The CAW’s Great Leap Backwards
The CAW’s decision to open its just signed local agreements with GM in Oshawa marked a momentous turning point in our union’s history. With this decision the CAW stepped on the accelerator in the corporate race to the bottom. The result is a great leap backwards that will ultimately affect every Canadian worker.
Consider the grave implications of this “shelf agreement”. For the first time ever the CAW has agreed to reduce time off the job via reduced break times. By doing so the CAW has gone from bad to worse in terms of the centuries’ long fight to reduce work time. Having just signed a contract with absolutely no additional paid time off the job at a time when our members are working harder and harder the CAW is giving up time off the job that our parents’ generation fought and even died on picket lines to gain. This concession is a shameful betrayal of their heroic legacy. It is a step back to the kind of workplace they fought to change to make it fit for human beings.
The agreement to outsource nearly 400 non-skilled maintenance and construction jobs in the Skilled Trades will have a similar effect. High seniority workers will no longer be rewarded with these generally less physically demanding off-line jobs. These jobs will cease to be part of the bargaining unit. Worst of all these preferred jobs will be outsourced to non-union workers paid less than half our wages and receiving few if any benefits. This means our production workforce will be subject to the gross insult of being tied to production lines and working shifts while what were preferred jobs are done by exploited, non-union workers working in the same plant.
Furthermore, insofar as this will involve employing non-union workers outside of a CAW bargaining unit, we will not be able to negotiate to raise their compensation up to ours and, as such, their very presence will threaten what we have. This means that contrary to CAW policy the CAW has effectively agreed to a two-tier wage and benefit structure with a huge gap between the upper and lower tiers. We will also see the effective end of the decades’ old union principle of having a closed union shop uniting everyone working within it and maximizing our power to deal with the boss.
This means the implementation of this “shelf agreement” will mark a major step towards realizing the boss’ goal of having a cheap, more disposable workforce. This also means a key goal of corporate work reorganizing strategies like lean and agile manufacturing will have largely been achieved. It is also noteworthy that conceding this resembles what the UAW has done. This is historically significant for the CAW.
If the “shelf agreement” is implemented it will create other nightmares for affected CAW members. There will be far more pressure on older workers to retire as soon as possible because they will not be able to withstand continuing to doing their jobs. Once retired they will leave younger workers behind to bear the brunt of a “continuous improvement” process that enables the boss to get the most work out of the fewest possible number of workers. Workers who become injured will increasingly have to choose between being shown the door or working in pain and becoming more injured.
Over a decade ago I wrote about corporate work reorganization strategies, warning they would lead to workers working in 19th Century working conditions with 21st Century technology. If you fully consider the consequences of this “shelf agreement” in its broader industry – wide context it is painfully clear my warning was accurate.
We cannot be complacent. We must be resolute in defending what we and those who came before us fought so hard for. We must not allow ourselves to be beaten into submission and industrial servitude. We require knowledgeable, insightful leadership with a broad vision and determination to rise to the historic challenges now facing us. With it the membership’s declining faith in the CAW can be revived and the boss can again see our collective power as workers. We must always remember that we did not build this union in order to go backwards!!!
Issued and paid for by Bruce Allen Vice-President of CAW Local 199
