossible for these institutions to function until our demands were met, whether it be giving someone their cheque after they had been arbitrarily cut off Ontario Works benefits, or making the City of Sudbury responsible for assisting local workers who were abandoned without pay by their call-centre employer.

Direct Action Works

Through our direct action support work we have learned some very interesting lessons. Most importantly, direct action tactics really do work, and we have gained some immediate victories with the people we have provided support for. Our tactics have ranged from S-CAP activists arriving with the person we are supporting at the Ontario Works office, to a disruption of a City of Sudbury Council meeting. We have been able to participate in situations where people begin to realize the power that they can possess. This notion of power is not just reserved for the institutions that try and stand over and above us dictating and controlling our lives. Direct Action support is about building people’s own power against the bureaucracies and institutions that usually rule over our lives.

Another interesting component of direct action is the effect it has on the people who make the decisions in institutions such as Ontario Works. They are forced to start to feel responsible and accountable for their decisions. Through our collective actions they are no longer confronting isolated individuals. It is no longer an easy situation to make an arbitrary decision that will leave someone homeless when we force them to realize that this could actually cost someone their housing and perhaps their life. It also helps when their supervisor is now standing over their shoulder wondering why there are a dozen people in the office angry over the way they do their job. It is quite evident that many people in these institutions do not appreciate their bosses knowing that they are having problems handling their work responsibilities. The bureaucratic process does not handle disruption very well.

In doing this work S-CAP has done more that just help people win important victories. Direct action is also a form of popular research that has also made us realize some of the ways the bureaucracies we challenge are organized. Many of the decisions made in these places are completely arbitrary, in some instances staff have not even been able to justify or explain their decision making process. Also, we have begun to learn the hierarchies and divisions of labour that exist in these types of institutions. This has been extremely effective because in many instances the people in these institutions that deal with people have developed techniques to completely ignore complaints and find quick ways of turning people away. As we have found, it is usually not effective to argue with these people in a lobby, rather we have been able to find out who they are accountable to and instead have gone and disrupted them and their usual routines of work. This has led to immediate changes in the way the people who are accountable to them do their job. Quite often these bureaucracies are willing to give in to our demands to alleviate any level of disruption to their so-called higher ups. We have also learned the links that exist between institutions themselves. For example, we have found people in the Municipal government who have authority over certain sections of Ontario Works workers, and by bringing our actions against one level of the local state, in this case the Sudury Municipal official responsible for Ontario Works, we have achieved immediate victories at the level of Ontario Works.

One of the interesting aspects of doing direct action activism is explaining to other activists (usually talkivists) the types of work S-CAP does. At a conference organized by a group of the moderate religious left I had the experience of describing a victory S-CAP had recently won. It involved getting a person who ‘did not qualify’ for Ontario Works a cheque issued in about 90 minutes. My explanation was met by a question from one participant “How did you get this person a cheque so fast? Who did you write a letter to?” The notion of going down to the office and demanding that the needs of this person be met immediately never even seemed to be an option. Many people have accepted that only one side can make the rules for how these interactions will take place. Direct action is successful at challenging this type of thinking.

One other realization we have made is that unlike large campaigns that demand legislative changes, doing direct action support work goes after immediate results, albeit on a smaller scale. But these immediate results do not require the same level of work or organization that is needed in changing legislation. S-CAP has won victories that have been organized in ten minutes and involved four or five people. Before doing direct action support work I would have never imagined this possible. At the same time we have also run up against the restrictions of Ontario Works policies and regulations and province-wide campaigns are crucial to changing these.

Direct Action and Socialism From Below