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DISUNITY MUST BE OVERCOME

By Labor Committee, B.C. Communist Party
Are the trade unions being alienated from the unorganized workers and other
sections of the people because of their neglect of other sections of the working class?
Is the trade union movement fulfilling the leading role it is capable of in the political
life of the province? Has not the trade union movement been guilty of emphasizing the
sectional interests of workers rather than their class interests and is this not harmful

and a source of opportunism in labor’s ranks?

An increasing number of
people inside the labor
movement believe these are
valid questions which must be
asked - and answered today.

Less than one-third of
Canadian wage and_ salary
earners are organized into trade
unions. Most unions are carrying
on struggles for higher wages,
security of employment, welfare
and pension provisions, etc., to
meet the rising cost of living,
inflation, and the job insecurity
brought on by technological
advance and automation. That is
good - provided these demands
are based on the class interests
of the whole working class.

But today, in the course of
. these ‘struggles,. some
approaches are being used which
adversely affect the long-term
interests of the working class.

Current harmful practices

include the following:
. While all unions are winning
wage increases and some unions
in specially favorable
circumstances are winning far
above average increases, little
or nothing is being done about
the more than two-thirds of the
workers who are unorganized
and whose wages are often in the
$1.00 to $2.00 an hour range. Nor
is much being done about the
other low income groups such as
pensioners, the unemployed,
Native peoples, etc.

The wage and income gap
between organized workers and
other sections of the working
class is widening. The
monopolies and the state are
meeting with some success in
utilizing this gap to turn the
frustration and anger of those
low income sections against the
trade union movement. E
- Unions are raiding and fighting
against each other for
jurisdiction over jobs. In many

cases the main consideration of -

the contending unions is not what
is best for the workers
concerned, but the desire to get
more jobs for its members, or
more dues paying members into
its particular union. In other
cases, of course, raids against
independent unions are aimed at
stifling militant and/or
independent policies, and
bringing the entire Canadian
trade union movement under the
control of U.S. unions.
. Within organized industries
there is often a great diversity in
pay and conditions. This isn’t
always based on skills, values
produced or the arduousness of
the work, but sometimes on the
privileged positions of groups of
workers compared to the rest in
the industry, seniority
provisions, feather-bedding, etc.
This leads to competition among
workers for jobs (the thing that
unions were organized to do
away with) and even to sections
of workers breaking away to
form small craft unions to get
higher pay (e.g. the fallers in the
woods in B.C.)

Many union leaders are just
interested in their own

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—SEPTEMBER 5, 1969—PAGE 12

particular jurisdiction and show
little interest or solidarity with
the: rest of labor. Often they
don’t even bother to try to win
public support for their policies
and demands but rely on their
muscle or on deals with the

employers.
The basic cause of these
harmful policies is the

opportunist class collabor-
ationist approach of many trade
union leaders. Their attitude at
best is, ‘‘We’ll take care of our
guys, others can look after them-
selves’. Often of course, it is
much worse — union leaders use
their positions to water-down
the demands of their members
and join with the employers in
combatting militancy and mili-
tants. This narrow selfish, oppor-
tunist approach was never right
and is even more harmful today.

NEW APPROACHES

New factors which have arisen
requiring new approaches
include:

-, The changing composition of

the working class. The number
of people employed in the non-
productive sphere of the
economy (service industries,
finance, employers of the three
levels of government, etc.) has
grown more rapidly than the
productive sector of the work
force is the one that is least
organized. The number of
women in the work force is
growing. In some _ industries
unionized for a long time. such
as railways and lumber, there
has been a marked decline in the |
number of employees and
therefore in union members.

= Automation and technological

change are bringing new
problems - job security, sharing
of benefits, the right of unions to

take protective action during the _

WRITE THE PT

The PT editorial board
would welcome letters from
our readers expressing their
views on some of the issues
and problems raised in this
article. Please keep your letters
short so that we can publish as
many as possible.

life of the contract to protect
themselves against the adverse
effects of automation, etc.

- The growth of monopoly
capital, the mergers and
conglomerates. the support they
render to each other on a
national and international scale
against labor, all these elevate
the problem of union and class
solidarity to a basic practical
need of labor that is essential to
beat off employer attacks and to
make gains.

Some new approaches are
obviously needed to meet this
new situation. They include also
basic principles of working class
action that are hardly new but
which are not being applied

today as they should be. They
must start from the position that
narrow, sectional interests of
labor must take second place to
the class interests common to all
workers.

This does not mean that each
union will not do the best it can
for its members. But it does
mean that equal efforts will be
devoted to help raise the
standards of all other workers,
and that unions will not compete
for jobs by carrying on
jurisdictional struggles or allow
competition within unions for
jobs.

Specifically what is needed
includes: :

1. The development of the
utmost solidarity between unions
in their struggles. This must of
necessity include coordination of
strike strategy and tactics as
well as demands.

2. An end to raiding and
jurisdictional struggles. The
approach to solving problems
that arise must be one of doing
what is best for the workers
concerned and then inter-union
cooperation to achieve it.

3. A large scale concerted
campaign by national, provincial
and local labor bodies to
organize the unorganized.

4. A trade union led campaign
championing the needs of the
unorganized, the low income
groups and the pensioners - all of
whom suffer the most from
inflation and rises in the cost of
living. The unions. should
intensify their fight for higher
minimum wages and a
guaranteed income for all.

5. Action to reduce
competition within a union and
industry for jobs by putting
forward the demand for one
adequately high wage rate for all
workers in the industry. Jobs
that involve harder work, dirtier
work, dangerous work, etc. to be
filled voluntarily with the
employer required to provide
financial incentives that will be
sufficiently attractive.

6. Stepped-up political action
to elect labor representatives to
city councils. provincial
legislatures and the House of
Commons, with active labor
campaigns on all issues affecting
the community and the nation.
This will be based on the growing
recognition that what is won at
the bargaining table can be
easily taken away by a tax-bite
from government: and that what
can be won at the bargaining
table depends very much upon
labor's freedom to strike. picket.
ete.. free of restrictions and
injunctions.

7. Demands
participation
decisions.

8. Encouragement of mergers
to form large industrial unions.

9. An autonomous’ and
sovereign Canadian trade union
movement with all policies and
forms of organization decided in
Canada by Canadian trade
unionists.

for labor

in management

Labor problems need new look

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EXAMPLE SET all shifts and for all days of the

The Canadian area of the
International Longshoremen’s
and Warehousemen’s Union
(ILWU) has raised some issues
that could and should be
discussed in all unions, and could
be the beginning of a broader
discussion involving some of the
broader issues raised in this
article. The heart of the whole
problem is the struggle to
develop genuine class policies to
replace the opportunist, class —
collaborationist policies of many

- union leaders today.

The Canadian area of the
ILWU is developing a new
approach to wage increases in its
current negotiations with
waterfront employers for a new
contract.

@

Like most other unions, the
ILWU has had its share of wage
differentials within the industry,
of groups of members in certain
categories fighting to protect
their privileged position, of
workers competing against each
other for higher paid jobs and
shifts. This is the sort of
situation that creates a fertile
breeding ground for unhealthy
practices such as favoritism and
‘business unionism.”

The ILWU has come out with a
new idea with which it hopes to
overcome these unsound aspects
of union life and return to the
initial purpose for which unions
were organized in the first place,
that of doing away with
competition among workers for
jobs and enable them to unite
together in common struggle
against the employer.

The proposal of the ILWU is
to replace the present wage
structure. which calls for one
basic wage with differentials for _
various types of work. penalties
for Saturday and Sunday work.
etc. with one uniform wage rate.

_ This rate would apply to all jobs, _

week. :

Whether or not the union will,
achieve its objective in this
year’s negotiations remai
be seen. The employers

don't

like it at all, particularly since
the one uniform wage rale
demanded by the union is a g°
high one, a wage that requires”
the employers to share ;
benefits of technological chang®
on the waterfront with
workers. Some longshoreme?
may also have difficulty
understanding such a neW
approach that breaks with lone
traditions. But the majority
longshoremen would benefit,
that there is no doubt. It would
remove a source of divisi0?
within their ranks. It would pU
them all on an equal footing 4”
therefore in a better position 10
unite in common struggle 1°
their needs.

The essence of what the TLWU
is endeavoring to do is to put thé
class interests of the workers —
ahead of their section
interests. This is sound tradé
unionism. -

The action of the ILWU marks
a radical departure from usu —
contract negotiations.
practice of the union, and m
other unions for that matter. ha
been to perpetuate wae
differences within the industtY
This often results in One
category pitting its needs
against those of, othe
categories. For years union
have used their muscle to #
end. Now we have a union us!
its muscle to try and reverse th
process.

Isn't this something the wh ae
trade -union movement shou!
take a close look at? It "ge
solve all or even most °
problems plaguing the —
movement, but it will tackl :
basic question which whe
solved would bring many ®
benefits with it.

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