Editorial:
For militant class-struggle unionism
With the victory of the Republican party in the US, hopes were dashed for many who thought that Americans would reject the destructiveness of Bush’s efforts to ride the American elephant as the cowboy of freedom trampling over the world. When more people than ever scratch their heads about life in the US, one often hears remarks that the situation in the Canadian state is much better. One even hears of people considering escaping the Bush agenda by moving north of the border.
These feelings of frustration are very valid. However, it is a mistake to think that the situation is much better in the Canadian state. It is also a mistake to think that opposition to war and other reactionary politics can be based primarily on decisions made at the polls. Historically, such opposition was rooted in a union movement that gave people a glimpse of a different vision for organizing society. Bush’s victory is another sign of the weakness of the organized working class in the US. A look at the state of labour struggles here forces us to draw the same conclusion about the Canadian state.
For instance, the middle of October 2004 saw a rare example of a pan-Canadian strike, but also the all too common example of how not to strike. For the first time since 1991, all the components of the main union for federal government workers, the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), walked off the job. The strike was a response to an offer of wage increases below the rate of inflation and employer demands to weaken leave rights. With some 125, 000 members and a presence in all the provinces of Canada and in Quebec, PSAC had the potential to win its demands from a minority federal government that had just announced it had run a $9.1 billion surplus in the previous fiscal year. PSAC could have drawn a lot of support by simply making the case that all workers deserve raises above the rate of inflation, that demands to give up rights that workers already have are unacceptable, and that the government was committed to paying down the debt at the expense of those who deliver and use public services.
But instead of pan-Canadian action that bolstered working people’s resolve, we saw yet another example of how not to strike. PSAC officials undermined solidarity by having the 25 000 workers at the Canada Revenue Agency return to work before these members had ratified their contract and while the rest of PSAC was still on strike. Some 4800 Parks Canada workers, who had been on strike for two months, also settled separately. Then the PSAC brass directed the rest of the members to return to work, but asked them to reject the government’s last offer. This was truly a ridiculous course of action: end the collective solidarity of the picket lines and then ask workers who are back on the job to reject an offer and work without a contract. It’s hard not to think that PSAC officials really wanted members to accept the deal but didn’t have the nerve to ask them to do so.
When unions act like this, we shouldn’t be surprised that so many workers show no enthusiasm for the labour movement, or believe in the possibility of meaningfully transforming their lives for the better. While union membership remains steady at around three in ten workers, the high rate of unionization among public sector workers (72%) helps hide the slow decline of union coverage in the private sector: 18%, down from 26% two decades ago. The percentage of women in unionized jobs, despite growing significantly in the 1970s,is not much higher today than it was in the late 1980s. Although the gap between unionization rates of women and men has nearly disappeared, this is mostly because there are more women working in the public sector than in the unionized private sector and does not reflect new initiatives to organize women workers in the private sector. This trend is also shaped by the declining percentage of men in unions.
The PSAC experience highlights what New Socialist has always argued: the union movement needs to be changed from the bottom-up. Workers still sometimes attempt to use their unions to struggle for their needs. Clashes between workers and employers and the state - like the important strike by BC hospital workers in the spring of 2004 - have the potential to radically change how working people see themselves and society.
But, as articles in this issue discuss, unions have been locked into a bureaucratic straightjacket by state power. Most union officers and staff accept and even defend these restraints. Many are committed to close collaboration with employers. Most of the labour officialdom has come to accept neoliberalism and just wants a better deal within it—as indicated by Canadian Labour Congress President Ken Georgetti’s widely-reported comments in September about wanting to work with free trade.
For these reasons, efforts by groups of unionists to organize themselves to fight for more democracy, militancy and solidarity within their unions have never been more important. These efforts can lead not only to important gains in peoples’ workplaces, but in doing so can also open up the possibility of broader community struggles and the real feeling that reactionary trends like the US’s imperialist agenda or Canada’s support for it – see the article on the weaponization of space inside – can be stopped. New Socialist will continue to publicize and support all such initiatives. We have no doubt that building a new kind of working-class movement rooted in workplaces and communities is a long-term project. It is also a critical one, for the future of this and every other society will be shaped by the course of class struggle against a capitalism that is wreaking havoc on people and the natural environment. ★