What is the future of unions? Interview with David Camfield

David Camfield is associate professor in labour studies at the University of Manitoba and is the author of Canadian Labour in Crisis.

David Camfield by FTGU

The following is a slightly edited transcript.

Q: Is consolidating unions a good strategy to fight against the attack on unions and workers?

DC: I don’t think the amalgamation strategy by itself is a good strategy. It will be interesting to see what actually happens with the discussion between the CEP and the CAW. But I have major concerns about what kind of union would be produced by a merger of those two organizations. The CAW-CEP discussion paper says that bigger is better in a number of ways.

They talk about more members bringing more visibility, more clout, and more money. I think that some of these things can be true but it’s entirely possible to have a union with more members and more money that’s not actually more effective for workers. That’s why I don’t think there’s anything automatic about bigger being better. Yes, sometimes there can be advantages, but there can also be disadvantages.

If you end up with a union with more money, but  it's a union in which workers have less democratic control within their own organization, then that will be a problem. Or if the merged union has a practice or strategy that's inferior to what the previous union had then that could also be a step backwards. Rather than saying bigger is better, yes or no, we need to be more specific and talk about better in what ways, for which unions, and in what circumstances.

Q: In your book Canadian Labour in Crisis, you write that leadership driven reforms are not the solution, that we need a rank and file approach to reinventing unions. The paper doesn’t address rank and file involvement. How do you see the rank and file reinventing unions?

DC: I think that it is striking that there is virtually nothing about democracy mentioned in this paper.  I think it speaks to the outlook of the leaders of the two unions that we are talking about.   If unions are going to be reinvented they are going to be reinvented by workers. It is going to be a much more prolonged, uneven, and gradual process than flashy high profile mergers and other kinds of reorganizations and I don’t think anyone has a crystal ball for this. I certainly don’t claim to have the ability to see the future or a program to make it happen.

But what we can say from recent experience is that it won’t happen out of a merger like this as opposed to a wave of new initiatives by workers themselves. I don’t know what a reinvented union movement would look like. But are some interesting examples that I touch on in my book that hint at what it could be like.

This is something workers will have to figure out in the early 21st century and I sincerely hope there is some progress in this direction because circumstances for workers are getting worse. The document of the CAW - CEP certainly recognizes that -- it flows out of a sense of growing crisis. It’s not wrong to recognize that the problems are very significant and actually becoming worse. In fact, they're worse now than when the document came out because of the dramatic defeat at Caterpillar, for example.

Q: How do we make unions more democratic?



DC: I think it starts at the base. It starts at the level of the local union and what members do in the workplace to give the uniona real presence in their working lives. Democratic local unions are fundamental building blocks to coordinate and link up unions on a regional and sectoral basis. This can be done through district councils. But  democratic change happening at the local level is key. In more democratic meetings that members can participate in in different ways and in whichmembers set the agenda, there's greater role for workers’ ideas to come forward and opportunities for workers to make decisions and learn from their mistakes and develop their abilities to to run the organizations themselves.

Q: How do we strengthen unions when the rank and file is not as militant as we like them to be? 

DC: You’re absolutely right. The reality is working people are not always pressing for militant direct action. If we are talking here about what left wing activists can do who are within a union, a long term problem with the left, and some left wing activists in unions, is focusing on issues that they see as more sexy, such as international solidarity or political issues (which are, of course, important), and doing that in a way that neglects the things that affect most workers on a daily basis in the workplace and outside the workplace.

It’s really important to actually try to connect with the issues that are affecting people on an ongoing basis and to try to find small ways to encourage workers to take action, to build up a sense that it is possible to make a difference even if it is on a very small scale. Sometimes success on that scale can give people the feeling that it’s possible to do more.

I’m not trying to pit one against the other. I’m not saying that you should do workplace organizing in a patient long term way or international solidarity through our unions. It’s about both. But I think if we’re actually talking about trying to develop workers’ militancy, then it actually has to include work in the workplace on small things. Sometimes radicals can see the big picture more easily, but that's not going to be at the front of the minds of a lot of their coworkers.

When it comes to what people who are not in unions can do, I think there are different things that can be done. For example, they can support efforts when there are organizing drives, and  support activists within locals when they organize as a group of people fighting for change within the organization. Sometimes there are ways to help from the outside, such asmaking their cause better known, raising funds, or helping to distribute leaflets.

People not in unions can talk to their coworkers, families, friends and other people about the reality of unions, challenging right wing ideas and giving people the sense that unions don't have to be the way they are now. I think the big problem is that lots of people look at unions the way they are now and find it hard to be inspired. But we can talk about the fact that it doesn't have to be this way. Unions in the past have been different and can be different in the future.

Q: We’re seen several major defeats of unions this year. One was the Caterpillar lockout, the other was the concessions accepted by CUPE in Toronto. What could have been done to defend workers in each of these situations? 

DC: Caterpillar was a very difficult struggle. Even the best prepared workers were going to have a hard time dealing with an incredibly anti-union, major multi-national corporation like Caterpillar. Certainly, if there had been a workplace occupation early on or if union activists had seen a lockout as likely, they could have tried to plan how to respond in a way that would catch Caterpillar off guard at the beginning. That might have changed the balance of forces a little bit. If there had been, right from the very beginning, more of a concerted solidarity effort on a higher level than what we saw it might have made more of a difference.

There was some effort to blockade locomotives from going to Caterpillar, for example. This was something members of CAW Local 88 from CAMI in Ingersoll tried to do. There were some workers trying to physically block a train as a way to show support for the struggle at Caterpillar. That kind of effort would have had to happen on a pretty large scale and pretty quickly in order to have a real impact on the company. It was a very difficult fight and there’s no guarantee that even the best union with the best preparation would have been able to win.

Another thing worth mentioning is that in these situations where the company declares that they are closing down, there’s also the possibility that workers can take over the workplace and run it under workers’ control. In Caterpillar, a very good case can be made that we need train transportation and we don’t want further reliance on cars, trucks and aircraft. So an occupation, inspired, for example, by occupations in Argentina where workers have occupied and produced, coupled with the demand for the provincial or federal government to nationalize the firm and make it a crown corporation, would have been a possible public campaign.

I’m not saying the workers of Caterpillar could have pulled this out of a hat under the circumstances that they found themselves in. But  thinking strategically about what is, that’s something that a different kind of union might have been able to have in its back pocket as a strategic choice.

Q: The paper says Canadian unions could become like US unions and there’s always a tendency to compare ourselves states. Are there union models internationally that we could look at such as Europe, Latin America, Africa or Asia?

Yes, I think there are. There are examples actually in the United States.  In the US, because the situation is so desperate, there have been more people pushed into taking independent initiatives through caucuses, networks, and other organizations often reported on in the magazine Labor Notes. Often, people here lack that tradition and don’t have the idea of organizing independently within their own unions for change.

The idea that you can band together like-minded people and actually work to try to make those changes from within and do that in a way where you’re also working with groups in the community - anti-poverty organizations, for example,  or migrant justice and other struggles. They may be different organizations, but they’re all pushing for worker-led, bottom-up, grassroots kind of efforts so there are commonalities there. I think there are examples all over the world we can take inspiration from even in these hard times. It’s always good to meet with counterparts from other countries who are battling against worse odds in very creative ways. We have a lot more to learn than we have to teach in this part of the world.

Q: How can a new Canadian union provide representation and services to non-union workers?

DC: I’ve seen it suggested that unions could offer a dental plan, for example, and health insurance and make that available on a low cost, high quality basis in order to  send a positive message to workers. There are other things that can be done like allowing people to become members of a union who are not members of a certified bargaining unit.  The idea is that any worker, even in a workplace that is not unionized, could join and participate in some kind of union organization, perhaps in a  local which would group together these kinds of individuals.

Unions were built in Canada before the 1940s by small groups of union supporters working for years to build support in non-unionized workplaces.

 There could be many things done in mobilizing the resources and membership of unions in support of non-unionized workers struggling for justice.. My concern is that a new union looking in this direction might be very focused on services -- such as offering people a credit card or something like that ( there are examples like that in Britain and from the US) – that it would seek to sell to people people who are not in a union,  in a consumerist kind of way. I don’t think that’s very helpful.

Q: Are unions important? Are they the strongest opposition we have to capital?

DC: Yes, I think that’s still the case, if  you look at the number of people involved and what they do. The fact is that you have something like 3 in 10 workers in Canada covered by collective agreements. Periodically these agreements are renegotiated and there is the possibility of some kind of collective action to support union demands. This is something employers can’t get away from. Unions still have a good presence that way.  If you look outside of unions, the level of resistance, the level of political challenge to the power of capital is much, much smaller. In the political sphere, all the major parties are not only pro-capitalist but accept neo-liberalism. No party is offering any challenge to capital at all. Even with all its many problems, the union movement today is the crucial counterweight to capital. Of course, there are many drawbacks, but unfortunately that is the reality we are in.

Q: What are some things that might give us hope for the future of unions and the labour movement? What victories have there been in the past five years? 

DC: I think that despite the lack of support activists get from their top leaders, there are still amazing people working away often in very low profile ways across unions all across the country. I think that the kinds of initiatives that you saw to support the Caterpillar workers, the number of people who came out to support the Caterpillar workers, the people who did the direct action to block the rail line to support the Caterpillar workers, the people in Toronto who were prepared to support the  municipal workers are some examples.

In Halifax, right now where there’s a strike of transit drivers, thousands of window signs have been distributed throughout Halifax to get people to show their support for public transit workers. There’s very significant support. There was similar support for Halifax postal workers during their strike and lockout last summer. This is because of a dynamic labour council with a young and left-wing leadership. There are places where there are dynamic activists doing great work and actually getting a good response when they take initiatives that have better resonance. These things could be better known, unfortunately they often remain unknown to those who are not directly involved. There need to be better ways to publicize successes and places where people fight back even if they lose. Sometimes they lose in a way that shows what is possible and raises people's expectations. 

I could give other examples, such as some of the direct actions that are taking place in post offices in Edmonton. There have been quite a number of job actions which really show that people are trying to make the union meaningful in the workplace and not just about filing grievances.

These are some that just come to mind. There are many more that I don’t know about. It’s often difficult to find out about these kinds of things.  We don’t have a good regular publication that covers these things as its main focus.

Q: Was there anything in their discussion paper that surprised or stood out?

DC: When I was reading it, it really struck me how similar it seemed to what's happened in some major US unions. It's the model you find in the Service Employer International Union (SEIU), the idea of a large union with large locals in which smaller locals are amalgamated, with more centralized resources above those locals and the idea of a stronger outreach to the community and to non- unionized workers and a very strong energetic approach to organizing non- unionized workers. So there were all sorts of things in this paper that made me think of SEIU, even the left wing rhetoric that's there in the paper on occasion.

I think that should give us real pause because the SEIU in reality is an extremely undemocratic top-down organization where the union leadership is willing to sacrifice anything --including the basic right to strike – and to collaborate in outrageous ways with employers and politicians in order to get more members. SEIU support for community struggle, while sometimes positive, has generally meant support for more public relations based, stunt based community organizing (if you can even call it that), rather than grassroots efforts where people themselves are engaged in some kind of organization or collective action.

We shouldn't be naive when looking at this paper, we need to actually look at the reality of the two unions we are talking about - the CAW and the CEP.  A new union would reflect the reality of those organizations. It wouldn't reflect rhetoric, it wouldn't reflect what's written on paper. We should also look at the similarities between what's being proposed here and what actually does exist in some US based unions. The SEIU with its high profile, very energetic image came to mind when I was reading this paper. If people want to know more about it, they should check out the book by the US journalist Steve Early, The Civil Wars in US Labor. Early’s book examines  the recent history of some of the unions in the US today, including some which may have influenced this discussion paper.