<html﻿>﻿

﻿<head﻿>﻿<script type="text/javascript" src="https://web-static.archive.org/_static/js/bundle-playback.js?v=2N_sDSC0" charset="utf-8"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://web-static.archive.org/_static/js/wombat.js?v=txqj7nKC" charset="utf-8"></script>﻿
﻿<script>window.RufflePlayer=window.RufflePlayer||{};window.RufflePlayer.config={"autoplay":"on","unmuteOverlay":"hidden","showSwfDownload":true};</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="﻿https://web-static.archive.org/_static/﻿js/ruffle/ruffle.js"></script>
﻿<script type="text/javascript">
  ﻿  __wm.init(﻿"https://web.archive.org/web"﻿);
  __wm.wombat(﻿"http://www.newsocialist.org/old_mag/magazine/19/article07.html"﻿,﻿"20100626191755"﻿,﻿"https://web.archive.org/"﻿,﻿"web"﻿,﻿"https://web-static.archive.org/_static/"﻿,
	      "﻿1277579875﻿");
</script>
﻿<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="https://web-static.archive.org/_static/css/banner-styles.css?v=1utQkbB3" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="https://web-static.archive.org/_static/css/iconochive.css?v=3PDvdIFv" />﻿
﻿<!-- End Wayback Rewrite JS Include -->
﻿

﻿<title﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, Labour On the Move? - Article﻿</title>﻿

﻿<meta﻿ ﻿name="description"﻿ ﻿content="New Socialist Group socialism communism  socialists communists "﻿>﻿

﻿<meta﻿ ﻿name="keywords"﻿ ﻿content="socialism, communism, socialists, communists, marx, marxists, marxism, Marx, Marxists, Marxism, Canada, politics, anarchism, Trotsky, trotskyism, NDP, radical, revolution, revolutionary, Lenin, leninism, leninist, Luxemburg, working class, 1917, syndicalism, radicalism, union, labour, anarchy"﻿>﻿

﻿</head>﻿


﻿<body﻿ ﻿topmargin="20"﻿ ﻿leftmargin="20"﻿ ﻿marginheight="20"﻿ ﻿marginwidth="20"﻿ ﻿bgcolor="#FFFFFF"﻿>﻿


﻿<font﻿ ﻿face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"﻿ ﻿size="5"﻿ ﻿color="#000000"﻿>﻿

﻿<center﻿>﻿

﻿<b﻿>﻿Labour On the Move? 

﻿<br﻿>﻿</b>﻿</font>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿


﻿<font﻿ ﻿face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"﻿ ﻿size="2"﻿ ﻿color="#000000"﻿>﻿

by David McNally﻿<br﻿>﻿

﻿<i﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, April - May 1999﻿</i>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

﻿</center>﻿


A wave of major strikes has swept across the landscape in recent months leading some commentators to ask if we are witnessing a new upsurge of labour militancy. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

During the month of March picket lines sprung up in one city after another. For two weeks early in the month, 14,000 Toronto education workers - caretakers, maintenance staff, language instructors and others - disrupted public schools in Canada's largest city before returning to work with a new contract. At the same time, a number of major cities saw thousands of federal blue collar employees engage in job action, including a confrontation with pepper-spraying riot police in Ottawa. Actions also hit Ontario Hydro and Bell Canada. Then, late in the month, nearly 5000 Newfoundland nurses walked off the job, 500 of them jamming the provincial legislature for two hours singing 'Solidarity Forever' and other union songs. As we go to press, the strike by 2000 technicians at the CBC has just come to an end after seven weeks. Quebec child care workers held a one day walk-out April 1. 6600 Calgary teachers have voted overwhelming to shut down that city's public schools. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

It comes as no surprise, then, when statistics show a considerable rise in strike activity in the last couple of years over the doldrums of the early and mid-1990s. This is clearly an important development, signalling that, contrary to the hopes of the political right, organized labour is far from dead. There remains a powerful desire to resist among many working people, and this often comes out in strong strike votes and a grim determination on the picket line. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Important as these developments are, it doesn't follow that we're witnessing the beginning of a major upsurge of labour radicalism. The reality is more complex. To make sense of what's happening, we need to begin with four main observations. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

To begin with, the increase in strikes has begun from a very low level and is still far below the numbers of 25 years ago. While workers engaged in about 3.5 million strike days last year, that's still less than a third of the number recorded in 1976. Willingness to strike may be rising, but we are not yet seeing an explosion of workers' combativity. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Secondly, all of these recent strikes have been defensive in character. Rather than about new breakthroughs in wages, benefits and workers' rights, they are about limiting the damage inflicted by employers through downsizing, contracting out and the like. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

For instance, striking Toronto education workers made some important improvements in short-term job security. But they have not been able to guarantee that thousands of jobs won't disappear over the next few years. Similarly, the Ontario Public Service Employees Union won some improvements in wages and benefits for 48,000 provincial government workers after taking a strike vote - but they have not been able to stop the Ontario government's plans to downsize its workforce by about 13,000 more jobs in the years ahead. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

So, while strike action has had the important effect of limiting the damage of the neo-liberal agenda, it has not been able to reverse that agenda in any meaningful sense. Jobs continue to disappear, wages stagnate at best, and unions are generally failing to make new breakthroughs in collective bargaining. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Thirdly, while some of these strikes have seen important outbursts of militancy - an occupation of a CBC studio by striking technicians in Newfoundland and some strong mass pickets by Toronto education workers, for instance - they have by and large been tame affairs, relying on token pickets which do not stop scabs or shut down operations. Meaningful solidarity actions by other workers (even workers in the same workplace as at CBC, or in the same schools as in the case of Toronto teachers) have been next to non-existent. There has been no significant shift toward militant mass actions supported by large groups of workers. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Related to this is a final observation: none of these strikes has given rise to radical opposition movements in the unions which seek to replace the ineffective tactics of business unionism with a fighting rank and file unionism. Whereas the strike wave of the late 1960s and early 1970s saw a number of major union opposition movements crystallize (often overturning conservative leaderships), there has been almost nothing of this recently. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

All of which leads to the following conclusion. Labour is rising from the doldrums. There is a deep frustration among many workers which has resulted in some major strikes. These have produced some modest but important gains for unions. But, thus far, there are no signs that we've entered a new period of offensive by organized labour with major victories, large unionizing drives, new forms of militancy, and increased radicalism among thousands of rank and file workers. It's probably most accurate, therefore, to talk about a limited and partial revival of union militancy in Canada at the moment. Of course, that could be the harbinger of bigger and better things to come. But for a real labour upsurge to occur several things will have to come together. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

First, large, successful organizing drives - particularly among young workers, women workers and workers of colour - will have to take place. There have, of course, been some small successes in this regard in the last few years, particularly in British Columbia where a McDonald's restaurant and ten Starbucks coffee bars have been unionized by the Canadian Auto Workers. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

But a real turnaround will require that tens of thousands of previously unorganized workers - in large stores, fast food outlets, offices and sweatshops - organize to join unions. We've seen breakthroughs of this sort in the United States, especially in the Jobs With Justice campaign associated with the Service Employees International Union. Similarly, the International Longshore Workers Union in California has organized black, Hispanic and immigrant workers working at garbage dumps, recycling plants and area sweatshops. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Successful organizing drives like these have required much more militant tactics than mainstream business-as-usual union leaders endorse. Community rallies, mass pickets and demonstrations, and workplace sit-ins have provided the inspiration and enthusiasm to sustain long and difficult struggles. Explicitly anti-racist campaigns have also been crucial to the active involvement of workers in communities long neglected by organized labour. Thus far, Canadian unions lag behind these examples of militant union organizing based on mass action and anti-racism. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

And if organizing drives that bring tens of thousands into the unions and introduce new and effective forms of struggle are required, so are new forms of solidarity. Traditional business unionism has forgotten the old union slogan that 'an injury to one is an injury to all.' Instead, we see unionized broadcasters and journalists crossing the picket lines of the striking CBC technicians unions. And we watch thousands of unionized Toronto teachers cross the lines of striking CUPE education workers. Until we have a union﻿ movement where workers stand together in support of each other's struggles, labour will find it much harder to make headway. Indeed, past experience in North America, along with recent examples from countries like South Korea prove that organized solidarity is crucial to making significant gains for working people. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Related to all this is the willingness to use strikes for political purposes as was intended with the de-railed Days of Action against the Harris government in Ontario. Despite some important and inspiring examples of major towns and cities being closed by strikes, Ontario labour leaders retreated before the prospect of province-wide strike action, preferring to put their eggs in the electoral basket. So, while socialists and union activists should celebrate the recent burst of strikes and do everything we can to support them, we also need to put out a clear message about what needs to be done to rebuild a fighting labour movement. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

First, we need a major commitment to activist campaigns to organize the unorganized. Secondly, we need to adopt the sort of militant mass action tactics, drawing on anti-racist and feminist organizing experiences, that can really make the unions the property of young workers, women workers and workers of colour. Thirdly, we need to bring back the idea of union solidarity - of standing up for and joining other groups of workers when they take strike action. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

None of this will be accomplished over night. But the return of higher levels of strike activity at least gives us the opportunity to popularize such approaches with larger and larger numbers of workers. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

﻿<font﻿ ﻿size="1"﻿>﻿David McNally is active in York University^Ês faculty union and an editorial associate of NEW SOCIALIST.﻿</font>﻿</font>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿


﻿<form﻿>﻿<input﻿ ﻿type="button"﻿ ﻿value="Close"﻿ ﻿onclick="top.close()"﻿>﻿</form>﻿


﻿</body>﻿

﻿</html>﻿<!--
     FILE ARCHIVED ON ﻿19:17:55 Jun 26, 2010﻿ AND RETRIEVED FROM THE
     INTERNET ARCHIVE ON ﻿10:04:23 Mar 05, 2026﻿.
     JAVASCRIPT APPENDED BY WAYBACK MACHINE, COPYRIGHT INTERNET ARCHIVE.

     ALL OTHER CONTENT MAY ALSO BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT (17 U.S.C.
     SECTION 108(a)(3)).
-->
<!--
﻿playback timings (ms):
﻿  ﻿captures_list﻿: ﻿0.732﻿
﻿  ﻿exclusion.robots﻿: ﻿0.063﻿
﻿  ﻿exclusion.robots.policy﻿: ﻿0.049﻿
﻿  ﻿esindex﻿: ﻿0.012﻿
﻿  ﻿cdx.remote﻿: ﻿13.595﻿
﻿  ﻿LoadShardBlock﻿: ﻿85.907﻿ (﻿3﻿)
﻿  ﻿PetaboxLoader3.datanode﻿: ﻿76.99﻿ (﻿4﻿)
﻿  ﻿PetaboxLoader3.resolve﻿: ﻿72.308﻿ (﻿2﻿)
﻿  ﻿load_resource﻿: ﻿95.709﻿
﻿--�