fine balance - | canadian centre for policy alternatives

A Fine Balance:Canadian Unions

Confront Globalization

ISBN: 0-88627-320-X December 2002

CAW 567OTTAWA

By John Peters

A Fine Balance:Canadian Unions Confront Globalization

By John Peters

ISBN: 0-88627-320-X

December 2002

About the Author:

John Peters is a political scientist at York University who specializes in labour relations.

Acknowledgements:

Many thanks to Stella Yeadon, Greg Albo, Larry Brown, Andrew Jackson, Sam Gindin, andJohn Weir for comments and suggestions. A special thanks to Marcus Green for help withthe charts, to Marc Levesque of the Labour Force Division of Statistics Canada for up-to-date labour force information, and to Ed Finn at CCPA for his editorial assistance andpatience with academic prose.

CANADIAN CENTRE FOR POLICY ALTERNATIVES410-75 Albert Street, Ottawa, ON K1P 5E7tel: 613-563-1341 fax: 613-233-1458email: [email protected]://www.policyalternatives.ca

Contents

Overview...................................................................................................................................................... 1

I. Globalization and the Growing Problems for Labour Movements .............................................. 3

II. Globalization and Liberal Market Economies.................................................................................. 7

III. Globalization and Liberal Market Labour Policy............................................................................. 9

IV. Canada and Liberal Market Labour Policy: From the Safety Net to the "Work-Net" andLabour Market Flexibility ..................................................................................................................12

V. The Dynamics of Labour Market Deregulation: The Decline of Canadian Unions and theConsolidation of Low-Wage/Part-time Flexibility ........................................................................17

VI. Can Canadian Unions Survive in a Liberal Globalized Economy? .............................................21

VII. A Fine Balance: Weighing Reform and Structural Change in the Canadian Labour Move-ment ......................................................................................................................................................26

A Fine Balance: Canadian Unions Confront Globalization 1

Overview

service and export economy. Such poli-cies have included the wholesale restruc-turing of public sectors, as well aschanges to employment law and socialsecurity.

All of these changes have given em-ployers much more opportunity tochange their relationship with theirworkers for the worse, and commonlymany have begun to dispense with un-ions altogether. This has had a pro-foundly negative impact on trade unionsand the labour market in liberal marketeconomies, and these changes now ap-pear to be having the same effect inCanada.

In confronting globalization, Cana-dian unions will have to make signifi-cant new efforts toward renewal, if theyare to avoid the fate of labour move-ments in Britain and the United States,where trade unions have either declineddramatically or come close to effectivecollapse. The recent organizing successesof Canadian unions give reason for op-timism. But it is also clear that labourunions will need better strategies andnew structures if they are going to comeout on top in their collision with mar-kets and neo-liberalism.

Organizing is the key to reachingthat objective. If Canadian unions are tosucceed in doubling their membershipnumbers—a growth rate that will be es-sential simply to remain at their currentlevels of size and strength—they willhave to develop more innovative organ-izing strategies and structures. Not only

Unions in Canada are in a pre-carious position. Over the pastsix years, they have begun to

organize more extensively and have con-ducted wider campaigns. They have alsohad a great deal of success, organizingan average of some 50,000+ workers peryear since 1995. Still, it hasn’t beenenough. For the first time since the late1960s, the union density rate in Canadahas fallen below 30%, and between 1990and 2000 union membership fell by some100,000.

Over the past few years, while 1.5million jobs have been created, only180,000 new union members have beenadded. This is an effective new unioni-zation rate of 8%—a rate that is some50,000 to 80,000 short of the additionalmembers required every year if unionsare to maintain their overall size andstrength. Today, only some 3.8 millionCanadian workers are in unions, and thisshortfall does not seem likely to be rem-edied any time soon.

Over the past decade, globalizationhas expanded the non-unionized, part-time workforce, increased pressures forwage restraint, and given businessesmore leverage in pushing workers forjob concessions and longer work peri-ods. And to make matters worse, acrossliberal market economies (LMEs) suchas the United States, Britain, Australia,and Canada, governments have adopted"economic adjustment’ policies designedto make labour more "flexible" so thatfirms might compete in a globalized

2 Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

youth and immigrants (who have tradi-tionally remained outside union ranks)will need to be organized, but so too willlow-wage service and manufacturingworkers, who are a growing part of theworkforce.

New strategies with the greatestpossibility of success might include anational Organizing Institute, as well asa National Organizing Commission, pro-vincial coordinating committees, break-throughs in organizing schools andworker centres, as well as a more exten-

sive use of volunteer training programsthat actively involve rank-and-file mem-bers in organizing drives.

This past June, at the Canadian La-bour Congress convention in Vancouver,a resolution was passed that called forfurther exploration of the feasibility ofadopting such organizing changes. Mov-ing forward will require a national con-ference between the CLC and its affili-ates, as well as further research on howto implement these structures and strat-egies in the most effective manner.


I. Globalization and the Growing Problems for Labour Movements

duties and responsibilities in the proc-ess. At the same time, many corporationshave attacked wage bargaining systems,using the threat of closure to lowerwages, cut jobs, and demand overtimeflexibility.1 In an increasingly competi-tive global economy, businesses world-wide have adopted similar kinds of pro-duction systems and flexible labourpractices, putting workers worldwideunder pressure to make concessions onjobs, wages, and working conditions.

Globalization has also contrib-uted to the expansion of private servicework to some 50-60% of total employ-ment (See Figure 1). This, too, has un-dermined trade union power. More peo-ple are required for the finance, trans-port, administration, handling, and re-tail of goods and property, as well as forthe basic personal and social servicesnecessary for daily living. In Canada,personal services (accommodation andfood) and producer services (banking,business, insurance) have more than

Why are Canadian unions insuch trouble? And why areunions around the world in-

creasingly vulnerable? One of the rea-sons is intensified globalization—the ex-pansion of freer and greater interna-tional trade, transnational productionand investment, as well as financial glo-balization. These economic changeshave had negative effects on labouraround the world. Rapidly expandingtrade, production, and finance havecombined to increase the competitionamong businesses, and, as profits havedropped, so corporations have sought tocreate more "flexible" manufacturingand work arrangements.

Over the past two decades, firmshave sought to respond to rapid changesin demand in a variety of ways. Theyhave begun to outsource (contract out)work, and downsize their labour forces.But they have also attempted to createmore “flexible” workplaces by speedingup work, and burdening jobs with new

Summary Points

• Because of globalization, trade unions and labour movements are more vulnerable todaythan they have ever been in the past 50 years.

• Global economic changes have led to the expansion of non-unionized service jobs, the de-cline of unionized manufacturing jobs, and wage and job concessions.

• Global political changes have shifted an increasing amount of policy-making up to the in-ternational level, and given business more of a free-hand in the workplace.

• This international economic policy-making has weakened labour legislation, lowered em-ployment standards, and contributed to public sector restructuring and privatization.


0 1 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0 6 0 7 0

1 9 8 5 1 9 9 0 1 9 9 5 2 0 0 0

P u b l i c S e c t o r S e r v i c e s

M a n u f a c t u r i n g

P r i v a t e S e r v i c e s

Figure 1: Labour Force Composition – LMEs 1985-2000

Sources: US Dept. of Labor. Bureau of Labor Statistics (Washington: 2002); OECD, Labour Market Statistics 20012nd ed (Paris: 2001); OECD, Historical Labour Force Statistics, 1980-2000, (Paris: 2001).

doubled over the past 30 years, and thesenow account for 26% of the total numberof jobs.

But the majority of these jobs are"atypical" "bad" jobs— part-time, fixed-term, and temporary, with low pay, fewif any benefits, and generally non-union-ized.2 Over the past decade, half of thenew jobs created in Canada were part-time, and the majority of people work-ing in them are women and youth.3 Asof 1995, women held 86% of the servicejobs in Canada, and 70% of all part-timejobs,4 and 45% of all young workers (15-24) are in part-time jobs. However, fewerthan 15% of private sector service jobsare unionized (discounting transporta-tion and warehousing), and service jobstypically pay 20% less than manufactur-ing jobs, while non-union service jobsusually pay 40% less than similar union-ized work.5

Unfortunately, it is women andyouth who bear the brunt, as they arethe majority of the workforce in low-paying jobs.6 What globalization hasmeant is the expansion of low-paying,flexible service jobs, and the increasingmarginalization of women and youth.

What globalization has also meant isthe decline of manufacturing jobs, espe-cially unionized manufacturing jobs. Asstates have signed free trade agreementsand deregulated national controls, sodeindustrialization has accelerated andunemployment risen because of inten-sified competition.7 Across advancedindustrialized countries from 1980-2000,the percentage of the labour force in in-dustry has declined, falling for examplesome 12.6% in the UK, 4% in Canada,and 6% in the US.8 In North America,high-paying manufacturing jobs havedeclined, and increased import compe-tition has put downward pressure on

Canada Labour Force Composition, 1985-2000

Public Sector

Services

Manufacturing

Private Services

0 1 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0 6 0 7 0

1 9 8 5 1 9 9 0 1 9 9 5 2 0 0 0




Public Sector

Services

Manufacturing

Private Services

US Labour Force Composition, 1985-2000

0 1 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0 6 0 7 0

1 9 8 5 1 9 9 0 1 9 9 5 2 0 0 0




UK Labour Force Composition, 1985-2000

Public Sector

Services

Manufacturing

Private Services

Australia Labour Force Composition, 1985-2000

0 1 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0 6 0 7 0

1 9 8 5 1 9 9 0 1 9 9 5 2 0 0 0



P r i v a t e S e c t o r S e r v i c e s

Public Sector

Services

Manufacturing

Private Services


wages, leading to the downward slideof household family incomes.9

The stark conclusion is that, as manu-facturing has declined, so has the corenucleus of trade unions, thereby weak-ening the overall strength of the labourmovement. This drop has affected theliving conditions of all workers, becausethe simple rule of thumb is that, as un-ionization declines, inequality grows,and jobs become less secure.10

Globalization has also entailed sig-nificant political changes that haveturned the tide against labour move-ments. Internationalization has loweredthe “exit” costs of capital. Many corpo-rations now "regime shop," looking forcountries with the lowest labour andsocial costs, and then demanding thatnational governments similarly reducetheir domestic costs to induce them tostay. States have often capitulated tothese corporate demands, and then gonea couple of steps further.

On the one hand, through multilat-eral trade agreements administered byinternational agencies like the IMF andWTO, governments have put constraintson their own national regulatory capaci-ties and given priority to the advance-ment of international business interests.The objective is to increase the power ofcorporations and markets at the expenseof trade unions and national politics.11

And to accomplish this, the long-termpolitical strategy is to continue shiftingmore and more macroeconomic decisionmaking up and out of national policyarenas and onto the international leveland into global markets, which are be-yond union control. These kinds of in-ternational changes have already seri-ously affected national policy-making,

and their continuation will seriouslyundermine the political influence of la-bour at the national level.12

On the other hand, national govern-ments have also sought to shift the lo-cus of economic and bargaining powerdownward to employers, in order to givethem more of a free hand in dealing withlabour. Looking to become more com-petitive as a country, governmentsthroughout the OECD have reworkedemployment legislation, either by allow-ing firms greater flexibility in their useof workers’ hours and allowing themmore ways of avoiding the payment ofovertime costs, or by making it harderto organize new workers and easier todecertify existing unionized work-places.13

In some cases, employers have takenthe opportunity to defect from collectivebargaining altogether and implementextensive outsourcing and wage cuts.14

In others, if firms have not pushed formajor changes in the collective bargain-ing framework, they have put more pres-sure on trade unions to accept wage cutsand wage freezes, as well as job losses.15

Public services are also now a partof international policy-making, and thegoals of free trade, tax reduction, busi-ness deregulation, and privatizationhave led to the restructuring of statesacross the world and fostered a muchstronger anti-union political climate. Asgovernments have moved to privatizeand reduce their public sectors, deficitcutting and the retrenchment of socialsecurity systems have become the norm.In the majority of advanced industrialcountries, public sector jobs have beencut, services privatized, and social enti-tlements reduced.16


Commonly, this restructuring ofpublic services has been used to effectmacroeconomic change. Worldwide,public sector workers have been laid offto reduce government expenditures;public sector wages have been frozen tocontrol inflation; and public sector jobsprivatized to reduce wage costs.17 Thesame thing has occurred in Canada.Over the past 10 years, Canadian publicsector employment has fallen 15%,wages have been frozen or kept wellbelow inflation, and government spend-ing reduced by 6% of GDP.18 Such cutshave set public sector unions back ontheir heels and weakened the labourmovement, and similar patterns are evi-dent in many other parts of the world.

The political and economic impact ofglobalization has thus made trade un-ions more vulnerable than they haveever been in the past 50 years. Intensi-fied competition has increased the pres-sure to lower wages and led to more lay-offs, especially in the unionized manu-facturing sector. Global deregulation hasexpanded low-paid, contingent servicework, and international economic

policy-making has weakened labour leg-islation, lowered employment stand-ards, and contributed to public-sectorcutbacks and restructuring.

These destabilizing political and eco-nomic changes have created a more hos-tile environment for trade unions andworkers throughout the world.19 Thetiming and depth of the challenges thatunions face may vary from country tocountry. But the dominant trends are thelevelling down of conditions of workand employment legislation; and agrowing disparity between an often-pro-tected organized work-force and an un-protected, unorganized, low-paid, bot-tom-rung work-force.

While some workers have benefitedfrom higher wages and new opportuni-ties, for the majority there has only beena decline of wages, benefits, and employ-ment security. This has led to evengreater inequality and a steadily widen-ing gap between good and bad jobs. To-gether, these global economic and politi-cal developments have weakened organ-ized labour, and they now threaten toundermine unions as key political andeconomic actors around the world.


II. Globalization and Liberal Market Economies

ryday activities.22 Businesses depend onequity markets and retained earnings forfinance; fluid labour markets to hire andfire labour as needed; and alliances,mergers, and new hires for technologyacquisition and firm expansion.

This is in contrast to many Europeancountries, where governments havetypically stimulated investment throughlow interest rates and preferential credit,and where businesses have sought to"coordinate" their activities with otherfirms in the industry, with financial sec-tors for long-term equity, and withhighly coordinated trade unions for re-search and development and skill train-ing.23

In “coordinated market economies,”it is these kinds of relationships thatbusinesses develop with governmentsand other firms that determine the typeof finance, skills, and technology, avail-able to them. European corporate strat-egies are based on fostering innovationby coordinating their activities withother firms, the government, and labour.Business élites believe there is a need to

The global economy acceleratesthe deterioration of wages andworking conditions for a grow-

ing majority in labour movements acrosscountries and regions, but this oftentakes very different forms. In Europe,workers have faced longer-term unem-ployment and demands for speed-up,while youth and immigrants have beenmarginalized into ever-longer periods ofunemployment and lower-paying jobs.20

But European unions, even if their or-ganizational capacities have beenstretched thin, have still been able to en-force national standards.21

In the liberal market economies,(like the United States, Canada, England,and now Australia) unions have not onlybeen weakened, but the majority ofworkers, whether unionized or not,must daily live with increasing work-loads, declining real wages, increasinginequality, more job instability, and theworsening of work conditions.

This is due to the fact that, in liberalmarket countries, firms rely almostsolely on markets to organize their eve-

Summary Points

• In liberal market economies, firms compete almost entirely on the basis of lowering costs,not on cooperating with others, as is the case in many West European countries.

• As a consequence, across LMEs, businesses typically respond to increased competition byextending hours, increasing the part-time workforce, and putting the squeeze on unions.

• This corporate context means that, with globalization, the situation for labour will only con-tinue to deteriorate in LMEs.


cooperate with other social interests inorder to maintain their high-wage/highquality economies, and commonly lookto create social "pacts," whereby labourreceives wage and employment gains inreturn for greater effort and productiv-ity.

But in LMEs, firms compete almostsolely on the basis of cost advantages,not on cooperating with others. As a re-sult, their priorities are short-term gains,increased sales, and expanded trade, notthe long-term development of produc-tive assets.

The consequence of such structuralpriorities is that in LMEs firms continu-ally look to their bottom line first. Busi-nesses view strong trade unions andstrong employment protection as majorfetters on their ability to compete on thebasis of lowering costs.24 They look toweaken organized labour as much aspossible, and for governments to main-tain and extend markets, in order tolower wages and maintain their com-petitiveness.

When faced with price downturnsand increased competition, NorthAmerican firms’ common response is toextend hours for current employees andincrease the part-time workforce. If thisfails, they lay off workers and increase

the workload of remaining employees.25

Corporate strategies typically involvebuilding up a core labour force, while atthe same time fostering an essentially"disposable and flexible" labour forcethat can be hired and fired, as marketdemand requires.

Moreover, under the pressure ofheightened global competition today,employers, especially in North America,have reverted to straightforward, old-style, anti-union practices: actively un-ion-busting in order to keep their mana-gerial control over their labour force.Businesses conduct strong anti-unioncampaigns, and typically hire legalteams to thwart organizing drives, aswell as hire new workers to squeeze outcurrent employees.

All of this is part of the long-termbusiness strategy of retaining as muchcontrol over work organization as pos-sible, while at the same time loweringthe cost of new jobs, and building up alow-wage, part-time, contingentworkforce.

In LMEs, these corporate strategieshave been very successful. They have be-come even more successful with recentchanges in LMEs’ labour policies.


III. Globalization and Liberal Market Labour Policy

relations systems, the redistribution ofwealth, and the expansion of public serv-ices.

But as the pressures of the globaleconomy have increased and unemploy-ment has grown, again states have re-sponded in very different ways.27 In co-ordinated market economies, the goalshave remained the development of long-term growth and employment-enhanc-ing public policies, which will then un-derpin continued welfare state provi-sion.28 The internationalization of theeconomy has weakened these policystrategies, in some cases significantly.Nonetheless, many European stateshave adapted, and have continued towork to enhance economic performance,as well as to sustain public provision.29

In these West European countries,the reform of welfare and employmentpolicies has not resulted in the end ofactive labour measures, nor the retrench-ment of benefits that today still ensure ahigh standard of living for all citizens.30

It has meant the partial and piecemeal

Throughout the post-war period,the success of the advanced in-dustrial economies in part sof-

tened these corporate trends, as govern-ments used this opportunity to play amajor role in levelling out the field be-tween labour and business. The tremen-dous growth of national economies from1945-1975 provided the basis for firmsaccepting unions, and for businessespaying higher wages and grantinggreater job security in order to obtainmore cooperation in the workplace andmake their workers better consumers.

And on the basis of economic expan-sion, governments supported labourrights and institutions, redistributingwealth and increasing their social expen-ditures in order to fulfill a post-war com-mitment to democracy, and to avoid fu-ture conflicts over the lack of equality.26

Welfare states subsequently expandedwith growing national economies and,as much in North America as in West-ern Europe, they achieved their goalsthrough the consolidation of industrial

Summary Points

• LMEs have tried to conform to the global economy, rather than counteract it.

• Across LMEs, national and state governments have sought to deregulate labour institutions,lower employment standards, and cut social entitlements in order to “optimize efficiencyand productivity.”

• For trade unions in the UK, the U.S., and Australia, the results of these policies have beendisastrous, with rapidly declining memberships, institutional upheaval, and the faltering ofbargaining power.


deregulation of labour markets. But,overall, most European governmentshave not radically deregulated their la-bour markets because they remain skep-tical of its promised results and fearfulof the possible consequences of inequal-ity and political upheaval.31

By contrast, in LMEs, labour marketand welfare state programs have alwaysbeen done on the cheap.32 Public ex-penditure has been kept low and re-tained as a residual set of programsgeared to keep people in the labour mar-ket, rather than upholding full-employ-ment and expanding social provision.Benefits have been meagerly deliveredvia means-tested assistance, as well asby a modest amount of universal trans-fers, primarily for education and healthcare.

Consequently, in these countries, asthe globalized economy has expanded,governments have tried to conform tothe global economy rather than to coun-teract it. In liberal market economies likethe United States, Britain, and Australia,the argument commonly made is thattheir economies can only be competitiveby moving toward more "pure" labourmarkets and deregulating labour insti-tutions. The welfare state and employ-ment standards, it is argued, are "obsta-cles to growth," and only a reduction inspending, as well as the deregulation ofhiring and firing rules, wage setting, andworking time will revive economic pros-perity. These strategies are part of a glo-bal "economic adjustment" set of policiesintended to give markets a greater roleand the state less of one in order to"optimize efficiency and productivity."

For LME governments, the key pri-orities are the removal of all “obstacles

to market clearing” and the relocationof decision-making power back to com-panies.33 Companies, not unions, are tocontrol wage bargaining, hiring, andworking time, and benefits are to beslashed so that unions will not "distort"wage costs, and the unemployed will nothave "distorted work incentives" and sowill re-enter employment as quickly aspossible.34 Lower wages, more flexiblelabour markets, and lower state spend-ing, it is thought, are supposed to restoreeconomic competitiveness.

To this end, in both Britain and theUnited States, over the past two decades,governments and businesses havelaunched campaigns against organizedlabour in their attempts to break downtraditional union rights and structures,and reorganize production along moreflexible lines. In both countries, govern-ments have actively created a hostileanti-union political climate, and in boththe results have been the same. Organ-ized labour has declined dramatically,employment standards have been weak-ened, and collective bargaining, if ithasn’t collapsed completely, has beenforced down to the enterprise level.35

For trade unions, the results of thesenew deregulation strategies have beendramatic. In Britain, following legislativechanges that made it harder to organizeand that completely eliminated themechanisms of sectoral contract exten-sion, union membership dropped by40% in the 1980s, from over 13 millionworkers to 7.9 million.36

In the U.S., the widespread passageof "right to work" legislation, the weak-ening and non-enforcement of lawsagainst "unfair labour practices" duringorganizing drives, and the practice of


concessionary bargaining have led to therapid decline of unions, which havefallen from representing some 25% ofworkers at the beginning of the 1980s tobarely 13% today, and in the private sec-tor labour force, to less than 10%.37 Be-tween 1975 and 1997, American unionslost 4 million members, and saw their

effective powers decline on all fronts.Today, for the majority of Americanworkers, collective bargaining has effec-tively disappeared and been replacedeither by "human relations" and worker"participation" schemes, or by sweat-shop conditions.

Table 1: Comparative Union Density, 1980-20001980 1990 1995 2000

Canada 30% 33% 32.3% 29.9%US 23% 22% 16% 13.6%UK 50% 39% 29% 27%Australia 49% 46% 35% 24%Sweden 80% 83% 91% (a)86%(a)-1997 dataSources: (a) International Labour Office, World Labour Report 1998 (Geneva: 1998); (b) Bernhard Ebbinghaus andJelle Visser Trade Unions in Europe Since 1945 (London: Macmillan, 2000); c) Statistics Canada, Labour Force Survey;and d) OECD, Labour Market Statistics 2001ed. (Paris: 2001).


IV. Canada and Liberal Market Labour Policy: From the Safety Net to the "Work-Net" and Labour Market Flexibility

In a manner entirely consistent withthe other LMEs, both federal and pro-vincial governments have claimed un-employment is due to a number of "mar-ket-blocking" institutions and regula-tions.38 Employment standards andhealth and safety regulations increasethe costs of business and make labour"inflexible;" trade unions increase wagecost settlements; and welfare systems es-tablish work "disincentives" that giveworkers options other than low-wageand part-time employment.39

To deal with these, new policies havebeen enacted to foster labour marketcompetition. Governments have soughtto transform welfare services from a"safety-net" system into a "work-net"—one that is intended to expand employ-ment growth through low-end con-sumer and social service jobs, pushingworkers into such jobs, regardless of

In Canada, there has not yet been asimilar precipitous fall of unionmembership and power. Nor have

similar levels of inequality and povertyyet emerged. But it may be only a mat-ter of time. For in intent, scope, and di-rection, over the past 10 years, thechanges to labour legislation as well asto labour market and welfare policy inCanada are entirely similar to those inother liberal market countries. The in-tent of recent Canadian policies is to fol-low the practice of other liberal econo-mies, and to slowly remove the pillarsthat have supported the union move-ment and Canadian workers for the past50 years. If carried forward in their en-tirety, it may well be only a matter of 5-10 years before Canada will see a simi-lar rapid downward slide for unions,and a similar collapse of wages and em-ployment conditions.

Summary Points

• In Canada, over the past decade, governments have created a hostile, anti-union climate inorder to make labour more “market-conforming.”

• These political changes have included cuts to assistance policies, social entitlements, andhealth and safety enforcement; the lowering of employment standards; as well as the weak-ening of union recognition legislation. They have also included cuts and the privatization ofthe public sector, as well as heightened immigration to increase low-wage job competition.

• The “safety net” in Canada is being transformed into a “work net,” designed to push workersback into the labour force as quickly as possible, and to keep workers in ever worseningjobs.


wage or working conditions, and throw-ing out all workers who fail to perform.

Since 1996, a number of "work-net"policies have been enacted, both provin-cially and federally. These include: i) a reduction in all income support

programs, and the effective end of allactive labour market policies;

ii) the creation of functional flexibilityin working time;

iii) the weakening of employment lawand union recognition legislation;

iv) the expansion of the labour supplyto increase wage competition; and

v) new restrictions on public sector un-ions and wage bargaining.Among the most important changes

to Canadian labour market policy tomake it more market-conforming havebeen the cuts to unemployment assist-ance and other social entitlements. Aspart of the restructuring of public serv-ice delivery with the introduction ofCHST (Canadian Health and SocialTransfers), unemployment insuranceand associated programs have been cutor offloaded to the provinces (except inOntario) (McBride 2000).40 In 1989, 87%of the unemployed were covered; by1996 fewer than 40% received benefits,and those who did found that their ben-efits had dropped from 60% of earningsto 50%.41 Likewise, the increase in hoursto 900 required for claimants to qualifyeffectively allowed only some 15% of un-employed youth to receive benefits, andonly 31% of women, down from 70% in1987.42

Active labour market policies and avariety of adjustment benefits have simi-larly been cut in order to "reduce thedependency on social assistance." In1996, the federal government withdrew

from training and the funding of activelabour market policies, and ended la-bour adjustment benefits like mobilityassistance, wage subsidies, and the fund-ing of training programs. In their stead,provinces have simply provided na-tional electronic job boards and resuméwriting services.

Provinces have also tightened thequalifying criteria for receiving disabil-ity pensions, health and safety compen-sation, as well as maternity benefits. So-cial assistance benefits have been cut,weeks of eligibility reduced, and all wel-fare recipients made subject to workfareprovisions. This has resulted in 300,000people being disentitled from social ben-efits.43

To reduce costs and to create a labourmarket that will attract investment, sig-nificant regulatory changes have beenrecently put into effect to create a more"flexible" labour market. Minimumwages have continually fallen in realterms in eight of 10 provinces over thepast 20 years44, and are currently at some10% below an income level necessary toreach the poverty level.45

The federal government is also con-sidering how to foster an age-graded,two-tier minimum wage, with a lowerminimum proposed for new entrantsinto the labour force. Following the leadof British Columbia, which introducedthe two-tier model last November, thelower wage is supposedly intended tohelp youth and new entrants with fewerthan 500 hours of work to gain experi-ence and enter the labour force morequickly.46 In a similar illogical manner,health and safety budgets have been cutin all provincial budgets (except Que-


bec), decreasing the number of inspec-tions and prosecutions of offenders.47

Perhaps the most important changehas been the introduction of new em-ployment standards legislation, which inOntario, Alberta, and now British Co-lumbia has allowed the averaging ofhours over a number of weeks to reduceovertime pay, as well as allowed con-struction and resource contractors to hireand fire workers with no notice.48 As in-tended, with the increased flexibility ofhours and little employment protection,the part-time/no-benefit workforce hasexpanded. But far from improving eco-nomic conditions for workers, this hasonly served to widen the gap betweengood and bad jobs.

It is equally clear that several provin-cial governments are determined to re-duce union membership and impedeunion organizing activities. Ontario andAlberta have passed more restrictive leg-islation on union organizing, makingcertification more difficult, by introduc-ing a two-stage process of first card sign-ing, followed by a mandatory vote. Thishas opened the door for employers toconduct longer anti-union campaigns.At the same time, Ontario and Albertahave weakened "unfair practice legisla-tion," eliminating automatic certificationbecause of employer interference duringcertification drives (Ontario Bill 31 in1998), and giving employers muchgreater leeway in their attempts to keepunions out.49

Employers were also given a boostin Ontario when the Harris governmentrevoked "anti-scab" legislation, givingbusinesses the right to hire non-unionreplacement workers when needed. TheB.C. Campbell government has recently

begun to consider legislation that will doall of the same things.50 The upshot isthat employers in each of these provincesnow have much more of a free hand indealing with unions, and in conductingstronger anti-union campaigns. On topof this, Alberta and Ontario have enactedlegislation making it easier for workersto decertify, forcing employers to postand distribute decertification material,and prohibiting unions for one year fromattempting to re-certify any workplacewhich has been decertified or where theunion has failed to gain certification.

Labour flexibility has likewise meantthat the federal government has soughtto expand the numbers of workers in thelabour market by increasing the num-bers of immigrant workers into Canada.When combined with trade deregulationand NAFTA, this has expanded job com-petition and led to the disappearance ofjobs at adequate wages.51 Throughoutthe 1990s, the average annual influx of220,000 immigrant workers, primarilyfrom South-East Asia and Latin America,has significantly lowered labour costsand led to the emergence of low-wage,immigrant contractors who can respondquickly to changes in consumer demand.

Such developments have created arapidly growing non-unionized immi-grant sector, in which many jobs are part-time and seasonal, and wages and work-ing conditions considerably below thosein the formal labour market. Sub-con-tracting in these manufacturing indus-tries to shops that employ 10 to 20 work-ers has further eroded wages and work-ing conditions in local labour markets.52

Unions have found it difficult to organ-ize among low-income workers in theseindustries because of their inability to


prevent sweatshops, and because work-ers then continue to fiercely compete forlow-wage jobs in these industries.

Finally, the restructuring and priva-tization of public sector employment haseroded the public sector workforce andunion membership. Under the aegis ofmaking the government more "efficient,"federal and provincial governmentshave followed the American and Britishexamples and sought to reduce the sizeof the public sector and inject more "com-petition" into public service provision.

There has been little outright unionde-recognition, as in other LMEs, (andthe one attempt in Ontario in 1995-6 pre-cipitated the largest rotating one-daystrikes in Canadian history53), but essen-tial service legislation, which takes awayworkers’ rights to strike and bargain, hasbeen extended to some 10-15% of pro-vincial workforces.54 In British Colum-bia, the new Liberal government hasbecome the first under Bill 29 to simplyvoid collective agreements and removeall contract provisions for health careworkers that protected against contract-ing-out, privatization, and restructur-ing.55

But by far the most popular govern-ment options have been legislated con-tracts and wage freezes, combined withthe downloading and amalgamation ofservices. Both of these tactics have hadtheir intended effects of reducing thepublic sector wage bill and cutting thenumber of unionized public sectorworkers.56 Across all provinces, legis-lated wage freezes or concessionary bar-gaining has been imposed on public sec-tor workers,57 and across all provincesthere has been an increased emphasis onrationalization and greater autonomy for

municipalities, hospitals, and schoolboards.

What this has typically meant is thedownloading and the restructuring ofpublic services, with the goals of cutsin funding, as well as the delegation ofresponsibility and collective bargaininginto local hands. As a result, lower lev-els of government or sectoral associa-tions have had to push through amalga-mations in municipalities, hospitals, andschools, and then increase contracting-out. These lower levels of governmenthave also had to offer more early retire-ment and voluntary separation pack-ages, and resort to hiring freezes—all ofwhich have led to extensive programand service cuts that have eliminatedjobs. This has followed on the heels ofthe widespread privatization of Crowncorporations in energy and transporta-tion in the late 1980s and early 1990s.58

Unsurprisingly, by 2001 general govern-ment employment slipped to 14% of thelabour force—the average of all LMEs—down from 20% only eight years earlier.59

And overall, public sector workers nowaccount for only 17.5% of the entireworkforce.

Over the past decade, governmentsin Canada have created a hostile anti-union political climate. Following thetrend of other liberal market economies,Canadian federal and provincial govern-ments have sought to weaken some ofthe central pillars supporting the labourmovement and workers. They havedone so by cutting off options, reducingsocial benefits, and actively seeking tomake the labour market more “flexible.” The resulting "work-net" policies havepushed workers back into the labourforce as quickly as possible, while cut-


ting away safety net policies. At the sametime, governments have adopted newpolicies to lower employment standards,to cut health and safety enforcement, toweaken union recognition legislation,and to force the downsizing and priva-tization of the public sector. These legis-

lative developments have had their in-tended effect: as in other LMEs, unionsin Canada are in decline, wage inequal-ity is expanding, and more people arebeing employed in low-end manufactur-ing and part-time consumer, personal,and social services.


V. The Dynamics of Labour Market Deregulation:The Decline of Canadian Unions and theConsolidation of Low-Wage/Part-time Flexibility

3). From 1985-2000 in the public sector,10% fewer workers were unionized, andnow only 55% of public sector/socialservices workers are unionized. Cuts totransfer payments and the downloadingof services, as well as wage freezes, joblayoffs, and privatization, have eachtaken their toll on public sector unions.Total public administration employmenthas fallen 15% over the past 10 years,plummeting in Alberta where there are40% fewer administrative workers, andin Ontario where there are 22% fewer.62

Overall, the size of the unionizedpublic sector workforce has shrunk from20% to 17.5% of the labour force. Thisdrop, along with the freeze on educationspending and hiring and the expansionof publicly funded/privately operatednursing homes and community care, hascontributed greatly to the reduction ofunion membership in Canada.

In the private sector, unionizedworkers make up only 14% of the totalworkforce, and it appears these numberswill continue to dwindle. In manufactur-ing, where job growth from 1997-2000has returned, 5% fewer workers are cov-

The decline of unions has beenparticularly dramatic over thepast few years. For the first time

since the late 1960s, union membershiphas fallen. Between 1992 and 2000, un-ion membership dropped overall bysome 100,000, and while over the pastfew years 1.5 million jobs have been cre-ated, only 180,000 new union membershave been added—an effective new un-ionization rate of 8%.60

Such a decline is reflected in bothpublic and private sectors, as well as inunion density, which for the first timesince the mid-1960s has fallen below30%61 to 29.9%. Today, over 63% of Ca-nadians work in non-union, private sec-tor jobs, and the decline of unions hasbeen much worse in some provincesthan others. In Ontario, total unionmembership has fallen from 32% of theworkforce in 1992 to 26.6% in 2000, whilein Alberta union density has declined to21% of the workforce.

The fall-off has occurred across allsectors—public and private, goods pro-ducing and services, rising industriesand those in decline (See Tables 2 and

Summary Points

• Unions in Canada have declined across all fronts, public and private, in rising industries andfalling ones.

• The fall-off of unions in Canada has opened the door to the expansion of low-wage, flexibleemployment, and it has also opened the way to increased inequality and poverty, and thegrowing segmentation of “good” and ”bad” jobs in the labour force.


ered, and now only 30% of workers areunionized. In construction, anotherslowly expanding sector, the decline hasbeen 7%, with only 30.6% unionized. Inthe service sector, apart from a modestincrease in finance, all other personal,consumer, and business services haveremained largely non-unionized, withtypical sectoral unionization rates of 7-10%.63 And this despite the fact that serv-ices had the fastest and largest jobgrowth of any sector in the 1990s.64

Early retirement, plant closings, andindustry declines account for much ofthe loss of unionized workers in goods-producing industries. But what also ac-counts for the growth of non-unionizedworkers is the use of technologicalchange and work reorganization by em-ployers, who seek to keep out or dimin-ish union influence in order to maintaintheir just-in-time flexible methods whichallow firms to out-source, sub-contract,and use more contingent part-timeworkers.65 The non-unionized workforceis consequently expanding faster thannew members are being organized.

The same holds true in the privateservice sector, where the small size ofworkplaces, the part-time nature of

workforces, the cost of organizing, andthe cost of servicing small locals are allmajor constraints to unions starting or-ganizing drives. At the same time, newfirms have taken advantage of legisla-tive changes to seek individualized re-lations with employees, rather than un-ionized ones, to implement new flexibil-ity practices in pay, work, and hiring andfiring.

Personal services, as well as priva-tized health and nursing services, haveled the expansion, with the changes inhospital restructuring and the expansionof high-end consumption creating themajority of new jobs. Overall, serviceemployment in the 1990s grew by 1.3million overall, much of which wasmade up of the increase of 515,000 part-time jobs.66 This has resulted in fewer un-ionized workers. By 1999, only some12% of young workers (15-24), 16% ofpart-timers, and 13% of women work-ing in private sector services were un-ionized.67

Predominantly, youth, women, andworkers of colour have borne the bruntof "flexibility" in services, having neitherguaranteed hours nor job security.68 Asa consequence, these groups are forced

Table 2: Falling Union Density in Canada, Sectors 1980-20001980 1985 1990 1995 2000

Manufacturing 41% 36.5% 34.9% 33% 31.5%Construction 55% 45.8% 56% 56% 30%Private services * 10.7% 10% 10.6% 9%Public and socialservices

* 65% 59% 60% 55%

* -- data unavailablePrivate services -- finance, insurance, real estate, business, accommodation, food and beverage, wholesale and retailtradeSources: (a) Statistics Canada. CANSIM Data Base. Matrix 3529 CALURA 'Number of Unionized Workers by Sex andIndustry, Canada. Annual, 1976-1995'; and Matrix 3532 Labour Force Survey 'Employees by Sex and Industry'; (b)2000 data from E.B Akyeampong, 'Unionization -- An Update'. Table 1 Perspectives on Labour and Income. Autumn(Ottawa: Statistics Canada, 2000).


to enter and withdraw from the labourforce as economic fortunes dictate. 69 Andapart from the emerging private homeand long-term care sectors (where un-ions like CUPE, the CAW, and the SEIUhave been active), unions have been un-able to reverse these trends or make anysort of significant organizing headwayin private sector services.

Such declines do not augur well forthe future of the labour movement inCanada, especially considering the newfreedom and incentive given employersin liberal market economies to expandtheir low-wage, flexible workforces.70

Higher turnover lessens the incentive toinvest in the skill development of work-ers. Contracting-out provides a way ofavoiding investment in higher produc-tivity or hiring new employees. And, asproductivity continues to fall, firms re-spond either by further ratcheting downthe wages and working conditions ofsome, or by increasing the use of over-time for full-time workers, especially inthe manufacturing primary industries,as well as among salaried workers in thepublic services.

Over the 1990s, employers have ex-panded their use of overtime to avoidnew investment in plant and to avoidtraining or hiring new workers. Instead,more employees are working morehours, and more are working part-timehours. Some 15% of the labour force nowregularly work longer than 50 hours aweek, while another 13% work less than29 hours a week.71 Longer hours occurespecially in manufacturing and pri-mary resources, and part-time hours arecommon in personal and food services,as well as in public health and social

services, where the majority of overtimegoes unpaid.72

This restructuring of working timeonly reinforces the polarization of in-comes, expands the pool of low-wageworkers, and continues the cycle of firmscutting costs through lower wages andnew forms of flexibility.

Conditions are unlikely to change forthe better. Cuts to minimum wages andsocial security and the paring-back ofemployment conditions have not led tothe creation of more good jobs, nor havethey contributed to rising productivityor growth. And the weakening of sup-port for union recognition and the de-regulation of employment standardshave only made it easier for new em-ployers to dispense with unions alto-gether. One of the most notable trendsof restructuring has been the disappear-ance of old firms that recognized tradeunions, and the rise of new ones thatwish to avoid or dispense with unionsaltogether. The results of this are clear:more low-wage service jobs; the stagna-tion of real wages; chronic unemploy-ment; and widening inequality.

Throughout the 1990s, the number ofhours worked at low wages rose from15% in 1988 to 22% in 1995 for men, andfrom 32% to 36% for women.73 Today,64% of all minimum-wage workers arewomen, and men in all sectors and in-come levels have seen no increase intheir real wages since the 1970s.74 Theunemployment rate averaged 9.8% inthe 1990s, an all-time post-war high, anddespite the recent cuts to employmentbenefits, more than one million remainunemployed, and 20% of the workforceis put out of work in any single year.75


The effects have been that, over thepast 20 years, half of the population sawtheir market incomes fall, and the poor-est shouldered an 86% loss of earnings.76

The gap between the rich and the poorhas expanded ten-fold, and the top 20%of income earners currently take home21 times more income than the poorest20%, which works out to the top 10% ofincome earners raking in 41% of totalincome. At the same time, the povertyrate for single-parent mothers currentlysits at 54%, and the number of familiesliving on less than half of the povertyline income has increased from 143,000to 233,000.

What these statistics make painfullyclear is that Canadian federal and pro-vincial governments are looking to po-sition Canada along two roads: one ori-ented to high-end business and financialservices, along with some advancedmanufacturing; the other structured as

a low-wage, deregulated export andservice economy that attracts foreign in-vestment, especially from Americanfirms. In neither of these models is therea place for a strongly unionizedworkforce.

The changes in union recognitionand employment legislation, as well asthe restructuring of public sector bar-gaining, are intended to erode the cen-tral pillars of union strength, and toguide the country onto the low-wagederegulated road. It appears they arebeginning to have a great deal of suc-cess, making the long-term prospectsbleak—away from trade unions and col-lective bargaining, and towards aneconomy where managers unilaterallyset the terms and conditions of employ-ment with only minimal legislative con-straint. To stem this decline, unions mustbegin to develop new strategies and re-structure their organizations.


VI. Can Canadian Unions Survive in a Liberal Globalized Economy?

at sectoral levels), they have been ableto protect and win gains for day-care,pensions, sick pay, unemployment in-surance, education, and parental leave.78

They have also played a role in support-ing the Social Democratic government’spreservation of the welfare state, andhelping in the public restructuring ofhealth and community services. In short,size does matter.

Unions in Canada have begun to rec-ognize this fact, and started to make ef-forts to change their focus. For publicsector unions, in particular, there hasbeen an increased emphasis on publiccampaigns that emphasize the impor-tance of non-market services, and howcritical they are for democracies. Severalunions in both the public and privatesectors have also expanded their organ-izing efforts, and developed more fo-cused recruitment strategies.79 TheUSWA, for example, has committed 20%of its general fund to organizing, and en-

Across the world, unions face po-litical and organizational prob-lems. Low growth, economic

internationalization, and less friendlygovernments have combined to weakenunions as organizations and erode theirclout at the bargaining table. Still, somehave fared better than others; and wher-ever unions have maintained their mem-bership and made organizationalchanges, they have retained their politi-cal influence on governments and politi-cal parties to maintain progressive poli-cies, regulations, and favourable legalcontexts.

In Sweden over the past decade, forexample, unions have expanded theirmembership to over 85% of theworkforce, and worked to create newmeans of white- and blue-collar unioncoordination.77 If Swedish trade unionshave not been able to maintain their cen-tralized bargaining institutions (nowdecentralized to coordinated bargaining

Summary Points

• Canadian unions have begun to increase their focus on organizing and on developing or-ganizing programs to recruit workers, and especially recruit women and service sector work-ers.

•The USWA, UFCW, CAW, UNITE, and CUPE, for example, have all devoted more resources andstaff to organizing.

• Still, this has not been enough, and unions are still some 50,000 to 80,000 workers short ofthe new members required every year for the labour movement to maintain its relative sizeand strength, and 275,000 short of the number required if the labour movement wants toexpand even by 1% of the workforce.


couraged locals to spend 10% of their re-sources on recruitment. The CAW hascommitted 2% of union dues to organ-izing, and, supplemented with nationalmoney and local contributions, it nowhas a large annual budget committed torecruitment.

Unions have also adopted muchmore intensive rank-and-file organizing.The UFCW in Ontario now has three lo-cals with full-time organizers, and 10 or-ganizers overall,80 and many unionshave developed programs to train rank-and-file members to organize, with boththe UFCW and CAW training some 100workers for community-based organiz-ing. In turn, this new focus has led to aheightened attention to the best organ-izing strategies, with much recent em-phasis placed on "salting," where unionmembers are hired into non-union firmsand then attempt to establish an insidecommittee to lead an organizing drive.Such efforts have led to many new certi-fications of bargaining units acrossCanada.

Another positive development is thatunions are concentrating much more oftheir effort on private service sectorworkers and on organizing women. De-spite the difficulty of organizing in pri-vate services with small workplaces,high employee turnover, and the tightpersonal control of managers, servicesector organizing in Ontario now ac-counts for the second largest number ofemployees unionized, close to a quarterof all union certification applications,and the average Labour Board applica-tion success rate of 66% is wholly com-parable to other sectors.81 Bargainingunits where women made up the major-

ity of the workforce accounted for 38%of new union certification attempts. CUPE, for example, has responded tothe growth of privatized community andcare services by organizing extensively,and the majority of the 13,000 new mem-bers organized over the past two yearswere women working in these sectors.82

Unions have smartly realized that thereare no insurmountable barriers to organ-izing in the service sector, and that agreater attention to what makes somestrategies more successful than others,and what employer tactics need to becountered, makes for far more success-ful organizing drives.

But all of this effort and increasedpragmatism is seemingly not enough(See Table 3). Organizing and recruitinghave not kept pace with the growth ofthe workforce, nor with the cuts and pri-vatization in the public sector workforce.In Ontario, from 1995 to 1999, unionstypically organized 21,000 new membersannually over the past decade, with anaverage of 4,400 in the private servicesector, 3,500 in manufacturing, and 4,200in health and welfare.83 In Ontario, be-tween 1992-1999, unions organized some122,000 workers, yet overall union mem-bership fell by 94,000. Across Canada,unions have simply been unable to keeppace. This has effectively established anew unionization rate of 8%, a percent-age far below the necessary 30% neededfor unions simply to maintain their over-all size.84

The main problems are that the ma-jority of unions have still not commit-ted the organizing resources necessaryto overcome the decline, and that themajority of central labour bodies havenot made the changes necessary to de-


Table 3: Unionized Workers in Canada, Sectors 1980-2000Total employees: '000

1980 1985 1990 1995 2000Total 3,084 3,433 3,840 3,857 3,740Falling sectorsI TransformativeManufacturing(total)

877 743 682 596 688

Construction 274 228 331 307 165Transportationequip.

120 113 104 109 *

Paper 95 87 83 69 68Primary metal 90 70 58 52 56Electrical 58 50 40 29.5 17.9Machinery 32.8 29 21.5 19.4 21.2II Distributive servicesWholesale 30 46.5 54.6 59.6 20Food and beverage 123 105 117 93 46Retail 119 136.5 185.8 189 113III Public and social servicesPublicadministration

503 555 635 642 497

Education * * 636 675 632

Rising SectorsI ManufacturingMotor vehicle, body,and parts

* * * (a)99 112.5

II Distributive servicesTransportation * * 232 244 266Trade 150 183 240 248 265Finance 14.8 16.5 21 24.2 *Accommodation/Food

* 52 61.3 65 67

III Social servicesHealth and socialservices

* 490 558 592 695

• -- data unavailable(a) -- data for 1997Sources: (a) Statistics Canada. CANSIM Data Base. Matrix 3529 CALURA 'Number of Unionized Workers by Sex (b)2000 data from E.B Akyeampong, 'Unionization -- An Update'. Perspectives on Labour and Income. Autumn (Ottawa:Statistics Canada, 2000); as well as c) Statistics Canada, Labour Force Survey Employed Employees by NorthAmerican Classification System, 1997-2000'. Courtesy of Marc Levesque Labour Force Statistics Division, StatisticsCanada.


velop comprehensive union-buildingcampaigns. In the vast majority of un-ion locals, no members are involved inexternal organizing, and only very fewunions, like the USWA, the CAW, andthe UBCJA, have developed training forrank-and-file organizers. Wider cam-paigns require full-time organizing di-rectors, full-time researchers, a sizeablestaff of full-time organizers, and morevolunteer organizers. These resourcesare still scarce in Canadian union rankstoday.

In addition, many unions still con-duct very traditional campaigns that in-volve little personal contact, and veryfew employ the external pressure tactics,ranging from civil disobedience to pub-lic pressure, necessary to counter aggres-sive employer campaigns. Nor doesthere seem to have been any recognitionof the need for different organizing cam-paigns and union structures for differ-ent kinds of workers, such as in the bur-geoning high-tech sector or in the rap-idly changing health care services. Evenamong union leaders and members,there is often a caution that turns intoimmobility, fearing that the returns onorganizing will be so minimal that it willonly be a waste of money and will leadto a loss of overall services to existingmembers.

As a consequence, much union ex-pansion activity has focused on merg-ers, or in the public sector, on winningrepresentation votes in districts forcedto amalgamate and consolidate bargain-ing units. Seen as a “quick fix” to uniondecline, mergers have been used to gainaccess to larger strike funds and betterservicing resources.85 Notably, the CAWbetween 1985 and 1996 gained 92,000

members through mergers, and only32,000 through organizing. In the pub-lic sector, the most notable merger hasbeen that of the Hospital EmployeesUnion in British Columbia, whose 35,000workers rejoined CUPE in 1995.86

Such examples are numerous, but ifmergers have arrested membership de-cline, they have contributed little in theway of organizing new members. Thesame is true in the public sector, whererestructuring has led to numerous rep-resentation votes in municipalities,school boards, and health care, as bar-gaining units have been forced to amal-gamate. The majority of these have beenin Ontario recently, but across Canada,CUPE, for example, has gained as manynew members from these consolida-tions—13,000—as it has from organizingnew units.87 Forced by government re-structuring, such votes have been a drainon union resources, and resulted in themajority of new member growth com-ing from existing unionized workers,rather than from organizing the unor-ganized.

Nor has much effort been made atrecasting the relationships between tradeunions and the national and provincialcentral bodies [such as the CanadianLabour Congress and its provincial Fed-erations of Labour], nor any effort atdesigning institutions where public andprivate sector trade unions can coordi-nate strategies. Instead, at a time whenunions have only increased their rival-ries and come into conflict in their com-petition for potential new merger part-ners, or in winning representation votes,the CLC and its provincial federationshave only become more embroiled indisputes over union raiding.


Despite many attempts to resolvedisputes and foster cooperation, lackingan effective autonomous commission,neither the CLC nor provincial federa-tions have been able to overcome themutual distrust and suspicion betweenunions.88 This has put up yet anotherroadblock to wider membership re-newal.89

All of these problems show upstarkly in figures such as the unioniza-tion rate among workers of colour,which is still below 25%; among youngworkers, fewer than 11% of whom areunionized; and in the under-unionizedservice sector. They also show up in thecurrent rate of new union recruitment,which is not only short of the new mem-bers required every year if unions are tomaintain their overall size and strength,but is also some 275,000 short of thenumber annually required if unionswant to expand their share of the labourforce by as little as 1%.

Clearly it is the case that unions’ stra-tegic responses matter. How unions de-velop new strategies that protect andadvance their shared interests will affecttheir size and political strength. Thekinds of outreach, recruitment, and or-ganizational changes that unions and

labour movements undertake will deter-mine their future. In Canada, unionshave taken a number of positive stepsto improve their organizing tactics andto commit greater resources to recruit-ment. Nonetheless, unionization inCanada has continued to decline.

This has extremely negative implica-tions, and in many ways the Canadianexperience now appears to be parallel-ing earlier developments in the UnitedStates and Britain. In both these coun-tries, first the organizational size of un-ions diminished, then their political po-sition weakened, and finally the labourmarket and industrial strength of unionsin large measure crumbled.

In both of these countries, trade un-ions were slow to recognize their vulner-ability, and only after it was too late didthey realize the scale of the problemsfacing them, and begin to undertakemajor changes in recruiting, collectivebargaining, and campaigning for a widerrange of legal rights for workers. Cana-dian trade unions need to take thesecomparative lessons to heart, and beginto make the required organizational andstructural changes so that they can avoida similar downfall.


VII. A Fine Balance: Weighing Reform and Structural Change in the Canadian Labour Movement

and collective bargaining, as well as newstructures and institutions. Only by com-bining these, they are beginning to real-ize, will they survive.

Canadian unions will need to cometo the same realization if they are to be-gin to tip the scales back against globali-zation and against the pressures for alow-wage/part-time workforce. TheCanadian labour movement can come tothis realization and reverse the currentdeclines, but it will have to act quicklyand effectively to do so. For, as both theAmerican and British experiences nowmake painfully clear, the time to under-take organizational changes is before acrisis hits, not after.

The rapid fall of unions across LMEs,though, has had a modest upside: it hasled to the introduction of a number ofnew ideas, programs, and structures.Common to all of the national unionmovements in Britain, the U.S., and Aus-tralia over the past few years has beenthe creation of organizing institutes, co-

In Canada, as in all advanced indus-trial countries, the degree to whichunions regroup will determine their

success in surviving and growing as pro-gressive social forces for the next century.Regardless of globalization andneoliberal restructuring, it is still the casethat what unions do and the strategiesthey adopt will decide their future. Inboth the United States and Britain, dur-ing the 1980s and early 1990s when un-ions were beginning their decline, therewas a widespread reluctance amongtrade unions to launch extensive recruit-ment drives or to make significant struc-tural changes.

Only now, after the fact, have labourmovements in both these countries un-dertaken major changes.90 What bothhave come to realize is that union recruit-ment and organizing are critical, but sotoo are new goals for political activity

Summary Points

• Canadian unions will need to expand and make structural and institutional changes if theyare to counter globalization and neoliberal restructuring.

• Changes which would have a positive impact include:• a National Organizing Commission and National Organizing Institute;• provincial coordinating committees and organizing schools;• worker centres;• more union local participation in organizing;• new bargaining structures for service sectors; and• more focus in collective bargaining on reducing overtime and workload, in

order to create more jobs and foster community solidarity.


ordinating committees, and worker cen-tres, the expanded use of training pro-grams, and a much greater attention tothe success rates of organizing tactics, aswell as the conduct of strategic organiz-ing campaigns.

Each of these has been implementedwith varying degrees of success, butwhat these examples demonstrate is awillingness to experiment with new di-rections, and a willingness to rethink thebasic structures of their labour move-ments. If each of these union movementsnow face uphill battles in rebuildingtheir organizations, such experimentshave nevertheless given a sense of reju-venation to activists and membersalike.91

This in itself is no small accomplish-ment. But, more importantly, by devel-oping an emphasis on the need to in-crease the size of their membership,make structural changes, and forge alli-ances with other popular forces in soci-ety, these labour movements have begunto formulate new visions that speak tothe goals and needs of workers, and thatlink labour movements to the widercommunity. These changes have anumber of important lessons forCanada.

The first of these is that unions needto expand, and if they do not, they willdecline. Mergers are not a solution, asboth British and American unions haverealized. Rather, the only effective wayunions can expand is to organize. Thisis not easily accomplished. As Ameri-cans unions have also quickly discov-ered, simply throwing money and staffinto organizing is not enough to over-come legal changes, employer resistance,and worker fear.92

Moreover, Canada, like the U.S., hasa predominantly decentralized and frag-mented system of workplace bargaining,and the CLC is not a strong centralizedtrade union confederal body, so makingextensive national changes quickly isextremely difficult. Nevertheless, whatthe Canadian labour movement requiresis to begin to take the first steps neces-sary to make a major shift in directionand the expenditure of time and re-sources.

Unions and labour federations willhave to spend more time and money onorganizing and correspondingly less onservicing and collective bargaining. Inthe United States, the AFL-CIO has re-quested that all its affiliates earmark 30%of their budgets to organizing. This sub-stantial number is far from being real-ized for the majority of unions. But fora minority of "innovative" locals, 15-30%of their budgets have been committedto organizing .93 For Canadian unions tobegin to make the shift towards organ-izing on a wider scale, the CLC, unionleaders and activists must begin to worktowards expanding organizing re-sources, and winning members’ supportfor union recruitment. They will have toreach out to workers, and build morecomprehensive approaches to rank- and-file organizing. This will require unionleaders all across the labour movementto actively start building the structuresand understanding needed for such ashift.

It will also require commitmentssimilar to those made by the USWA andthe CAW to earmark substantial propor-tions of general funds and local uniondues to organizing. If the CLC, provin-cial federations of labour, national and


international unions, and union localswere as an initial benchmark each tocommit 10% of their budgets towardsorganizing, a major start could be madein shifting the labour movement in thedirection of an organizing model.

The second lesson is that labourmovements must make changes to con-front the challenges of globalization andneoliberalism. If they do not, their insti-tutions will give way under pressure.Such changes entail an extensive restruc-turing of federations, as well as a con-tinued shift in collective bargaining, iforganizing is to be taken to the scale re-quired for union renewal, and if unionsare to stem the loss of jobs and the wors-ening of conditions.

In neither Britain nor the UnitedStates have such deep and far-reachingchanges yet occurred. But, as their ini-tial attempts at reform have demon-strated, for a national labour movementto shift its energy towards organizingrequires changes at all levels—from topto bottom.

This means changes in how labourbodies and associations are run. To beeffective, things such as long-term plan-ning, training of rank-and-file members,and worker centres need new levels ofcoordination between unions and organ-izers, at all levels of the labour move-ment. In Canada, this will require newinstitutions and structures for the CLC,provincial federations of labour, andunion locals, as well as for major metro-politan areas and communities.

The third lesson is that, where unionmovements have invested more in or-ganizing, employed a wider range of or-ganizing tactics, and undertaken thestructural commitments necessary for

union renewal, they have been success-ful. It is clear that comprehensive union-building campaigns can bring results,and do much to boost union renewal, aswell as improve the conditions for allworkers.

The same can occur in Canada. Al-ready a number of positive changes havebeen enacted in provinces and in munici-palities. And this past June, at the Cana-dian Labour Congress convention inVancouver, a resolution was passed call-ing for changes in how organizing is car-ried out nationwide. These preliminaryprojects and ideas need to be investi-gated further, and debated by the CLCand its affiliates at a national organizingconference. The proposals that must belooked at include:

• A more active CLC, campaign-ing for a higher working wageand improved rights for work-ers.What is necessary today are a

broader base of rights and labour legis-lation which unions can build upon. TheCLC can take a leading role in a cam-paign for a "living wage," with a statu-tory national minimum indexed to in-flation that will begin to close off the low-wage option. Similarly required areequal rights for both full- and part-timeworkers, improved employment stand-ards, restrictions on the length of theworkweek, and improved health andsafety conditions. These will help pro-vide low-wage workers with protection,and strengthen unions and the collectivebargaining process by bringing in legis-lative safeguards against ever-widerbusiness flexibility strategies.


The CLC can also take a more activerole in pushing for new rights to organ-ize in the workplace. The reinstatementof card-signing and enforcement of thelaws against unfair labour practiceswould go a long way toward once againlevelling the playing field between em-ployers and workers during certificationdrives. The achievement of these rightswould provide a lever for organizing inthe service sector and low-wage manu-facturing, where declining labour stand-ards have been used by employers astheir main reason to keep unions out,and as the main reason why low-paidand immigrant workers must continueto compete for jobs.

Of equal importance is the fact thata campaign for the improvement of le-gal rights and employment conditionswill strengthen the cause of labouramong non-unionized workers. In theUnited States, a majority of cases showthat, where organizers were directly in-volved in rights-based campaigns andin providing legal advice and commu-nity mobilization, workers who werelater targeted in these communities weremuch more likely to take out unionmembership.94

• A National Organizing Com-mission, a National OrganizingInstitute, and provincial organ-izing schools will each contrib-ute substantially to new mem-bership recruitment and helpenormously in the shift of un-ion focus to the expansion oforganizing resources.A National Organizing Commission

can establish the long-term goals and pa-

rameters of organizing, and set rules onraiding, mergers, and amalgamations. Itcan also be given the task of annuallysetting national goals and objectives, aswell as setting and enforcing goals forprovinces and sectors. The Commissionwill help in the development of long-term strategies, and will have a role inoverseeing the implementation and ad-ministration of provincial committeesand campaigns.

A National Organizing Institute cansupplement the Commission by collect-ing and compiling data, and putting to-gether a research team that assesses in-dustries, sectors, and best strategies fororganizing. Headquartered at the CLC,the Institute will help the Commissionset annual national goals, and, whereprovincial federations lack resources andstaff, the Institute will train organizersand pay them to work on campaigns orat worker centres. The Institute shouldalso take an active role in developing orrevamping rank-and-file organizing pro-grams, workshops, and materials fornational distribution, and have an activerole alongside provincial federations inthe development of organizing schools.Now more than ever, wider organiza-tional changes and tactical innovationsare needed for organizing campaigns. ANational Organizing Institute forCanada would go along way in ensur-ing these needs are met.

Organizing schools should be situ-ated in provincial federations, and pro-vide programs and workshops for rank-and-file members, as well as for youth,immigrants, and non-unionized work-ers. As such programs everywhere haveshown, from the AFL-CIO to the Aus-tralian Council of Trade Unions to the


British Columbia Federation of Labour,these schools can train volunteer rank-and-file union members on how to par-ticipate in organizing campaigns, andplay a long-term role in revamping train-ing and recruitment programs for organ-izers.95

Schools can also help in the devel-opment of organizing material that canbe distributed to locals, and in helpinglocal unions conduct more aggressiveand strategic campaigns. Volunteers canthen be used, not only by their own un-ions, but also by other unions in the area,during organizing drives. Supplement-ing basic membership training would beleadership programs, whereby activistsare given the skills to build teams thatassist local unions in their organizingefforts, as well as ongoing trainingthrough which volunteers progress asthey expand the scope of their activities.

These structural changes can createa better and more comprehensive use ofresources for organizing. Many smalllocals and individual unions have lim-ited funds and members to conduct theirown campaigns. In addition, the decen-tralization of union locals often fosterssuspicion and inter-union competitionthat does not deal with the problems ofcost, lack of staff and resources, and lackof information on employers and sec-tors—shortcomings that typically deterlocals from undertaking organizing cam-paigns, and put up barriers to widerunion cooperation.

Both the CLC and provincial federa-tions of labour can overcome these prob-lems by taking on new roles and devel-oping these institutions. A National Or-ganizing Commission and a NationalOrganizing Institute can do much to en-

sure that the initial commitment to un-ion renewal becomes a long-term strat-egy, and do much to ensure that strate-gic innovations are adopted nation-wide. And both can do much to enableunions to overcome some of their ownfears and inertia. Similarly, provincialorganizing schools, possibly under CLCjurisdiction, can help unions make com-mitments to effective rank-and-file ap-proaches to organizing, as well as pro-vide a pool of volunteer labour for in-tensive recruitment drives.

These changes will require the CLCand provincial federations of labour tosignificantly boost their budgets for or-ganizing, and to commit a substantialproportion of their general funds formembership recruitment. These will notbe easy adjustments to make, but, if en-acted, they will provide the bases forconducting effective and comprehensiveunion building campaigns with thehighest rates of success.

• All provincial federations oflabour must adopt innovativeorganizing structures andpractices, such as coordinatingcommittees and the oversee-ing of provincial campaignsand organizing drives.Already established on a case-by-

case basis in British Columbia and Que-bec, as well as in a number of Americanstates, coordinating committees assist inthe planning and research for organiz-ing drives, as well as in the coordinationof multi-union and geographically-based organizing campaigns.96 Com-monly, the committee (made up of or-ganizers from different union locals)


sets targets such as image-consciouscompanies, and then helps in pinpoint-ing a company’s customers, suppliers,and financial allies in order to plan forcorporate organizing campaigns. In theUnited States, such strategic targeting ofindustries led by locals or by commit-tees is increasingly paying off, especiallywith firms that have a large numbers ofsubsidiaries or with those that have highpublic profiles and are extremely vulner-able to negative publicity.97

A committee can also help by es-tablishing a dispute protocol and in re-solving inter-union disputes. It can pro-vide information on which employersare the most promising targets for organ-izing. In addition, the committee’s regu-lar meetings allow organizers to planorganizing campaigns, find ways to"lend" organizers to unions conductingdrives, and provide the opportunity toregularly exchange information on strat-egies and tactics.

Finally, provincial committees canvery effectively maintain lists of activ-ists, create phone trees, and develop ef-fective groups of activists ready to con-duct house calls, distribute material, andprovide mass picketing at any job sitewhere employers are obstructing unionorganizing. Such committees would domuch to foster union coordination, anddo much to extend the current organiz-ing successes over a larger number ofworkplaces.

But what both provincial federationsof labour and district labour councilsmust do first is develop a wider orienta-tion, and aim to advance the interests ofnon-union workers and the communityat large. By setting up community coun-cils that include both progressive non-

union groups and non-unionized work-ers interested in work issues, these coun-cils can work to formulate strategies toincrease unionized jobs while at thesame time promoting community inter-ests for safe and humane working con-ditions, job development and training,and better wages.

Such links provide the best way todevelop comprehensive organizingdrives. As has been shown in the UnitedStates and elsewhere, comprehensivecampaigns that combine a wide rangeof tactics—from inside organizing com-mittees and house calls, to extensive cor-porate pressure, to the effective use ofmedia and mass pickets, to political andcommunity appeals for job developmentprograms or improved workers’ rights— produce success rates more than dou-ble those of traditional campaigns.98

• The creation of worker centreswill provide support amonglow-wage workers, and beginto engage communities in un-ion organizing.Worker centres already have a his-

tory in Canada. The Toronto District La-bour Council and CUPW in Winnipeghave both established worker centresthat provide educational programs, aswell as other community services andmeeting spaces. But they have not, as yet,been used as explicit components forunion-building campaigns.

In both the United States and Aus-tralia, there have been some attempts todo so.99 The idea is to use membershipprograms as a way of providing infor-mation on job rights, and enlisting vol-unteers among workers who currently


do not have collective bargaining pro-tection. The goal is to use such activitiesas springboards for organizing newworkers. Members are given the oppor-tunity to participate in strike supportand political activities, as well as organ-izing. And once experienced, membersare then encouraged to initiate organiz-ing drives in their own workplaces.

Worker centres can also provideworkers with other kinds of support,such as legal services, translators, job re-ferrals, and services for dislocated work-ers. These employment services can in-terest non-unionized workers in unioni-zation and provide information aboutpotential targets for organizing. They arenow being employed at some universi-ties as well as in targeted low-wage com-munities.

In the United States, the results ofworker centres have been generally posi-tive. They have helped organizers makecontact with workers who are interestedin unionizing, and subsequently bar-gaining units have been established.100

Often through extensive communityoutreach programs, centres have pro-vided an effective way to pool volunteerlabour, and to tap into local communityand labour activists. It is through struc-tures such as these that the AFL-CIO andthe SEIU have conducted their success-ful ‘Jobs with Justice’ and ‘Justice forJanitors’ campaigns.

Involving district labour councils,community groups, and worker centres,these campaigns have set up multi-em-ployer, multi-union organizing efforts,based on joint community-labour efforts.Workers were organized in both theirneighbourhoods and their workplaces,and the campaigns were successful be-

cause unions and community groupsmade worker rights a broader politicalissue and created a union-building cam-paign around them, often drawing oncoalition partners to set up mass picketsto pressure employers to recognize un-ions and to support the community. Inthese cases, community alliances wereessential to mobilizing public pressureand conducting effective civil disobedi-ence actions.

What these programs have demon-strated is that volunteers can be very ef-fectively used to increase organized la-bour’s presence in communities, andthat rank-and-file members working to-gether with community activists candevelop programs aimed at organizingneighbourhoods and fostering neigh-bourhood activism. Their more strategicuse in Canada can only help in organiz-ing the unorganized in this country.

• Locals must take a more activerole in committing resourcesand time into organizing.There are still far too few volunteers

for organizing, and there are still far toofew unions with programs for volunteerorganizing. A shift in local resources to-wards organizing will require majorchanges in the roles that rank-and-filemembers have in their unions. A height-ened emphasis on organizing will re-quire workers making new levels ofcommitment and participation both tosupport organizing as well as to handlesome of their own workplace issues.Locals must take new initiatives to sendmembers to organizing workshops orbring in material themselves and under-take their own programs of volunteer


member organizing. These are criticallyimportant.

Volunteers play a key role in success-ful organizing drives. Given formal andon-the-job training in phone calling,house calls, and the nature of organiz-ing campaigns, volunteers are extremelyeffective in meeting potential members,especially during blitzes for card-sign-ing or before certification votes.101 Grass-roots members know best how to relateto fellow workers, and, when used ef-fectively along with paid staff, they paydividends in recruiting new members.

It is critically important for all localsto develop or partake in training pro-grams, because organizing campaignswith strictly full-time staff are becomingtoo expensive, and without membershipinvolvement the labour-intensive tasksof house and phone calling cannot be ac-complished. Organizing is most success-ful when active volunteer members areinvolved. Locals must therefore developstructures that foster the participation oftheir members.

• Organizers in the service sec-tor will have to find ways ofmoving away from single-plant, single-union, single-em-ployer collective agreements,and towards multi-employer,multi-establishment types ofbargaining structures in occu-pational service industries.This will foster cooperative multi-

union organizing campaigns. Aimed atsecuring "closed shop" agreements, theywould allow only unionized membersto be hired and the hiring to be done inunion hiring halls or joint union-man-

agement dispatch systems. Found so faronly in trucking, construction, fishing,and longshoring, occupational unionismwould be a function of membership andprovide modest training programs. Ageneral agreement could be struck witha certified employers’ association, andthen individual employers could nego-tiate specific provisions.

Difficult to establish, because itwould face immense employer opposi-tion, a closed shop structure would bringa common set of work standards forpart-time work, and reduce the numberof poorly paid, part-time, “flexible” jobsnationwide. Moreover, without the flex-ible, part-time employment option, em-ployers would have to focus on invest-ment and the improvement of produc-tivity rather than the greater use of cheaplabour.

A long-term goal, the establishmentof occupational unionism in retail, fi-nance, real estate, the accommodationand food industry, the garment indus-try and assembly industries would go along way toward improving work andwage conditions dramatically. It will alsodo much to facilitate multi-union orregionally-based union organizing,geared to organizing specific industries(like hotels or banks) or a major chain(like Sears or Canadian Tire).

• Finally, to avoid the furtherconsolidation of employer andgovernment labour flexibilitystrategies, unions and their lo-cals must renew their focus onreducing overtime and work-load levels in collective bar-gaining, and increase their de-


mands for a say in technical re-structuring and contracting-out.This will expand the number of jobs

and ensure that unions will not be leftby the wayside in the restructuring ofworkplaces. It will also ensure that un-ions will not be whipsawed by the wideruse of either non-unionized workers orby a widening pool of low-wage labour.It will further increase the legitimacy ofunions among non-unionized workers,who often see unions as protecting onlytheir own members.

Many unions have begun to pushsuccessfully for such provisions in theircontract negotiations, and have achievedreductions in regular and overtimehours in return for job creation, as wellas longer vacations and increased fam-ily and education leaves.102 Nevertheless,shift work and atypical hours are stillcommon, and, even though contracting-out is now widespread, 56% of collec-tive agreements still have no provisionspreventing it.103 Even more rare are pro-visions for advance notice of layoffs andtechnological change, with only a thirdof unions now even raising these is-sues.104

Making these changes in collectiveagreements can provide the basis for jobdevelopment strategies in a number ofregions, and lay the grounds for the

strong labour-community coalitions nec-essary for unions to make significantorganizing gains.

In sum, given the growing scope ofeconomic and political problems, thetime is fast approaching where it will besink or swim for the Canadian labourmovement. Better strategies and newstructures are needed soon if unions areto double or triple their recruitmentnumbers in order to sustain their currentsize and strength. Because, despite thefact that many unions have started to putreal resources and effort into organizing,it is increasingly clear that unions willhave to be more aggressive, more con-frontational, and more strategic in theirorganizing.

Today, some 3.8 million Canadianworkers are in unions. They are in un-ions because past generations of leaders,activists, and workers had the vision aswell as the strength to dream of how tobuild a movement, and how to build abetter society. As Canada’s labour move-ment now faces the challenges of globali-zation and neo-liberalism, it’s impera-tive that unions continue this tradition,and take the progressive road to think-ing ambitiously about how to build aneven stronger movement for the genera-tions of workers to come.


Endnotes

13 Andrew Martin and George Ross,"Through a Glass Darkly", In The BraveNew World, 1999.

14 On Europe and North America, see GregAlbo, "Competititive Austerity and theImpasse of Capitalist Employment Policy",Socialist Register 1994 (London: Merlin,1994). For a survey of Latin America andpost-socialist economies, ChristopherCandland and Rudra Sil, "The Politics ofLabor in Late-Industrializing and Post-Socialist Economies: New Challenges in aGlobal Age", The Politics of Labor in a Glo-bal Age (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 2001). For a survey of labour rela-tions in Liberal Market Economies see Pe-ter Fairbrother and Gerard Griffin eds,Changing Prospects for Trade Unionism. Com-parisons between Six Countries. New York:Continuum, 2002. A a comprehensive re-cent West European survey is Tito Boeri,Agar Brugiavini, and Lars Calmfors eds.The Role of Unions in the Twenty-First Cen-tury. (New York: Oxford University Press,2001).

15 Martin and Ross, "Through a GlassDarkly", 1999.

16 Evelyn Huber and John Stephens, Devel-opment and Crisis of the Welfare State (Chi-cago: University of Chicago Press, 2001),chp. 7.

17 Torben Iversen, Contested Economic Insti-tutions: the politics of macroeconomics andwage bargaining in advanced democracies(New York: Cambridge University Press,1999).

18 Gene Swimmer, "Public Sector Relationsin an Era of Restraint and Restructuring:An Overview". In Public Sector Labour Re-lations in an Era of Restraint and Restructur-ing. Ed. Gene Swimmer (Toronto: OxfordUniversity Press, 2001).

19 See the numerous essays surveying con-ditions around the world in Socialist Reg-ister 2001: Working Classes, Global Realities.Eds. Colin Leys and Leo Panitch alongwith Greg Albo and David Coates (Lon-don: Merlin Press, 2001).

1 David Coates, Models of Capitalism: Growthand Stagnation in the Modern Era. Chp. 4(Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2000).

2 Dave Broad, Hollow Work, Hollow Society?:globalization and the casual labour problem inCanada (Halifax: Fernwood Publishing,2000).

3 Rosemary Warskett, "The Politics of Dif-ference and Inclusiveness within the Ca-nadian Labour Movement", Economic andIndustrial Democracy, 17 (1996), Table 4.

4 Ibid. Table 5.5 Statistics Canada, Perspectives on Labour

and Income (Autumn 2000) Table 3.6 Warskett, 602.7 Bruce Campbell, "False Promise: Canada

in the Free Trade Era". (Ottawa: CanadianCenter for Policy Alternatives, 2001), 22.

8 See Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Net-work Society (Cambridge, MA: BlackwellPublishers, 1996), chapter 4 tables. AndOECD Historical Statistics 2000 (Paris:OECD), and OECD Labour Force Statistics,1980-2000 (Paris: OECD, 2001).

9 On Canada, Ann Curry Stevens, WhenMarkets Fail People (Toronto: Center forSocial Justice, 2001) and Armine Yalinzyan,The Growing Gap (Toronto: Center for So-cial Justice, 1998). On the United States,Castells, Network Society, Figure 4.8, aselaborated from Lawrence Mishel andJared Bernstein, The State of WorkingAmerica, 1994-5 (New York: M. E. Sharpe,1994).

10 See Geoff Garrett, Partisan Politics in theGlobal Economy (New York: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1998) as well as LorneMishel and P.B Voos eds, Unions and Eco-nomic Competitiveness (London: M. E.Sharpe, 1992).

11 Andrew Martin and George Ross, "Euro-pean Unions Face the Millenium", TheBrave New World of European Labour: Euro-pean Trade Unions at the Millenium Eds.Andrew Martin and George Ross (NewYork: Berghan Books, 1999), 8-10.

12 Kim Moody, Workers in a Lean World (NewYork: Verso, 1997), chp. 5.


20 Gosta Esping-Andersen and MarinoRegini, "Introduction". Why Deregulate La-bour Markets? (New York: Oxford Univer-sity Press, 2000).

21 Kathleen Thelen, "Varieties of Labor Poli-tics in Developed Democracies". In Varie-ties of Capitalism: The Institutional Founda-tions of Comparative Advantage. Eds PeterHall and David Soskice (New York: Ox-ford University Press, 2001).

22 Peter Hall and David Soskice, "An Intro-duction to the Varieties of Capitalism". InVarieties of Capitalism, 2001 pp. 27-33.

23 See for example, Pepper D. Culpepper,"Employers, Public Policy, and the Politicsof Decentralized Cooperation in Germanyand France". In Varieties of Capitalism, 2001

24 Stewart Wood, "Business, Government,Patterns of Labor Market Policy in Britainand the Federal Republic of Germany". InVarieties of Capitalism, 2001.

25 Moody, Workers in a Lean World, chp. 5 "TheRise and Limits of Lean Production", 1997.

26 For a postwar survey, see Eric Hobsbawm,Age of Extremes (New York: PantheonBooks, 1994). On the postwar period inCanada, Stephen McBride and JohnShields, Dismantling a Nation: The Transi-tion of Corporate Rule in Canada (Halifax:Fernwood Publishing, 1997), chp. 2. For acomparative survey of trade unions,Miriam Golden, Michael Wallerstein, andPeter Lange, "Postwar Trade-Union Or-ganization and Industrial Relations inTwelve Countries". In Continuity andChange in Contemporary Capitalism. EdsHerbert Kitschelt et al. (New York: Cam-bridge University Press, 1999).

27 Martin Rhodes, "Globalization and WestEuropean Welfare States: A Critical Reviewof Recent Debates". Journal of European So-cial Policy. Vol. 6 1996.

28 Wolfgang Merkel, "The Third Ways of So-cial Democracy". The Global Third Way De-bate. Ed. Tony Giddens (Malden MA: Pol-ity Press, 2001).

29 Christopher Pierson, Hard Choices: SocialDemocracy in the 21st Century (Malden, MA:Polity Press, 2001), chp. 4.

30 Huber and Stephens, Crisis and Develop-ment of the Welfare State, 2001 chp. 8.

31 Esping-Andersen and Regini, "Conclu-sions". Why Deregulate Labour Markets?,2000.

32 Gosta Esping-Andersen, The Three Worldsof Welfare Capitalism (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1990).

33 Stewart Wood, "Business, Government,Patterns of Labor Market Policy in Britainand the Federal Republic of Germany", InVarieties of Capitalism, 2001.

34 OECD, OECD Economic Survey: Canada2000 (Paris: 2000), chp. 3.

35 On the United States see Harry Katz andOwen Darbishire, Converging Divergences:Worldwide Changes in Employment Systems(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,1999); Douglas Kruse and Joseph Blasi,"The New Employee-Employer Relation-ship", A Working Nation: Workers, Work, andGovernment in the New Economy. Eds DavidEllwood et al. (New York: Russell Sage,2000); and Kim Moody, Workers in a LeanWorld, Chp. 5 "The Rise and Limits of LeanProduction".

36 Chris Howell, "Unforgiven: British TradeUnionism in Crisis", The Brave New Worldof European Labour, 1999.

37 Kruse and Blasi, "The New Employer-Em-ployee Relationship", Table 2.8, 2000.

38 See Finance Canada, Agenda: Jobs andGrowth (Ottawa: Supply and ServicesCanada, 1995) as well as OECD EconomicSurvey: Canada 2000. (Paris: OECD).

39 For a critical analysis of this standard gov-ernment view, see Stephen McBride, Para-digm Shift: Globalization and the CanadianState, Chp. 4 "Domestic Neo-Liberalism"(Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 2001) aswell as McBride and Shields, Dismantlinga Nation, chp. 4 "Dismantling the Post-WarOrder" (Halifax: Fernwood Publishing,1997).

40 McBride, Paradigm Shift, pp. 96-9.41 Labour Congress (CLC), Left Out in the

Cold: The End of UI for Canadian Workers(Ottawa: CLC, 1999).

42 Ibid.43 Seth Klein and Barbara Montgomery, "De-

pressing Wages: Why Welfare Cuts Hurtboth Welfare and the Working Poor" (Ot-tawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alterna-tives, 2002).

44 Lars Osberg, "Wages and Unemployment",Employment Policy Options. Eds Ken Battleand Sherri Torjman (Ottawa: Caledon In-stitute of Social Policy, 1999) pp. 157-9.


45 Jim Selby, "Losing Ground: The Slow De-cline of Worker’s Rights and Privileges inAlberta, 1975-2000" (Edmonton: AlbertaFederation of Labour, 2001).

46 British Columbia Federation of Labour, "6Bucks Sucks" (BCFL: BCFL.com, 2002).

47 Ontario Federation of Labour, "Days of De-struction: Part Two" (Toronto: Ontario Fed-eration of Labour, 2001).

48 Ontario Federation of Labour, "Days of De-struction: Part Two" (Toronto: Ontario Fed-eration of Labour, 2001), p. 7.

49 Ibid.50 British Columbia Federation of Labour,

"Employment Standards Act Changes"and "Labour Relations Code Changes"(Vancouver: BCFL 2002).

51 David McNally, "Globalization, TradePacts and Migrant Workers: Rethinkingthe Politics of Working Class Resistance",Restructuring and Resistance: Canadian Pub-lic Policy in an Age of Global Capitalism, Eds.Mike Burke, Colin Mooers, and JohnShields (Halifax, NS: Fernwood Publish-ing, 2000).

52 Roxana Ng, "Work Restructuring andRecolonizing Third World Women: Anexample from the Garment Industry inToronto" Canadian Woman Studies 18Spring 1998, pp. 21-5.

53 David Camfield, "Assessing Resistance inHarris’ Ontario, 1995-9", Restructuring andResistance: Canadian Public Policy in an Ageof Global Capitalism, 2000.

54 Roy Adams, "Public Employment Rela-tions: Canadian Developments in Perspec-tive". In Public Sector Labour Relations in anEra of Restraint and Restructuring. Ed. GeneSwimmer (Toronto: Oxford UniversityPress, 2000).

55 Hospital Employees Union, "The Nuts andBolts of Bill 29", Guardian, Spring 2002, p.6-7.

56 Swimmer, "Public Sector Relations’; andCanadian Union of Public Employees,Dollars and Democracy: Canadians pay theprice of privatization. (CUPE. Annual Reporton Privatization, 2001).

57 Swimmer, "Public Sector Relation", 2000,Table 1.5.

58 McBride, Paradigm Shift, 2001 tables 4.3and 4.4

59 The figures on Canadian government em-ployment are from, Mike Burke and John

Shields, "Tracking Inequality in the NewCanadian Labour Market". In Restructur-ing and Resistance, p. 122. OECD compara-tive numbers are from, Roy Adams, "Pub-lic Employment Relations: Canadian De-velopments in Comparative Perspective"Table 8.1. In Public Sector Relations in an Eraof Restraint and Restructuring, 2000.

60 Total Canadian union membership in-creased 37,000 1997-8; 41,000 1998-9; and146,000 1999-00. Statistics Canada, LabourForce Survey January 1999-2001. Job num-bers from Statistics Canada, Perspectives onLabour and Income, Spring 2001 p.9.

61 Statistics Canada, Perspectives on Labourand Income, Winter 2001, p. 63.

62 Ibid.63 Sectoral Figures from Statistics Canada,

Perspectives on Labour and Income, Autumn2000, Table 1. 1997 and 1998 from Statis-tics Canada, Perspectives on Labour and In-come; and from Statitistics Canada, "Un-ionization Rates by Industrial Sector andGender, Canada, 1994". General Social Sur-vey, cat. No. 11-612.

64 Job growth numbers for each sector aretaken from, from Labour Force Survey, Dec.9 2000, Dec 8 2001, Jan 14 2002).

65 Christopher Schenk and John Anderson,"Introduction". In Reshaping Work 2: Labour,the Workforce, and Technological Change. Eds.Christopher Schenk and John Anderson(Ottawa: Canadian Centre of Policy Alter-natives, 1999).

66 Andrew Sharpe, "The Nature and Causesof Unemployment in Canada". In Employ-ment Policy Options, 1999, p. 23.

67 Statistics Canada, Perspectives on Labourand Income, Autumn 2000, p. 40.

68 Andrew Jackson and David Robinson,Falling Behind: The State of Working Canada,2000 (Ottawa: Canadian Centre for PolicyAlternatives, 2001), p. 21.

69 In 1994, 69% of 15-24 year olds worked innon-standard employment, as did 56% of25-34 year olds. David Newing andMichael Grant, "Wanted: Fresh Thinkingon Youth Employment". In EmploymentPolicy Options, 1999, p. 223.

70 David Soskice, "Divergent Production Re-gimes: Coordinated and UncoordinatedMarket Economies in the 1980s and 1990s".In Continuity and Change in ContemporaryCapitalism, 1999.


71 Arthur Donner and Fred Lazar, "Restructur-ing Canada’s Labour Market for the NewMillenium". In Employment Policy Options,1999, Table 1.

72 Ibid, pp. 118-20.73 Nicole M. Fortin and Thomas Lemieux,

"Income Distribution in Canada: Mini-mum Wages versus Other Policy Instru-ments". In Adapting Public Policy to a La-bour Market in Transition. Eds W. CraigRiddell and France St. Hilaire (Ottawa:Institute for Research on Public Policy,2000) p. 217.

74 Morley Gunderson and W. Craig Riddell,"The Changing Nature of Work: Implica-tions for Public Policy". In Adapting PublicPolicy to a Labour Market in Transition, 2000p. 16.

75 Andrew Sharpe, "The Nature and Causesof Unemployment". In Employment PolicyOptions, 1999, p. 21.

76 Ann Curry-Stevens, When Markets Fail Peo-ple (Toronto: Canadian Social Justice Foun-dation for Research and Education, 2000)p. 2.

77 Peter Swenson, Capitalists Against Markets:The Making of Labor Markets and WelfareStates in the United States and Sweden (NewYork: Oxford University Press, 2001).

78 Huber and Stephens, Development and Cri-sis of the Welfare State, 2001 p. 248-9.

79 Charlotte Yates, "Staying the Decline inUnion Membership: Union Organizing inOntario, 1985-1999". Industrial Relations/Relations Industrielles, Vol. 55, no. 4, 2000pp. 640-74.

80 Ibid, p. 657.81 Ibid, Table 1.82 Canadian Union of Public Employees, Re-

ports of National Departments, 2001, p. 3883 Yates, "Staying the Decline in Union Mem-

bership: Union Organizing in Ontario",2000, Table 1.

84 Statistics on job growth from StatisticsCanada, Labour Force Survey January 1999-2001. Numbers on unionization rates fromE. B. Akeyampong, "Unionization – AnUpdate", Perspectives on Labour and Income,Autumn 1999 and E.A Akeyampong,"Unionization – An Update", Perspectiveson Labour and Income, Spring 2001.

85 Charlotte Yates and Peter Ewer, "Chang-ing Strategic Capacities: Union Amalga-mations in Canada and Australia". In The

Future of Trade Unionism: International Per-spectives on Emerging Union Structures. Ed.Magnus Sverke (Brookfield, VT: Ashgate,1997).

86 Charlotte Yates, "Unity and Diversity:Challenges to an Expanding CanadianAutoworker’s Union", CRSA/RCSA, Vol.35, no. 1, 1998.

87 Canadian Union of Public Employees, Re-ports of National Departments, 1999 and2001.

88 The two most difficult disputes have in-volved the CAW.

89 Charlotte Yates and Peter Ewer, "Chang-ing Strategic Capacities", 1997 pp. 142-3.

90 For overviews, see Chris Howell,"Unforgiven: British Trade Unionism inCrisis", The Brave New World of EuropeanLabour 1998; and David Moberg, "The U.SLabor Movement Faces the Twenty-FirstCentury". In Which Direction for OrganizedLabour? Ed. Bruce Nissen (Detroit, MI:Wayne State University Press, 1999).

91 Bruce Nissen, "Introduction". In Which Di-rection for Organized Labor?, 1999.

92 Kate Bronfenbrenner and Tom Juravich, "ItTakes More than House Calls: Organizingto Win with a Comprehensive Union-Building Strategy". In Organizing to Win:New Research on Union Strategies. Eds KateBronfenbrenner et al. (New York: ILRPress, 1998).

93 Rachel Sherman and Kim Voss, “Organ-ize or Die: Labor’s New Tacitics and Im-migrant Workers” In Organizing Immi-grants. 2000. p. 88.

94 On a community campaign in New York,Immanuel Ness, "Organizing ImmigrantCommunities: UNITE’s Workers CenterStrategy". In Organizing to Win, 1998. Onorganizing in immigrant communites, seeRuth Milkman ed. Organizing Immigrants:The Challenge for Unions in ContemporaryCalifornia. Ithaca: Cornell University Press,2000; and Bruce Nissen and GuillermoGrenier, “Unions and Immigrants in SouthFlorida: A Comparison”. In Unions in AGlobalized Environment. Changing Borders,Organizational Boundaries, and Social Roles.Ed. Bruce Nissen. (Armonk, NY: M.E.Sharpe, 2002).

95 British Columbia Federation of Labour,“Organizing Institute Report" (Vancouver:BCFL, November 24 1998). On the AFL-


CIO organizing institute see Amy Foerster,“Confronting the Dilemmas of Organiz-ing”, in Rekindling the Movement: Labor’sQuest for Relevance in the Twenty-First Cen-tury. Eds Lowell Turner, Harry Katz, andRichard W. Hurd. Ithaca: ILR Press, 2000.Also see Amy Foerster, “Transformationof a Social Movement Organization: TheCase of the AFL-CIO Organizing Institute.Unpublished Disseration. 2000.

96 On their role in district labour councils aswell as in wider federations, Gasapin andWial, "The Role of Central Labor Councils".In Organizing to Win, 1998.

97 See the Survey by Rachel Sherman andKim Voss, “Organize or Die: Labor’s NewTactics and Immigrant Workers”. In Or-ganizing Immigrants: The Challenge for Un-ions in Contemporary California. Ed RuthMilkman. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UniversityPress, 2000).

98 On the importance of comprehensive cam-paigns, combining a number of organzingtactics, see Bronfenbrenner and Juravich,

"It Takes More than Housecalls". As wellas the survey provided by Paul Jarley“American Unions at the Start of theTwenty-First Century: Going Back to theFuture?”. In Changing Prospects for TradeUnionism. Comparisons Between Six Coun-tries. Eds Peter Fairbrother and GerardGriffin, 2002.

99 Immanuel Ness, "Organizing ImmigrantCommunities: UNITE’s Workers CenterStrategy". In Organizing to Win, 1998.

100 Ibid, p. 99-100.101 Bruce Nissen, "Utilizing the Membership

to Organize the Unorganized". In Organ-izing to Win, 1998.

102 Jon Pierce, Canadian Industrial Relations(Scarborough, ON: Prentice Hall Canada,2000), pp.406-13.

103 Ibid, p. 413.104 Pradeep Kumar, Gregor Murray, and

Sylvain Schetagne, "Adapting to Change:Union Priorities in the 1990s", WorkplaceGazette, Fall, 1998.

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