“forum on labour and the economic crisis: can the union movement rise to the occasion?,”

8/8/2019 Forum on Labour and the Economic Crisis: Can the Union Movement Rise to the Occasion?,

1/39

Forum on Labour and the Economic

Crisis: Can the Union Movement Rise to

the Occasion?

Introduction

Jim Stanford

M and socialists no doubt elt mixed emotions as anover-leveraged, irresponsible, and morally bankrupt global nancial systemslipped into crisis. On one hand, at last the workers movement had a gloriousopportunity to expose the ailings o the current order and step up the ghtor alternatives. On the other hand, it is equally clear that workers and theirorganizations will ace earsome attacks as employers and governments lashout at anything that restrains their eforts to resolve the crisis on their ownterms. e crisis, thereore, presents the labour movement with an enormousopportunity, but also with enormous threats.

e central tenets o neoliberalism are clearly more vulnerable to unda-mental critique today than at any time since the emergence o this new ordernearly three decades ago. Obviously this is true o the tough-love nancialpolicies which have been a hallmark o neoliberalism rom the beginning. Justa year or two ago there was a pompous conviction in mainstream economics 1

that a new consensus had emerged in nancial and monetary policy, accord-ing to which central banks should rigorously target the rate o ination, andall other problems o macroeconomics (unemployment, ination, and eco-nomic cycles) would then be solved. is view was the economic equivalent oFrancis Fukuyamas inamous claim about the end o history arrogant, pre-mature, and unounded. Now it suddenly lies in shambles. Far rom ushering

1. Stated most amously by John B. Taylor, Teaching Modern Macroeconomics at the

presentation / prsentation


2/39

136 / labour/letravail64

in nancial stability and protecting the real value o wealth (which was acentral motivation or neoliberalism in the rst place), the practice o global-ized nancialization has destroyed wealth at an unparalleled pace and let thewhole economic system staggering.

Other key planks o the neoliberal platorm are also vulnerable, not just itsmonetary and nancial vision:

Privatization: Most obviously in nance, but in other sectors too, it turns outthat the private sector does not always know best. Public-private partner-ships, the latest and most manipulative incarnation o privatization, have beenstopped in their tracks by the reezing up o private credit. More by deaultthan by design, privatizating governments around the world have suddenly

reversed course to take major public ownership positions, in everything rombanks to auto manuacturers.

Globalization: World trade is collapsing (alling by as much as one-thirdduring the crisis). is is not due to long-eared protectionism. Rather, itreects the workings o ree markets themselves (and the crisis they createdin incomes and demand). e supposed gains in eciency rom global tradeliberalization have been dwared by the much larger negative efects o macro-economic contraction on spending and hence trade. (In economists lexicon,

Okuns gaps are much larger than Habergers triangles.) One symbol cap-tures ttingly the legacy o globalization: how bizarre that the nancial system(and then the government) o Iceland should collapse as the ultimate result othe meltdown in real estate prices in Florida. Far rom inevitable or ecient,globalization has proven both uncontrollable and irrational.

FiscalPolicy: In mainstream circles it was universally accepted until this yearthat scal policy was no longer suitable as a counter-cyclical measure, andthat governments should ocus on balancing their budgets. Now it is clear

that scal stimulus is essential at moments o crisis (when monetary policybecomes inefective due to rozen credit and ultra-pessimistic expectations),and that large budget decits are appropriate to counter uncertainty and col-lapsing demand. Moreover, the act that tight-sted governments paid of somuch debt in the past decade merely intensied the desperation o nancialinvestors to seek more elaborate (and, in retrospect, risky) outlets or theirportolios. It would have been better or all concerned i there had been a lotmore good old-ashioned government bonds around, to stabilize portoliosand absorb market volatility.

So there is clearly plenty o intellectual and political scope, in the wake o the


3/39

forumon labourandtheeconomiccrisis / 137

human hardship since then. In this regard, the present spectacular ailure oneoliberalism presents the labour movement (and the let more generally) withan historic opportunity to challenge the long-term direction o the system.

At the same time, however, there are immense threats and risks in thepresent moment. While crisis and breakdown open opportunities or dis-crediting the status quo, we cannot underestimate the determination o eliteswithin the present order not just to deend its main eatures, but to actuallytake advantage o a moment o crisis (even one o their own making) to pushor the deepening and extension o neoliberalism. In this way, workers ace adual threat rom the current crisis. First, they are exposed to the immediateeconomic and social costs o the recession itsel: lost jobs, lost incomes, losthomes, and in many cases lost lives. Second, and more lastingly, workers acethe risk that this moment could actually lead to structural changes that urtherdisempower workers and their organizations. In other words, ar rom conced-ing that there was anything wrong with the recipe they have been ollowing,neoliberal governments and their advocates will seize on the ear, conusion,and divisions caused by the crisis, as predicted by Klein, 2 to push or evenmore market-oriented measures including more attacks on unions and col-lective bargaining. Unions will be hard-pressed to push back those regressiveattacks, let alone to make orward progress in reorming or dismantling someo neoliberalisms worst eatures in light o its obvious ailure.

Perhaps this is how to explain the strange juxtaposition whereby the labourmovement possesses a wonderul opportunity to put the guardians o neo-liberalism on the deensive or their ailures, yet it is unions themselves (notnancial speculators) acing the most intense attacks and public disapproval.Consider two recent instances in which Canadian unions were scapegoatedor economic problems that they clearly did not cause: the attacks on auto-workers unleashed during the bankruptcy restructuring o General Motorsand Chrysler, and the attacks on municipal workers in Windsor and Torontolaunched by municipal governments (who invoked budgetary pressuresresulting rom the broader economic decline to justiy their demands orconcessions). e unions in both cases were merely trying to hang onto pre-

viously-negotiated compensation in the ace o the crisis; it was employer andgovernment demands or concessions that sparked the respective conronta-tions, not union demands or more. Yet it was the unions vilied as barriersto change, protectors o narrow special interests, and even in wilder com-mentaries as the very source o economic decline in the rst place. Mostworrying, this anti-union scapegoating clearly ound resonance amidst amajority segment o the wider public.

Collective bargaining, o course, is never a popularity contest, and there isnothing new in the attempts o employers and governments to nger-point at


4/39


central job o unions to hold the line on their past gains during tough times(and, indeed, by doing so they play an essential macroeconomic unction,by orestalling a downward cycle o wage and price deation during severecrises3). Anti-union commentators will exploit inequality between diferentgroups o workers (resulting rom the uneven coverage and progress o col-lective bargaining), pitting worker against worker, in an efort to underminethe power o unionism in general. is leads to arguments like Why shouldTim Hortons workers subsidize, through their taxes, the bail-out o autowork-ers who make more than twice what they do? or Why should Tim Hortonsworkers pay, through their taxes, or the sick days o municipal workers? Yethow would Tim Hortons workers, slaving away or barely minimum wage, pos-sibly benet rom crushing the unions that have made gains in othersectorso the economy (like the auto industry or the public sector)? at would makethe prospects o improving their own wages and conditions (whether throughunionization, or through broader policies like higher minimum wages) evenmore remote. Nevertheless, the intensity o the anti-union onslaught has beendaunting, and is reason or a careul examination by labour activists o ourposition, our strategies, and our messaging. Our activities (rom bargaining tocampaigning) must be consistently oriented in avour o a vision o the uni-

versal rights and interests o workers rather than ocused on the particularinterests o our own members.

ere is a broader sense in which the labour movements response to theeconomic crisis has been lacking. Unions rom coast to coast, and in allsectors o the economy, have engaged in specic struggles to deend theirmembers and their contracts. Some o those struggles have been heroic; manyhave been successul. But the union movement as a whole has not yet beenable to use the moment o this crisis to mobilize a broader and more sustainedcritique o the crisis, its causes, and its efects on working people. We thus riskmissing an opportunity to put the system as a whole on deensive. Instead ounderstanding the crisis as the predictable and preventable result o neolib-eral market-driven policies, workers come to understand the crisis as a largelyrandom, negative event one which naturally imposes costs on everyone(including workers who had nothing to do with causing it). I we limit ouractions to largely deensive battles over specic contract provisions or specicworkplaces, we miss the chance to connect the dots or the benet o ourmembers and the broader public. en, instead o debating whether or not thenancial industry should be allowed to maintain the practices which causedthe meltdown in the rst place, we end up debating whether civic workersshould really be entitled to 18 days o sick pay per year or whether autoworkersreally deserve semi-private rooms when they are in the hospital.

e labour movement needs to project that the many risks acing workers


5/39

forumon labourand theeconomiccrisis / 139

well-being and economic security stem rom a common set o structures,relationships, and practices embedded within this highly privatized, deregu-lated vision o capitalism. And we need to show that the labour movement canrise to the occasion: inspiring hope and condence, mobilizing activism, andshowing that we can win key battles both in deense o what weve won in thepast, and making new progress overcoming problems that workers aced evenbeore the nancial crisis.

In other countries, the labour and progressive movements have respondedto the global crisis more actively, collectively, and vocierously. Protests andcampaigns to deend existing services and programs, and demand more pro-gressive responses to the efects o the crisis, have made an impact in France,Ireland, Korea, and elsewhere. In Canada so ar our movements response hasbeen less determined, more sporadic, and more deensive.

is has not been or lack o trying. Very tough strikes have been ought rom woodworkers in BC to municipal workers in Ontario. Specic issues havebeen tackled energetically such as the Canada-wide campaign to orce theminority Harper government to x the broken Employment Insurance system.Major events have been organized like the s rally in March or pensionprotections, the largest labour protest in Ontario in a decade. Labour centrals(the Canadian Labour Congress and the provincial ederations) have madesome eforts to mobilize broader, multi-union campaigns, but to date thoseeforts (with a ew exceptions) have been inadequate. A more generalized andcohesive ghtback against the crisis one that identies its causes, rejectsattacks on workers, and denes and ghts or alternatives (both incrementaland more ar-reaching) is required. Without it, unions will remain preoccu-pied with ghting individual, deensive battles. And the broader ideologicaland cultural terrain will be ceded, allowing knee-jerk anti-union sentimentsto ester and become broadly accepted as common-sense wisdom.

Nine Concrete Ideas for Strengthening Labours FightbackMany let commentators and analysts have analyzed the economic crisis,identiying both the threats and the opportunities that it presents to thelabour movement and other progressive orces. More broadly, there is agrowing and valuable literature on union renewal, which identies some othe best-practices that successul unions can develop and wield in an increas-ingly challenging legal and political environment.4 is literature identies

4. See or example, Peter Fairbrother and Charlotte Yates, eds., Unions in Renewal(New York

2003); Larry Haiven, Stphane Le Queux, Christian Lvesque, and Gregor Murray, Union

Renewal Amid the Global Restructuring o Work Relationships,Just Labour, 67 (2005),


6/39


several important, wide-ranging challenges the labour movement must tacklein order to expand its reach, enhance its efectiveness, and modernize itspractices. ese suggestions are well-placed, and stem in some cases rom theanalysis sketched out above.

For example, an obvious and essential response to the eforts by employ-ers and governments to isolate unions as special interests is to position ourdemands and campaigns as ghting or the interests o all working people, not

just union members. In dening and mobilizing around specic issues, there-ore, those issues must be careully designed to spark the interest o broadercommunities o workers: lower-wage as well as higher-wage, unorganized aswell as organized. Making the movements structures and campaigns morediverse and inclusive, so that we represent the whole working class (includ-ing workers o colour, women, new Canadians, and inormal and precariousworkers all o whom ace more intense and precarious orms o exploitation),is another no-brainer. is is easier promised than successully implemented,however, and despite important progress that has been made, unions need toallocate more attention, resources, and creativity to ensure we are as inclusiveand representative as we must be. Unions have to continue to integrate andwield new technological opportunities into their work, including the use ointernet-based communication tools to educate and organize our members.

All these broader discussions about union renewal are important. What weaim to provide with this special orum o commentaries, however, is somethingdiferent. is orum eatures a series o short, practical reports and state-ments rom writers with a personal involvement in recent labour struggles.Together they identiy some immediate priorities which the labour movementneeds to quickly address, in order or our collective response to the economiccrisis to be adequate and efective. And each contribution is illustrated witha specic,real-worldexample o how those priorities can in act be achieved:stories o specic campaigns, issues, and strategies which have borne ruit,and which the whole movement can learn rom. is makes or a less abstract,more hands-on approach that we hope will be useul to labour activists con-ronting the daunting economic and political conditions o this moment.

e nine contributions we have assembled are short and accessible, andhence do not require a ormal summary in this introduction. But a listing othe central themes o these commentaries (and their respective authors) ishelpul. Every one o the authors has personal experience with labour organiz-ing and campaigning, and a hopeul, progressive vision o what the movementcan and should become. eir short-list o issues and case-studies thus con-stitutes, in a condensed way, a to-do list or the labour movement: what wemust do i we are to make the most o the opportunities presented by thecrisis, and protect ourselves and our members against its dangers.


7/39


every wave in the broader economy. ats why its as crucial or unions to hangonto past gains in hard times, as it is to make orward progress in better times.Both, when achieved, are victories. Moreover, deending the core eatures oexisting contracts against demands or concessions can ignite the passionand solidarity that are the ultimate source o union power. Fred Wilson tellsthe story o one heroic struggle against concessions by Newoundland pulpworkers.

Priority#2(MarcyCohen):DemandMoreFromtheSystem,NotLess,DespitetheCrisis. Unions cant limit themselves to deensive battles, however. In thespirit o the adage, e best deense is a good ofense, we also need to placenew demands on the system to address the unsatised needs and wants o ourmembers and other working people. We need to prove, in other words, thatthe system wasnt adequately meeting human needs even beore the nancialmeltdown. is will counteract the temptation (encouraged by those who wantto stop change) to simply wait or a recovery in nancial markets and theoverall economy without addressing the economys deeper ailures. MarcyCohen positions the living wage campaign in this category, as a demand(with broad appeal) that puts the system on the deensive or its ailures, ratherthan unions.

Priority#3(LanaPayne):SetWinnableGoals,andMobilizetoWinTem. Weare conronting a multi-aceted neoliberal agenda. How do we inspire peopleto ght against something so all-encompassing and complex? Clearly we mustbreak the problem down into incremental, bite-sized pieces: identiying spe-cic, concrete goals that motivate our supporters into action, and that can beeasibly won. At the same time, o course, we need to make the connectionsbetween issues, to show that our challenge comes rom a system, not just romone or two bad policies. Lana Payne shows how the ght to improve couldbe the lightning rod or workers anger over the insecurity they ace as a resulto the crisis and how that ght could actually be won in the months ahead.

Priority#4(KristinSchwartz):BuildCross-SectoralAlliancestoWinTingsforALLWorkers. As discussed above, to prevent rom being isolated as a specialinterest group, the labour movement must position itsel rmly as part oa broader coalition o orces ghting or measures that will be universallyenhancing. is will require breaking out o traditional ways o organizing:getting to know other communities and orces, building trust and relation-ships, respecting the diversity o opinion and interests that must be presenti our campaigns will have the power to win. Kristin Schwartz reports on thediverse alliance-building that was a crucial actor in the successul Ontario


8/39


Priority#5 (GilLevine):Rebuild ActiveSolidarityWithintheLabour Move-ment(EspeciallyBetweenPrivate-SectorandPublic-SectorWorkers). Unions,despite their diferences, have a deep common interest in deending theirmembers against scapegoating and concessions. Public sector and privatesector unions will both conront powerul attempts to roll back past gainsand blame workers and their unions or the crisis and its consequences. Sounions must work more closely and actively together (through direct partner-ships, and through central labour bodies) to buttress our respective capacitiesto resist and ght back. Gil Levine lists several current examples o ways inwhich a spirit o solidarity-in-action can replace the cynicism and sectarian-ism that has characterized much labour movement politics in recent years.

Priority#6(BillSaunders):Political-EconomyrainingforLabourLeadersandActivists. Labour movement activists and leaders need their own story line,to explain to workers why the crisis occurred, why concessions wont solve theproblem, and what alternatives we can ght or. is requires us to decon-struct the vague, trite idea that ese are tough times, and everyone musttighten their belts. Instead, we must explain exactly what caused this crisis and will cause the next one, too, unless the rules o the game are changed.Bill Saunders reports on a successul economic literacy program launched bythe Vancouver and District Labour Council, that could be a model or similareforts by other unions and labour councils.

Priority#7(JohnCartwright):BuildaMulti-RacialandInclusiveLabourMove-ment. It is well-established that racialized workers (including new Canadiansand aboriginal communities) are now the source o all net labour orce growthin Canada. e labour movement must thereore dramatically strengthen itsroots in those racialized communities, or ace gradual isolation rom theseworkers who both desperately need union representation, and who will con-stitute an eventual majority o the working class. John Cartwright describesthe innovative eforts o the Toronto and York Region Labour Council to builda genuinely multi-racial coalition or workers rights.

Priority #8 (Winnie Ng): Integrate Unemployed Workers (Union and Non-Union)intotheFightback. Organizing the swelling ranks o the unemployed isan essential, i challenging, dimension o the labour movements response tothe recession. Workers without jobs ace the most immediate and painul costsrom the downturn; most o them lack union representation, not to mentiondecent access to and other supports. Winnie Ng describes the remarkableeforts o non-union plastics workers in Toronto who ought back against theirsudden job loss, and the thet o $30 million in owed compensation. rough


9/39


10/39


Virtually every union recognizes the historic importance o organizing,and has allocated more resources and leadership attention to that priority.So ar, however, the results have been cautionary. Construction is the onlyprivate-sector industry in which union membership has held its own in thepast decade. is reects, in part, the prevalence o alternative voluntary-rec-ognition and dispute-settlement strategies, as well as the unions success inwinning a crucial change in labour law in Ontario (where card-check certi-cation was restored or the construction sector). Elsewhere, increased unionorganizing eforts have run into a wall o ruthless, sophisticated employeropposition, unriendly labour laws, and doubt among many non-union workersabout whether a union would make any diference anyway.

In the US, turning the tide o deunionization will necessarily constitutea central plank in the labour movements response to the economic crisis.Indeed, the coming debate there over the Obama Administrations labour lawreorms (embodied in the proposed EmployeeFreeChoiceAct, which wouldrestore card-based certication procedures and provide opportunity or rst-contract arbitration) will be central to the labour movements uture there.e parallel to Wagner Act labour reorms, introduced in the middle o thelast Great Depression, is immediate, although it is doubtul that Obamas pro-posals (even i enacted, despite the current no-holds-barred counter-ofensiverom employers and business lobbyists) would spark the same resurgence ounion organizing as occurred in the 1930s.6 In Canada, ghting or similarchanges in labour law (including protecting and expanding card-based certi-cation measures) should surely be a central ocus or the movements politicaleforts. (Removing card-check certication was one o the rst acts o thenew hard-right provincial government in Saskatchewan just as doing thesame was the rst priority or the Mike Harris government in Ontario aterit was elected in 1995.) Where those political eforts have been successul (aswith the reintroduction o card-check provisions in Ontarios constructionindustry), the benets or union membership are obvious. So ar, however, therequired ocus to mount a meaningul battle or labour law reorm has beenabsent rom the Canadian labour movement.

On the other hand, it is also obvious that labour law reorms alone would

6. ere is an interesting Canadian dimension to the US debate over the Employee Free

Choice Act. US business lobbyists have attempted to invoke the Canadian experience to warn

o the dangers o excessive unionization, citing in particular a contracted study (Anne

Layne-Farrar, An Empirical Assessment o the Employee Free Choice Act: e Economic

Implications, LECG Consulting, March 2009, ssrn.com/abstract=1353305), which purports to

prove that higher Canadian unionization rates have caused higher unemployment here. is

is especially ironic in light o the act that Canadian labour market indicators are considerably

stronger than those in the US despite a collective bargaining coverage rate that is more than


11/39


not be sucient to ensure the success o union organizing eforts.7 A revivalo a broader culture o expectation among working people in Canada, wherebythey come to demand more rom the system than they are currently receiv-ing, will be a precondition or a broader revival o support or orming unionsand ghting or a better deal in the workplace. One o the greatest successeso neoliberalism has been the clawing back o popular expectations that theeconomic system owes anything to workers, replaced by the acceptance oan individualism in which you get what you get. Overcoming this generalcultural view, and re-legitimating the notion that every worker is entitled to asecure job with decent pay and decent security, will be an essential precondi-tion or an upsurge in successul union organizing.

Perhaps the most important thing unions can do to rejuvenate their organizing possi-bilities is to contribute to building a wider oppositional movement and hence acilitate achange in the broader social climate. In other words, perhaps it is only in the context o amovement that extends beyond unions, but includes unions that are participating in, i notleading, struggles against every kind o oppression and every attack on the quality o ourlives, that we can really anticipate the long-sought explosion o workers organizing them-selves into unions.8

In this regard, the challenge o union organizing is ully coincident withthe other priorities identied earlier in this article: or the labour movementto develop and propagate an alternative analysis o why this crisis occurred;

to show that it wasnt workers ault; to show that labour concessions cannotsolve the crisis; to hold accountable those (like the nanciers) whose actionsdid cause the problems we ace; and to ght or policies both to address theharm caused by the crisis and to prevent the next one. I the labour movementcan do these things, well show workers that ghting back makes a diference and their interest in joining that ghtback, including by orming unions intheir own workplaces, will be boosted accordingly.

e labour movement in Canada, like most countries, has been on the deen-sive against neoliberal policies or a quarter-century. is economic crisis

could spark an historical reversal o that painul trend. For this to happen,unions must seize on the ailures o the neoliberal model, proving to workers(unionized and non-unionized) that their economic uture and security are

jeopardized by a system governed by the unregulated pursuit o private prot,and showing them that collective bargaining (and collective action more gen-erally) is the only way to protect themselves. On the other hand, i unionsrespond passively and deensively to the stepped-up attacks that are coming(launched, with no shame, by those who caused the crisis in the rst place),

7. Roy Adams makes this point in e Employee Free Choice Act: A Skeptical View and

Alternative Labor Studies Journal 31(4) (Winter 2007) 1 14


12/39


then the present downturn will only cement the longer-term erosion andweakening o the labour movement. Whether we come out o this crisis stron-ger (as occurred in the 1930s) or weaker, thereore, depends on the responsethat we are able to mount.

Holding the Line in the Canadian Pulp and

Paper Industry

Priority #1: Draw a Line in the Sand to Defend Past Gains

Fred Wilson

A crisis o 2009 and the loss o tens o thousands omanuacturing jobs, one key strategic challenge or Canadian labour is how tohold the line and protect the undamental standards and rights in collectiveagreements. In the weighing o risks, union leaderships are more than awarethat either losing a collective bargaining struggle, or ailing to rise to the chal-lenge o a struggle, can result in more than a bad contract. Even worse, thesedeeats can dramatically change the rules o the whole game or the worse. In

particular, industry and pattern-bargaining regimes that increase and protectstandards or large groups o workers can be undermined or broken.

Strategic leadership has never been more important. In my experience, theleadership we need involves several eatures. First, a clear basis o unity andset o principles that allows members to make choices oten dicult, painulchoices. Unions must also have organization that gives a concrete orm to soli-darity. And leadership must ensure that resources are in place to allow unionsto take on a ght to the nish, and to nish it.

It is hard to imagine a group o workers more besieged by globalization and

the economic crisis o 2009 than Canadian pulp and paper workers. In the pasttwo years, about a quarter o their industry has been closed. eir goals todayare certainly deensive, but, in my view, highly strategic. ey are makingchoices, organizing, and struggling to hold the line.

In October 2008 at the national convention o their union (the ),President Dave Coles set out the choice that the union had made. When thisbattered industry emerges rom this dark period, our ranks will be smaller they already are. But our pensions, our standard o living and our patternbargaining systems will be intact.

e pulp and paper industry in Canada has highly centralized bargainingwith two pattern systems, a western pattern and an eastern pattern. e two

tt ll h th k i lik d t


13/39


the pattern company. e caucus has a rich tradition o solidarity, and in1998 it won a teen week strike against Abitibi Consolidated over the soleissue o group bargaining. In that dispute, the caucus began a supplementarystrike und that in three labour disputes to deend the pattern since 2005has provided $18 million o extra strike pay or workers (paid through weeklydeductions directly rom the working members in the caucus).

In November o 2006, the caucus aced a major test. Abitibi Consolidatedhad convinced the local unions at its Belgo, Quebec mill to open their agree-ment and give concessions that broke the pattern. e caucus met immediatelyto resolve that this breach would not be repeated and they developed newguidelines or crisis negotiations when mills aced imminent closure. eyagreed that local eciencies and short term cost relie could be negotiated, butthe terms o the industry agreement could not be compromised. Six monthslater, the company underscored the point that breaking the pattern would notsave jobs, when it closed the Belgo mill despite the concessions. Many painuldecisions have been made while mills have closed in 2008 and 2009, but nolocal unions have since agreed to ruitlessly try to save the mill by breakingthe pattern.

In the case o Grand Falls, Newoundland, workers were orced in 2008to vote on demands rom AbitibiBowater to eliminate about hal the jobs inthe mill and to allow contracting out o all non-core work. Knowing ullythe stakes, the membership voted twice by overwhelming margins to reusethe concessions, and in December 2008 the company announced that thismill would close also. Soon ater, the province seized the companys timberrights and hydro dams, provoking a high prole dispute and the threat oa case against the province. By reusing to absorb the efects o thecrisis through concessions in their contract, the Grand Falls workers orcedthe pressure in other directions in this case sparking a startling change inpolitical direction.

e Grand Falls decisions seemed to indicate that members have acceptedthat bargaining backwards wont ultimately change the economic unda-mentals that result in a decision to close a mill. Nor did they believe that thesurvivors let ater the cuts would have a very viable uture. In short, they werepsychologically ready to tell the company to do what it would do.

e union has been orced to rearm its choices repeatedly in crisis bar-gaining. In April 2008, AbitibiBowater asked the union to open bargaininga year early and to give wage and pension concessions. e union signaledthat a cost-neutral agreement was possible, but not concessions, and the earlynegotiations ailed. By the start o 2009, the economic crisis had hit and thecompany then asked the union or a roll-over agreement, similar to the oneit walked away rom in 2008, but which would now oreit a wage increase


14/39


company that it would not agree to a roll-over that would break the westernpattern.

In the countdown to the expiry o the industry agreements on May 1, 2009,the drama surrounding AbitibiBowaters attempt to renance debt at therisk o bankruptcy has once again raised the stakes. In a bankruptcy-drivenrestructuring, should the union then roll back wages and benets at somemills? Would it be any more likely in that situation that concessions could save

jobs?e s paper industry caucus has made a choice to hold the line and,

to this point, they have not crossed that line. e caucus is convinced that iseparate deals to save mills undercut their industry agreement, not only wagesand benets, but the overall pattern bargaining system and the caucus itselwill be undermined.

Dave Coles prediction that the unions paper caucus will be smaller whenit emerges rom the crisis is certain. But i it does so with pattern bargainingintact and without sacricing its basic wages and benets, tens o thousandso pensioners and the next generation o workers will owe these union leadersa great debt. By holding the line on our existing standards, deensive strugglesagainst concessions even i they involve plant closures and job losses willbe historically important in both preserving the value o our movements pastgains, and in demonstrating concretely that workers will not pay (throughconcessions) or a crisis they did not create.

Pushing the Envelope: Dening and Fighting

for a Living Wage

Priority #2: Demand More From the System, Not Less, Despite the Crisis

Marcy Cohen

Families who work or low wages ace impossible choices buy ood or heat the house, eedthe children or pay the rent. e result can be spiraling debt, constant anxiety and longterm health problems. In many cases it means that the adults in the amily are workinglong hours oten at two or three jobs just to pay or basic necessities. ey have little timeto spend with their amily, much less to help their children with their school work or par-ticipate in community activities.9

T in the introduction to a recent report rom the BC

branch o the Canadian Centre or Policy Alternatives calling on private andpublic sector employers in Vancouver and Victoria to pay their direct and con-


15/39


tract employees a living wage. e living wage initiative difers in a numbero ways rom the labour movements traditional demand to increase theminimum wage. e minimum wage sets a statutory minimum below whichthe wages o an individual cannot legally all. e living wage, on the otherhand, addresses the adequacy o wages. It ocuses on the basic economic needso amilies, and is directly tied to the actual cost o living in any given com-munity.

In BC, as in the rest o Canada, the majority o amilies are alling behindcompared to a generation ago.10 ey are working longer hours and yet ndit harder to make ends met. With the economic downturn, this situation canonly get worse. Organizing in support o the living wage concept provides away or unions to build alliances with community partners in contrast toemployers and government, who will try to manage the economic crisis bylimiting the earning power o low-wage amilies.

We know, based on a growing body o evidence, that children rom low-income amilies are less likely to do well at school, have lower literacy levels,and are more likely as adults to sufer rom job insecurity, underemployment,and poor health.11 Ensuring that amilies with children have a living wage isthereore a sound, ar-sighted public policy.

e principles underlying the living wage build on the work o Harry Arthurs,who recently reviewed the Canadian ederal labour standards. He argues thatno matter how limited the bargaining power o a worker, no worker and byimplication their amily should receive a wage that is insucient to live on.or be required to work so many hours that he or she is efectively denied apersonal or civil lie.12

e living wage is dened as a wage sucient or working amilies to payor basic necessities, support the healthy development o their children, andparticipate ully in their communities without experiencing undue stress.A living wage is calculated with reerence to amilies with young children.But the intent is to ensure that the wage level is adequate to support amiliesthroughout their lie cycle. e living wage concept is relevant even to amilieswithout children so that young people, or example, are not discouragedrom having children, and older workers are able support a amily memberwith chronic ailment or disability.

In the report, thereore, the calculation o the living wage is based ona amily with two parents and two young children, with both parents workingull-time and year-round. We recognize, o course, that there is a diversity o

10. Armine Yalnizyan, Te Rich and the Rest of Us: Te Changing Face of Canadas Growing

Gap, Canadian Centre or Policy Alternatives (Ottawa 2007), 3.

11 Health Ocers Council o British ColumbiaHealth Ocers Council o British Columbia Submission on Child Poverty to the British


16/39


amily orms. Making ends meet will be even harder or amilies with only onewage-earner, or or amilies with more than two children, or amilies acingother special needs (such as disabilities or elder care needs). e two-parenttwo-child household is just a prototype, that allows a certain economic stan-dard to be dened, but we must never orget that diferent amilies will havediferent needs.

e living wage must provide or necessities like housing, ood, clothing,child care, and transportation expenses. But it does not include money orsaving or a down payment on a house, making debt payments, or saving orretirement. Amounts set aside or recreation, education, vacations, and emer-gencies are minimal. In other words, the living wage provides only or a verymodest, bare-bones budget, lacking many o the eatures o lie that manyCanadians take or granted. For Vancouver in 2008 the living wage was $16.74,and or Victoria it was $16.39. A similar report was published by the to estimate a living wage or Toronto, which was set at $16.60 or 2008.13 Ineach case, the living wage is the wage each o the two parents would have toearn, working ull-time or the whole year, to support their amily at the basicstandard o living specied in the report. For those experiencing temporary,seasonal, or precarious employment, even a living wage wont allow them tomeet the minimal living standard (since one or both o the parents wont haveenough hours o work to reach the required income).

Public service provision has a tremendous impact on the level o the livingwage. Ater all, many o the components o necessary amily consumptiondepend in whole or part on services provided by governments includinghealth care, education, public transit, and child care. e more extensive anduniversal these public services are, the less individuals have to pay or thosethings, and hence the lower the level o private income that must be attained(through employment) or the amily to adequately support itsel. Similarly,tax and transer policies (such as the Canadian Child Tax Benet) also afectthe level o income that must be generated through employment or a amily toreach the minimum living standard. is dimension o the living wage analy-sis provides an important opportunity to explain how strengthening publicprograms is as important as winning higher wages or enhancing the livingstandards o working amilies.

e idea o the living wage is relatively new in Canada, but in the US morethan 120 cities have passed living wage ordinances (requiring public con-tractors to meet that minimum standard in their own hiring). Similarly, inBritain many leading public and private sector employers pay living wages toboth their direct and contract employers. For example, in London the GreaterLondon Authority is a living wage employer, and as the host o the 2012


17/39


Summer Olympics, the city has agreed to pay everyone working at the site theLondon living wage.

In a time o economic hardship, ghting to dene and promote the concepto a living wage is more important than ever. We can highlight the social coststhat result rom poverty among working amilies. By the same token, we canpoint to the scal savings to government that will result when those socialcosts are avoided, thanks to decent living standards among working amilies.We can also emphasize the benets o better pay or local economies. It iswell known that low-income amilies spend most o their money locally, onthe necessities o lie (rather than on oreign travel and imported luxuries).Every dollar put into the pocket o a low-wage worker multiplies as it circu-lates among local businesses and services. And businesses that have agreedto pay living wages report higher productivity and reduced turnover amongtheir workers.14

In BC (and in Ontario), the living wage was dened at a level that is roughlytwice as high as the legal minimum wage. It may seem audacious to demand,in essence, a doubling o the minimum standard that we expect workersto be able to earn. But this is both a legitimate demand, and a strategicallyimportant one, or the labour movement to advance. e living wage demandpushes the envelope, which is crucial at a time when many workers (and theirunions) are likely to eel naturally deensive. rough living wage campaigns,we can highlight that wages or a very large share o workers in our economyare not enough or a amily to support itsel at a very basic standard o living even with two parents working ull-time, ull-year. (Barely more than halo employed Canadians earn a living wage, by the standard dened in the studies.) We must challenge governments to address this undamentalailure o the labour market (by increasing the statutory minimum wage; bysupporting collective bargaining; and by expanding the provision o socialprograms and services which, as noted above, supplement the living standardso working amilies). We must also challenge employers, by demanding thatthey pay living wages to their workers. at demand has an extra degree omoral credibility when it is backed up by a concrete, item-by-item descriptiono the cost o running a household and raising a amily.

For example, the living wage was a key bargaining demand in the April 2009contract talks between the Hospital Employees Union () and the threemultinational service providers (Sodexho, Aramark, and Compass) that havebeen contracted by regional health authorities to provide cleaning and oodservices in hospitals in the greater Victoria and Vancouver regions. Althoughthese workers mostly immigrant and visible minority women with children have little traditional bargaining power (they are considered an essentialservice and hence have no right to strike), the union did succeed in negotiating


18/39


19/39


much broader signicance: it is a parable o how workers can win change, bypicking winnable goals and then ghting efectively to attain them.

In the 1990s, the ederal Liberals reormed Canadas social saety net. Akey piece o this reorm was dramatic and wholesale changes to the countrysUnemployment Insurance system. And in 1996, Unemployment Insurancebecame Employment Insurance.

e essence o those changes was to make it tougher to qualiy or smallerbenets. At the same time, the ederal government raked in billions and bil-lions o dollars in what were now Employment Insurance premiums. Since1996 a cumulative total o over $50 billion collected in premiums were notspent in benets or those who are supposed to get them: the unemployed, thesick, or new parents.

Instead, these premiums (paid by working Canadians and their employ-ers) were transerred into general government revenues and used to ght thedecit, reduce the debt, and to hand out billions in corporate tax cuts. It is nowonder that the labour movement has said that the decit and the debt havebeen ought on the backs o the unemployed and disproportionately on thebacks o unemployed women because they have been.

In addition to slashing benets, the government also cut premiums substan-tially over the past dozen years with employers beneting signicantly romsmaller contributions while the unemployed continued to sufer.

e new qualiying rules meant many could not access benets especiallywomen. Just our in ten unemployed Canadians collect regular benets. Andthose benets have not kept pace with ination. (In act, the maximum weeklybenet was reduced in 1996 and then rozen or 11 consecutive years until2007.) e almost 60 percent o unemployed people not receiving benetsinclude those who actually qualied or , but whose benets have run outeven though they are still looking or work. Benet duration is much shorterthan in previous recessions.

e labour movement has carried out a sustained campaign to strengthen, beginning with the debates over reorms in the early 1990s, but con-tinuing since then. at campaign, during stronger economic times, resultedin many improvements to the program (especially or those living in highunemployment regions o the country). It also resulted in an expanded paren-tal leave program. is ongoing labour campaign required systematic efortsto educate union members and activists about issues, mobilize politicalpressure, and take advantage o openings to win incremental improvementsin the program. ese openings appeared rom time to time, thanks to theshiting political landscape especially with the onset o repeated minoritygovernments since 2004.

is sustained educational and political building combined, unortunately,


20/39


important not only because o their direct signicance to the quality o lie ounemployed people, but also as an example o how working people can win byorganizing themselves and ghting back.

From labour leaders to premiers, rom bank economists to workers and evensome s, the call to help the unemployed and provide much needed eco-nomic stimulus by xing has been loud and clear. It appears now that onlythe Harper government is in disagreement.

At time o writing, it was an open question whether Prime Minister StephenHarper and his ruling Conservatives would bend to pressure applied both bythe growing campaign led by the labour movement, and by eforts o the threeopposition parties, which (on this issue, at least) were united in their eforts.It was also an open question whether the opposition Liberals would stick totheir guns on this issue, or bargain it away as part o their broader politicalpositioning. Another key actor in the upsurge o demands to x has beenthe sense o betrayal, even rage, among individuals who paid into the system

yet suddenly ound that the system wasnt there or them when they needed it.at rage is both legitimate and powerul.

e current recession has highlighted the deep ailings o the program,indeed plastering them on the ront pages o newspapers. But despite its aws,Canadas employment insurance system is an important economic stabilizeror communities and the economy, and it remains a critical part o our nationssocial saety net a social saety net that has seen better days. Incrementalimprovements to the program, including the ollowing, would substantiallystrengthen that net:

reducing to 360 the hours to qualiy or all benets no matter where you live increasing the benet rate to at least 60 percent o a workers best 12 weeks

o earnings, and hiking the maximum weekly benet rom the current $447 providing an additional year o special extension i national unemploy-

ment exceeds 6.5 percent, paid or rom general revenues eliminating the two-week waiting period stopping the allocation o severance pay

Canadas unemployment insurance program was created nearly 70 yearsago because o a ghtback campaign led by the unemployed, workers, and theirunions. We still have an unemployment insurance program today, despitedecades o attacks, thanks only to sustained eforts by the labour movement.e program would be a lot worse than it is were it not or unions. Indeed, it isdoubtul wed have much o a program at all were it not or our many years ostruggle and activism.

is global nancial and economic crisis has presented progressive orces


21/39


their amilies rom the poverty they would otherwise experience without ajust income replacement system.

It is ironic, to say the least, to see Liberals threatening to bring down aConservative government reusing to undo painul changes in the systemwhich the Liberals themselves introduced over a decade earlier. But these days,

victories o any kind and this one would be a big one are crucial or thelabour movement, showing our members and activists that change is indeedpossible. In that context, a victory on would be testimony to years o careul,consistent struggle not just to a Liberal change o mind.

The Successful Campaign for a $10 Minimum Wage

Priority #4: Build Cross-Sectoral Alliances to Win Things for ALL Workers

Kristin Schwartz

T or poverty wages is usually ignored or takenor granted by people with more privilege. But in Ontario in 2007, an energeticgrass-roots campaign to raise the minimum wage to $10 per hour brought theplight o low-waged workers to the ront pages o newspapers, and even to the

corridors o power. Initiated by the Toronto and York Region Labour Council,the campaign roused a sleeping giant in communities and workplaces acrossthe province. Tens o thousands o ordinary people signed on to the demand.Faced with mounting public pressure and possible losses at the ballot box,the ruling Liberal provincial government committed to raising the minimumwage rom $8 to $10.25 by 2010, a 28 per cent increase over three years.

A core strength o the campaign was its clear message: $10 Now! Anti-poverty activists had been calling or a $10 minimum wage as ar back as 2000,and the clamour grew through the 2003 election, when the widely reviled

Conservative government was deeated. e Tories had rozen the minimumwage or eight long years as part o their overall attack on low-income com-munities. But once in power, the Liberals did little to repair the damage doneunder Tory rule. As the gap between rich and poor continued to widen, urgencyto address the issue mounted. Under the banner o A Million Reasons, theLabour Council took up the ambitious goal o improving incomes or the onemillion Toronto workers who earn low wages including the hundreds othousands who are paid at or near the minimum wage.

By late 2006 the Labour Council recognized that a precious political oppor-tunity existed to score a concrete victory. Cheri DiNovo introduced aprivate members bill to immediately raise the minimum wage to $10 per hour,


22/39


economic elite. But DiNovo hersel was aware that her bill would accomplishlittle without popular mobilization. e only way to afect a majority govern-ment is by a grassroots campaign that rightens the politicians enough thatthey think twice about not doing something, she said. e Labour Counciltook up the challenge and launched its campaign in early 2007.

Crucially, the strategy to win the $10 minimum wage involved both orga-nized labour and community organizations. Retail sector locals in the CanadianAuto Workers and the United Food and Commercial Workers committed staftime to mobilize their own membership, with the result that thousands signedthe campaigns petition cards. Meanwhile, the Labour Council built on estab-lished relationships with community organizations to host a series o TownHall meetings in low-income neighborhoods across Toronto. Hundreds oresidents participated. ere were tears and anger as people described theirstruggles to stay ahead o bill collectors, or to spend time with their amilieswhile holding down two or three jobs. At each Town Hall, the panel discus-sion on the issues o low-wage work and poverty was ollowed by small-groupstrategy sessions on how to actuallywin a $10 minimum wage. Its a way oorganizing where you dont have three or our experts and the rest are listenersand learners, said Labour Council organizer Judy Persad. Were all expertsin what is happening in our lives. And it showed people they are not alone.

Workers o colour are overrepresented at the bottom o the pay scale,and under-represented among decision-makers. Creating opportunities orworkers o colour to take leadership on the $10 campaign was critical to thecampaign, which eatured the Labour Councils rst Chinese-language pressconerence and a Chinese community Town Hall. At the Town Hall meetings,many spoke o their encounters with racism and discrimination on the job.eres a glass ceiling when it comes to new immigrants, said Ren Adams, asingle mother o two rom South Arica who spoke at one Town Hall. Peopleare sold a bill o goods. ey think they are coming here to good jobs and workin their eld. ey nd thats not the case.

e energy o these meetings was translated into direct political pressurewhen participants signed petition cards and the Labour Council made surethat letters were sent to their s through an innovative web-based system.Individual s were hearing rom hundreds o their constituents that theissue mattered to them. More dramatically, in a February by-election theLiberals lost a historically sae seat to candidate Paul Ferreira, whose cam-paign was ocused on the minimum wage issue. is was an ominous warningto the Liberals, coming just months beore the October provincial election.

Clearly shaken, the Liberals responded. Two days ater the by-election,Finance Minister Greg Sorbara proclaimed Poverty is my issue. And sixweeks later the Liberals endorsed the $10 target or the minimum wage,


23/39


e success o this campaign put a little more money in low-waged workerspockets. Perhaps more importantly in the long-run, or many the campaignprovided a rare experience o speaking out and being heard. Organized labourpositioned itsel as taking up the issues o predominantly non-unionizedworkers, their amilies, and communities. Community-based activists learnedthe potential o coordinating their activist eforts with the interventions osupportive politicians. For the Labour Council and its many allies and part-ners, these accomplishments heightened optimism, condence, and solidarity.And that laid the oundation or our uture work together in the movement oreconomic and social justice.

Private-Sector and Public-Sector Workers arein this Together

Priority #5: Rebuild Active Solidarity Within the Labour Movement

Gil Levine

I , - and public-sector union members almost

seem to inhabit two diferent worlds. Unionization in the public sector is closeto 80 per cent, and has held steady over the last two decades. In the privatesector, unionization has been eroding, and is now below 20 per cent. ebattles ought by public sector workers are just as tough as those in the privatesector, to be sure as demonstrated by the vicious attacks on public sectorworkers that have recently been unleashed. But so ar the brunt o the eco-nomic crisis has hit private-sector unionists rst, especially in hard-hit sectorslike manuacturing and orestry: hundreds o thousands o jobs have been lost,and private-sector unions ace incredible pressure or concessions.

So in the wake o the current economic crisis and the intensication oattacks on unions rom both employers and governments, it seems obviousthat public-sector and private-sector workers are ultimately in the same boat and they badly need each other, i they are to keep that boat aoat. ere isa glaring need to rebuild active solidarity between public and private sectorunions, as the labour movement conronts the efects o the crisis, ghts topreserve past gains, and strives to shore up its organizational and politicalpower.

All Canadian workers, both public and private, are being hammered by the

economic crisis. Public sector workers may have been somewhat shielded romthe rst efects o the recession. is is certainly true in terms o employment( hi h h ti d t d i th bli t i t t t i j b


24/39


and a ew other areas. But this will change, and soon. Public sector employerswill inevitably use looming decits as the excuse to attack collective agree-ments and dismantle workers rights that have taken decades to establish. eanti-concessions struggles by civic workers in Windsor and Toronto are clearly

just the beginning o more vicious ghts to come, as decits swell and oppor-tunistic politicians try to turn public rustration against public sector unions.

Fewer good jobs in the private sector (in manuacturing and other higher-wage sectors) mean ewer tax dollars. at puts increased pressure on the jobsecurity o public sector workers and the quality o the services that they areable to provide. So public sector workers have a direct interest in the preser-

vation o well-paying industries in the private sector. In other words, publicsector workers will not be able to remain in a protected zone. In their owninterests, they will have to engage directly in the economic struggles o theirbrothers and sisters in the private sector.

is need or all unions to work together was well put by Paul Moist,National President o the Canadian Union o Public Employees, when hetold a recent conerence that the labour movement cannot be split; noCanadian Labour Congress aliate can aford to isolate itsel rom the rest othe movement. Your support or Medicare and other public services is critical.Our support or good manuacturing jobs is also critical.

As the economic crisis unolded and trade unionists recognized the sever-ity o the economic and political threats acing our movement, there havebeen positive signs o improved cooperation between public and privatesector union leaders. Paul Moist has spoken to conventions o the , theCommunications, Energy, and Paperworkers Union () and others. In turn,Ken Lewenza, president, has spoken at the Ontario conventionand is slated in the all o 2009 to speak to the National Convention. Inthis modest way, each union becomes more aware o the issues acing otherunions. While this is a healthy development at the leadership level, muchmore emphasis needs to be placed on building solidarity, shared activity, andexchange at the local level. is solidarity needs to encompass union-speciccollective bargaining and strike struggles, as well as broader social and politi-cal campaigns.

For example, there have been some encouraging examples o public andprivate sector unions sharing acilities in political election campaigns. Recentmunicipal election campaigns in Vancouver, Ottawa, Toronto, and elsewherehighlighted the common interest between public sector and private sectorunions in electing more progressive candidates. Labour councils in these citiesshared acilities and mobilized members to elect progressives, both or theobvious benet o the municipal employees in each city, but also or the well-being o the community at large.


25/39


unionized suppliers. For example, Canada Post plans to urther motorize itsletter carrier operations. ere would seem to be a perect match betweenthe needs o this Crown Corporation (which plans to purchase approximately5,000 new light vehicles in coming years) and the needs o Canadian autoworkers (who are being laid of because o weak vehicle sales).

Given Canada Posts and the ederal governments record, these new vehi-cles might well be imported rom outside Canada. Accordingly, the CanadianUnion o Postal Workers and the issued a joint statement in the spring o2009 calling on Canada Post to ensure that the new trucks be made by union-ized Canadian workers. e joint statement made the more general point thatthe loss o good-paying manuacturing jobs has a ripple efect on other sectorso the economy including the public sector through the loss o tax revenuesrom the auto and related industries.

e logic o mutual benet in this issue is obvious and compelling: auto-workers see a public institution actively supporting the hard-pressed Canadianmanuacturing base, while postal workers ght or their employer to putsomething back into the communities they serve. Most important o all, bothunions get to know each other better, ght or common goals, and build soli-darity in action. We need more examples o this common cause in practice.

Other eforts at cooperation are being made at the local level. A major andlengthy strike by members against the City o Windsor, which demandedhuge concessions rom its civic workers, received strong support rom theWindsor Labour Council and the . Meanwhile, joint public and privatesector rallies have been held in St. Catharines, Kitchener, Belleville, Oshawa,Moncton and other cities. A rally or laid-of Stelco workers in Hamilton drew2,000 people, including many public employees. Similarly, a rally o severalthousand on Parliament Hill in support o orestry jobs, pensions, and better drew support rom across the board. In another recent strike by schoolboard workers in London, Ontario, retirees rom both the Steelworkers andthe joined members on the picket line. With the ranks o retireesgrowing aster than the regular work orce, organizing and mobilizing retireeswill play an increasingly important role in our political and economic battles.

To its credit, the Canadian Labour Congress has tried to become sig-nicantly more active in mobilizing members o aliated unions in jointcampaigns around political and economic issues. is marks a hopeul changerom the inactivity and divisiveness o recent years, when the movementsleaders seemed more concerned with inter-union rivalries than with buildingthe potential o the working class movement to ght or change. But the struc-ture o the (constrained by the need or virtual unanimity rom aliatedleaderships, beore being able to undertake meaningul mobilizations) and itslimited resources still restrict the efectiveness o its campaigns


26/39


27/39


against the attacks that are coming at us and to arm ourselves to ght orbetter alternatives.

ats why I believe that systematic eforts to train our leaders and activistsin economic literacy, broader political-economic analysis, and skills should bea crucial movement-building priority or labour right now.

Teaching economics to trade unionists is a hard sell, I admit. eir eyes tendto glaze over when you bring up the subject. Weve been led to believe thatits too technical or abstract or just plain boring and that only the expertscan hope to understand it. We are also very busy with all the pressing tasks odeending our members interests every day, and oten eel we dont have thetime to ocus on expanding our longer-term capacities.

Many also think, rankly, that economics is simplywrong. Most trade union-ists have been told too oten by one biased economist or another that theymust tighten their belts, that they must accept less, or that things that seemto make perect sense (like building homes or homeless people) just arenteconomically easible. eyve come to see economics as a barrier to socialprogress, rather than as a tool we can pick up and use or our own purposes.

But those economists werent working or us, o course. ey were workingor the other side. Economics is not neutral. ere are a lot o diferent ways toorganize economic lie, not just one.

Its not enough to simply explain to our own people the specic mechan-ics o this particular crisis (the ailures o sub-prime lending, the resultingcascade o nancial ailures and business collapses that produced an unprec-edented global recession). Yes, we need to understand all that. We also needto understand that this crisis is just one specic example o a much deeperproblem. It was produced by a set o policies and relationships (market orces)that will cause the same problem again i we dont change the rules o thegame. Otherwise people will be tempted to just hunker down, to wait it out inthe hope that things get better. at wont be enough.

Naomi Klein explains in TeShockDoctrine how ruling elites take advan-tage o moments o popular ear and conusion to orce painul changes thatpeople wouldnt otherwise tolerate. ats exactly what will happen again iwe are not ready to push back with our own analysis o what happened, why ithappened, and what we can do about it.

e Vancouver and District Labour Council recently undertook one initia-tive in this area o developing popular economic literacy that was importantand successul. In January, we hosted a weekend-long conerence on the eco-nomic crisis and some possible alternatives (co-sponsored by the BC CanadianCentre or Policy Alternatives). It eatured a keynote talk by Jim Stanord onhis book Economics for Everyone; two panel discussions on what the crisismeant or BC and how labour could ght back. We let plenty o time or audi-


28/39


economic literacy or trade unionists and other activists. We used Stanordsbook as a guide, but went ar beyond it with additional topics, reading mate-rial, and guest speakers.

By the end o our course we had 30 condent, capable activists who elt a lotbetter about taking on economic debates and talking to their co-workers andneighbours about economic issues and alternatives.

As one participant put it, Ive been waiting to have this conversation or 20years.

at alone wont change the world, o course. But i we do more o it, wellbe better prepared ourselves to help change the world. Our participants oundthe discussion both interesting and useul. Indeed workers take to it instinctu-ally. Ater all, when they realize what real economics is actually about theirdaily lives they understand that they already know a lot about it.

I think o political-economy training as a kind o road map or labouractivists and socialists. Like any map, we need it or three things: to gure outwhere we are, where we want to go, and how to get there. I would like to seeall unions, local labour councils and labour centrals step up their eforts onthis ront. We need to equip our leadership and activist base with a strongercritique o the current situation, and to arm them as citizens with a betterunderstanding o the alternatives we can and must be ghting to win.

Organizing in a Global City

Priority #7: Build a Multi-Racial and Inclusive Labour Movement

John Cartwright

Since the First Nations gave Toronto the name a gathering place the city and region have

been the destination o choice or generations o immigrants, who come with their skillsand dreams o making a better lie or themselves and their amilies. While many oundthose dreams ullled, opportunity and prosperity were never ully shared.

Many actors contributed to our quality o lie: active government engagement; a strongindustrial base with middle income union jobs; a well-unded education system; cohesivepublic services and social programs; the struggles o women, immigrants, and racializedcommunities or equality; the dedication o community activists or social justice; and adeep desire or environmental sustainability. However, the growth o inequality and envi-ronmental degradation challenges us all.

T the Declaration on Good Jobs for All, endorsed

by one thousand participants at an extraordinary and diverse gathering: theGood Jobs Summit in Toronto in November 2008. e Declaration, like the


29/39


e process o bringing together one o the most multi-racial gatheringso labour and community activists in Canadian history did not happen bychance. It is one part o a long journey undertaken by labour and social justicemovements in Toronto. While social unionism is practised in cities andtowns across the country, in Toronto it is the equity ocus that makes this

journey unique. To do otherwise would be to ignore the multi-racial reality othe working class in Canadas largest urban centre.

Individually and collectively, activists and leaders at all levels have workedor inclusion and equity, and to build solid linksin the diverse communitiesacross greater Toronto. Going back many decades, workers o colour led theght against racism and discrimination. at was never easy, and there weredisappointments and hard lessons as well as victories along the way.

Starting in 2003 the annual Aboriginal/Workers o Colour Conerences(sponsored by the Toronto and York Region Labour Council) have created aspace that is crucial in connecting activists o colour, and linking local strug-gles with global eforts or social justice. e rst one called or recording thelegacy o labours anti-racist work. e creation o that a booklet and videoBreakingBarriers,LinkingStruggles has been an important educational toolor the entire movement.

en, with the 2005 release o its longer-run strategy document, AMillionReasons to ake Action, the Labour Council made it clear that it saw itsmandate as helping to raise the standards o one million workers in the region,mostly non-union, whose work was underpaid and undervalued. at servedas a ramework or specic campaigns in varied sectors hotel workers,manuacturing, and social services. In each o those eforts, new lessons werelearned, particularly about organizing among immigrant and newcomer com-munities. And new relationships, and new bonds o solidarity, were careullybuilt and nurtured between unions, anti-poverty and community groups, anda constellation o neighbourhood and ethnic organizations.

Some o those ghts, such as the Made In Canada Matters struggle aroundgovernment procurement, deended traditional high-wage union jobs. Butother struggles, like the ght or a $10 minimum wage (described elsewherein this orum by Kristin Schwartz), also showed that labour is willing and ableto ght or more that just its own members. at campaign, in essence, con-stituted political bargaining: demanding, in the political arena, a substantialincrease in wages or the hundreds o thousands o Toronto-area workers whotoil at, or near, the minimum wage. e campaign eatured extensive grass-roots organizing town hall meetings in ten low-income neighbourhoods, amass petition campaign, and movement building combined with ormal elec-tion work.

In the wake o these ongoing eforts to prepare the ground, when the Labour


30/39


in something more than just a one-day event. e outreach or the Summitinvolved presentations and discussions in scores o meetings, and a dozendiferent languages. e DeclarationonGoodJobsforAllevolved rom thoseinteractions, and went through numerous amendments.

e Summit was held on 22 November 2008. People who had never been inthe same room beore exchanged ideas and shared a determination to worktogether or a society that we could all be proud o. Presenters posed hardquestions, and workshops buzzed. In the closing, Summit co-ordinator JudyVashti Persad captured the spirit o the day with one word magic.

e Good Jobs or All Coalition has continued to develop planning jointcampaigns and supporting each others eforts. e Coalition is holding ralliesto ght or improvements in Employment Insurance, supporting new regula-tions on temp agency work, demanding investment in social inrastructure,and advocating or a green economy with good local jobs. is coalition willno doubt ace many challenges. But it represents an authentic expression othe changing working class in Toronto, and just may become a new model ocommunity/labour organizing in the 21st century.

e demographic reality is that the clear majority o the uture workingclass will come rom communities o immigrants, aboriginal, and racializedworkers. e labour movement must root itsel, authentically and powerully,in these communities i we are to have a base that is able to deend past gainsand ght or new victories.

PMP Stands for Politicize, Mobilize, and Power

Priority #8: Integrate Unemployed Workers (Union and Non-Union)into the Fightback

Winnie Ng

O J , , Progressive Moulded Products (, the largest employerin Vaughan, Ont.) led or bankruptcy protection and closed its eleven acili-ties. e company closed up shop owing its 2400 workers a total o over $30million in severance and termination pay. Ninety per cent o these non-unionworkers were born outside o Canada. e realization that they were used,abused, and now tossed aside like scrap metal, ironically on the Canada Daylong weekend, completely shattered their notion o Canada as a society thatupholds airness and human rights. e resulting shock and sense o betrayalinspired the workers to stage a sixteen-day round-the-clock blockade to stopthe company rom removing heavy machinery rom the main plant.


31/39


imagination o the labour movement in Toronto. Other unions organized atwo-week solidarity picket involving activists rom various unions march-ing alongside the ormer workers; this solidarity action exemplied theessence o community and social justice unionism.

e stepped orward to act as a sponsoring organization with the pro-vincial government, in order to establish the Workers Action Centre toprovide support services to the unemployed workers. Fa Lim, one o leaderso the blockade and now the Centres internal coordinator, aptly describesthe s action as akin to ofering us a lieline when we were drowning.

e Action Centre has been warmly embraced by the workers as theirsecond home. e Centre is grounded in the principle that workers who aregoing through job loss themselves are the most appropriate persons to providesupport and assistance to their ellow workers. e Centre has become not

just a source o practical assistance and support (or job search, reerrals, andmore). It has become, more importantly, an organizing base where victims oplant closure are transormed into social change activists. Over 60 workershave volunteered as peer helpers or committee members. From assistingtheir ormer co-workers (over 1900) to le or severance and termination payclaims, to mobilizing them to march in the leading contingent o last yearsToronto Labour Day Parade, these activists have applied the same intensityand generosity o spirit they demonstrated on the picket line to the day-to-dayrunning o the Centre.

For many, it has been a journey o recovery and transormation. ey haveound their own voices, participated in rallies, and gained the condence tospeak up. As a result, more stories o past workplace discrimination haveemerged. In as much as this transition has been a period o grieving over theirlost jobs and their sense o workplace community, it has also been a healingprocess o asserting their own continuing presence as workers with rights,dignity, and voice.

is has also been a politicizing process or many o the workers, asthey experience the injustice o ederal bankruptcy law which places themat the bottom o the list as non-secured creditors, despite their many yearso service. ey are now keenly aware that they are casualties o a legalizedraud that dismisses workers as powerless, and thereore, insignicant andirrelevant.

e experience demonstrates that there are many non-union workersin the community who also bear the brunt o economic restructuring (despitethe ocus o the media and politicians on higher-prole crises at union-ized rms, like General Motors, AbitibiBowater, or Air Canada). Displacednon-union workers generally must ace the stress and challenges o job losswithout the support o an action centre or adjustment program (o the sort


32/39


service providers. It is critical or the labour movement to extend a hand tothese workers and provide the much-needed support and advocacy to assistthem through this transition. For unions that run action centres or their laidof members, extending centre services to unemployed workers within thesame geographical community would reect more than a generosity o spirit.It would also be an act o solidarity that participating workers would remem-ber or a long time including the next time a union comes knocking.

In the coming months, more and more workers will exhaust their benetsand ace the grim reality o losing their homes. Some ormer workers havealready started to borrow rom their credit cards to pay their mortgages. Whatshould the labour movements response be to this inevitability o oreclosurewithin our communities? Can we aford to stand idly by and watch unem-ployed workers and their amilies being locked out rom their own homes? Canwe aford to see abandoned neighbourhoods, replicas o those in destroyed UScities, mushrooming within our own communities?

ereore, in addition to pushing or reorm and providing action centreservices (including to laid-of non-union workers), we need a labour campaignaimed at government and the banks to give unemployed workers a break.And we need to look beyond traditional mass protests and lobbying. Imaginewhat reactions would be sparked when (not if) our labour and communityleaders were willing to orm blockades to stop unemployed workers homesrom being oreclosed. is is a desperate time, and we must be ready withdesperate measures.

Corporate and government elites will try to take advantage o the currentcrisis to impose a ar-reaching structural adjustment on workers, communi-ties, and public programs. Part o their strategy will be to exploit the dis-unityo the working class: pitting unionized against non-unionized workers, lower-paid against better-paid, unemployed against employed. Dening the labourmovements struggle as one or all workers, rather than as a struggle on behalo employed union members alone, will be crucial or our movement to cementour political and moral credibility with the broader public (and with potentialuture union members).

It is not easy to organize workers without jobs, or many reasons. ey havelittle direct economic power, they experience great ux and turnover in theirlives, many struggle with depression. On the other hand, they have lots o time,and many are motivated by intense anger over the unairness o their situa-tion both losing their jobs, and then being underserved and disrespected bythe system and Canadas weak network o social services. Workers without

jobs are a huge potential resource or the labour movement, and we must ndnew ways to engage and integrate them into our continuing struggles. And wecannot allow the articial divide o unionized versus non-unionized workers


33/39


the labour movement extended an umbrella to non-union workers who oundthemselves caught in a downpour. at gesture, small as it may be, is a symbolo the movement-building we can and must undertake worker by worker,and community by community.

That was Then, and This is Now: Socialist Reections on

Responding to Capitalist Crises

Priority #9: Build a Socialist Left, Inside and Outside of the Unions

Bryan D. Palmer

S that the present global nancial meltdown and result-ing worldwide recession compare with and rival in signicance the economiccollapse o the 1930s. It is commonplace to hear in the capitalist west that wenow ace the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. It is di-cult to adjust the television set to and not hear this. It has become partoObamaspeak.

ere are other analogies (more political than economic) to the 1930s that

are also made, and that labour and socialist activists must consider careully,as well. ey oten relate to how workers and their organizations responded tocapitalist crises, past and present.

e suggestion is made that out o the last great economic crisis came con-siderable working-class advance. True on many levels, this claim should not,as I suggest below, be taken to imply that such advance can automatically beassumed as the outcome o the current crisis.

I will orego a serious analysis o the structural issues o political economythat necessarily rame understanding o the current context and that are obvi-

ously undamental to labours struggle against the consequences o capitalistcrisis. It is nonetheless important to recognize a number o salient points thatprovide a central background to my perspective:

1) e current crisis is one phase, albeit advanced, o an ongoing, inexora-ble, and inevitable crisis o capitalism, rooted in the undamental tendencyo the rate o prot to all, and the consequent necessity o capital to seekalleviation rom pressures in various historically-situated expansions (impe-rialism, colonialism, technological change, war, globalization).

2) Whatever the wildness associated with the subprime mortgage meltdowni h U i d S d l h h i i i b i


34/39


35/39


1) Worker resistance in Canada and the United States during the 1930s was, it needs to be said, a continuous and always successul revolt. In theopening years o the Great Depression, routinely reerred to by radicals asthe dog days, most indicators o class struggle suggested, not strength andadvance, but the hard realities o retreat. With the economy routed, unionsin a weakened state and very much on the deensive, and the ranks o theunemployed growing by the day, the working class response to the economiccollapse o the early 1930s was handcufed by the obvious and dauntingmaterial conditions. Where workers did ght back they almost always didso deensively, in oten-losing eforts to stave of a wage cut or to ght backagainst employer ofensives that aimed to turn the clock back on gains othe past. e 1920s had not been, overall, a decade o upturn in the classstruggle, but the early 1930s saw even urther declines. In Canada in 19301931, or instance, the number o strikes was less than one-quarter o thosethat had been ought out at the height o class struggle in 19191920, andthe number o strikers involved was just over 10 per cent o those who hadwithheld their labour in the earlier strike wave. Moreover, these early yearso the Great Depression saw ar ewer working-class victories than might beconsidered normal.

2) It was not until 1934, and then 1937, with the Depression clouds liting,that the strike movements associated with the militancy o the working-class unolded. In the United States, general strikes erupted in Minneapolis,San Francisco, and Toledo in 1934; and the sit-down strike, pioneered inSarnia, Ontario and Flint, Michigan, was decidedly associated with 1937.e organizing wave o industrial unions linked to the ortunes o John L.Lewiss Congress o Industrial Organization () rocked the complacencyo the American Federation o Labor crat unions. e gains to be realizednevertheless did not come until the later 1940s. O decisive importance inthis period o consolidation was that World War II, and its demands orproduction, rescued capitalism rom the economic collapse o the GreatDepression. Reconstruction o a Europe decimated by war uelled a capital-ist recovery that needed a dual peaceul coexistence: with the Soviet Unionon the one hand, and with organized labour on the other. In this context,Roosevelts New Deal ormula reached past its origins in the mid-1930s, andparlayed the Democratic Party into the seeming advocate o workers organi-zation, a largelyideologicaland rhetoricalobuscation that would wear moreand more thin as the rude actualities o class struggle unolded. A difer-ent political trajectory evolved in Canada, but the Mackenzie King Liberalsadvanced by incorporating elements o the program o the Co-OperativeCommonwealth Federation, paving the way or later arrival o a ull-blown


36/39


3) Finally

“forum on labour and the economic crisis: can the union movement rise to the occasion?,”

Documents