FIGHTBACK: It’s time to start changing our unions
A new grouping of union activists, the Solidarity Caucus, has been formed in British Columbia. The Caucus was organized in response to the failures of the leadership of the BC Federation of Labour and their role in the deal which ended this spring’s Hospital Employees Union strike. Although the caucus and the context out of which it arose is specific to BC, it is an important example of how union activists can organize against bureaucratic leaderships that fail to advance labour struggles. It is thus relevant for union activists in other provinces experiencing similar issues. Below we print the Solidarity Caucus Statement of Purpose.
It’s time to start changing our unions into fighting organizations that can meet the escalating attacks that have been coming our way for many years now. Doing that will require more than voting out one set of leaders and voting in another. This text intends to kick off the necessary discussion about what has been wrong for too long and what some real alternatives are.
British Columbia’s labour movement has been crippled by a lack of vision, a lack of analysis, and bad internal and external politics. This was proved once again by the tragically unnecessary May 2 defeat of 43,000 courageous and defiant health workers along with tens of thousands of other workers who were poised to strike (or already striking) to give them effective support IN ACTION. But it wasn’t just a defeat. It was a sell-out by leaders committed to an inadequate and therefore failing strategy.
The stakes in this fight were merely the Medicare system, the public sector’s right to strike, thousands of union jobs and large-scale union-busting. Oh yes, and looking beyond the immediate battle, there was also the continuing unimpeded ability of right-wing corporate and government attackers to further ravage health care, crown corporations, union rights, social services, public education, the elderly, children at risk, women, the poor, Native people, etc., etc., etc.
On May 3, most British Columbian workers awoke asking why the fight had been called off. How could we NOT stand and fight with such a clear-cut battle and such widespread - and growing - solidarity?
The how and why of this retreat - and of many less dramatic failures to fight back in recent years - are contained in the analysis, vision and internal/external politics which have governed the leaderships and infrastructure of BC trade unions for decades. It runs like this:
1. The political pendulum swings back and forth from left to right. It is currently swinging right, but it will swing left again sometime in the future.
2. Labour’s job is to keep the trade union movement together organizationally and hang on until the pendulum swings back our way.
3. The only way to (gradually) change the pendulum’s direction and give it momentum once it has changed is through electoral politics - elect the New Democratic Party (NDP) and progressive municipal slates.
4. Small-scale, infrequent actions can be used to keep people involved, but large, coordinated, militant fightbacks - especially involving strike action - are to be avoided because they might alienate middle-of-the-road voters from unions and their NDP allies, thus weakening electoral chances.
5. If the members vote in convention or in local meetings for effective militant action, the leadership must ignore that and steer a moderate, ballot-box-oriented course - because the leaders understand these things, and the members don’t.
6. Making alliances with progressive non-union social groups and organizations is necessary. But those forces must always be guided by the dictates of labour leaders and never be treated as real partners. They must accept electoralism as the primary strategy. And they must NEVER be allowed to influence significant numbers of trade union members with other strategic options.
The problems with this analysis/vision/strategy are many, serious and becoming increasingly evident
1. The pendulum is no longer swinging freely. On international, national, regional, and local levels, the corporate agenda is holding sway. Profiteers and their governments have blocked the return swing using international trade rules, massive transfers of public wealth to private hands through privatization and tax-shifting, coordinated threats of capital strikes against any jurisdiction that gets out of line and, if nothing else works, legislated gutting of democratic rights backed by police and military repression.
2. Preserving trade union organizations becomes increasingly problematic with escalating defeats. Union membership is reduced not just because of contract-shredding, massive layoffs in favour of low-wage contractors and right-to-work initiatives. It is also falling because, as former Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) President Dennis McDermott said a generation ago, “You don’t need a union to negotiate concessions.” Multiplying defeats bring anger, demoralization, disunity and a feeling that unions are irrelevant. And this is even before we worry about the New Zealand experience of having a (Labour) government virtually abolish union collective bargaining rights.
3. The NDP in government is not the working class in power. The power still resides in the corporate boardrooms and Wall Street bond-rating agencies. This is why past NDP governments have focused on debt and deficit reduction, broken strikes legislatively and cut welfare benefits. Not only that, but electing the NDP in 2005, even if that were certain and we could count on them entirely, would be too late to fight off the attacks since 2001 and those still to come before voting day.
4. Without a militant and mobilized union movement leading all workers in an effective fightback, any NDP government elected will continue to implement the corporate agenda, possibly at a slower pace with a “more human face.” Only real counter-pressure from working people can stop and reverse that dynamic.
5. After a generation of escalating defeats, union members who vote for militant action DO understand the stakes and strategic implications. They have witnessed the inadequacy of electoralism as a sole, over-riding strategy. Of course much more needs to be learned, and it can be learned through education, preparation and through struggle itself. Working people have proved this in many times and places. But this requires democracy, because democracy works. It works by bringing all of our intelligence, talents, skills, experiences and courage into the decision-making process. But where democracy really excels is when mistakes are made and must be corrected. The more involved everyone is in making decisions, the more easily we can see what went wrong and what new directions need to be taken.
6. Real, equitable alliances with social groups and organizations must be forged to avoid the isolation of unions and a growing sentiment among non-union workers that unions are only out for themselves. As well, the struggles of those groups are truly our struggles. They are about the communities union workers live in alongside non-union workers. Equally crucial is the fact that large-scale, militant job action requires community participation in planning and execution so we can minimize the harm done to those who are our true allies. This does not mean giving non-union groups the power to tell union members when, how and why they go on strike. That is a red herring.
New Direction
To move toward a labour movement that is genuinely militant, democratic and accountable to its members we must seek to implement a new set of strategies - from the BC Federation of Labour through each of the affiliated unions down to the level of local unions. The essential first step is to organize a broad grassroots opposition within our unions based on putting forward and continually improving new fightback tactics and strategies, on developing new modes of organizational functioning and electing leaders who will be accountable to the democratic decisions of the members.
As an absolutely necessary part of rearming our labour movement for the fights to come, we must challenge and replace the leadership. This must not be done on the basis of likes or dislikes. It must be done on the basis of an analysis that is more accurate, a vision that is more combative, strategies that are more effective and successful and modes of functioning that can mobilize and unite our members and our non-union allies.
What we saw in early May was a failure as significant as the 1983 sellout of the Solidarity movement. While it was Premier Gordon Campbell who ordered HEU (Hospital Employees Union) back to work, it was the leadership of the BC Federation of Labour and its major affiliates who enforced that return to work without even a murmur about giving those brave workers the right to vote on the so-called deal. And it was those leaders’ totally deficient politics, outlined above, that have allowed them to justify this betrayal to themselves and to us.
An effective and durable general strike may or may not have been a real possibility, but that’s not the issue. It was possible to inflict a resounding defeat on the Campbell Liberals and their corporate backers. On May 2 we were on the brink of BC labour’s biggest struggle in decades - a massive strike wave that could have driven a stake through the heart of the Liberals’ privatization of health care services. We had the biggest chance in three years to defeat Campbell, and it was torn from our fingers by the capitulation of our own leaders.
The sell-out of HEU was only the most spectacular of the leadership’s betrayal, but there’s no shortage of other examples. What about the silent complicity in the IWA (Industrial Wood & Allied Workers) raid on HEU? For over a year the leadership of the Fed stood by in utter silence while a rat union allied itself with the provincial Liberals, Aramark, Sodexho and the Compass Group. This was not just a raid - it was an act of sheer class betrayal, where the IWA teamed up with the Liberals as active accomplices in union-busting, and our leadership almost unanimously stood by, said nothing, and let them do it. And while we’re at it, what about the IWA leadership’s invitation to the government to legislate their own members back to work after a hard-fought strike against stiff concessions.
Struggles of Youth
Meanwhile the labour movement gave scant support beyond lip service to the struggles of youth against the six-dollar “starting” wage, to anti-poverty activists fighting welfare cuts and housing shortages, or to women fighting the closure of women’s centres across BC. Since May 2002, union leaders have maintained their staunch commitment to NOT mobilizing massive unitary protests of members and non-members against Campbell and the corporate agenda.
Simultaneous with these betrayals has been another disturbing development. Over the last ten years, some BC union leaders have increasingly become a network of junior capitalists. Using billions from their members’ pension plans and retirement investments, they have created a corporate empire. They control the largest venture capital firm in western Canada (Working Opportunity Fund), the largest developer of residential rental properties in BC (Concert Properties) and a network of companies involved in insurance, travel, investments and other activities. How many union members were shocked to learn recently of the $16,000 donation Concert Properties gave to Gordon Campbell’s Liberals?
“Unfair,” they say, “the Concert executives did that behind our backs.” Well, what the hell do you expect when you pick Liberal corporate honchos like Jack Poole and David Podmore to manage your members’ money? And how do you explain the directors’ decision to join Canada’s biggest P3 lobby group (alongside Aramark, Compass and Sodexho)?
In summary, the present BC union leadership has exposed its own political bankruptcy and democratic deficiencies. Our movement may not be able to long survive a continuation of their short-sighted vision and demonstrably inadequate strategies. It’s time for the rank-and-file to start making changes within organized labour so we can effectively fight back against greedy bosses, privatizing governments and corporate globalization. If we don’t, we will simply have to go through all this again. And again.
Militant Movement
We need a militant movement. In the face of our attackers we will get nothing and defend nothing except through educated, intelligent, prepared, coordinated and courageous militancy. Globalization means everything is under attack, even the very existence of our communities. Refusing to fight back is surrender. Refusal to get ready for the inevitable battles is suicidal.
We need a democratic movement with a leadership and members committed to fostering debate within the labour movement, not stifling it. Membership decisions must be carried out, not ignored as with the action program adopted unanimously at the 2002 BC Fed Convention. And members must ALWAYS have the right to vote on contracts, regardless of leadership opinions OR strike-breaking legislation. Internal union democracy and membership control is one of the strongest weapons in our arsenal.
We need a movement that mobilizes solidarity. “An injury to one is an injury to all” is not just a slick slogan. It is what “union” means in concrete practice - our united strength against our enemies. No group of workers should stand alone and suffer defeats while the rest of us go along as usual.
We need a movement that builds alliances. Unions fighting alone to confront the attacks on our rights will lose. Community groups fighting alone will lose. We need to reject all the tired old habits of control and domination, and seek to build coalitions where labour and community organizations come together as partners and allies working together. We need to build open coalitions, and reject the past policies of exclusion, manipulation and control.
We need an independent union movement. We will need to be prepared to fight against cuts, to preserve social services and to resist return-to-work laws under a future NDP government too. Defeating Gordon Campbell will not mean our work is done, not by any means. This does not mean no involvement with progressive candidates or parties during elections. It does mean that electoralism is not labour’s sole strategy and that electoral support is critical support, based on the actions of the elected.
Right to Strike
We need a movement committed to reclaiming the unrestricted right to strike, by whatever means are necessary. At present, for all practical purposes BC’s public sector workers have no legal right to strike. Ask HEU, the nurses, the teachers, the ferry workers. And now this de facto ban is starting to extend to private sector unions as well. Ask the IWA. The right to strike was only won by labour’s willingness to defy unjust laws. It will only be preserved by our willingness to use our right to strike, legally if possible, illegally if necessary, whether the government in power is Liberal or NDP.
Such a labour movement is not beyond our grasp. We can see it in the HEU members who organized to defend their own jobs and the right of all of us to public health care. We can see it in the ferry workers’ courage in the face of government and the courts. We can see it in those principled IWA activists who have publicly condemned and organized against their own union’s raid on HEU. We can see it in all those hospital workers and teachers and electricians and transit workers who stood up against Bill 37, and all those longshore workers and city employees and millworkers and ferry workers who were ready to walk out and join in.
And we’ve also seen the beginnings of such a movement in conventions and local meetings where members are starting to demand that trade unions fulfill their historical role of fighting for ourselves and for all working people.
Building such a movement will not be the work of a moment. It will take time, commitment, creativity, some tolerance/patience with each other and enduring courage. We can and will put the fighting spirit back into our movement, along with the necessary changes that go along with that - in strategy, in modes of internal/external functioning and in leadership. The alternative is too grim to accept.
