The recent bureaucratic sell-out of hospital and healthcare workers in BC (reported on in some detail within the pages of this magazine) reiterates to many militant trade unionists and social justice activists the need for democratic rank-and-file alternatives to "business unionism" and the conservative layer of trade union bureaucrats dominating most unions. In the midst of an ongoing escalation of the employers' offensive against workers' wages, benefits and job protections, there is a growing trend among trade union leaders to negotiate concessionary contracts which are not in the interest of the majority of workers. For the goal of strong rank-and-file movements to be successful, however, a broader understanding of the role of the trade union bureaucracy and the challenges facing unions today is necessary.

The State of the Unions

In the face of the employers' offensive, there has been little in the way of real sustained fightback by unions. Large-scale forms of fightback where they did exist (such as the Solidarity movement in British Columbia in 1983, the Days of Action against Mike Harris' Tories in Ontario in 1995, and the Hospital Employees Union strike in British Columbia in recent months) were very often squandered by bureaucratic moves by trade union officials, leaving these workers and their community allies frustrated and bitter. In many cases, these trade union officials order the end of militant struggle and direct workers to take their battle to the ballot boxes instead of the shop floor - vote for the New Democratic Party (NDP), and the battle will be won.

Unions across Canada have also, perhaps not surprisingly, seen no significant increase in membership (and significant decreases in many cases), and seriously suffer from a lack of both young workers as well as people of colour. Innovative and inspiring initiatives, including union drives organizing groups of service sector workers in the mid-90s (Starbucks employees in Vancouver, Macdonald's employees in Squamish BC, etc.), were quickly dropped by most large trade union leaders when these were found to be expensive and resource-consuming. The low wages of these employees and their lack of ability to pay any significant amount of union dues necessarily meant that the cost of launching and sustaining a serious organizing drive would cost much more financially than the workers themselves would bring into the union in dues revenue.

Trade union officials have attempted to maintain their base instead by mergers. The merger announced earlier this year by the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union (HERE) and the Unioin of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE) is but one example of this phenomenon of mergers. This will soon be followed by the International, Wood & Allied Workers union (IWA) merging with a large national union (possibly the Steelworkers).

At the same time, union 'professionals' (including lawyers as well as fulltime trade union staff) have become increasingly entrenched within their positions in the labour movement. Much of what unions do today has been entirely removed from the shop floor and is in many ways invisible to individual workers. Grievances, for instance, are no longer dealt with as a political issue within a workplace and through collective grass-roots-led action, but rather at board tables with highly paid professionals who are skilled at contract language.

An Entrenched Bureaucracy with a Contradictory Character

Trade union officials have an inherently contradictory position within workers' movements. On the one hand, they must appear to be adhering to the general wishes and aims of the rank and file workers who they're supposed to represent, while on the other hand their role is purely to negotiate a compromise between employers and members of their own unions. Certainly these trade union officials are not interested in the kinds of struggle necessary to meaningfully challenge the employers' offensive, which may include confrontation with laws or the state - a state which could see them jailed or fined if they allow militant action to go unchecked. Rank-and-file militancy and organizing is seen as a valve that they should be able to turn on and off at will as a bargaining chip in the midst of negotiations with an employer.

Because of its position, moreover, the bureaucracy has little in common with the experiences of rank and file workers. They are rarely, if ever, affected by the wage rollbacks and job insecurity that are often the result of concessionary contracts. In most unions, the wages of fulltime officials greatly exceeds the average wage of the workers that they represent. And even well-meaning leftists who are drawn into trade union officialdom are not immune from the problems created by this disparity between the conditions of workers and the conditions of layers of bureaucracy.

While socialists and other militant trade unionists certainly should not abstain from the debates around the election of trade union officials, changing the faces at the top within a layer of bureaucracy is certainly not enough to ensure an effective and democratic union which is capable of challenging employers and making real gains for members of the union. For this, serious rank-and-file organization is necessary.

Rank and File Organizing in the Teamsters

An important example of this comes from the Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), which is a rank and file grouping within the Teamsters union formed in 1976. The Teamsters, despite a history in the 1930s and 1940s of militant rank-and-file struggle, suffered a reactionary setback with the rise of Jimmy Hoffa and his associates and their alliances to organized crime (for details of this history, see US socialist Farrell Dobbs accounts in his four-part history of the Teamsters during these years). Concessionary contracts, with employers giving kickbacks to mobbed-up union officials empowered by goon squads, became the norm.

Instead of simply trying to elect new leaders or get progressives appointed to positions within the bureaucracy, rank-and-file Teamsters who were organizing against these concessionary contracts formed the TDU to make their union more accountable to its members. This "from below" organizing initiative, based on the mobilization of grass roots members, led to some early victories, including pressuring the Teamster leadership into calling the first national Teamster strike in 1976, which led to a defeat of major concessions which would have otherwise been accepted by the sellout bureaucrats. Within 15 years of forming, the TDU was a powerful force within the Teamsters union nationally, and was directly responsible for catapulting Ron Carey into the Teamster presidency in 1991, against all odds and against internal corruption and the mob, on a platform of giving members control of their unions and taking the employers to task. With TDU organizing a significant rank-and-file base and continuing to pressure the Carey-led leadership, a major strike victory was won in 1997 against United Parcel Service (UPS), the largest trucking company in the US, using militant tactics and local strike committees which were democratically run.

While the TDU experience has not been without its problems - Ron Carey's removal and banning from the Teamsters by the US government on frame-up charges of corruption immediately following the UPS victory led to disillusionment and demobilization of much of the TDU base - its grass roots organizing initiatives have inspired others. Within days of the Teamsters' victory against UPS, unions all over the country were reporting calls from workers wanting to be organized. Some saw the Teamster victory at UPS as labour's long delayed answer to President Reagan's smashing of the air controllers' strike and union. Workers were talking union; the Teamsters, it was said, had put the movement back in the labor movement, and the TDU were firmly at the base of that new revival of rank and file activism.

The Need for Rank and File Movements Independent of Trade Union officials

The long run perspective of socialists who stand in a tradition of "socialism from below" has to be the building and sustaining of militant and democratic rank and file movements. It is through the development of such movements that workers are able to counter the bureaucratic tendency to empower professionals and officials at the expense of the union membership and shop floor democracy.