Why have unions failed during the recession?

Scan page 9

ers consented to General Motors cutting wages in half for about 40 per cent of its work force at a sub-compact car plant in Michigan—prompted a left-leaning Toronto Star columnist to write a piece, with a headline similar to the one above, that has activists talking.

The Star’s Tom Walkom posits that the difference between the 1930s and the present recession is that unions were once “seen as the way forward” and represented the majority, whereas now unions are “viewed as bastions of privilege” and “exist only to protect the lucky few”.

Unfortunately, Walkom points only to a symptom of the problem—the complacency of unionized workers. He does not identify the deficiencies of union leadership that fostered this attitude, and the lack of an alternative that can come only from a class-struggle cross-union opposition to the existing pro-capitalist union leadership.

In both Canada and the USA, unions have never physically encompassed more than a minority of the working population. But under the pressure of an organized militant left wing, and the example of very powerful (though terminally bureaucratized) workers’ states abroad, union leaders felt obliged to mobilize the ranks for gains (and to resist concessions). Consequently, bosses felt compelled to give workers some of what we demanded. That is what forced archConservative Prime Minister R.B. Bennett “to belatedly embrace leftish ideas such as nationalization” and why PMs King/St-Laurent/Pearson legislated social welfare measures. They feared a radical socialist alternative.

Unfortunately, over the past 30 years most union leaders put their members to sleep with tales of class cooperation and reliance on ‘fair’ legislation. Unionized workers, for the most part, only followed the lead of their union officials. They focused on bread and butter issues (economism). Some rank-and-file workers who tried to fight for more than bread and butter (i.e., ington to deny approval to TransCanada Pipeline’s application for Keystone XL, a new 2739-kilometre pipeline that would stretch from Alberta to Texas, with a capacity of as much as 900,000 barrels of bitumen a day, more than doubling current U.S. consumption.

“White House policy makers need to know that their appetite for this dirty oil is killing our river and destroying our way of life. The pollutants and heavy metals don’t stop at the Alberta border—they run more than 1000 kilometres all the way to the Mackenzie River, deforming the fish along the way”, said Francois Paufor international solidarity, union democracy, organizing the unorganized, improving the social wage, winning rights in the work place, and for quality services and justice for all) were red-baited, targeted, penalized, and bureaucratically excluded by union officials.

Now the rank and file, increasingly scrambling for basic bread and butter due to the subservience and shrinkage of the labour movement, which resulted from passivity and acquiescence to the disastrous practices of the labour bureaucracy, can begin to see the need for a change of direction.

Unfortunately, Walkom neglected to address this aspect. Certainly, the seismic shift in economic activity from commodity production to service providing is part of the picture of union weakening, but only part—unless you assume that the working class is merely malleable stuff, which would make its past gains inexplicable.

Without looking at the role of leadership, it’s impossible to assess the larger political context, including the retreat of the labour-based New Democratic Party toward bourgeois coalitions (whether in the outgoing Toronto municipal government, or potentially, at the federal parliamentary level). The problem is one of working-class leadership, and the lack of a class-struggle fighting opposition, a left opposition that challenges the right wing in union elections.

Those who argue that the current struggles of working people should not just be about defending the gains of the unionized sector are correct. But if we are to advance respect for the value of public services to us all, along with a belief that a better world is possible, we will succeed only lette of the Smith’s Landing Treaty 8 First Nation in the Northwest Territories.

South of the border, opposition to the pipeline is almost unanimous among Native communities living close to its proposed U.S. route. Marty Cobenais, a Red Lake Band of Chippewa member, acting as the voice of American First Nations at the meetings in Washington, presented resolutions from 12 tribes in Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Oklahoma urging the U.S. government to find alternatives. It’s not only a matter of resisting the destruction of Native burial sites for the sake of a few long-term jobs in traffic control.

“The main message we want to get across is that this is the time to start weaning ourselves off oil. Most esif the past gains of the unionized sector are defended. Undertaking that simple but weighty task will require nothing less than a radical and sweeping change of the present union leadership at almost every level. n Many union and progressive folks in Canada’s bigpopulist councillor Rob Ford in the race for mayor. A increased number of labour-haters also captured City Council seats on Oct. 25, possibly enough for a voting majority to implement an agenda of severe social and culture cuts, privatization, and contracting-out measures.

A turnout of 52 per cent of the eligible voters, compared to 39 per cent in 2006, rewarded candidates who promised “change”. Ford received 47 per cent of the votes cast. The chief victim was the deputy mayor Joe Pantalone (backed by the labour brass), who came in third place with 12 per cent. Pantalone helped to steer an informal Liberal Party-New Democratic Party coalition that ran Toronto City Hall for seven years. That regime raised taxes and user fees, reduced services, and forced 30,000 municipal workers into a bitter 40-day strike over wages and pensions. It alienated workers and whetted the appetite of the corporate elite for more concessions.

A stormy period of clashes over the fate of city jobs and services is now in store. If there is effective mass resistance to the corporate agenda, it may hasten the realization that unions must break with the Liberals and fight for an up-front NDP-Labour slate of candidates committed to socialist policies prior to the next municipal vote in 2014. — B.W.

timates suggest we have maybe seven more generations—about 150 years—before there is no oil left anywhere,” said Cobenais.

In related news, Syncrude Canada has been ordered to pay $3 million in penalties for causing the deaths of 1600 ducks in a tailings pond at its northern Alberta oilsands mine. It is “no more than a slap on the wrist,” said Greenpeace spokesperson Mike Hudema.

Syncrude was found guilty on June 25 of breaking provincial and federal wildlife laws when it failed to stop the birds from landing on its toxic waste pond in April 2008. The waste-water ponds contain a poisonous brew of water, clay, leftover bitumen, and heavy metals. — B.W.

----- pull-quotes -----

Aboriginals oppose pipeline A boriginal leaders in Canada are lobbying Wash-

Toronto left-labour defeat M gest city were stunned by the victory of right-wing