INDIGENOUS LABOUR ORGANIZING IN SASKATCHEWAN

Red Baiting and Red Herrings

BY BROCK PITAWANAKWAT

An indigenous woman and former employee with the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations (FSIN) recently confided her frustration with the apathetic approach to collective organizing
amongst her co-workers. When asking her colleagues why they did not want a union to represent them, a frequent reply was that it was “not our way.” In other words, organizing to protect workers’ rights is “un-indigenous.”

That these views have taken root among employees is indicative of the seductive sway that fixed notions of tradition hold on indigenous people. Many of us fear being accused of what the Plains Cree refer to as moniyakaso; that is, “acting or behaving as a white person.” This article explores these themes in the
context of the highly publicized establishment and eventual elimination of a labour union at the Northern Lights Casino in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan.

NOT OUR WAY?

Is participating in a union or developing class awareness incompatible with being an indigenous person? This question underlies the rise and fall of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) Local 37, the only attempt to establish a labour union at a First Nations casino in Saskatchewan. Although the union at the
Northern Lights Casino was certified in 1999, it faced almost immediate external and internal opposition despite securing a 30% raise in wages through the Saskatchewan Labour Relations Board.

The external opposition was led by the FSIN. The FSIN is a provincial organization that represents the elected band council chiefs of member First Nations in Saskatchewan. The FSIN’s chiefs passed a motion in legislative assembly stating its concern that labour unions were foreign and would harm the “conciliatory manner of dealing with issues of concern.” FSIN Grand Chief Perry Bellegarde expressed their concerns as being a matter of self-determination, arguing that band councils should have the right to manage their own labour relations without provincial interference.

When the struggle to establish the union moved into the courtroom, the FSIN strategy shifted from self-determination to the recognition of labour relations as a constitutionally protected
Aboriginal right under Section 35. When this strategy was unsuccessful, the FSIN lawyers also argued that provincial laws should not apply to Indian institutions because of the federal/provincial division of responsibilities under Section 91 and Section 92 of the Canadian constitution. Ultimately, the court challenges failed and the union was successfully certified.

Yet the most harmful opposition was not external but internal. This opposition culminated in a bitter fight that led to the union’s decertification in January 2003. A former casino employee and union supporter blamed the union’s decertification in part on vague notions that the union would in some way negatively “affect First Nations culture.” This leads us back to the FSIN employee’s assertion that labour unions “are not our way.” What is the source of these notions that labour unions are harmful to indigenous ways?

The FSIN chiefs propagated these notions and have used this false front of nationalism as a red herring to maintain their power over labour relations in indigenous institutions. This form of red-baiting is a classic divide-andconquer technique to prevent marginalized people from organizing to confront their oppressors. Indian reserves in Canada are rife with oppression that replicates the colonial order, and band councils are a classic example of indirect colonial rule.

Indian band councils are a foreign imposition that replaced our traditional forms of governance. The FSIN chiefs’ public opposition to labour unions as “foreign” is thus laughable when juxtaposed with its use of non-native lawyers to argue in non-native courts based on non-native law that the colonizer’s constitution should reinforce the band councils’ ability to deny their own workers the right to organize.

A second highly publicized labour dispute has emerged between the FSIN and another one of its institutions: First Nations University of Canada (FNUNIV – commonly referred to in the media as FNUC). The faculty of FNUNIV successfully fought FSIN opposition to joining the union representing faculty members at the University of Regina, the University of Regina Faculty Association (URFA).

Widespread fears persist among FNUNIV faculty and staff that the FSIN seeks to break this union. When the FSIN management conducted a recent shake-up at the FNUNIV, the resultant
series of firings and resignations led to the filing of 31 grievances with their union. Although this dispute is ongoing, faculty have voiced their concerns and challenged management through URFA.

CULTURE OF RESISTANCE

The unique aspects of indigenous labour relations require some historical explanation. Centuries of forced assimilation policies by Canada, the United States and Britain have fostered a retaliatory
culture of resistance among indigenous peoples. When the old ways were under external attack, it became crucial to hold on to them to prevent cultural markers from being swept away.

The long history of colonization has solidified the myth that indigenous lands and resources were surrendered to the Crown following an invented conquest. Such an incomplete understanding is selfserving for the settlers who seek to ignore their own culpability in the ongoing theft of indigenous territories, and their own continued benefits from the exploitation of indigenous peoples.

Indigenous peoples negotiated treaties with colonial authorities to allow arriving settlers to share their lands. Although indigenous peoples were cognizant that the massive influx of foreigners was irreversible, they were determined to maintain their autonomy and expressed this condition repeatedly in Treaty negotiations. However, colonial authorities repeatedly violated this promise of autonomy.

In utter disregard for the spirit of the Treaties, an Anglo-European economic and spiritual model was forcibly applied through the destruction of the traditional economy. In its place, colonial agents
offered a semi-feudal vision of a Christian-Indian peasant class to be created with reserves and residential schools. The reserve policy disrupted the traditional economy as indigenous peoples lost access to most of their lands and resources. The residential school policy was designed to take in indigenous children and produce compliant labourers for Canadian farms and factories.
With the foundations of indigenous societies shaken so deeply, all forms of social organization were vulnerable to external influence.

The emerging capitalist class in indigenous communities has exploited ongoing and deep-seated fears of assimilation amongst our peoples. Indigenous organizations have used a nationalist and xenophobic propaganda campaign to oppose labour unions. Such “sell-out” slander has many forms that range from accusations of being an “apple” (red on the outside and white on the inside) to being called a “hang-around-the-fort Indian” (one who prefers non-native society to indigenous ways).

Increasing capitalist economic integration of indigenous communities produces growing economic disparity. A similar political process created a power disparity with the establishment of a comprador native elite by the British and later the Canadian governments. Traditional leadership was attacked and undermined to put in place a system of indirect rule that created colonizing agents among indigenous people. These colonizing agents were entrenched and legitimated as the chief and council members of the Indian Act.

These social engineering attempts, although unsuccessful, have completely altered the indigenous world. Indigenous communities are no longer voluntary associations of free and independent people who control their own means of production. The Indian Act regulates rules of membership with a reified concept of community determined by one’s association with an Indian Band and a reserve.

There is obvious hypocrisy in harkening back to tradition when adopting nonindigenous institutions such as gaming casinos and universities. However, these accusations have ramifications for indigenous employees seeking better wages and working conditions, as well as those who believe in the potential of indigenous labour alliances to challenge neo-liberalism.

TOWARD A CRITICAL TRADITIONALISM

Indigenous labour relations are complicated by clashing notions of citizenship and class. Indeed, many indigenous people continue to maintain an ambivalent view of organized labour because unions have not always served the immediate interests of their communities. This has especially been the case in the resource extraction industry, which often pits the rights of non-native workers against indigenous nations whose lands continue to be stolen for capitalist development. Furthermore, class-based ideologies generally view any ethnic or national identity as a threat to class unity.

Although labour unions are no panacea for colonization, we need to ask ourselves whether their increased profile in native communities would empower indigenous employees and curb the exploitative practices occurring in our workplaces. In certain contexts this would undoubtedly be the case. Informing our perspectives on these issues with a critical traditionalism, rather than a naïve cultural nationalism, would go a long way towards ensuring that our self-determination efforts do not end up replicating the structures of domination that we seek to transform.

[Brock Pitawanakwat is Anishinaabe (Whitefish River First Nation) and a PhD student in the Indigenous Governance Programs at the University of Victoria and a faculty member at the First Nations
University of Canada in Regina.]