The Christian Labour Association of Canada (CLAC): Between Company and Populist Unionism.
Tufts, Steven ; Thomas, Mark
The Christian Labour Association of Canada (CLAC): Between Company and Populist Unionism.
DESPITE ITS LONG HISTORY OF ORGANIZATION by specific trade, the
construction sector in Canada is a contested site among unions seeking
to represent workers. The Christian Labour Association of Canada (CLAC)
has attempted to disrupt traditional jurisdictions in the sector in
Ontario and western Canada for over a decade, CLAC, founded in 1952 by
Dutch immigrants with strong links to European Christian labour, has
been a relatively small player in Canada's labour movement and
relatively neglected by labour researchers. However, three developments
have brought CLAC more attention over the last decade. First, the union
has rapidly expanded its membership and now claims to represent 60,000
workers. Second, the controversial tactics used to achieve this
growth--specifically, employer accommodationist strategies that
undermine other unions--have resulted in CLAC'S expulsion from
central labour bodies. Third, after largely dismissing Christian labour
as inconsequential and particular, labour studies scholarship has begun
to push the boundaries of a secular, materialist labour studies with
interpretations that integrate religion into understandings of labour
mobilization.
This article explores the recent strategic trajectory of CLAC and
seeks to contribute to the understanding of such an extreme form of
accommodationist unionism, CLAC is often characterized as an
accommodationist, or "company," union--an opportunistic,
pariah organization that allows employers who would otherwise face a
"real" union (i.e., traditional, militant) a convenient
union-avoidance alternative, CLAC'S presence must not, however, be
reduced to a functionalist accommodationism. Over the last decade CLAC
has demonstrated an expansionist strategy with a specific geographical
logic, concentrating in regions and jurisdictions that are manageable
within the union's organizational capacities. Further, its
geographical strategy is supported by a populism that is coherent with
its strategic objectives. Here, we build on previous work that looks at
the intersections between labour and populism from both the left and the
right. (1)
Right-wing accommodationist unions that integrate populism into
their strategic program pose a theoretical challenge to labour geography
and to labour studies more broadly. Admittedly, it is difficult to
ascribe agency to workers when accommodationist unions are so closely
aligned with capitalist strategic objectives. In fact, such unions often
dissolve labour-employer conflict to the point where it is difficult to
identify how the power being exercised by workers is any different from
that of capital. Such unions problematize class struggle itself as an
analytical category, given that it is their collaboration rather than
conflict with capital that shapes the economic landscape. In fact,
accommodationist unions are implicated in processes that seek to rescale
the organization of labour produced by traditional labour unions.
Lastly, accommodationist labour's relation to the capitalist state
is also contradictory because it seeks to displace traditional unions
through appeals to the state for recognition and deregulation.
We begin with a discussion of accommodationist unions, populism,
and labour geography. Discussions of labour and geography have not
deeply integrated populism; but we argue that populism does play a role
in how workers shape economic space. (2) We then introduce CLAC'S
current strategic initiatives and populist rhetoric. We find that
CLAC'S accommodationism requires a nuanced and geographically
informed analysis.
Despite numerous attempts, we were unable to secure participation
from CLAC representatives through interviews. The article therefore
draws on a number of other resources: union documents and propaganda;
interviews with union leaders who hold strong anti-CLAC sentiments;
cases involving CLAC before the Alberta and Ontario Labour Relations
Boards; and CLAC'S recent legislative agenda, specifically, its
support for employer-friendly legislation in Ontario's construction
sector.
Accommodationism, Populism, and Labour Geography
AT THE HEART OF LABOUR GEOGRAPHY is the consideration of the agency
of both labour and capital in the shaping of capitalist economic
landscapes. (3) Since Andrew Herod's initial call for labour to be
considered more seriously in analyses of the production of capitalist
economic geographies, scholars have made a number of interventions and
assessments of the labour geography project. (4) There have also been
some deeper critiques of labour geography that raise significant
questions about its long-term viability, especially in the era of
austerity where capital appears dominant. (5) It is beyond the scope of
this article to provide a comprehensive review of labour geography. We
do, however, wish to discuss how issues of populism and labour
accommodationism can both inform and problematize some of the
subdiscipline's theoretical foundational concepts that are subject
to debate: specifically, agency and class, the production of scale, and
the role of the state.
Accommodationist unionism and populism have implications for these
debates. We define accommodationist unionism as practices that seek
compromise with employers and capital in the first instance. While some
may argue that all labour unions under capitalism are accommodationist
to some extent, we feel such a broad conceptualization lacks necessary
nuance. Yes, labour unions are creatures of capitalism and labour laws,
particularly in the post--World War II context. Such regulation regimes
have served to limit rank-and-file worker activism and more firmly
integrate unions into capitalism through bureaucratized and legalized
systems of labour relations. At the same time, the level of
accommodation to capital varies greatly over time and space, as do its
institutional forms. Labour geographers from almost the beginning of the
project have looked at accommodationist unions. Herod has documented how
unions representing US dockworkers competed with different scalar
strategies (some more employer friendly than others) in order to achieve
gains for workers in various US ports. (6) There are many examples where
workers, through unions, choose to "accommodate" or
"break ranks" with large-scale collective agreements to
attract jobs and local investment. (7) In this case, labour unions are
at best seen as reformist institutions with no revolutionary agency.
Such accommodationism is juxtaposed with "transformational
solidarity" where workers deprioritize their own particular
geographical economic interests to build a broader class struggle."
But we use "accommodationist" here in a more narrow
sense, to identify those unions that actively and explicitly advocate
for collaborative relationships with employers and disparage conflict as
a means of achieving gains for workers from the outset. (9) Any agency
that is exercised by these organizations is limited to their ability to
secure work for members at the expense of workers in traditional unions.
At best they can be categorized as survivalist or resilient, exercising
an "adaptive" agency (see below) aimed at securing a minimal
voice for workers that does not extend beyond the workplace in times of
neoliberal advancement.
Populism is a much more difficult concept to define, despite its
recent rise. (10) Populist movements arise in situations where there is
growing public discontent with the status quo but where class-based
institutional forms (i.e., unions, working-class parties) have been
abandoned, leaving no one to articulate political demands. Hence,
populism in advanced capitalist economies is still infused with class
antagonism, but weak institutions free it to take a variety of forms
across the political spectrum, ranging from reactionary neoliberalism to
short-lived variants of anti-capitalism to right-wing unions espousing
populist rhetoric. In this vein, Ernesto Laclau argues that populism
must be conceptualized as political expression independent of its
specific ideological content. (11) In other words, populism can emerge
in both left and right formations. What is more important for Laclau is
an emphasis on populism as a process whereby "the people"
express their dissatisfaction with the dominant powers
("elites") through a discursive project that finds an
"empty signifier" to articulate a variety of unanswered
demands (12)--for example, the 99 per cent (we the people) versus the 1
per cent (the "other") as articulated by Occupy Wall Street.
Gillian Hart identifies this as Laclau's key innovation but
criticizes Laclau for failing to escape the most common trapping of much
populist theory, which proposes a "manipulated mindless
masses" model and fails to appreciate a truly Gramscian notion of
populism as driven by a subaltern attempting to produce its own politics
when institutions (such as traditional labour unionism) fail. (13)
We agree that populism is not merely a process by which to control
workers in times of crisis, and that populism remains integral to
working-class struggles and experiences. Conceptualizing populism in
more nuanced ways that explore the power of language is worthwhile as we
move beyond the accounts of "authoritarian populism" inspired
by Stuart Hall and look at how populism can also be language emanating
from organized labour itself. (14) Indeed, workers are not independent
of populism; they are within it, and unions are implicated in the
language of both left- and right-wing populism. (15) We argue that
populism is integrated into specific geographical and sectoral
strategies of unions. Understanding how both populism and
accommodationism interact with agency and class, the production of
scale, and labour's relationship with the state must be considered.
Class-less Agency?
Labour geography is loosely defined by its study of how workers and
their institutions struggle to shape economic landscapes within the
confines of a capitalist system. Workers' agency has been one of
the few analytical boundaries of labour geography. (16) While some feel
that Herod perhaps overstated the "capital-centrism" of
earlier radical economic geography, labour geographers have moved
forward on the agency issue. (17) Neil Coe and David Lier continue to
focus on "developing more precise concepts for describing the
politics of work." (18) Here, their goal is to theorize agency more
rigorously, and they turn to Cindi Katz's typology of agency:
resilience (adapting, getting by); reworking (shifting distribution
systems); and resistance (changing the forces of production, balance of
power). (19) In this typology, it could be argued that CLAC is
exercising a form of resilient workers' agency by finding a way for
workers to maintain some organizational form in the midst of austerity
and neoliberal revanchism.
There is, however, an important critique of labour geography's
use of "agency" in ways that obscure the domination of
capitalism as a system of exploitation and that divert attention away
from class struggle as the object of analysis. Don Mitchell, for
example, has specifically challenged the limits of overemphasizing
labour's agency:
I would like to suggest, any labor geography must be tempered with a
sober, materialist assessment of labor's geography--the world "as it
really is." That is, as we seek to see how workers create economic
spaces and landscapes we must also closely examine those spaces and
landscapes that they have not made, at least in any basic sense, but in
which they find themselves and must live--those landscapes that are,
through struggles and the exercise of power, produced not for them but
for others, those landscapes that make "a new kind of community" all
but impossible. We need to depict, analyze, and understand the world as
it really is, if we are ever going to understand the means by which it
might become the world we would like it to be. (20)
In an even more stinging critique, Raju Das argues that
agency has often been used as a quasi-empirical category: a tool to
describe how labor is making a difference to the spatial organization
of capitalism, here and there. Agency in opposition to capital's own
existence, agency in collaboration with capital, and agency involved in
gaining concessions, without challenging capitalist class relations,
are all problematically put together [emphasis added]. (21)
It is perhaps the centrality of class relations in the labour
geography project that is the most contentiously debated topic. Labour
geography's concept of "class" is the primary target of
Das's critique and he points to two mistakes within the field.
First, labour is conflated with class when class is a much broader
category, and second, class is an anti-essential category subordinated
to differences of race and gender. What labour geographers lack is a
theory that encompasses the "unity that defines class." (22)
Das is correct in that much recent work in labour geography explores the
differences among workers that complicate class struggle, especially in
cosmopolitan global cities. However, much of this work addresses the
fragmentation in the context of the reserve army of migrant labour that
flows into low-wage service sectors. (23) For many labour geographers,
the primary issue is how to operationalize a class politics in a context
where capitalism fragments class through everyday practices. (24)
A labour geography project that describes all expressions of worker
power as working-class agency is problematic. But to reduce labour
geography to only the study of workers' transformation of
capitalist relations and economic landscapes would make for a very small
project. Instead, we need to be clear that worker agency is variegated,
contradictory, and sometimes reactionary. Worker agency is not always an
articulated working-class agency, but it can nevertheless shape the
economic landscape.
In terms of the agency exercised by CLAC, we do not argue that it
is in any way resistance to capitalism. Again, the accommodationist
strategy enabled by populist rhetoric may be a form of resilience in the
current context of austerity. In the case of CLAC described below, their
accommodationist strategies coexist with much more traditional
approaches to industrial relations. Yet, as CLAC does exercise agency,
mediated through a populist language that mobilizes and demobilizes
"the people" against established unions, it does pose serious
limits to building a broader working-class project. Such
accommodationism and populism fragment the working class and have
implications for the success and failure of the broader labour movement.
We therefore require a more nuanced account of how and why workers
exercise power unevenly and what mechanisms effectively inspire and
discipline different groups of workers over time and space.
Workers' Production of Scale
Labour geographers have made important contributions to the
understanding of how workers can best mobilize against increasingly
mobile global capital. As David Sadler notes, the study "of labour
geographies suggests there is further potential in focusing on the
precise ways in which labour strategies are bound in place and give rise
to particular scales of action, and what potential there is for changing
that scale of engagement." (25) It has been noted that labour
geographers have focused on how workers organize in workplaces,
communities, cities, regions, nations, and global arenas. (26) Building
on earlier politics of scale literature, (27) Herod argues that workers
organize locally and globally by forming relationships with workers in
different places and other classes (e.g., local developers), depending
on their time- and place-specific needs. (28) In other words, it is an
analytical mistake to privilege any one scale over another, as many
localist, methodological nationalist, and internationalist perspectives
continue to do. Indeed, a multiscalar analysis and strategy is deemed
most appropriate when dealing with labour's relation to capital.
(29)
Noel Castree et al. emphasize the challenges to organizing at
international scales, as local labour inevitably confronts a
"geographical dilemma" when workers compete in a global
economy for investment and jobs in their communities. (30) And this is
another contentious point for critics such as Das who see labour
geography as a largely localist project that picks its case studies
primarily from advanced capitalist regions and fails to focus on the
demands of a universal working class. (31) The result is research that
romanticizes militant particularism at the expense of broader
working-class alliances. (32) While Das is absolutely correct that
labour geography's empirical base is narrow, he misses the point of
much labour geography research, which is to document the processes in
which labour attempts to build power from the local to the international
scale and the barriers that limit their struggle against global capital.
Labour geography has addressed how unions, including the
accommodationist variety, effectively rescale labour and undermine the
efforts of others to build effective multiscalar action. Uneven
development and the "geographical dilemma" limit the ability
of workers to remove wages from competition at local, regional,
national, and international levels. (33) Again, it is important to
consider the role of populism in these processes. Populism emerges when
traditional union solidarities fail, leaving a void where there are
"no people." Right populism in turn can imagine "we the
people" in localized, exclusionary, and nativist ways. For example,
"scapegoating" the "other" (e.g., cheap immigrant
labour) intervenes in the ability of labour to imagine transnational
alliances that can produce a scale compatible with global capital. There
is, however, an important difference between labour's inability to
scale up organizational capacity and bargaining to combat global capital
and conscious efforts to sabotage its capacities in order to secure work
for one group at the expense of others, CLAC'S accommodationist
unionism is invested in strategies and rhetoric that explicitly rescale
the power of workers to a more local scale in line with its own sectoral
strategies and organizational capacity.
Accommodationist Unions and the State
The question of the capitalist state's role in labour
geography research also figures prominently here. Argued to be a
forgotten institution, the state was important in early discussions of
the geographies of labour. (34) Castree notes that labour geographers
have demoted the state relative to other institutions and relationships.
(35) Not unexpectedly, there has been less attention to the role of
labour law and policy in structuring action. Key questions to consider
include how the state may be involved in projects to scale up labour law
and how public sector workers (the majority of unionized workers in many
jurisdictions) engage the state as they struggle to produce services.
(36)
In an era of intensified austerity, however, further attention to
the state will become central. The state is not only a major employer of
unionized workers in key sectors (e.g., education, health), but it
remains the primary regulator of work across a labour market and is
central to shaping the ways in which unions become integrated into
capitalism through labour law. Labour geographers have perhaps
implicitly rendered the capitalist state as antagonistic, and as
containing little theoretical interest or political possibility. Indeed,
there has been a focus on how labour has attempted to surpass
"right-to-work" regulation with transnational corporate
responsibility agreements, (37) neutrality agreements with employers,
(38) and other forms of localized regulation such as living-wage
agreements. (39) For accommodationist unions, however, partnering with
anti-worker governments is a necessary political strategy. The state is
not something to be ignored or bypassed, but something necessary to
co-opt if accommodationist unions are to replace more traditional labour
unions in regulated sectors such as commercial construction. In the case
of CLAC outlined below, the union's future is dependent upon
government that will enable its strategy of entering sectors where
capital is less geographically mobile, unions have an established
presence, and labour legislation has favoured more traditional
unions--specifically, construction and health care. (40) Further, CLACS
use of anti-worker populist sentiment reinforces the neoliberal
state's overall project to deregulate and discipline labour
markets.
In the discussion below, CLAC'S contentious use of populism,
rescaling of labour action, and contradictory relationship to the state
are addressed. While it remains tempting to theoretically construct CLAC
as a classic case of "company unionism," we argue that its
accommodationist strategy is a much more complex project that involves
populist appeals to questions that concern many workers. Further, its
geographical strategy is coherent and integrated with its populist
rhetoric.
The Christian Labour Association of Canada (CLAC)
CLAC HAS RAPIDLY EXPANDED its membership since the 1990s, largely
in western Canada and Ontario. Now representing 60,000 workers, it is
arguably among the fastest growing unions in Canada with a large
presence in Alberta's construction sector. However, it has grown
through tactics that have been controversial within organized labour. In
2011, at the request of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), CLAC was
suspended from the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) for
using accommodationist organizing strategies that undermine workers and
other unions. The union continues to "raid" CLC affiliates,
specifically in health care and the building trades and as trades unions
vigorously defend their jurisdictions. (41) Non-Marxist,
institutionalist approaches to labour have created openings to links
between religion and unions. (42) Indeed, as a Christian labour union,
CLAC'S religious foundational roots could be argued to be
exclusionary from the start, although unions and churches are also part
of contemporary union-community coalitions. Adam Cywinski, in his
provocative master's thesis documenting CLAC'S campaign
organizing caregivers in Ontario, notes the dual nature of the
organization as a labour and pseudo-religious institution. (43) Cywinski
also challenges the common accounts of CLAC as merely an extremely
employer-friendly union whose success is based on undercutting other
unions in the sector. Instead, he argues that the altruism of Christian
practice appeals to a specific ethos of healthcare workers. Health care
is a pragmatic sector for CLAC and other unions to target. Services are
not easily subcontracted abroad. Also, the sector has been privatized
and public sector union jurisdiction contested, creating openings for
new representation. Construction is a similarly contested sector where
the work must be performed in situ. While labour relations in the sector
are highly regulated, union jurisdictions over specific trades are also
contested and not absolute.
Understanding CLAC'S entire presence in Canada is a formidable
task. Here, we focus primarily on recent developments in Alberta and in
Ontario, home of the union's national headquarters. We first look
at seven years of Alberta Labour Relations Board (ALRB) and Ontario
Labour Relations Board (OLRB) cases in which CLAC was involved, before
shifting to the example of the union's support for a recent
anti-union private member's bill in Ontario. We then discuss the
union's propaganda, to highlight the populism within CLAC'S
overall project and show how this populism is coherent with its overall
geographical strategy.
CLAC and the Alberta and Ontario Labour Relations Boards
While CLAC has represented workers for over six decades, its most
aggressive expansion has occurred over the last fifteen years in Ontario
and western Canada. We examined 35 ALRB decisions and 68 OLRB decisions
from 2009 to 2015 (inclusive) in which CLAC was named as applicant,
respondent, or intervener. (44) It is important to note that the bulk of
cases before labour boards are disposed or concluded before a hearing.
(45) The cases documented in decisions are, however, indicative of the
sectors in which the union operates and of the types of activities in
which it is currently engaged. A brief descriptive analysis of the cases
points to some trends.
First and foremost, a majority of the decisions reached in both
provinces involved the healthcare and construction sectors (as
determined by the name of the employer)--not surprising given the
CLAC'S membership structure. While a few cases involved the
representation of food services in Alberta, these were often related to
food services work in the oil sands.
Second, these cases were not all frivolous. In fact, decisions were
often favourable to CLAC, though more often in Alberta than in Ontario
(Table 1). While one can criticize the legalistic framework upon which
labour relations boards operate, the fact that CLAC wins decisions
indicates that it does operate within the confines of labour law--even
when it attempts to push its boundaries.
Third, the types of issues and decisions were predominantly related
to certification and bargaining rights, as opposed to other day-to-day
member grievances. Of the 68 cases examined in Ontario, 53 (78 per cent)
pertained to certification of workers or questions of union bargaining
rights (Table 2). The percentage of cases pertaining to certification is
higher than the norm of the typical OLRB hearing caseload. (46)
Similarly, the bulk of the decisions in Alberta came from cases with
similar issues. The union's conflicts settled by the labour boards
were often about collective representation in workplaces rather than
grievances of members. Only rarely did grievances involve issues of
individual members, the exception being a number (8) of duty of fair
representation cases against CLAC by members in Alberta, though all were
dismissed by the ALRB. (47)
At first glance, this might lead one to believe CLAC is a union
that is more focused on organizing new members than servicing. But other
aspects of the pattern must be considered. The bulk of these cases
involved representation in construction, and unfavourable decisions were
losses not to employers but to other construction unions. In fact, over
50 per cent of the decisions in cases involving CLAC in Ontario and
Alberta involved in the construction sector were related to
jurisdictional conflicts. (48) The number of such cases is
disproportionate to the overall construction caseload at the labour
boards. In the case of the OLRB, 996 of the 3,790 cases received in
2014-15 were construction grievances and only 41 were jurisdictional
disputes in construction. (49)
CLAC has a select number of affiliated construction union locals
that attempt to certify contractors already represented or to represent
workers currently targeted by other unions. The unions being challenged
by CLAC cover much of the construction sector (e.g., labourers,
electricians, carpenters, plumbers), who vigorously defend their
jurisdiction and reject CLAC'S multitrade model of organization. In
fact, CLAC'S main arguments are that jurisdictions create
bargaining inefficiencies, because contractors must negotiate with
several trades on large projects and workers should have the opportunity
to form non-traditional trade-based organizations. (50)
"Raiding" allegations against CLAC by centralized labour
bodies (to which it does not belong) are perhaps the primary source of
tension with the general labour movement. (51) Examination of the ALRB
and OLRB cases reveals that the union is pursuing small construction
subcontractors (often prefabricators in Alberta) and small healthcare
providers (e.g., nursing homes) represented by public sector unions
(e.g., OPSEU, AUPE), but construction remains a primary target through
appeals to the labour relations boards, consuming significant legal
resources for all unions involved.
CLAC has received both favourable and unfavourable decisions in
representational conflicts in the construction sector, often over the
union's collaboration with employers in certification drives. In a
2009 ruling involving a dispute with the United Association of the
Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry of
the United States and Canada (UA) Local 488 in Alberta, it was found
that CLAC Local 63's response to a "raid" by the UA was
actually within the expected actions of a union:
Upon hearing of the certification application and UA Local 488's
campaign leading up to the application, CLAC'S senior management
reacted quickly and affirmatively. They quickly called meetings with
employees to hear directly from them as to what their issues were with
CLAC'S representation and responded immediately. They heard complaints
of non-responsiveness, a general lack of understanding of the industry,
and a failure to adequately represent employees' interests, CLAC
proactively replaced its employee representative for Willbros with
another who quickly tried to gain their trust. He listened to their
complaints and concerns and responded assertively. All of CLAC'S
witnesses and the witnesses called by Willbros testified these changes
were received well by the employees. Even UA Local 488's witnesses
testified that whereas all employees were frustrated with the former
representative, the change was met with mixed emotions because the new
representative was still a CLAC representative. After the change, CLAC
had at least two more meetings with the employees before the vote. It
also handed out "Vote No!" buttons and actively campaigned to retain
its certification, CLAC responded positively with an aggressive "Yes We
Can!" campaign to fully address employee concerns and to positively
react to their collective agreement wishes and needs [emphasis added].
(52)
Here we see that the decision by the board noted not only
CLAC'S expected and appropriate response to the raid, but also that
the small employer testified on CLAC'S behalf. Further, CLAC'S
response with an aggressive "Yes We Can!" campaign also
illustrates how labour invokes populist rhetoric as it reaches out to
members.
In another "raiding" case (which involved multiple
appeals to the ALRB), again with the UA (as well as the International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers), an original panel decision was not
favourable to CLAC due to the union-employer collaboration involved:
After concluding that section 148(l)(a)(ii) of the Code applied to
organizing efforts, the Original Panel proceeded to consider whether
the plans of UA and IBEW were sufficiently far advanced that it could
truly be said they were in the process of "organizing." The Original
Panel noted that the UA organizers had been present at the employee
housing site well before the opening of the CLAC-Firestone
negotiations. Witnesses admitted that both Firestone and CLAC
considered the MVU [Millennium Vacuum Unit project] workforce an
organizing target by the building trades. The Original Panel concluded
that Firestone intentionally interfered with the organizing efforts by
engaging with CLAC in the "raid-proofing scheme" of early termination
and renewal of the collective agreement with a predominant purpose of
closing the "open periods" and thus depriving the employees of the
ability to choose to change their bargaining agent [emphasis added].
(53)
Collaboration with employers is a primary mechanism used by CLAC in
organizing, but it is not uncontested or absolute. Despite the legal
costs of labour board hearings, there is a geographic logic to
CLAC'S sectoral strategy. These are fragmented sectors that allow
CLAC a strategic opening. Smaller employers, as opposed to large firms,
are within CLAC'S capacity to organize. Construction subcontractors
and small healthcare providers cannot easily outsource jobs abroad, a
fact that is attractive to all unions. They involve locally competitive
employers, either in the private sector or funded and regulated by the
provincial government. Lastly, especially in the case of the
construction sector, there is a history of "bread and butter"
business unionism, which emphasizes the values of economic growth and
labour-management cooperation, CLAC'S willingness to work closely
with employers has allowed it to enter Ontario's construction
sector and circumvent municipal industrial relations practices.
CLAC and Bill 73
Again, CLAC'S determination to enter the construction sector
and break the jurisdictional monopolies of the trades unions is an
explicit geographical strategy. To its opponents, CLAC is merely a
collaborationist union that employers approach as a union-avoidance
strategy. However, it is dedicated to supporting policies that allow the
contractors employing CLAC members to be included in municipal contracts
that require specific union representation, from which they are
presently excluded.
An example is CLAC'S support for Bill 73, the Fair and Open
Tendering Act of 2013. The act was a private member's bill tabled
by Michael Harris, Conservative MPP for Kitchener-Conestoga. Bill 73 was
an attempt to close a claimed loophole in Ontario's Labour
Relations Act that regulated specific municipalities, school boards, and
hospitals to adhere to province-wide agreements in the construction
sector that contain strong provisions against contracting out to
non-union companies. In the Ontario legislature, Harris made his case:
Given the sound case for the proposal and the added provision to
protect workers' rights, I think it's quite clear Bill 73 is not a
union or a non-union issue. It is truly an issue of fairness --fairness
for municipalities, for contractors, for workers and, ultimately, for
taxpayers. Because of this balanced and fair approach, Bill 73 has won
the support of unionized contractors, construction associations and
municipalities across the province [emphasis added]. (54)
The "unionized contractors" referred to by Harris were
those represented by CLAC. These companies are excluded from the
tendering process in a group of municipalities that includes Toronto.
Allied with CLAC'S own employer association, the Progressive
Contractors Association of Canada (PCA), (55) and Conservative
politicians, including Harris himself, the union toured in the summer of
2013 speaking at pro--Bill 73 roundtables in Niagara Falls and London,
Ontario.
The Association of Municipalities of Ontario endorsed the bill. Of
course, there were opponents. The Ontario Construction Secretariat
(ocs), the body that facilitates provincial collective agreements for 25
trades in the province's industrial, commercial, and institutional
(ICI) construction sector (and opposes CLAC and PCA contractors),
unsurprisingly did not support the bill. The ocs, which benefits from
the closed tendering process, sided with the trades unions opposing the
bill.
Think tanks produced pieces in support of Bill 73. One such piece,
Construction Competitiveness Monitor: Ontario Municipal Construction
Markets, was released by Cardus in support of the new legislation in
2012. (56) Cardus, formerly known as the Work Research Foundation, is a
conservative Christian labour social-policy think tank cofounded by its
executive director, Ray Pennings, a past executive director of CLAC. The
report claimed that the labour and construction monopolies in some
cities were inflating the cost of infrastructure development and
increasing the burden on taxpayers, especially in Toronto.
Bill 73 was tabled on 16 May 2013. While the proposal had the
support of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, it failed on second reading, on 19
September 2013. Unionized construction employers did not want to create
instability in the sector, and the building trades had managed to
counterlobby effectively and even arranged to participate in the
CLAC/PCA roundtables, insisting upon a presence at the events. Ian
DeWaard, Cambridge/Kitchener/Waterloo regional director for CLAC,
stated,
Bill 73 would have provided needed clarity in [the] Labour Relations
Act to prevent against construction labour monopolies in Ontario
municipalities and school boards.... We are disappointed that MPPS from
the Liberal and NDP parties voted against this proposal--especially
because the consequences are the lack of fairness and increased cost to
taxpayers. (57)
Again, CLAC'S geographically informed accommodationist
expansion strategy is clearly aimed at specific sectors. The union works
very closely with employers and has earned the condemnation of the
broader Canadian labour movement. The CLC has produced anti-CLAC fact
sheets juxtaposing CLAC'S accommodationist actions against the
actions of "real unions":
There's no doubt that CLAC has been growing for the last 10 years or
so. What we're worried about is not that they are growing, but rather
what is behind the growth: it is because employers are often "choosing"
CLAC to keep legitimate unions out and because workers are often not
given the choice about whether they want to join or when they can leave
CLAC. If workers had all the information about CLAC and were given a
real opportunity to consider the benefits of joining a real,
representative union, it is likely that fewer workers would choose
CLAC. (58)
CLAC'S success is interpreted by the CLC as merely
sophisticated employer union avoidance. As summed up by a labour leader
whose union had confronted CLAC, "they [CLAC] clearly advertise a
non-controversial approach. They clearly advocate no strikes....
It's a business-employer relationship... and CLAC'S resources
in some circumstances are actually paid for by the business
community." (59)
The above sentiment is shared by many if not most labour leaders in
Canada. The problem is that these explanations do not account for the
initial appeal that accommodationist unions may hold for some workers.
Closer examinations of the union's propaganda and the elements of
populism contained in such rhetoric must be examined.
CLAC and Populism
The essence of company unionism is collaboration with employers.
Labour board disputes and the case of Bill 73 demonstrate collaboration
as a mechanism to avoid established building trades unions. Yet workers
employed in the sectors whose specific economic geographies are targeted
by CLAC exercise some agency in determining their representation. While
religious affinity is proposed as one explanation of workers'
attraction to CLAC'S non-confrontational approach, we turn to the
populist language invoked by CLAC and emphasize its compatibility with
sectors such as construction. Examining the links between labour and
right-wing populism provides the means to explore the class dimensions
of populist formations. We do not dismiss the historical role of
religion in CLAC, but we find that populism provides a more fertile
ground on which to situate CLAC'S attempts to reach workers. We
argue that the populist and geographic strategies of CLAC are mutually
reinforcing.
Fortunately for researchers, CLAC takes its populist propaganda
seriously and produces a range of opinions on labour policy matters and
releases defences of its unpopular actions. (60) First, CLAC is
committed to productive economic growth within capitalism. In the late
1990s, the executive director of CLAC at the time told This Magazine,
"You take work away from people and their completeness in
lost." (61) A CLAC slogan is "A union that works"--a play
on words with a double meaning that alludes to the efficiency of the
organization as well as the union's hesitancy to engage in strike
activity. (62)
For CLAC, unions must not impede the efficiency of capital. This
strategy appeals to employers--and arguably to construction workers as
well. The construction labour process is disciplined by project
completion deadlines and even seasonality, and this is ingrained in work
culture. What CLAC offers construction employers is
"wall-to-wall" agreements that cover the entire job site
rather than just a specific trade, reducing the industrial relations and
labour cost to employers. (63)
CLAC blames traditional unions for their lack of productivity, as
well as a variety of other social and economic ills. Indeed,
scapegoating unions (communist and noncommunist) has been integral to
right-wing populism and more extremist politics, CLAC'S populist
appeal to workers centres on blaming "labour elites" in
traditional unions--while at same time defending unions as an
institution. Again, using Orwellian doublespeak, CLAC leaders portray
the union as "progressive" in terms of its position on work
stoppages:
Progressive approach--when we're negotiating or arbitrating on your
behalf, you get to keep working at full pay (that's right, union
doesn't have to mean strike, although CLAC has--and will--strike... but
as a last resort) [emphasis added]. (64)
The challenge as argued by William Patch, a leading historian on
German Christian labour, is that the "unity through
cooperation" corporatism espoused by unions such as CLAC can
quickly be abused by right-wing populist and extremist forces. (65) Yet
in a twist of logic, CLAC manages to blame the rise of the right on the
power and "resistance" of unions. In 2011, CLAC hired Craig
Bromell, former president of the Toronto Police Association, as a
"strategic advisor" as it geared up to expand into
Ontario's construction sector. Bromell fit well with CLAC; as he
told the Toronto Star, "There has to be better relations and common
sense between unions and decision-makers like corporations." In the
same article, Sid Ryan, the president of the Ontario Federation of
Labour, responded to Bromell's appointment to CLAC: "There is
not a trade union bone in that man's body. The association [CLAC]
and Bromell were made for each other." (66)
A second appeal of CLAC to some is the idea that workers should be
free to disassociate from the political ties of the leadership of their
specific organizations. Again, CLAC promotes this as a "modern
approach":
Our approach is truly modern.... We believe in cooperation, not
confrontation. We work to make your workplace a better place--so that
you and your co-workers can grow both as a workplace community and as
individuals. It's why we seek to balance individual and collective
interests when we negotiate. It's why we only strike as a last resort.
It's why we don't tell our members where to work, or our signatory
employers who they can hire. It's why we don't force anyone to join us,
or fine them when they leave. It's why we use your dues money to
represent and support you, not politicians or political parties
[emphasis added]." (67)
The call for "freedom of association" for workers is also
extended to workers having the right to choose which union they wish to
belong to, creating union pluralism in closed sectors. Lastly, the call
is also for work that is tendered only to firms represented by specific
trades unions to be accessible to all firms, as in the case of Bill 73
noted above. (68) From a geographical perspective, CLAC seeks to rescale
the organization of work produced by trades unions and employers over
generations through collective bargaining and negotiations with
municipalities.
CLAC is somewhat consistent in extending its "freedom of
association" position to foreign-born and nonlocal workers. This
might be explained by CLAC'S Christian Reform roots in the Dutch
immigrant community. Not unlike most unions in Canada, CLAC has been
critical of the federal Temporary Foreign Worker Program and has clearly
stated its preference for "Canadians first" in labour market
policy. At the same time, however, it has openly sympathized with
employers' demands for imported labour. In 2005, Ledcor Industries
(a contractor for SunCor in the tar sands) secured 680 foreign trained
workers, many represented by CLAC. Earlier that year, Concerned Alberta
Families, an organization sponsored by the Alberta Trades Council,
mobilized a rally against CLAC for bringing in temporary foreign
workers. (69) The Alberta Trades Council argued that CLAC, which
represented workers at Ledcor, had reduced wages to such an
uncompetitive level that the company could not attract labour even
though there were people in Canada willing to work. (70)
In 2009, CLAC members from western Canada were the target of
protesters in New Brunswick, who were upset that a natural gas pipeline
construction firm had brought in workers from Alberta, CLAC found itself
in a contradictory position in this case, as it clearly advocates for
freedom of association and open tendering in construction markets. Yet,
here it was: the recipient of nativism in the form of local populist
sentiment directed against workers coming from outside the labour market
to work on the pipeline.
It is important to note that union density in the construction
sector in Canada has held steady for almost two decades at approximately
30 per cent. (71) Aggressive competition to represent workers in the
sector has perhaps contributed to maintaining overall union presence.
However, most union members are concentrated in industrial/commercial or
large residential construction. CLAC'S strategy of organizing
smaller construction subcontractors (and then lobbying municipalities to
allow these firms to compete in union-only bid processes) brings them
into contact with immigrant and racialized construction workers, who are
concentrated in housing and other construction sectors. (72)
Closed-shop agreements for large projects that exclude CLAC have
limited its expansion into the construction sectors in some provinces,
CLAC interprets this as a conspiracy between unions and government
against freedom of association and non-forced union membership. The
union has also been expelled from central labour bodies. After a period
of conflict, with CLC affiliates frustrated by CLAC'S use of
prohibited tactics to secure members (e.g., voluntary recognition by
employers in exchange for noncompetitive agreements and raiding of
affiliates), (73) the ITUC (at the request of the CLC) suspended CLAC.
Although CLAC later conceded that the ITUC was not a "good
fit," (74) it complained vehemently at the time that the suspension
was unfair:
ITUC has caved in to demands by the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) to
attack CLAC because it is afraid of the competition of a modern,
progressive union that focuses on its members, ITUC'S decision and its
kangaroo court process are a clear indication that it is unable to
escape the stranglehold of old time unionism...
CLAC is appalled at the lack of ethics of some ITUC members who leaked
news of the General Council's decision before it was communicated to
CLAC. Further, Ken Georgetti, president of the CLC, sits as
vice-president on ITUC'S executive board--a clear conflict of
interest.... CLAC refuses to succumb to these Old Labour style tactics,
CLAC put the ITUC'S platitude of "union pluralism" to the test and it
failed miserably, CLAC continues to believe firmly in the rights of
workers to make informed choices regarding which union they want to
join and what working agreements they want to work under. (75)
A year later, CLAC announced at its national stewards'
convention that it had joined the World Organization of Workers (WOW).
Founded in 1921, WOW is an umbrella group for social Christian unionism
based on a practice of labour-management cooperation.
CLAC'S use of historically proven populist appeals such as
productivism, scapegoating, conspiricism, unity, and freedom have a
broad appeal. For private sector construction workers, productivism and
cooperation, rather than conflict, especially resonate given the nature
of the labour process (i.e., the necessity of working together to build
something). Yet CLAC'S populism raises significant questions and
challenges concerning working-class mobilization.
Conclusion
THE CASE OF CLAC UNCOVERS a specific geographical strategy that is
reinforced through an appeal to populist tendencies. In a period of
austerity, populist appeals to competitive producerism, "freedom of
association," conflict-free industrial relations, and distrust of
established union bureaucracies and jurisdictions are attractive to
employers and some workers. Reducing CLAC to "company"
unionism does not explain all of its success any more than pointing
solely to its populist appeals to explain its growth. It is perhaps the
nexus of populism, accommodationism, and the specific geographical
strategies of the union that may instead be fruitful.
CLAC'S specific strategies of expanding into construction and
health care are compatible with its antistrike, cooperative,
"progressive" or "modern" approach. A productive,
growth-based philosophy appeals to construction workers who have
specific labour-management relationships ranging from joint lobbying for
public infrastructure investment to the provision of training. In the
case of the health sector, where many occupations have already lost the
right to strike and are deemed "essential" by the state, an
antistrike union is perhaps even expected.
CLAC continues to expand, with a significant presence in the
construction industry in the western provinces and growth in sectors
such as health care elsewhere. Its accommodationist unionism is
operationalized by more than simply undercutting the wages and working
conditions of traditional unions. CLAC has a unique brand of anti-union
populism that may be a basis for a new authoritarian neoliberal form of
labour relations--another compromise with capital--that trades off
obedience for continued existence, CLAC'S populist appeal may also
prompt other unions to explore neocorporatist arrangements as
traditional unionism continues to struggle.
More frightening is that unions such as CLAC are laying the
foundation for a darker unity between labour and increasingly
authoritarian austerity-driven capital. In the first week of US
President Donald Trump's administration, he met with a number of
trade unions that had "construction on their minds." (76) The
union leaders praised President Trump's plan to build
infrastructure and restore the middle class, demonstrating how quickly
some unions will adapt when confronted with anti-labour government.
Historically, unions are not all innocent bystanders when right-wing
movements are in ascendance.
On the other hand, there is a possibility that unions such as CLAC
may inadvertently lead to class relations that are more promising. Ingo
Schmidt argues that the fragmented workers of Europe who are expressing
discontent, including in the form of right-wing extremism, could
possibly be part of a "learning process" with the potential
for broader class formation. (77) It is too early to see how the working
class may be remade at this juncture, but it is clear that right-wing
populist and increasingly pseudofascist movements must not be ignored.
For labour geography, other important questions are raised. Can
labour geography as a project defined by labour's role in shaping
economic landscapes survive a more accommodationist unionism? In terms
of agency, is it possible to view workers represented by a union that
privileges labour-management collaboration and demonizes the withdrawal
of labour as exercising real power? Here, CLAC is judged only in
relation to the successes and failures of traditional unions with less
cooperative relationships with employers. Workers are exercising minimal
agency by joining a union that does not strike at a time when
traditional unions are also avoiding strikes and achieving only small
gains when they do. The adaptation and resilience of some workers and
unions in a period when capital is seeking to avoid "real"
unions are of minor consequence. As CLAC engages in intraclass conflict
with traditional construction unions, resources needed to exercise
redistributive agency are consumed by conflict, and any transformative
agency is rendered almost impossible.
CLAC'S rescaling of construction to its own specific
geographic capacities produces a scale of bargaining and mobilization
below the one that traditional unions have built over decades, CLAC has
chosen regulated, high-growth sectors where production is not easily
outsourced to low-wage regions. Challenging the jurisdiction of unions,
both geographical and skill/trades based, giving employers a
"choice" of unions inserts wage competition into the
construction and healthcare sectors, where it was once partially
removed. Pressuring municipal governments to remove their specific
"union shop"--only requirements also leads construction unions
to compete with wages and working conditions.
Inspiring construction (and other) workers to join CLAC, changing
government regulation of the geographical organization of construction,
and engaging the mainstream labour movement are accomplished in part
through populist appeals to freedom of association and taxpayer value.
The case of Bill 73 was largely based on notions of competitiveness
through open tendering that would lower the cost of infrastructure
projects in Ontario. Such populist appeals are integrated into union
strategies that involved rescaling municipal agreements with
construction workers and contractors. Populism appeals to the
geographical imaginations of workers and both enables and disables
broader solidarities across space. Understanding how nativism and other
xenophobic aspects of contemporary populism limit the ability of workers
to produce scale is important to contemporary labour geography.
It is also important to consider the nexus between the geographical
organization of workers and populism. In the current era of austerity,
public sector unions are increasingly demonized by populist politicians
who position themselves as taxpayer friendly. Labour geography will have
to engage more critically with the uneven development across sectors and
investigate the role of the state in exacerbating divisions by
privileging and protecting some groups of workers over others--the most
obvious division here being between well-paid, unionized public sector
workers and fragmented low-wage workers in the private service sector.
As demonstrated above, divisions are also created through agreements and
contracts that exclude workers as unions attempt to restrict the supply
of labour to publicly funded projects. Populist attacks against
"lazy" public sector workers and construction sector union
"monopolies" demonstrate that any relevant labour geography
must theorize the role of the state in mediating the tensions among
competing groups of workers in their struggles to shape economic
geographies.
Labour geography continues to be relevant, but it must, as others
have argued, qualify workers' agency in all its forms. The case of
CLAC and accommodationist unionism indicates that labour geography must
continue to refine its project and account for cases of worker
organization that exercise power in contradictory and even reactionary
ways. Labour geography will also have to confront, theoretically, a
populist anti-unionism from within that challenges solidarity and
broader class struggle.
In many ways, labour geographers have begun to explore new
"populist" social formations that have moved beyond
traditional union structures (e.g., Occupy, living-wage movements).
Here, geographers are still drawn to the promise of progressive
reformism and possibility of transformative politics. Yet a labour
geography that restricts itself to the examination of labour's
progressive victories at the expense of its failures and reactionary
unionism renders the project incomplete. As populism, and its more
extreme formations, continues to infiltrate the working classes across
space, a labour geography that addresses workers' role in shaping
regressive economic geographies is, unfortunately, necessary. An
understanding of labour's different agencies will assist us in the
project of building working-class power that is truly transformative.
We would like to thank Amanda Salerno (Graduate Program in
Sociology, York University) for her valuable research assistance and
Suzanne Mills and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.
Research for this article was supported by a Social Science and
Humanities Research Council (Canada) Insight Development Grant
#430-2012-0412 and Social Science and Humanities Research Council
(Canada) Insight Grant #435-2016-0096.
Steven Tufts and Mark Thomas, "The Christian Labour
Association of Canada (CLAC): Between Company and Populist
Unionism," Labour/Le Travail 80 (Fall 2017): 55-79.
Table 1: CLAC OLRB and ALRB Decisions by Sector, 2009-2015
Alberta Labour Relations Board (n=35)
Sector Decisions favourable Decisions unfavourable
to CLAC to CLAC
CONSTRUCTION 15 9
HEALTH CARE 5 1
OTHER 3 2
Ontario Labour Relations Board (n=68)
Sector Decisions favourable Decisions unfavourable
to CLAC to CLAC
CONSTRUCTION 31 17
HEALTH CARE 15 1
OTHER 1 3
Source: Canadian Legal Information Institute (CANLII) database,
https://www.canlii.org/en/.
Table 2: CLAC OLRB and ALRB Decisions by Type, 2009-2015
Alberta Labour Relations Board (n=35)
Role of CLAC Type of conflict
Certification/bargaining rights Grievance Other
INTERVENOR 0 0 0
RESPONDENT 10 0 8
APPLICANT 17 0 0
Ontario Labour Relations Board (n=68)
Role of CLAC Type of conflict
Certification/bargaining rights Grievance Other
INTERVENOR 4 0 2
RESPONDENT 7 0 1
APPLICANT 42 8 4
Source: Canadian Legal Information Institute (CANLII) database,
https://www.canlii.org/en/.
(1.) Steven Tufts & Mark Thomas, "Populist Unionism
Confronts Austerity in Canada," Labor Studies Journal 39, 1 (2014):
60-82; Mark Thomas & Steven Tufts, "Austerity, Right Populism,
and the Crisis of Labour in Canada," Antipode 48, 1 (2016):
212-230; Guy Standing, The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class (London:
Bloomsbury, 2011).
(2.) A recent discussion on the geographical expansion of
"right-to-work" states in the US does look at the rhetorical
devices used to enable the legislation. See Jamie Peck, "The Right
to Work, and the Right at Work," Economic Geography 92, 1 (2016):
4-30.
(3.) Andrew Herod, "From a Geography of Labor to a Labor
Geography: Labor's Spatial Fix and the Geography of
Capitalism," Antipode 29, 1 (1997): 1-31.
(4.) Labour geography itself has developed in stages and these have
been documented elsewhere. Andrew Herod, "Labour Geography: Where
Have We Been? Where Should We Go?," in Ann Cecilie Bergene, Sylvi
B. Endresen & Hege Merete, eds., Missing Links in Labour Geographies
(Surrey, UK: Ashgate, 2010), 15-28; Neil Coe & David Jordhus-Lier,
"Constrained Agency? Re-Evaluating the Geographies of Labour,"
Progress in Human Geography 35, 2 (2011): 211-233. See Noel Castree,
"Labour Geography: A Work in Progress," International Journal
of Urban and Regional Research 31, 4 (2007): 853-862; Neil Coe,
"Geographies of Production III: Making Space for Labour,"
Progress in Human Geography 37, 2 (2013): 271-284; David C. Lier,
"Places of Work, Scales of Organizing: A Review of Labour
Geography," Geography Compass 1, 4 (2007): 813-833; Steven Tufts
& Lydia Savage, "Labouring Geography: Negotiating Scales,
Strategies and Future Directions," Geoforum 40 (2009): 945-948;
Peter Brogan & Steven Tufts, "Labor Geography," in Douglas
Richardson, Noel Castree, Michael F. Goodchild, Audrey Kobayashi,
Weidong Liu & Richard A. Marston, eds., The International
Encyclopedia of Geography: People, the Earth, Environment, and
Technology (Oxford: John Wiley & Sons, 2017), 3902-3909.
(5.) Tod Rutherford, "De/Re-Centering Work and Class? A Review
and Critique of Labour Geography," Geography Compass 4, 7 (2010):
768-777; Don Mitchell, "Labor's Geography: Capital, Violence,
Guest Workers and the Post-World War II Landscape," Antipode 43, 2
(2011): 563-595; Raju Das, "From Labor Geography to Class
Geography: Reasserting the Marxist Theory of Class," Human
Geography 5, 1 (2012): 19-35; Jamie Peck, "Making Space for
Labour," in David Featherstone and Joe Painter, eds., Spatial
Politics: Essays for Doreen Massey (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013),
99-114.
(6.) Andrew Herod, Labor Geographies: Workers and the Landscapes of
Capitalism (New York: Guilford, 2001).
(7.) A classic geographical treatise on this issue is Ray Hudson
& David Sadler, "Contesting Works Closures in Western
Europe's Old Industrial Regions: Defending Place or Betraying
Class?," in Allen Scott & Michael Storper, eds., Production,
Work, Territory: The Geographical Anatomy of Industrial Capitalism
(London: Allen & Unwin, 1986), 172-193. Further cases are unions
turning to their own sources of investment. See Andrew Lincoln,
"Working for Regional Development? The Case of Canadian
Labour-Sponsored Investment Funds," Regional Studies 34, 8 (2000):
727-737.
(8.) Rebecca Johns has problematized the international solidarity
efforts of US unions in Guatemala as a more complex process, where
workers in one region express "accommodationist solidarity"
with other workers as a means of protecting their short-term interests
and conditions. Johns, "Bridging the Gap between Class and Space:
US Worker Solidarity with Guatemala," Economic Geography 74, 3
(1998): 252-271.
(9.) We feel this is slightly more broad than the term
"company union," or "yellow" union, which really
defines the union in terms of its lack of independence from firm
control.
(10.) Chantai Mouffe, "Populism Is a Necessity," The
European, 5 February 2014,
http://www.theeuropean-magazine.com/chantal-mouffe--4/8420-why-the-eu-needs-populism; Standing, The Precariat; Charlie Post, "The Spectre
of Trump," Jacobin, 1 October 2015; Julian Baggini, "How
Rising Trump and Sanders Parallel Rising Populism in Europe," New
Perspectives Quarterly 33, 2 (2016): 22-25. For a wide range of
commentary on right-wing populism, see Leo Panitch & Greg Albo,
eds., The Politics of the Right: Socialist Register 2016 (London:
Merlin, 2015).
(11.) Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason (London: Verso, 2005).
(12.) Ibid.
(13.) Gillian Hart, "Gramsci, Geography, and the Languages of
Populism," in Michael Ekers, Gillian Hart, Stefan Kipfer & Alex
Loftus, eds., Gramsci: Space, Nature, Politics (Maiden, Massachusetts:
John Wiley, 2013), 306.
(14.) Stuart Hall, The Hard Road to Renewal: Thatcherism and the
Crisis of the Left (London & New York: Verso, 1988).
(15.) Chip Berlet & Matthew Lyons, Right-Wing Populism in
America: Too Close for Comfort (New York: Guilford, 2000); Tufts &
Thomas, "Populist Unionism."
(16.) Castree, "Labour Geography," 855; Tufts &
Savage, in "Labouring Geography," argue for a broadening of
labour geography debates beyond the "agency" question, but
nevertheless it remains a defining concept.
(17.) In a recent assessment of labour geography through the lens
of the contribution of Doreen Massey, Jamie Peck makes the point that
political agency is present her work and others. Peck, "Making
Space for Labour," 99-114.
(18.) Coe & Lier, Constrained Agency, 14.
(19.) Katz, Growing Up Global: Economic Restructuring and
Children's Everyday Lives (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 2004). See also Andrew Cumbers, Gesa Helms & Kate Swanson,
"Class, Agency and Resistance in the Old Industrial City,"
Antipode 42, 1 (2010): 46-73.
(20.) Mitchell, "Labor's Geography," 567.
(21.) Das, "From Labor Geography," 21.
(22.) Das, "From Labor Geography." Rutherford offers a
sympathetic critique, warning labour geographers against decentring
class from analysis in lieu of other identity formations among workers
and a trend toward intersectional analysis. Rutherford,
"De/Re-Centering Work."
(23.) See David Jordhus-Lier & Anders Underthun, eds., A
Hospitable World? Organising Work and Workers in Hotels and Tourist
Resorts (London: Routledge, 2015); Jane Wills, Kavita Datta, Yara Evans,
Joanna Herbert, Jon May & Cathy Mcilwaine, Global Cities at Work:
New Migrant Divisions of Labour (London: Pluto, 2010); Linda McDowell,
Adina Batnitzky & Sarah Dyer, "Division, Segmentation, and
Interpellation: The Embodied Labors of Migrant Workers in a Greater
London Hotel," Economic Geography 83, 1 (2007): 1-25.
(24.) Don Mitchell has argued for a larger consideration of
working-class studies in geography. Mitchell, "Working-Class
Geographies: Capital, Space and Place," in John Russo & Sherry
Linkon, eds., New Working-Class Studies (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 2005), 78-97.
(25.) David Sadler, "Organizing European Labour: Governance,
Production, Trade Unions and the Question of Scale," Transactions
of the Institute of British Geographers 25, 2 (2000): 148.
(26.) See Lier, "Places of Work"; Steven Tufts,
"Emerging Labour Strategies in Toronto's Hotel Sector: Toward
a Spatial Circuit of Union Renewal," Environment and Planning A 39,
10 (2007): 2383-2404.
(27.) See, for example, Neil Smith, Uneven Development: Nature,
Capital, and the Production of Space (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990); Erik
Swyngedouw, "Neither Global nor Local: 'Glocalization'
and the Politics of Scale," in Kevin Cox, ed., Spaces of
Globalization (New York: Guilford, 1997), 137-166.
(28.) Herod, Labor Geographies; Andrew Herod, Scale (London:
Routledge, 2013).
(29.) Jane Wills, "Bargaining for the Space to Organise in the
Global Economy: A Review of the Accor-IUF Trade Union Rights
Agreement," Review of International Political Economy 9, 4 (2002):
675-700. But see also David Sadler, "Trade Unions, Coalitions and
Communities: Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union and the
International Stakeholder Campaign against Rio Tinto," Geoforum 35,
1 (2004): 35-46; David Sadler & Bob Fagan, "Australian Trade
Unions and the Politics of Scale: Reconstructing the Spatiality of
Industrial Relations," Economic Geography 80, 1 (2004): 23-43;
Steven Tufts, "World Cities and Union Renewal," Geography
Compass 1, 3 (2007): 673-694.
(30.) Noel Castree, Neil Coe, Kevin Ward & Michael Samer,
Spaces of Work: Global Capitalism and Geographies of Labour (London:
SAGE, 2004).
(31.) Das, "From Labor Geography."
(32.) See David Harvey, Justice, Nature and the Geography of
Difference (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 1996).
(33.) Castree et al., Spaces of Work.
(34.) See Herod, "Labour Geography"; Gordon Clark, Unions
and Communities under Siege: American Communities and the Crisis of
Organized Labor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
(35.) Castree, "Labour Geography."
(36.) Tod Rutherford, "Scaling Up by Law? Canadian Labour Law,
the Nation-State and the Case of the British Columbia Health Employees
Union," Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 38, 1
(2013): 25-35; David Jordhus-Lier, "Public Sector Labour
Geographies and the Contradictions of State Employment," Geography
Compass 6, 7 (2012): 423-438.
(37.) See Wills, "Bargaining for the Space."
(38.) Tufts, "Emerging Labour Strategies."
(39.) Jane Wills, "London's Olympics in 2012: The Good,
the Bad and an Organising Opportunity," Political Geography 34, 1
(2013): A1-A3.
(40.) For example, one of Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall's
first acts, Bill 80, the Construction Industry Labour Relations
Amendment Act (CILRA), redefined construction to exclude
"maintenance," allowing unions such as CLAC to enter the
sector. The act was vociferously opposed by labour. See James Clancy,
"President's Commentary: Wall Government's Bill 80 Is Pay
Back to Big Business and Phony Unions," National Union of Public
and General Employees (NUPGE), 16 October 2009,
https://nupge.ca/content/president%E2%80%99s-commentary-wall-government%E2%80%99s-bill-80-pay-back-big-business-and-phony-unions.
(41.) "Raiding" is a labour colloquialism referring to
the process where one union applies to represent workers already
represented by another union.
(42.) William Patch, "Fascism, Catholic Corporatism and the
Christian Trade Unions of Germany, Austria and France," in Lex
Heerma van Voss, Patrick Pasture & Jan De Maeyer, eds., Between
Cross and Class: Comparative Histories of Christian Labour in Europe
1840-2000 (Bern: Peter Lang, 2005), 173-202.
(43.) Adam Cywinski, "Christian Labour Association of Canada:
Competing from the Outside," MA thesis, McMaster University, 2011,
http://hdl.handle.net/11375/11282.
(44.) These cases are not exhaustive of all filings (some cases may
have been withdrawn or settled).
(45.) In 2014-15, the OLRB sent approximately 15 per cent of its
cases to a hearing. Ontario Labour Relations Board, Annual Report
2014-2015 (Toronto 2016).
(46.) Of the 568 cases that went to an OLRB hearing in 2014-15, the
three largest categories were certification disputes, at 139 cases (25
per cent); construction grievances, 114 cases (20 per cent); and unfair
labour practices, 92 cases (16 per cent), of which 23 were duty of fair
representation cases, OLRB, Annual Report 2014-15.
(47.) In the case of the OLRB, which has a caseload almost five
times larger than that of the ALRB, duty of fair representation (DFR)
cases represented less than 1 per cent of all applications and hearings,
OLRB, Annual Report 2014-15. The ALRB does not have DFR as a distinct
category in its public statistics, but the fact that so many DFR cases
are filed by members against CLAC is itself interesting.
(48.) In recent years some of the ALRB decisions were related to a
merger between CLAC Local 6 and Local 150.
(49.) Construction grievances are often over the remittance of
dues, employer contributions to benefits, and hiring practices, OLRB,
Annual Report 2014-15, 24.
(50.) See Andrew Sims, Alberta Construction Labour Legislation
Review, report prepared for the Government of Alberta, 6 November 2013.
(51.) CLAC'S pursuit of construction and healthcare workers in
Ontario has been vastly criticized. On its organizing of caregivers in
Ontario, see Cywinski, "Christian Labour Association of
Canada."
(52.) United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the
Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry of Canada, Local Union No. 488 v.
Willbros Construction Services (Canada), 2009 CanLII 60697 (AB LRB), 52,
accessed 20 July 2016, http://canlii.ca/t/26gdk.
(53.) Firestone Energy Corporation v. Construction Workers Union,
Local No. 63, 2011, CanLII 62466 (AB LRB), 54, accessed 20 July 2016,
http://canlii.ca/t/fnbk7. The MVU disputes are also discussed in Sims,
Alberta Construction Labour Legislation Review.
(54.) Michael Harris, "Fair and Open Tendering Act" in
Ontario Legislative Assembly, Legislative Debates (Hansard), 40th Pari.,
2nd Sess. (19 September 2013), accessed 13 July 2017,
http://www.ontla.on.ca/web/house-proceedings.
(55.) PCA was founded (by CLAC) in 2000, in opposition to other
union and non-union construction associations. It claims to represent
over 50 member and affiliate companies, with 25,000 workers across
Canada. A slogan of the association is "PCA is not anti-union, we
are anti-monopoly." "The PCA Difference," PCA website,
accessed 13 July 2017, http://www.pcac.ca/about-pca/the-pca-difference/.
(56.) Brian Dijkema, Construction Competitiveness Monitor: Ontario
Municipal Construction Market (Hamilton: Cardus, 2012). This document is
no longer available from Cardus but is cited in the updated report:
Stephen Bauld, Brian Dijkema & James Tonn, Hiding in Plain Site:
Evaluating Closed Tendering in Construction Markets (Hamilton: Cardus,
2014), https://www.cardus.ca/research/workandeconomics/publications/4290/hiding-in-plain-sight-evaluating-closed-tendering-in-construction-markets/.
(57.) CLAC, "Outcome on Bill 73 Disappoints PCA and
CLAC," press release, Canadian Newswire (CNW), 19 September 2013,
http://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/outcome-on-bill-73-disappoints-pca-and-clac-512977951.html.
(58.) CLC, "CLAC Alert: Factsheet #1," pamphlet, Canadian
Labour Congress, n.d.
(59.) Authors' interview with elected labour official, March
2013.
(60.) CLAC not only produces a significant amount of material, but
it also engages in Orwellian doublespeak and wordplay. Dick Heinen, CLAC
executive director, and Hank Beekhuis, CLAC Ontario director, provide
much of the commentary and opinion in statements and interviews. In
previous work, we identify specific elements of CLAC'S propaganda
that appeal to populist anti-union sentiments both within and outside
the working class. See Tufts & Thomas, "Populist
Unionism."
(61.) P. Jay, "Christians versus the Unions: The Christian
Labour Association of Canada Likes to Talk about Its Own Improved Brand
of Labour Relations," This Magazine, 1 January 1999.
(62.) See the CLAC website (https://www.clac.ca/) for these types
of statements developing the CLAC brand. A more recent slogan featured
on the site is "We think differently than other unions." See
"About Us," CLAC website, accessed 13 July 2017,
https://www.clac.ca/About-us.
(63.) See J. Barnes, "Five Minutes with Dick Heinen, Executive
Director of the Christian Labour Association of Canada,"
Engineering News-Record, 25 February 2008,
http://enr.construction.com/news/work/archives/080225.asp. Promoting a
business-union approach, CLAC has even advocated for changes that
capital has not prioritized, for example, competition in Ontario's
workplace accident insurance system that would allow for private
companies to provide the same coverage as the Workplace Safety and
Insurance Board (WSIB).
(64.) "About Us," Leaders of CLAC Blog,
http://clacblog.ca/?page_id=12, accessed 13 July 2017.
(65.) See Patch, "Fascism."
(66.) Tony Van Alphen, "Craig Bromell Joins New Union as
'Strategic Adviser,'" Toronto Star, 6 November 2011.
(67.) "What Makes Us Different?," CLAC website, accessed
July 13, 2017, https://www.clac.ca/About-us/What-makes-us-different. See
also a recent publicity piece about the union published in an online
business magazine: Rajitha Sivakumaran, "An Independent Voice of
Labour for 65 Years," Business Elite Canada, March 2017, 14-21,
www.businesselitecanada.com/emag/march-2017/files/assets/basic-html/index.html#14.
(68.) Bill 73 is only a recent manifestation of this. In the late
1990s, CLAC sued the BC government over agreements that blocked CLAC
employers from building a Skytrain extension. "Unions Sue NDP
Government," CBC News, 15 July 1999,
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/unions-sue-ndp-government-1.173262.
(69.) AUPE, "AUPE Members Urged to Participate in April 27
Evening Rally at Legislature Targeting CLAC," AUPE News, 24 April
2005, http://www.aupe.org/news/aupe-members-urged-to-participate-in-april-27-evening-rally-at-legislature-targeting-clac/.
(70.) "Trade Union Not Happy with Foreign Workers," CBC
News, 24 March 2005,
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/trade-union-not-happy-with-foreign-workers-1.560847.
(71.) This is very close to the all-industry average. Diane
Galarneau & Thao Sohn, "Long-Term Trends in Unionization,"
Insights on Canadian Society, Statistics Canada--Catalogue no. 75-006-X
(Ottawa: Minister of Industry, November 2013).
(72.) Similarly, organizing in the healthcare sector outside of
large hospitals, in smaller workplaces (e.g., nursing homes), would also
include representing immigrant workers.
(73.) Ken Georgetti addressed CLAC and the ITUC in a speech to the
International Union of Operating Engineers on 30 August 2011 in New
Brunswick. Speaking notes from that presentation are posted on the
International Union of Operating Engineers website, accessed 13 July
2017, http://iuoe882.ca/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Ken-Georgettis-speech-from-the-Canadian-Conference.pdf.
(74.) Richard Gilbert "Christian Labour Association of Canada
Joins Global Organization," Daily Commerical News, 21 September
2012, http://www.dailycommercialnews.ca/article/id51976/gtcontracti.
(75.) This is an excerpt from an original statement rereleased by
CLAC on 25 November 2011. It is no longer available on the CLAC website,
but it can be found online: "Old Labour Tries to Oust CLAC from
ITUC," WOW website, accessed 13 July 2017,
http://www.wownetwork.be/news/old-labour-tries-to-oust-clac-from-ituc/.
(76.) Noam Scheiber, "Union Leaders Meet With Trump,
Construction on Their Minds," New York Times, 23 January 2017.
(77.) Ingo Schmidt, "The Downward March of Labor Halted? The
Crisis of Neoliberal Capitalism and the Remaking of Working
Classes," Journal of Labor and Society 17 (2014): 5-22.
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