Labour power among the rank and file

Posted on June 13, 2014 by CanucksBanter

June 13, 2014 http://rankandfile.ca

ByDavid Bush

For the first time in Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) history an incumbent presidential candidate was defeated. The house of labour has its first new president in 15 years, but what does that really mean for the labour movement?

Newly elected Hassan Yussuff used increasingly militant rhetoric throughout his campaign and began to speak about the need for more grassroots organizing, a change from former CLC president Ken Georgetti’s conservative approach to membership mobilization. Yussuff’s campaign was, no doubt, influenced by the rhetoric coming from Hassan Husseini’s presidential campaign, which was focused on restoring workers’ power at the CLC. For those who are concerned about rebuilding the trade union movement and empowering workers to engage in collective struggle, this change can be nothing but positive.

However, the change possible as a result of new leadership is limited. Many on the left, from social democrats to the far left, cling to a narrative that says those at the top dictate the direction of the labour movement. This can lead to problematic conclusions such as believing a new leader will bring about a new day for labour, or that weak leaders are holding the workers’ movement back.

Yes, we need better leaders; leaders who are willing to use their bully pulpit and open up the space for action. And yes, we need to organize to win local and national leadership contests on progressive terms. But in the absence of an organized rank and file willing to seize these opportunities, even the most radical labour leadership can do little.

Perhaps the most compelling story of the importance of grassroots organizing comes from the Chicago Teachers Union; its inspiring defense of public education was made possible by grassroots activists. Facing a conservative union leadership, teachers organized through the Caucus of Rank and File Educators began to organize a network of progressive teachers that eventually won leadership. CORE remained active and helped push their union towards a very strong strike mandate: of the 90 per cent of CTU members who voted, 98 per cent were in favour of striking. The successful strike reinvigorated activists in Chicago to fight against neoliberal policies that affect both schools and communities.

In Canada, despite union density remaining somewhat stable, the Canadian labour movement faces a challenging situation. The employer offensive has put unions on their back foot. We have seen an increasing number of lockouts, a higher frequency of legislative attacks, a pattern of concessionary bargaining at the table and a decline in days lost to strikes.

Objective economic and political factors explain the weak position that unions find themselves in: the decline of manufacturing, the restructuring away from larger workplaces (which are and have been bastions of high unionization), the growth of the service sector, the decline of the American labour movement, the ideological shift towards neoliberalism and so forth. But there are also subjective factors such as a move away from devoting resources to organizing, the entrenchment of a servicing culture within unions and the inability of unions to mobilize their membership around political goals beyond their own workplaces.

Union administration is often seen as a layer of individuals whose social position within the union structure leads them to be more conservative, no matter how great or progressive they are on an individual level. Analyses can collapse into simply blaming the bureaucracy: elected officials and staff are motivated to rein in the class struggle in order to preserve the material benefits and political voice their position affords them. The nature of their position also separates them from the day-to-day concerns on the shop floor.

This analysis doesn’t acknowledge deeper structural realities of trade unions in our society.

The trade union movement is the product of a deeply unjust and unequal economic system called capitalism that aims to squeeze as much profit from workers as possible. Unions were formed to defend and increase what little power workers had through collective action. Through many hard fought battles, labour activists won collective legal rights. This allowed unions to entrench more gains at the bargaining tables but it also created the conditions for the growth of bureaucratic structures to regulate and manage labour relations under the new and increasingly specialized legal framework.

To understand the trade union bureaucracy as only a layer of individuals whose social position is divorced from the rank and file rather than a structural product of the class struggle opens the door for a less than helpful understanding of the problems facing unions. It is not a matter of union leaders and bureaucrats simply holding back the union movement. In this regard, a certain leftist criticism of the union bureaucracy begins to dovetail with a very conservative reading of how change is enacted: everything focused on the top.

We must start to think about how change happens in the union movement.

Last February, when a UPS worker in Queens, New York, was unfairly fired, a union briefing turned into a wildcat strike of 90 minutes. After the wildcat, UPS made their intentions clear to fire all 250 workers involved, and started firing workers at random. Thanks to intense organizing, enough pressure was placed on UPS by their clients and other unions that they were forced to re-hire all threatened workers.

As Sarah Jaffe notes, “the wildcat action had to be backed up with organizing both inside the union and within the community.” Indeed, the militancy of the membership, and their willingness to place their jobs on the line to save a colleague’s won the day.

As a good friend of mine once told me, those who want the labour leadership to simply call for the most militant of tactics without actually doing the work of creating the conditions for this happen ourselves, want to substitute the power of workers for the pronouncements of leaders. You want to wildcat, go on general strike or occupy your workplace? Great, but if we can’t win that argument in our own workplace then why should we expect leadership to do the heavy lifting for us?

To make the union movement a stronger force for the whole working class, we must move beyond expecting leaders and bureaucrats to lead the charge, or blame them when militancy fails to materialize. The left must organize to empower the widest layer of workers to take action to better their lives. This means actively engaging with all unions, regardless of if they are deeply conservative.

Scapegoating the labour leadership for a variety of collective failures won’t turn the tide of the attacks. The only way we can begin to challenge the forces lined up against it is to reach out to and empower the broader working class to fight back.

This can only truly happen if rank and file activists organize from the bottom up.

This piece was first published on Rabble.ca

Union women work to shatter labour’s glass ceiling

Posted on December 7, 2013 by CanucksBanter

By H.G. Watson December 4, 2013 http://rabble.ca

The labour movement’s female ranks are growing, but women are still struggling to have their voices heard and to fill executive positions.

“Sadly, I still find myself in the trenches,” said Yolanda McClean, the Diversity Vice-President of CUPE, speaking at the microphones during the women’s forum at the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) convention.

Women, even in unionized workplaces, face workplace harassment and income inequality.

For those that might consider leadership positions, there are still barriers in the way of taking executive roles at the local or national levels — including a lack of available childcare and mentoring — despite the fact that there are more women unionized than ever before.

A recent Globe and Mail article found that the rate of men who are unionized is dropping while rates for women have held steady. The losses for men is found in the declining manufacturing sector while unionization rates in health care, education and public administration — industries largely dominated by women — have grown.

Men still take up many of the top positions in labour unions and councils, a situation that has certainly not gone unnoticed by union sisters. At the Unifor founding convention in August, Lindsay Hinshelwood, a member of the former CAW local 707 in Oakville, Ontario, ran against Jerry Dias to challenge what she called the “old boys club” of leadership.

“Traditional power structures still exist within the labour movement which is really unfortunate,” said Nicole Wall, a Toronto based regional representative of the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

She, along with her mother, labour activist Carol Wall, sat on a panel about the challenges women face in the labour movement last Tuesday at the OFL convention.

They were joined by Katie Arnup, a national representative for communications at Unifor, Sue Genge, who was formerly with the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) and Michele Landsberg, a journalist who has written extensively on labour issues.

Landsberg recounted that when she attempted to write a story about maternity leaves many years ago, she was laughed off the phone by many of the union leaders when she asked if they would include leave provisions in collective agreements.

“I’ve heard a woman say that she ran for an elected position and she was told she’d get in trouble with her union supervisor because they didn’t want a woman running,” she said.

If there is anyone who knows the challenges of becoming not only active in labour, but a leader, it would be Nancy Hutchison. The secretary-treasurer of the OFL was the first woman to work in the gold mine in the Campbell Red Lake Mine in 1977. Hutchison became the president of her union local, and eventually rose through the ranks of the United Steelworkers to take a place on their national executive as the Canadian National Health, Safety and Environment Department Leader.

“Very rarely will a sister come up and say, ‘it’s my first year working here and I want to be involved in the union,'” she said. “It’s up to us to look for [leadership] qualities.”

Mentorship opportunities and access to childcare were two of the key barriers she identified for women who may consider running for leadership positions.

At the OFL convention, there were several impassioned speeches in support of a universal childcare system. Others also advocated for maternity leaves to be included in collective agreements — a situation that they argue benefits families overall, not just women.

But according to Landsberg, union culture has to become more inclusive — or risk disappearing altogether.

“The union movement has done amazing things for changing the scene for women externally,” she said, noting that unions supported Charter challenges that helped secure the right to choice.

“But internally, they haven’t done as much and they have to because that is the future of unionizing –they need the women or they are gone.”

Why labour unions are concerned about the new budget bill — and you should be too

Posted on November 21, 2013 by CanucksBanter

By H.G. Watson | November 21, 2013 http://rabble.ca

It’s almost a yearly tradition now — with a new session of Parliament comes a new omnibus bill to stir up controversy. This year, Bill C-4 — the budget implementation bill — has raised the ire of Canada’s national labour unions, for good reason. And while we might not notice the impacts now, if Bill C-4 passes, we soon will.

So, what’s in this bill?

Bill C-4, like omnibus bills before it, makes amendments and changes to all sorts of legislation. As reported by Macleans, it will extend solicitor-client privilege under the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act and potentially give the minister of immigration new powers to approve economic class applicants.

But what changes impact labour?

The bill gives the federal government exclusive right to determine what public services workers are essential — a designation that is currently negotiated by the employer and the union. Under the current system, if they can’t reach an agreement they go to the Public Service Labour Relations Board.

Bill C-4 simply calls for consultation, after which the government can still declare the workers essential. In this new proposed system, the final decision rests with the government.

And there’s more. If over 80 per cent of workers in a bargaining unit are deemed essential — essential workers are deemed so if their work is needed to ensure the safety and security of the public — they go right to arbitration. Do not strike. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $50.

At the same time, the bill dissolves and combines The Public Service Labour Relations Board and the Public Service Staffing Tribunal and creates the Public Service Labour Relations and Employment Board. This new board will oversee all grievances brought by workers in the federal public service.

Lastly, the bill makes some major changes to the health and safety provisions in the Canada Labour Code — a statute that applies to all federally regulated industries. As the Labour Code currently stands, officials called health and safety officers, who are designated by the minister of labour, investigate workplaces and deem them dangerous if need be.

If the amendments contained in Bill C-4 pass, the minister would be directly responsibly for leading the investigations, and the definition of “danger” would be “an imminent or serious threat to the life or health of a person exposed to it.” The current definition notes that the danger only has to be a hazard or condition that could reasonably cause injury or illness.

And why is labour concerned about this?

In a nutshell: unions believe that workers are being stripped of their rights to collectively bargain and protect themselves in unsafe workplaces.

“Obviously we are not pleased with this bill,” said Robyn Benson, the president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), a union that represents 180,000 workers in the federal public service.

She is concerned that if the bill passes, far more of the workers in PSAC will be deemed essential and thus unable to strike should they decide to do so after a round of bargaining their new contracts with the federal government.

“I think that [Clement] will probably, for example, try to deem every customs officer essential when that’s not in fact the case,” she explained. “I don’t believe collecting taxes at the border has anything to do with [that].”

The health and safety concerns extend past the federal public service and include industries like airlines, rail and telecommunications. PSAC representatives believe that the dissolution of the health and safety officers could politicize workplace monitoring and that the new definition of danger leaves too much room for interpretation.

And much like previous omnibus budget bills, the Conservatives are being criticized for including non-budgetary items in Bill C-4, like changing the essential worker designation. “It’s an anti-democratic and anti-parliamentarian tactic,” said Alexandre Boulerice, the NDP labour critic. He worries that because of the scope of the bill, many of the changes contained within — including some of sweeping ones concerning labour — won’t get enough time for proper scrutiny before the parliamentary committees.

Clement declined to be interviewed for this story, but he told The Globe and Mail earlier this month that these changes would transform and modernize “the public service negotiation architecture.” He’s told other media that he believes it ridiculous that the government has to negotiate with labour unions to determine what services are essential — an arrangement that according to Benson had been working with previous Treasury Board presidents, including Vic Towes. According to her, Clement also refused to consult with PSAC during the writing of Bill C-4.

So why make these changes?

Benson believes that these changes are coming for one reason — the federal public service is negotiating a new collective agreement in 2014 and the federal government is preparing to do battle with the public sector unions.

She has no plans to stop battling these changes, now or at the bargaining table next year. “We have told this government from the day that I was elected that I was not going to expect any concessions,” she said. “And I believe that our membership is solidly behind us and will stand up to be counted.”

Clement, for his part, has already started his own campaign to support his cause. He told media that he will stay mum on who is to be deemed essential, but has been sure to stress that it is for the cause of public safety. At question period earlier this month, he also addressed a concern from within his own party about the absenteeism rate of public service workers, noting that he will address the issue next year at the bargaining table.

And what does it mean for the federal public service?

It means that once the new year begins, they may find themselves involved in drawn-out labour negotiations that will have impacts felt beyond federal public service workers. War drums are already beating. On Twitter and in the media, both have Benson and Clement have taken shots at each other.

A fine balance: GDP growth by sector and the impact of austerity

Posted on September 11, 2013 by CanucksBanter

http://rabble.ca

By Jim Stanford September 11, 2013

The second-quarter GDP numbers confirm that Canada’s continuing “recovery,” such as it is, is still balancing very precariously on a knife-edge between expansion and contraction. The various sources of growth vary widely in their current momentum. The overall net balance is barely positive. And coming austerity in the public sector could very much push the balance into negative territory in coming quarters.

Here’s how the numbers add up. I examined the year-over-year change in each major component of GDP (the familiar C+I-G+X-M, with housing investment broken out as its own category), using real (chained 2007) data. The ultimate change in real GDP depends, obviously, on a weighted average of all the component changes. This is a simple way to think about where the impetus for growth is coming from (or not, as the case may be).

The accompanying figure summarizes the data.

Consumers are still spending at a decent clip, despite (or more precisely thanks to) their accumulating debt.
Residential housing investment has now peaked and is starting to decline moderately. (Recent data on housing starts and residential construction employment suggest further flatlining or gentle contraction in this volatile sector.)
Business capital investment continues to be lacklustre, despite abundant corporate cash flows. In fact, this graph overestimates the strength of business investment because of well-known problems with the implicit GDP deflator for this category of spending (apparent prices of business capital are distorted downward by the secular fall in the price of computer-related assets, and this makes “real” investment spending look bigger than it is — at least in macroeconomic terms).
Net exports are a wipe-out: the trade deficit continues to widen in the face of iffy global demand and our overvalued currency. This result is especially disappointing in light of recent improvements in U.S. demand conditions; it indicates the deep structural weakness in Canada’s participation in the global economy that the Harper government’s rush to sign more FTAs will only reinforce.
This leaves the government sector, considering both current “consumption” (spending on programs) and capital investment (infrastructure). The net year-over-year increase as of the second quarter was still positive, but barely so: up by 1 per cent in real terms. This reflects growth in real current consumption (up 1.4 per cent year over year), offset by a contraction in capital spending (down half a percentage point). The net trend in total government spending has recovered from the significant negative values recorded in 2011 (as temporary stimulus spending, mostly on capital “make-work” projects, was being unwound). But at barely 1 per cent real government expenditure is still shrinking both as a share of GDP and in real per capita terms, and hence can be considered evidence of continuing austerity. In contrast, when the economy was recovering much more robustly in latter 2009 and 2010, total government expenditure was growing by as much as 6 percent year over year.

The weighted average of all sectors produces the uninspiring 1.4 per cent year-over-year expansion in total GDP recorded in the second quarter. That’s not enough to offset productivity growth and population growth — which is why there has been no further recovery in the national employment rate (employment as a share of the working-age population) since the end of 2010 (almost 3 years of labour market stagnation). This isn’t so much a “recovery,” as it is treading water.

What’s the outlook going forward? In short: more of the same.

There’s no sign of coming vigour in either net exports or business investment (what are supposed to be the major engines of growth in a globalized capitalist economy). Best-case scenario for the housing sector is a continued soft landing: that is, an easy-going decline. Consumers are still willing to borrow and spend, for now: how that will hold up in the face of coming interest rate hikes (on both mortgage and non-mortgage debt) is an open question.

Fiscal policy will therefore continue to determine the net balance of economic forces. If governments decide to tighten spending further, then the overall balance would shift even closer to zero (or even cross to the minus side).

This simple analysis also highlights what is required to achieve a more optimistic outlook — one where expansion in spending is sufficient to generate a sustained increase in the employment rate, with resulting spin-off benefits for incomes, spending, and subsequent job-creation.

New industrial and trade policies could help to address the weakness in net exports and business capital spending. Failing that, fiscal policy must do more of the economic lifting.

The corporate sector continues to deleverage and accumulate liquid assets; there is no shortage of “money” in Canada’s economy.

From a social perspective, therefore, there is no fiscal constraint on government’s ability to lead future growth through a major and sustained expansion in spending (especially capital spending — for example, on transportation, housing, and green energy).

After all, that’s how we solved the last decade-long stagnation. Today, five years after Lehman Brothers, it’s increasingly clear we need something similar (hopefully not motivated by war) to end this one.

Stephen Harper does not expect Canadians to discover that job performance has been poor and that the economy is not improving, while the standard of living for most Canadians is declining.

Labour force numbers worse than they look

The painful reality is this: Labour is not scarce; jobs are scarce. And Canada’s labour market is not healthy; it’s been stalled in recession-like conditions for years.

Austerity chokes the down-and-out, as Harper and Flaherty look the other way

The aggressive austerity cuts carried out by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty over the past seven years have come home to roost.

Lowering our standards for workers’ rights

Posted on September 3, 2013 by CanucksBanter

By Trish Hennessy September 3, 2013 http://rabble.ca

The right-wing Fraser Institute has released a paper that, if implemented, would dramatically lower our standards for worker pay, workers’ rights and workplace protections.

It urges governments in Ontario and B.C. to adopt American-style “right-to-work” (RTW) laws which violate a core principle upheld in Canadian law: if a majority of workers in a workplace vote to form a union, everyone should be a member and pay dues — because all workers in that workplace benefit from the gains made by the union in their workplace.

Effectively, it would undermine unions’ right to organize in Canada.

It also promotes the right-wing frame of the day: “worker choice”. That’s the language the Fraser Institute is touting in its latest paper. The frame is an American import; an expression of the oft-touted freedom values in that country. It’s Orwellian language, really, because what we’ve witnessed under similar anti-worker laws in the U.S. is that workers there have far fewer options, worse working conditions and lower pay.

Here’s the harsh reality of workers who live in American states that have implemented such anti-worker laws:

– The average worker in RTW states earns $1,540 less a year than workers who live in states with more robust worker protection laws;

– Median household income is $6,437 less ($46,402 vs. $52,839);

– The percentage of jobs in low-wage occupations is higher (26.7 per cent vs. 19.5 per cent);

– Poverty rates are higher (15.3 per cent vs. 13.1 per cent);

– More infants die (infant mortality rates are 15 per cent higher);

– And more workers die in the workplace (36 per cent higher).

Learn more about the harmful effects of RTW laws in the U.S. here.

Clearly, this is not the direction we should be advising our governments to head towards. But the Fraser Institute’s latest volley is part of a strategic, concerted effort among right-wing groups in Canada to launch wave after wave of assaults on this country’s labour movement following the great disruption of the 2008-09 global economic recession.

Ontario is proving to be one of the major testing grounds for this concerted effort. Shortly after the Ontario government plunged into deficit as a result of recession — coupled with some of its own questionable decisions, such as ORNG and cancelled gas plant projects — right-wingers started in with a major blamestorming campaign to pin the deficit on unionized workers.

The fact of the matter is that polling reflects the majority of Canadians believe unions effectively improve the salaries and working conditions of Canadian employees; they believe that unions are necessary and important in society.

The goal of the right-wing narrative in Canada is to stir resentment, to pit workers against workers, to erode the public’s support for this legitimate public institution.

The Fraser Institute’s most recent paper would take Ontario back to a world where corporate giants could exploit workers with impunity, because workers on their own lack the resources to do much about it. They are powerless.

As this Toronto Star editorial aptly states, the labour movement plays an important role in our society: “Business may not welcome it, but organized labour is a well-established force for social good — one that has raised the standard of living of a great many of us. Statistics Canada rightly counts union membership as a key ‘indicator of well-being’ and it rose last year. About 31.5 per cent of employees were represented by a union, up from 31.2 per cent in 2011.”

In Ontario, 28 per cent of all employees belong to a union. As the Canadian Labour Congress calculated, their weekly payroll amounts to more than $1.7 billion — a third of the total provincial payroll. “On average, unionized workers earned $6.11/hour more than non-union employees. That union advantage translated into $351.6 million more every week paid into local economies to support local businesses and community services.”

That union advantage contributes to all Ontarians’ economic well-being.

By urging Ontario to emulate American states that embrace anti-worker laws, the Fraser Institute is prescribing a race to the bottom. Contrary to the Fraser Institute’s claim that it would benefit Ontario’s economy, research from the Economic Policy Institute shows the reality in American RTW states has been exactly the opposite of what advocates had promised.

Implementing anti-worker laws would slow down Ontario’s economy, because once workers earn less, they spend less — and right now it’s workers who are propping up economic growth by spending locally.

It would put more workers in dire straights, because they’d lose protections that unions secured for all workers generations ago.

It would weaken workers’ rights, making it harder for a worker to turn down unsafe work.

It would turn back the clock to the days before Ontario had a stable middle class.

It would return Ontario to the days in the late-1800s and early-1900s where worker strife led to work stoppages, strikes, and labour unrest.

We’ve come too far to turn back now. Our standards are, and will continue to be, higher than that. We are all worth more.

Trish Hennessy is director of the CCPA Ontario office, located in Toronto. The CCPA Ontario will be posting a compendium of papers to help inform workers about the benefits of the Rand Formula and the current assault on workers’ rights.

Photo: Jobs with Justice/flickr

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