Canadian Labour Congress 2005
Vote stacked, incumbent wins
ALEX LEVANT reports on the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC)
Convention in Montreal (June 13-17). Alex attended as a delegate from the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 3903 which represents 2400 educational workers at York University in Toronto.
The most interesting event was the election for President – the first in 15 years. The incumbent Ken Georgetti beat challenger Carol Wall with 1084 to 643 votes (62 percent to 37 percent). However, it was Wall and her supporters – mostly public sector workers from the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), CUPE, the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), some Steelworkers (USWA), and many others – who were celebrating, while the winner appeared sullen and defeated. Why? Because the vote was stacked: the incumbent had the support of virtually the whole labour establishment, which ensured his re-election.
In practice, this “support” meant the following: the CLC’s 20-member Executive Committee selected Georgetti to head the slate of the establishment, which included Secretary-Treasurer Hassan Yusseff and Executive Vice-Presidents Barb Byers and Marie Clark Walker (all incumbents whose positions were not contested); the leaders of all the largest unions (with the notable exception of CUPW’s Deborah Borque) instructed ‘their’ delegates to vote for the incumbent; several major unions, including the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW), Steelworkers, Hotel and Restaurant Employees (HERE) and the Union of Needle Trades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE), went so far as to exclude Wall from addressing their caucuses; the challenger was never permitted to address the convention (instead she shuttled to all the various evening caucuses and forums to have the chance to speak to delegates), while the incumbent presided over the whole convention.
Under these circumstances, all Georgetti had to do to win was breathe. While not technically an election victory, Carol Wall’s 37 percent – the highest recorded percentage against a CLC incumbent – represents a crushing defeat for Georgetti. The word at convention following the election results was that Georgetti’s days were numbered and that he would not serve out his full term in office.
The fact that so many delegates voted for the challenger, despite pressure to support the incumbent, also reveals the amount of discontent among delegates toward the labour establishment.
Delegates’ frustration with the CLC brass is entirely understandable. It is no secret that our labour movement is losing ground. Since the mid-1980s, the percentage of unionized workers has dropped from 40 percent to 30 percent and from almost 30 percent to only 18 percent in the private sector. Public sector density has remained steady, but governments now routinely break strikes using back-to-work legislation. We are working longer hours with less job security, and our social services continue to be cut and privatized.
The CLC’s response to these grave problems has been timid and largely ineffective. There were many good resolutions passed at this convention, but the convention was weak on how to actualize them. The CLC has focused almost entirely on lobbying governments rather than mobilizing its members, and this essentially dead-end strategy continues to guide its work. Its “Action Plan”, which was unveiled on the final day of convention when many delegates had already left, clearly demonstrates what type of action it intends to pursue:
“These actions will include advocacy and lobbying; education and training of activists, labour councils, staff and affiliates; political action and campaigns; local actions such as demonstrations and rallies; coalition building; communications and media campaigns; and international solidarity actions.”
What is particularly disturbing about this “action plan” is that it does not mention even once the one action that is the greatest strength of the labour movement: strike action. Given this strategy, it is no wonder that many of the 3.2 million workers represented by the CLC do not even know that they are members, or what the CLC even is.
Despite this sorry state of the labour movement, Georgetti campaigned on his record of “results”, and urged delegates to focus on the positive. The election results, however, demonstrate that a significant number of union officials (a layer comprised largely of local executive officers) are not falling for it. Consequently, there is space for opposition to the labour establishment within the labour movement.
The main organized opposition came from the Action Caucus. My experience with the Action Caucus has been at several CUPE conventions, where they have created a space for progressive delegates to come together and strategize around various issues, including getting important resolutions passed. At this convention, however, the Action Caucus was entirely absorbed by Wall’s election campaign.
While this is an important objective, it also has its limits. Wall is certainly far more progressive than Georgetti, and would inject some desperately-needed life into the labour establishment. Her achievements are impressive – former CLC Vice-President representing workers of colour, national negotiator for PSAC, Communications, Energy and Paperworkers’ Union’s (CEP) first Human Rights Director, and the list goes on. She also understands that the CLC must shift its focus from lobbying to mobilizing:
“I believe that the single-minded focus on back room lobbying has been to our detriment. Lobbying government is important but we need to mobilize our members if we want to be a force for change in society.”
In some ways, this election was a near coup, which put Wall in a strong position to run for President again at the next convention in 2008. However, it is unclear how she would be able to actualize these objectives.
While Wall correctly states that many of the CLC brass “came to do good, but stayed to do well”, unfortunately, the problems of the labour movement are deeper than bad leadership. The current form of the labour movement (since the “postwar compromise” of 1945-48) establishes a whole layer of union officials whose interests differ from the majority of union members. While rank-and-file members make a living from their places of work, and directly benefit from the collective agreements they manage to win, the top union officials make their living from the union itself. Consequently, they do not experience attacks on workers in the same way as rank-and-file members, and have a special interest in maintaining the union institution in its current form.
In his recent analysis of the Hospital Employees Union (HEU) strike in 2004, David Camfield explains this phenomenon as follows:
“The union institution provides officials with their livelihood… For officials to keep on being officials, the union institution must be preserved… It is because the labour officialdom is a bureaucratic social layer of a particular kind that it tends to support social democratic politics… In contrast, strikes and other forms of mass direct action that fall outside labour law’s narrow definition of a legal strike bring with them the risk of huge fines or other serious damage to union institutions. Officials generally try to preserve good bargaining relationships with employers, which militancy can hurt.”
Consequently, electing progressive leaders like Wall, on its own, would not suffice to transform the labour movement into an effective fighting force for working people. This effort can only work as part of a broader strategy that is oriented on transforming the relationship between the leadership and the rank-and-file, which requires considerable structural reform.
One attempt to create a space where such issues could be raised came from the Workers’ Solidarity and Union Democracy Coalition, which organized two evening forums at convention. The first forum, titled “Stop Concessions, Restore Union Democracy,” featured union activists such as Bruce Allen (CAW) and Gretchen Dulmage (HEU), as well as the National Executive Director of the Union des Forces Progressistes (UFP) Gordon Lefebvre, and a cameo appearance by Carol Wall. This was an opportunity for union activists to share their experiences of workplace struggles from the perspective of rank-and-file members and local leaderships. The second forum was called “Resisting War, Occupation and Imperialism.” It featured speakers on Iraq, Haiti, Palestine and Canadian complicity with militarism. It focused largely on making the links between these various struggles and the labour movement.
These forums provided one of the only spaces at the CLC convention where deeper problems than which leader to vote for could be discussed. However, attendance was sparse as this initiative came from far outside the labour establishment, and was not featured in all the glossy pamphlets and programs that were distributed to delegates. Moreover, while the Workers’ Solidarity and Union Democracy Coalition is a terrific initiative, it remains on the fringe of the fringe of the labour movement.
Overall, this convention demonstrated not only the weakness of the labour establishment, but also the weakness of the opposition. While there is certainly disaffection with the current direction of the CLC, the opposition was not able to effectively channel that disaffection into any immediate results. However, it did take some steps in that direction. Carol Wall’s electoral showing put the future of Georgetti’s hold on the CLC in doubt. Her campaign also brought together a number of progressive activists from various unions into contact with one another. The forums put on by the Workers’ Solidarity and Union Democracy Coalition broadened the scope of debate even if for a few dozen delegates. Opposition delegates at the next convention in 2008 will be able to build on these achievements.
However, if the opposition is to have a more significant impact – if it is serious about shifting the focus from lobbying governments to mobilizing members – it will have to find ways of organizing itself in a manner that includes progressive delegates in a formation that not only puts forward better candidates for the leadership of the CLC, but also forces structural reform onto the agenda in order to democratize the labour movement.
But we must also think beyond conventions. While conventions are a key arena for union reform, which should not be neglected, the impetus for change will come from the way we engage in workplace struggles.
