Two comments on "Canada, Our Model?" - trade unions in the United States and Canada, includes response by Michael J. Morand - letter to the editor

TWO COMMENTS ON "CANADA: OUR MODEL?"

I. Errol Black and Jim Silver

Martin J. Morand's discussion of what needs to be done to reverse the fortunes of organized labor in the United States--"Canada: Our Model?" (MR, June 1990)--is off the mark. Morand's argument is that the American labor movement faces a crisis of survival, and that, to surmount the crisis, labor should single-mindedly concentrate on winning the enactment of first-contract legislation, such as Canada has in the federal jurisdiction and in the provinces of Manitoba, Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec. Morand contends that "This will require a radical change in our political perspective." This radical change amounts to following Gompers' advice "to reward only our friends," which for Morand means abandoning the mainstream of the Democratic Party and throwing labor's support behind the Rainbow Coalition, whose leadership, Morand believes, would be more supportive of labor. The Rainbow Coalition would then be to the U.S. labor movement what the New Democratic Party has been to the Canadian labor movement. The eventual result--this is, Morand submits, a long-term strategy, but worth the wait--would be the enactment of the first-contract legislation that American labor needs to survive.

Morand's focus is misdirected. While we certainly concur with his emphasis on the importance of building links with progressive social movements, and while he may be correct that political support for the Rainbow Coalition is better than supporting the Democratic Party establishment, these are not the central issues. More important than who the labor leadership supports politically is what kind of labor movement the leadership is committed to building, and on this crucial matter Morand is silent.

For Morand, all would be well if only organized labor would follow Gompers in re-thinking its electoral strategy. But his appeal to Gompers is the source of the weakness of his argument. For Gomperism is not the solution, it is the problem. The problem is the legacy of narrow business unionism which Gompers promoted, and which has hobbled the labor movement throughout the post-war era.

The story of the post-war decline of trade unions in the United States is, of course, complex, but the burden of the evidence suggests that the movement was sabotaged by its own leadership. By the end of the Second World War the leadership had transformed industrial unions into little more than craft unions writ large, that is, committed to winning gains for their members through the practices of business unionism. The process was completed in the immediate post-war period when the CIO leadership caved in to demands from the ruling classes and purged the CIO of Communists and fellow travellers (or, to put it another way, "blew out the brains, heart and guts of the trade union movement"). All of this, now known as the post-war labor accord, "worked," at least for a while: everyone, trade unionists included, benefitted from the great boom of the 1950s and 1960s.

But central to the accord's "working" was the role of the leadership of the AFL-CIO in attempting to block all efforts to rejuvenate the movement--to make it more militant, to get class issues back onto labor's agenda, to confront the bosses in innovative ways, and so on. These business unionist, class collaborationist tactics and their legacy, whatever merits they may have once had, are now the problem. This is succinctly summed up by Carla Lipsig-Mumme "the United States movement was constrained to reap the harvest that the strategic tradition of business unionism had sown." ("Canadian and American Unions Respond to Economic Crisis," The Journal of Industrial Relations, June 1989)

Canada didn't entirely escape these developments. There were purges here as well. For example, in one of the most shameful episodes in Canada's trade union history the leadership of the Trades and Labour Congress (under pressures from the leadership of the AFL) conspired to bring about the demise of the Canadian Seamen's Union and to replace it with the gangster-riden S.I.U.

The poison didn't progress as far in Canada, however. Rank-and-file militancy prevented a retreat from the principles of Order-in-Council PC 1003, 1944, which incorporated the main features of the Wagner Act. As well, in the internal struggles within CIO unions it was social democrats--not class collaborators--who prevailed over the Communists. The link with Canada's social democratic party was maintained when the two trade union centrals merged in 1956 to form the Canadian Labour Congress.

The combination of rank-and-file militancy and the link to the C.C.F., together with a somewhat more collective and egalitarian political culture, helped to sustain the labor movement in Canada, with a place for militancy and a place for class politics. Developments since 1956--the formation of the New Democratic Party in 1961, the favorable labor legislation in some jurisdictions, the rapid growth of public sector unionism in the 1960s and 1970s, the fightbacks against state and employer campaigns to tame unions, and the breakaways from the U.S. based unions--are the products of the desire by both the rank and file and the leadership of key unions to prevent labor from degenerating into simply another special interest group.

In recent years, and especially since 1987, the labor movement in Canada has aligned itself with other progressive organization--women, the churches, the poor, etc.--in coalitions seeking to block the free-trade deal with the United States, to block regressive taxes, and to prevent deregulation and privatization.

Yet this coalition politics (the building of a more broadly-based social movement) in Canada is only possible because of the greater degree of social unionism of the Canadian labor movement.(*1) This is what needs to happen in the United States.

The question, therefore, is not which political faction U.S. labor should support to maximize its chances of getting first-contract legislation. Rather the question, the prior question, is what kind of labor movement needs to be built, and how might it be built. So long as business unionism remains intact, it matters relatively little whether organized labor supports Dukakis or Jackson. And although first-contract legislation is important, because organizing is now so critical, the fortunes of a labor movement cannot be allowed to depend upon legislation. A labor movement's fortunes depend upon its fighting spirit, its creative militancy. This--the importance of creative militancy--is the legacy of the 1930s, and was the source of the great industrial organizing drives of the late 1930s and early 1940s, when Gomperism was shoved aside.

So Morand's proposed solution to the decline of the American labor movement is, at best, partial and misdirected. American labor needs to be concerned with electoral strategy and legislative change, to be sure. But it needs more. It needs to build its own capacity as a fighting force. It needs to put the movement back into the labor movement.(*2)It needs to abandon, not remember, Sam Gompers.

II. Ron Crawley

In "Canada: Our Model?" (MR, June 1990), Martin J. Morand asks whether labor legislation in Canada can be used as a model which is "appropriate and attainable" for U.S. unions. This, according to Morand, "requires that we look at both what they won and how they won it." He answers that winning labor legislation comparable to Canada's is essential for the survival of U.S. unions and that therefore, "We must copy from and catch up to our Canadian counterparts." Based on his reading on the Canadian situation, Morand's solution to the crisis of U.S. unionism is essentially that U.S. unions increase in size by winning better labor legislation.

It seems quite reasonable that the question of Canada as a model in relation to the United States be raised. As Morand points out, Canada does have a higher degree of unionization than the United States, its legislation regarding organizing and collective bargaining is more favorable to workers than its U.S. counterparts, and Canada's unions for the most part are allied with a social democratic party, rather than one of the two mainstream bourgeois parties.

However, I see several major problems with the way Morand has posed the question and the argument which flows from it. First, there is a difference between desiring certain reforms comparable to those won by Canadian workers and putting forward "Canada" as a model. While the situation in Canada stands as a constant reminder of the critical decline in U.S. unionism, the adoption of Canada as a model ignores the sorry condition of contemporary Canadian unionism and the specific conditions under which Canadian legislation was won. The gains to which Morand refers were won in a time of capitalist expansion when the working class mobilized to carry out massive strikes in key sectors of the economy. The problem is that we do not have anything approaching such expansion in either Canada or the United States at the present time. Just as important, we do not have in either country a union movement that is capable of or willing to mobilize workers in ways that are required to win new reforms.

Secondly, Morand's argument suggests that his essay should be entitled "Canadian Unionism: Our Model?" since it is the union movement which is credited with maintaining relatively high unionization levels, winning favorable legislation and building an alternative political movement. However, the inability of Canadian unions to halt the undermining of positive labor legislation and specifically their failure to mobilize the membership to defend their rights suggest some major problems with Canadian unionism. In the last decade and a half there has not been an all out assault on union rights in Canada, but there has been a consistent use of ad hoc legislative measures which have coerced unions into submission.(*)

If the adoption of a Canadian model of unionism is more precisely the question to be answered, which unionism would Morand suggest as most appropriate for the United States? Is it the relatively conservative and bureaucratic unionism which dominates the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), or is it the more militant rank-and-file controlled unionism which is being advocated by significant sectors of the union membership as evidenced by the recent CLC convention held in Montreal? Is it to be modeled after the more socially progressive and militant unionism of Quebec's Confederation des Syndicats Nationaux (CSN) and the Corporation des Enseignants du Quebec (CEQ), or is it to be the more cautious CLC-affiliated Quebec Federation of Labour? Is the model to be the unionism of the nationalist and more democratic Canadian Confederation of Unions (CCU) or the generally more bureaucratic and less democratic unions of the CLC which have opposed the former?

The variety of union types and the tensions within Canadian unions raises a third issue that Morand does not address; namely the overall health and vibrancy of Canadian unionism, its present direction, and its potential to successfully meet the increasing challenges from capital and the state. In spite of the variety of union types and the increasing pressure from the rank-and-file, the union movement in Canada is still dominated by a form of business unionism which refuses to seriously challenge the right of capital to rule on and off the job. This type of unionism suits itself well to dependence on a mildly social democratic party, the New Democratic Party (NDP), which does not put forward the need to build socialism or the need for any radical transformation of society. Morand is off the mark when he states that Canadian labor has been willing to build "a fundamentally different political movement even at the expense of winning a particular election." Much of the leadership within the New Democratic Party, sometimes over the protests of labor representatives, seem to be willing to make just that compromise. Overall, though, the relationship between organized labor and the NDP has been an easy one in which the former has supplied considerable financial support and a modicum of votes, while the latter's promise of an electoral solution to labor's problems makes it easier for union leaders to avoid the kind of grassroots mobilization that is needed to make a difference.

The development of a type of mildly reformist and business unionism also lends itself to other problems. Unions have not only gone along with but have also encouraged the growth of bureaucratized structures and processes which make up the existing institutionalized system of collective bargaining. Union democracy requiring a significant degree of rank-and-file participation and mobilization, and the building and maintenance of healthy relations between the rank and file and the leadership, is problematic within such an arrangement, to say the least. Unions which have relied so heavily for decades on legalistic practices are having great difficulties in mobilizing their members for action. Most importantly, union leaders have responded more with rhetoric than anything else, even when significant sectors of the rank and file have demanded militant action. The key to unions protecting what they have, winning back lost ground, and eventually exceeding past achievements, is that they rely less on legal and electoral practices and more on the education and mobilization of the membership.

This will necessarily require a restructuring and democratization of unions which will coincide with a more egalitarian relationship between union leaders and the rank and file. Since it is generally the leaders who refuse to acknowledge the problems of bureaucracy and limited democracy and often refuse to encourage militancy, the reform-minded rank and file will have to radicalize their leaders or replace them. When such a revitalization occurs, or begins in earnest, workers will be more likely to make progress in winning better legislation and building a new, stronger political movement. Morand implies that change can occur in the reverse order--an unlikely scenario, especially under the present circumstances.

It is important that workers in Canada and the United States reject business unionism and the narrow economistic practices which have prevailed since the Second World War and develop a new form of class conscious unionism. This type of unionism would see unions actively work towards bringing all existing unions together in a united front; aggressively attempt to organize the non-unionized sectors of the work force as well as try to mobilize the unemployed; rely less on collective bargaining, lobbying of the state, and the electoral victory of a labor-friendly government and more on grass roots organizing, public demonstrations, and work place actions; adopt a more interorganizational strategy which would allow it to work flexibly with non-union organizations involved in the feminist, anti-racist, and other such progressive movements; lend greater support to the struggle of workers in other countries, especially those of the third world; and finally, to begin to critique capitalist policies and programs as such and advocate anti-capitalist, if not explicitly socialist, alternatives. Morand, who invokes the name of Samuel Gompers as "our founding father," would probably disagree with the need for such a radical departure.

The building of such a movement is a monumental task and cannot be constructed easily or hastily. However, efforts to bring about such changes in union policy and structure are being made by unionists in Canada, and the United States as well, but such efforts can only succeed alongside an internal reorganization of unions which involves the rank and file more in their day-to-day activities as well as their formulation of longer term goals, thereby making unions more democratic organizations. If there is hope for unions in either country, this must be the model for the future.

Martin J. Morand Replies

As I respond to these comments I wish to acknowledge a factual error. I wrote that, "Barely half of the certifications won by U.S. unions lead to contracts." Recent research in greater depth and over a longer time period being conducted by Kate Bronfenbrenner at Cornell brings the figure closer to 80 percent. The difference matters, although not in terms of my comment to the responders, who seem not much interested in the discussion of union qua institution but only in the proper political line.

And there's the rub. For Errol Black and Jim Silver the issue is us and them, with them being labor leaders. They are concerned about, "what kind of labor movement the leadership is committed to"; a "movement . . . sabotaged by its own leadership"; "the role of the leadership of the AFL-CIO in attempting to block all efforts to rejuvenate the movement." Nonsense! Would that the problem were merely Misleaders of Labor we could shoot a few leaders (or beat them up) and get them out of the way so that rank-and-file militancy and progressivism could flourish. Let us never forget that great radical labor leader of a militant rank and file who negotiated the first major post-war concessionary, two-tier contract. Harry Bridges "confessed" regarding that deal--containerization, mechanization, and rationalization in trade for cradle to the grave protection for incumbents--that he "sold out" the working class for his membership.

As for "not remember Sam Gompers," those who forget history. . . . Besides, if they will reread my definition of "what we mean by friendship" I think they'll see a close approximation of what they report as Canadian labor's political history. Condemning Gompers without at least considering that he might have been, for better or worse, merely representing the membership, leads to infantilism and romanticism.

Which leads me to Ron Crawley's comments. First, an echo of the autocratic leadership vs. rank-and-file militant democrats issue. "[B]ureaucratic unionism," "bureaucratized structures and processes," "bureaucracy [vs] the reform-minded rank and file [who] will have to radicalize their leaders or replace them."

The "bureaucrats," Brother Crawley, are otherwise known as the "winners." Jerry Wurf was "reform-minded," then he won. Rich Trumka was a radical (remember "Miners for Democracy"), now he's president of the union, and, ipso facto, a bureaucrat. That's not necessarily bad. It is inevitable. When unions grew too big for a committee to monitor and police standards while working at the bench, they chipped in and hired a "walking delegate," a business agent. This agent, even when a card-carrying red, took care of union business and some degree of business unionism ensued. Anyone who wishes to criticize needs to at the very least read A. J. Muste who described in 1928 the inherent contradictions between democracy and effectiveness in struggle.(1) Even better would be a stint as union leader. One committed radical of my acquaintance became president of his local, only to be chastised at his first ratification meeting by a former ally for "selling out"--by compromising, i.e., settling a contract.

I find Mr. Crawley's affection for separatist unions in Quebec and the Nationalist CCU somewhat contradictory to his program to "actively work towards bringing all existing unions together in a united front." The price of such unity is inevitably a suppression of certain disagreements, probably less "critique [of] capitalist policies" and less stress on "build[ing] socialism." If you bring together the CLC and CSN and CEQ and CCU and the CFL (9 international building trades unions) the most you can hope for is "mildly social democratic." And that's a lot more than we can presently hope for from U.S. labor.

In my experience "public demonstrations" which do not relate to "lobbying of the state and the electoral victory of a labor-friendly government" or "workplace actions" not tied in with "collective bargaining" are exercises in futility in which workers will not endlessly engage. Real existing unions of real existing workers are not interested in the permanent strike. In the film Salt of the Earth the local leader speaks of "going down fighting" to which his wife responds "I don't want to go down. I want to win." And winning is always temporary under capitalism (and probably under any other system). Winning is a time for R & R & R, rest & recoup & reorganize. It is measured in laws adopted and contracts settled. People tire; witness Nicaragua.

As for Mr. Crawley's contempt for NDP-style politics, I'll let him debate that with Messrs. Black and Silver.

(*1)Business unionism hasn't disappeared from Canada. It finds its main expression now through the Canadian Federation of Labour (a trade-union central established in 1982 by 9 of 12 international craft unions suspended by the CLC for undemocratic practices). The CFL recently had its national convention in Ottawa. According to Globe and Mail reporter Virginia Galt, James McCambly, CLF president, told her that:

. . . potential recruits to the labour movement want to see a more professional and pragmatic form of leadeship. Particular attention should be paid to the finding [in a survey commissioned by the CFL] that 72 per cent of those polled are opposed to union affiliation with political parties. . . (June 15, 1990).

True to the spirit of Gompers, the CFL is "professional and pragmatic" (business-like) in its approach and has non-partisanship as one of its founding principles.

(*2)This a phrase we owe to Susan Hart-Kulbaba, current president of the Manitoba Federation of Labour, who told us in an interview in June 1990 that the objective of the MFL was "to bring the movement back into labour." ("Putting the Movement Back in the Labor Movement" is also the slogan on the masthead of Labor Notes, the Detroit-based monthly [7435 Michigan Avenue, Detroit, MI 48210] --The Editors.)

(*3)See Leo Panitch and Donal Swartz, The Assault on Trade Union Freedoms: From Consent to Coercion (Toronto: Garamond Press, 1988).

NOTES

(1).A. J. Muste, "Factional Fights in Trade Unions" in J. B. S. Hardman, editor, American Labor Dynamics (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1928) pp. 332-37.

Errol Black teaches economics at Brandon University, Manitoba. Jim Silver teaches political science at the University of Winnipeg.

Ron Crawley is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at Carleton University, Ottawa.

Martin J. Morand is director of the Pennsylvania Center for the Study of Labor Relations at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

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