CAW-CEP merger: Undemocratic from the start
2013Bruce Allen 2013-06Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 11 →
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At the end of August 2013 a new union, called Unifor, will be launched in Cana da, with a membership of over 300,000 workers. At a convention in Toronto, the Canadian Autoworkers (CAW) and the Communications, Energy and Paper workers (CEP), will officially merge, cre ating the largest private-sector union in the country.
Potentially, Unifor will be more pow erful and influential than either of its founding parts. But size is certainly not synonymous with effectiveness.
Increasingly, there are compelling rea sons to view this merger with appre hension. CAW rank-and-file members have next to no idea what is going on. The merger process has been effectively shaped behind closed doors. Few even know who the people are on the commit tees that have been assembling the terms of merger of the two unions.
The bureaucracies of the two unions have exclusively shaped the process. Only now are they engaging, in a very limited and controlled way, local union leaders and members via a series of information meetings and a conference call.
Initially, 14 information meetings about the merger were scheduled to take place across Canada. Half were in Ontario. Only one meeting each was held in the provinces of B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. None was held in Prince Ed ward Island and Newfoundland and Lab rador. This was hardly conducive to ac cessibility and transparency.
But the most damning thing is that nei ther individual members nor local unions can send resolutions to the founding con vention. What this effectively means is that the bureaucracy of these two unions is going to present a complete merger package for the delegates chosen by the membership. Delagates will have a choice between rubber stamping the entire merger package, or voting against it and effectively scuttling the merger.
Moreover, when the critical vote is held, if past experience is indicative, there will be an element of intimidation at work. The person chairing the convention will likely make it a standing vote—never mind having a secret ballot. Thus, dele gates who want to vote against the merg er package will find themselves having to stand up with the eyes of everyone in the room glaring at them.
The process reveals there will be a real absence of democracy in the new union— which has been absent in the CAW at the national level since its inception, exem plified by the fact that, at the CAW’s na tional council meetings, not one recom mendation of the national president has been voted down since 1992.
Back in 1985, when the Canadian Re gion of the United Auto Workers broke from the UAW to form the CAW, large general membership meetings were held in which the union’s rank and file could express their views without facing a wall of intimidation. They debated the issue of forming a new union, and then voted by a show of hands. Nothing comparable is
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SOCIALIST ACTION Tony Savino / Socialist Action