What is the future of unions? Interview with Stephanie Ross

Stephanie Ross is an Assistant Professor and Co-Director for the Centre for Research on Work and Society. 

This interview was conducted via email.

 Q: Is consolidating unions a good strategy to fight against the attack on unions and workers? Do you agree with the some of the advantages the CAW-CEP discussion paper puts forward?

 SR: There is a lot of fragmentation in the Canadian union movement, and this is a long-standing situation, not a recent development. Workers' organizations in general tend to mirror the structures of workplaces, employers and industrial sectors, which is reinforced by Canada's very decentralized legal framework for union certification and collective bargaining.

This fragmentation, especially as some employers themselves consolidate and globalize, has revealed the limited bargaining power of many private sector unions. We also have very weak labour federations in Canada, which has made building effective solidarity across union lines very difficult. As unions lose members due to the effects of economic restructuring, competition for new members has intensified, and the capacity to cooperate to conduct new organizing is very low.

 So I agree with the authors of A Moment of Truth that the problems of union fragmentation, duplication, competition, and inability to cooperate are real and serious. And a merger between the CAW and CEP specifically makes some sense, as they share a lot in common: both emerged as national unions born out of splits with US-based unions, and both have used mergers and amalgamations as a key growth strategy in the past 20 years which has led them to become general unions.

 However, organizational consolidation through mergers isn't a silver bullet for these problems, and in some ways can create new ones. First, mergers don’t automatically generate more union members. Instead, they reallocate existing union members amongst fewer organizations. So, for organizations that have suffered major declines in their memberships, consolidation is a rational, short-term defensive strategy, but whether it creates a capacity to organize and effectively represent new groups of workers is an open question. It all depends on how those resources are used.

 Second, mergers create larger organizations, in which maintaining membership engagement and democratic control are a real challenge. Third, mergers bring together unions with distinct traditions, political orientations and identities, which are very persistent and to which people are very attached. These can come into conflict and can be very difficult to sort out, no matter how much good will there is. So having to rethink “who we are” and “what we do” is a major task that can sometimes generate lots of internal conflict, which can actually interfere with responding effectively to external attacks.

 Finally, mergers are often desired by and negotiated by leaders, who have their own stakes in the particular shape of any future organization and in where they end up in the new organization. Often, new positions are created to satisfy competing leadership groups and make the merger possible, which can eliminate any cost-savings that might go to other initiatives. So, while I agree that a new merged organization might have a greater potential to do some of the things discussed in the paper, I don't think they are guaranteed outcomes of merger as such.

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

 SR: I don’t think workers are naturally “militant”. Although workers’ experiences of capitalism create the basis for such militancy, it’s not automatic that they believe that collective opposition to either employers or governments is either effective or possible. That insight must be learned, through both radical forms of union education and real practical opportunities for workers to exercise their collective power and win. In other words, unions themselves must provide both the tools and organizational support for developing a militant orientation amongst the membership.

A major step in this direction would be a more politicized approach to stewards’ training, in which stewards come to see themselves as organizers, both in the workplace and in the community, and are encouraged to look for opportunities to use collective direct action to make gains, no matter how small. Of course, given that many union leaders have themselves retreated from militant tactics, and prefer negotiation, court cases or lobbying instead, we have a vicious cycle in many unions where the voices for more militant responses are quite marginalized.

 The broader left has a role to play in fostering such educational opportunities outside of the unions, but that also has to be grounded in real practices. It’s important for the left not to simply call for militancy for its own sake; otherwise people can dismiss this as unrealistic dreaming. In general, I think fighting is better than always finding ways to “manage the losses” which is typical of much union strategy today.

But militancy which ends in failure can also be counter-productive for movement building, as people learn that collective action makes things worse. It’s important that, as leftists, we be able to point to concrete instances where militancy has produced gains, built workers’ confidence, and enhanced an organization’s capacity for future struggles.

 Q. Was there anything in the discussion paper that surprised or stood out?

 SR: First, I think it’s worth acknowledging how rare it is for labour organizations to make documents like this public. After all, A Moment of Truth admits to a serious impasse in the labour movement’s economic, political, organizational, and ideological capacity. Though debate about these issues is crucial, it’s understandably hard for unions to talk openly about their weaknesses when they are vulnerable and under attack. So I find the discussion paper in general both surprising and impressive in its honesty. On the whole, the description of the problems we face is one I agree with.

 Second, I am intrigued by the way they attempt to re-envision what local structures of workplace and community representation might look like. One of the major problems unions in Canada face is the very strong pull that the collective bargaining framework exerts on how unions act and focus their energies. Because labour law certifies local workplace-based unions, creating solidarity, democratic processes, identities and allegiances across local union boundaries, let alone industries, is a major challenge from the outset.

The paper rightfully emphasized that unions must find ways, in what they do and how they’re organized, to go beyond those limits. A model that attempts to combine bargaining units with others in the same sector and the same geographic community is worth exploring more, even though it also means lots of complexity.

 Q. Are there other union models internationally that might be better for Canada?

 SR: It’s important to keep in mind that, while we can learn from other unions and workers’ organizations internationally, we can’t just choose from a menu of union models. Unions are the product of the interaction, over long periods of time, of both worker / union choices and external political, economic and legal forces, and that these ways of doing things have a lot of momentum. Rather than “models” of unionism, I prefer to think about what “practices” could be learned from, taken up, modified and applied in new contexts, since there is so much variation in how different labour movements function.

The legal framework is a big barrier to changing union models. We in Canada are trapped in the US-based Wagner model of unionism, premised on state-backed certification of unions and legal constraints on how unions can carry out their roles. Unless and until unions are willing to challenge the more limiting elements of this law, developing radically new models becomes difficult.

 That said, finding ways to exert power across an entire sector, whether through formal structures like a common bargaining table with groups of employers or through solidaristic forms of pattern bargaining, is ever more important, since many private corporations have such reach and diversification that what happens at a particular worksite is not so important in the company’s overall profitability.

For many public sector unions, coordinated bargaining is crucial because often the real power holders are not the direct employers but the source of funding, the provincial or federal government. So broader forms of solidarity and coordination would help to exert power over those who really hold the purse strings.

However, SEIU’s attempts to create sectoral power through forced amalgamation of locals in the US is a cautionary tale: members have to want to create these structures, they have to be able to exert real control over them. Making sure there is a balance between broader forms of power and democratic control is crucial. 

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

 SR: To an extent, we already have the seeds of a model for representing non-union workers in the form of workers’ centres, which are quite widespread in the US. Up to now, very few Canadian unions have seriously engaged with workers’ centres as a form of representation and organizing, and they could put a lot more energy and resources into such projects.

This could involve a very low-cost membership fee, which would provide access to union-based services, education, and collective organizing around employment standards or health and safety enforcement without actually seeking union certification. In other words, union-supported workers’ centres could help non-union workers act in union-like ways without the formal legal approval – and therefore limitations – of labour relations acts. Such organizations should be able to affiliate to and participate in local labour councils or labour federations, at a reduced rate. Such organizations can be regional or sectoral, but the key is that they aren’t dependent upon workers getting a majority in any particular workplace to certify a union.

 In the US, this is sometimes called “non-majority unionism”, when a critical mass of workers act together to pressure employers to improve conditions for everyone in a given workplace. But any union that engages in such projects will have to devote resources from existing members to subsidize these centres, because the workers they will serve tend to be low-waged and less likely to generate enough resources through dues to sustain the centre on its own. But this would be a worthwhile investment, and would produce more real gains for workers than all the money now spent on lobbying governments that have little intention of producing labour-friendly legislation.

 Q: What is the best form of democratic engagement for members in different regions? What kind of regional structures and representation are required?

 SR: The question of union democracy, in my view, is at the crux of much of the labour movement’s problems today. No one, including me, has a simple answer to how to increase membership participation in and control over their organizations. There are all kinds of factors that pull people away from their unions that have to do with how much more difficult it is becoming to survive in this economy and society. If anything, figuring out how to engage members in their local union structures is as pressing as the question of regional-level structures, which will likely be spaces for already-active members in any case. So, any new union will have to confront the problem that, outside of collective bargaining, the vast majority of union members do not attend union meetings or involve themselves in union activities.

 Creating new regional structures will not solve that problem of disengagement, and in fact may make it more difficult, as it will add yet another, larger meeting for members to get to. Instead, I’d suggest that stewards should have a role in creating regular opportunities for small-group discussion in the workplace between official local union meetings, so that members can express their views and have them represented, even if they can’t attend. However, the regional structures laid out in A Moment of Truth are interesting, and worth exploring. I’d add to this a further innovation that the Toronto and York Region District Labour Council has experimented with, although far too briefly, which is the regional stewards’ meeting.

 In 2009, the Labour Council organized a mass, city-wide stewards’ assembly to discuss responses to the economic crisis that was unfolding, and which drew 1600 people. There’s no reason why such an assembly couldn’t regularly meet several times a year, to share experiences, debate directions, allow people to build networks across workplaces and sectors, and coordinate strategy. Really, we already have regional labour movement structures (for instance, CUPE has district councils in communities across the country which bring together their locals across sectors) which could form the basis for such coordination, the question is whether these structures are being used to the greatest potential or not.

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

 SR: Because they represent workers, who still remain crucial to capital’s strategies for producing and accumulating wealth (whether as producers or consumers), unions will remain a crucial tool in the struggle to oppose capital. Their strategic capacity to intervene at the point where profit is produced will be central to any project that aims to challenge capital’s power.

However, many unions are quite weak in their capacity to extract even modest gains like increased wages or improved working conditions. Many unions have internalized neoliberalism to such an extent that it will require a thorough rethinking of what unions are meant to do, and not just making them more powerful to do what they’ve done in the past more effectively. This is not just a question of structure or resources: it’s a question of political orientation. If unions want to live up to their potential, they have to become fighting organizations again.

 Q. We often blame unions for their own weakness, but does the left as a whole hold some responsibility for the decline of the labour movement?

 SR: Of course, the broader left has contributed to the broader crisis of workers’ organizations. The left itself is also fragmented and often sectarian, often worried more about who has the ”correct analysis” than figuring out how to work together in coalitions or organizations where people have a range of political perspectives. Many on the left are also used to talking to people about what they think they should do, rather than listening to people and their real concerns, and figuring out how to convincingly connect those concerns up with a broader project that is radical in its aims and militant in its tactics.

For those involved in community-based organizations, the focus has tended to be on a particular project, and just like many unions, alliances can end up being instrumental means to gaining support for that project rather than an expression of belonging to a larger left. But I also think there is a growing recognition of this problem, and the emergence of the Greater Toronto Workers’ Assembly represents the attempt of some to directly address those weaknesses and to strengthen the left’s ability to think and act collectively, although in a pluralist and democratic way. It’s a long-term and difficult project, but there are reasons to hope.

 Q: What could have been done to defend workers in the cases of Caterpillar and the City of Toronto?

 SR: These are very different cases, and the same strategic prescription doesn’t necessarily apply. It would be easy to say “more militancy would have helped”, but it’s not so easy as that. In the case of EMD in London, it is now clear that Caterpillar had no real intention to maintain that bargaining relationship – you don’t ask for concessions that deep if you intend to stay – and they had anti-union legislation in Indiana. So the question confronting the CAW was how what power did they have in that situation and to achieve what goals? Although they didn’t occupy the plant, clearly the union was willing to take on that kind of militant tactic. However, their strategic goals were already narrowed down from the outset: a plant occupation would only have been to get severance / close-out deal.

Given the outpouring of public support for these workers, and on the heels of the Occupy movement last fall, the union could have thought more ambitiously and supported an occupation to raise the issue of worker or public ownership of key manufacturing capacity in Canada. While they may still have only won an improved severance package in the end, this kind of struggle would have potentially put other kinds of options on the table. Why not demand that government subsidies to EMD be paid back to the community, for instance? But neither the leadership nor membership was there, which raises larger question of whether, even with greater resources, would the new union have acted differently?

 In the case of the City of Toronto outside workers, it’s not clear that “more militancy” would have been enough. The public’s attitude towards public sector union strikes creates a very difficult climate in which to withdraw one’s labour. So, building a stronger relationship with the community should have been a high priority. Indeed, Local 416 did experiment with this kind of work, by having members go door to door to talk about the importance of public services.

However, it’s clear those positive efforts needed to be extended and sustained, because even though citizens had been mobilizing to save city services, it’s not clear those folks necessarily supported the union who delivers those services. In other words, a long-term strategy to counter right-wing messages about public sector unions and well as a clear coalition to support city workers was missing, and those things can’t be created in the heat of bargaining.

 Q: What are 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?

 SR: In general, the workers’ centre movement continues to be very inspiring, and shows that workers don’t need the certification of the state to act to defend their collective interests. The Workers’ Action Centre in Toronto has been able to push for legislative changes to temp agencies’ regulation, for instance. The struggle in Wisconsin, against the draconian roll-back of public sector workers’ bargaining rights, was remarkable, as it gathered together an unprecedented coalition of workers and community to fight on a number of fronts. New organizing inroads are being made in retail in Canada, and though it will take a long time for these beachheads to bear fruit, they do show that workers in the private service sector want and can organize unions.