Anti-Capitalism and Canadian Labour
by Alan Sears
The mobilization against the FTAA meetings in Quebec City
showed that a new left is emerging characterized by tactical militancy,
political boldness and youth. This new left is taking an anti-capitalist
focus, linking specific issues such as trade agreements to the overall
exploitation of the system. This anti-capitalist mobilization has
reached its high point in anti-poverty struggles and battles against trade
agreements that aim to secure capitalist globalization.
This anti-capitalist movement carries hope for reawakening
the Canadian labour movement. The Canadian labour movement is generally
in retreat. The prevailing response of the union leadership in the
face of vicious attacks is token protest.
Labour Under Attack
The past 10 years have seen a relentless attack on workers by
provincial and federal governments. These attacks have included cuts
to social programmes, anti-union legislation making it harder to
organize and to eliminate anti-scab laws where they existed, attacks on
public sector workers (including wage caps, contracting out and the
punishing use of back-to work legislation) and routine attacks on private
sector workers, in the forms of demands for concessions and day-to-day
reorganization of work processes.
The most concerted response to this relentless attack in the 1990s
came in Ontario. The Days of Action campaign saw one-day city shutdowns
that mobilized massive numbers. The two week illegal teachers' strike
in 1997 challenged the government's education reform agenda. The strike
was extremely solid and it gained in popular suppot every day. Indeed,
the low point for the Tories' popularity during their first term in
office was at the time of the teachers' strikes.
The Retreat
The Days of Action campaign and the teachers' strikes were undermined
when union leaderships pulled the plug. In the Days of Action, it was
the 'pink paper' unions (including the Steelworkers, UFCW and
Powerworkers) who announced they would not go along with a continuation of the
campaign. The teachers' strike was ended when union leaders announced a
return to work after two weeks without winning anything.
These struggles were both led bureaucratically by leaderships seeking
to make a symbolic protest. Rank-and file activists and community
partners played a key role in making the mobilizations a success, yet they
had no independent organization or voice. The initiative lay
completely with the union leaderships. The more left-wing leaderships were
willing to use illegal and extra-parliamentary means to make a symbolic
protest, while the more right-wing focused entirely on parliamentary and
legal means. Even the left wing leaderships were not aiming to
mobilize a counter-power to the government. There was little that activists
could do when the leadership pulled the plug, as they lacked any form
of organization independent of the union leadership.
Since then, the Ontario labour movement has primarily been in
retreat mode. Changes to the Employment Standards Act which allow a 60
hour work week were passed with only a peep from the union leaderships,
despite the impressive efforts of some activists to mobilize
opposition. Now the Harris government is taking jabs with impunity. New
legislation has been introduced that will transform the structure of Labour
boards used to adjudicate all kinds of labour law matters, reducing them
from three members (one union, one management and one government) to
one member (appointed by the government). And the Harris government
reminds us periodically that they have the big one in their back pocket,
egislation to eliminate dues check-off and union political contributions.
The CLC/CAW Split
In this context, the split between the CAW and the CLC over
the issue of dissident SEIU locals takes on a political dimension. The
CAW has been an honourable exception among private sector unions in
siding with public sector union mobilizations dating back to the social
contract under Bob Rae's NDP government. The CAW stood with public
sector unions against the "pink paper" union's strategy to end the Days of
Action. It is not surprising that many activists, within and outside of
the CAW, see this as a left-wing split away from increasingly
compromised trade union bodies.
But we cannot leave it at that. This split represents a
bureaucratic strategy by the CAW leadership. They have left behind
important allies in the CLC, abandoning activists in other unions who are
crucial to any effort to turn things around. Further, there has been a lack
of discussion and debate about this strategy within the CAW itself.
The big picture of the Canadian labour movement at present is
one of retreat and a certain amount of disarray. There is not much
hope that these leaders will resist the offensive by employers and
governments. At best, some of them are interested in symbolic protests
largely confined to legal means. At worst, the leaderships of many unions
are trying to develop new forms of business unionism to fit an
increasingly right-wing environment.
New Militancy
In the last year, we have also seen important signs of a
renewal of militancy despite the general retreat. This militancy is also
characterized by a shift toward more initiative from below, which will
be very important in rebuilding rank-and-file independence and a
fighting labour movement.
In early April of this year, there was a small strike wave
across Canada. On one coast, Newfoundland public sector workers largely
ground the province to a halt. Transit drivers went out on strike in
Vancuver, while Calgary drivers had already been out for weeks. School
board custodial and clerical workers struck in Toronto and Windsor.
Quebec public prosecutors and B.C. nurses engaged in escalating job
actions. These were mostly public sector strikes, combining in various degrees
defense of job security (protection against contracting out and
increased use of casual employees) and demands for significant wage increases
to make up for years of income erosion due to cutbacks.
It is too early to assess the significance of these strikes.
They do, however, come at a time when there are important signs of a
new militancy. The successful strike by CUPE 3903 (York University
part-time faculty, teaching and research assistants) was built on an
effective mobilization of a large section of the union membership and
supporters. One of the notable features of the York strike was the prior
development of a layer of the union's activist base, who were heavily
involved in the militant activism of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty
(OCAP) and mobilizations against global capitalism in Washington and
Windsor. Another important feature was the development of a strike and
negotiation strategy that linked specific struggles around pay and
working conditions to the broader issue of rising tuition fees and the
corporatization of education.
Direct Action and Flying Squads
The fight by CAW local 195 workers at the Star Metal plant in
Windsor shows another dimension of this emerging militancy - the use of
plant occupations. Workers at this small auto plant were locked out by
management after they refused to accept a contract offer. As the
strike went on, it looked like management was trying to bring in scabs and
take out work. On Friday, February 16, about 50 workers occupied the
plant. They stayed in until Monday, despite court injunctions and legal
threats. The workers won a contract settlement at a time when
management seemed content to leave them out on the line for a long time.
This ation builds on plant occupations by CAW workers in Stratford in
April 1999 and in Oshawa during the GM strike of October 1996. The occupation
at Star Metal is an important reminder that direct action is a central
tactic of the labour movement. Indeed, every effective picket line
includes elements of direct action, otherwise it is simply a symbolic
gesture to tug at the heart strings of onlookers. This orientation toward
militant activism is being solidified with the emergence of flying
squads in some unions. These flying squads are networks of activists
committed to solidarity mobilizations. Flying squads have now been
developed in a number of CAW locals and in CUPE 3903. A national organization
of flying squads is being developed in the CAW. These flying squads
mobilized for actions in support of striking Falconbridge workers in
Sudbury on January 27-28. They have been involved in OCAP activism and
mobilizations against global capitalism in Quebec and Windsor.
Fighting to Win!
We are seeing, then, the important emergence of activist
networks in some unions, linked to militant strikes and important
solidarity work in anti-capitalist struggles. These networks are not developed
primarily as opposition caucuses, nor is their major focus internal
union politics. Rather the aim is to build a militant fightback at a time
when that is beginning to seem possible in new ways. These flying
squads and activist networks can nonetheless challenge union leadership
passivity, as for example in Quebec where CUPE activists tried to give
people the choice of marching toward the wall rather than marching away
with the official parade.
The emergence of flying squads and activist networks
grounded in anti-capitalist work and union militancy is an extremely hopeful
sign. The big question hanging over these new forms of militancy is
whether they can begin to push back the right-wing attacks. The next big
test in Ontario will be OCAP's "Fight to Win" campaign of mobilization
for economic dsruption. The June 15, 2000 march on Queen's Park played
a crucial role in galvanizing this activist layer into new forms of
organization and mobilization. The retreat has not ended yet, but there
are important signs of a new militancy emerging.
Alan Sears is a member of the New Socialist Group who teaches in Labour
Studies at the University of Windsor.