Labour

By DIANE JOLLY

Globalization. Restructuring. Free Trade.
These are terms that only a few years ago
were unknown to most Canadian workers.
Suddenly, and brutally, they are the domi-
nant reality affecting Canada’s economy
which the trade union movement must
respond to.

Just consider how
Canada has changed
since the Tories were
re-elected. Free Trade
has arrived and we
have plant shut-
downs across the
country, and bitter
strikes to maintain
Canadian wages and
conditions. Social
programs have al-
ready been attacked
and the clawbacks have ended universality
in family allowance and pensions, while
changes to the Unemployment Insurance
program have transformed it from an insu-
rance program against unemployment to.a
“labour mobility scheme” to force workers
into the service sector of the new economy.
The Goods and Services Tax is meant to
reinforce the new order by lowering the
general purchasing power of workers.

JOLLY

How will the labour movement respond
to all of this? As the last federal election
showed, we can’t rely on politics alone. But
as more and more unions are finding,
neither can the bargaining table alone any
more meet the challenge we face.

When Canada’s largest union, the
Canadina Union of Public Employees,
meets in Vancouver Oct 16-20, one basic
question will underlie the debates: what
must be done to mobilize this sleeping giant
of a union with its 350,000 members and
considerable resources into a counterforce
that can lead labour against the neo-
conservative agenda and for an alternative?

With locals in every part of the country,
CUPE is more than just the biggest union in
Canada. It is one of the few Canada-wide
unions that can bring the workers’ agenda
into the centre of the country’s political and
social life.

As in past conventions, there are once
again policy resolutions which commit
CUPE to the struggle for a new Canada.
Consider this statement: ““We must present
Canadians with an alternative economic
and social vision which reaffirms the role of
the public sector and challenges the unac-
ceptable dominance of market forces in our
society.” And this one: ““CUPE national,
CUPE divisions, district councils and local
unions, along with members and staff right
across the country (must) build, support
and play an influential role in the develop-
ment and activities of popular coalitions at
every level.” ,

Those statements, from the convention
document, “The Tory Economic Agenda:
Building the Resistance,” are an example of
the far-sighted policies that have long been a
feature of CUPE national’s official state-
ments.

But there is a different reality in CUPE
from the advanced policy statements that it
readily adopts at national conventions.
There is also a massive organization with a
minimum of the education, mobilization
and activism that the policy statements
commit us to. There is the reality of political
and social activism confined to a few experts
and a core of highly politicized activists
representing us in coalitions or labour cen-
trals, with the vast majority of members left
on the sidelines.

The theme of the national convention is -

“CUPE into the 1990s.” But it will have to
bea different type of CUPE, and a different
type of labour movement, to meet the chal-
lenges of the next decade.

12 e Pacific Tribune, October 16, 1989

In Western Canada, like the Maritimes,
the restriction of legal trade union rights has
left us with no choice but to rethink the
whole basis of trade unionism that grew up
since WW II under the terms of the social
contract. Essentially, labour was institu-
tionalized in exchange for agreeing to abide
by a code of labour laws. Many of us ques-
tioned the wisdom of this arrangement, but
right wing governments have in any event
now ripped up the social contract. As nurses

. and health care workers have demon-

strated, we must be ready to give priority to
job action and political struggles over
labour boards and courts, and be ready to
boycott and defy bad laws.

This is one good reason for a new, fresh
look at the pressing need for co-ordinated
bargaining. For collective bargaining pur-
poses, resources have to be applied to ade-
quate preparations, bargaining conferences,
inter-local communications, job actions
and strike support. But co-ordinated bar-
gaining, to truly meet the challenge of the
right wing agenda, must be more than co-
ordination of CUPE locals. We need public
sector co-ordinated bargaining in each pro-
vince, and indeed, overall co-ordination
with the private sector as well. But this
implies the willingness to mobilize and co-
operate in a larger struggle for workers’
rights — not just through public relations
but with political and economic action. It is
at this point that the labour movement
reaches those moments of truth when it digs
deeper and moves ahead, or retreats.

British Columbia shows public sector
employees the ultimate result of retreat: the
number of workers on the provincial
government’s payroll has been reduced by
40 per cent since the historic Solidarity
struggle of 1983 was cut short.

But we also know that trade union job
action, even the most political, is only part
of tomorrow’s struggle. In recognition of
that, CUPE has joined the Pro Canada
Network and the Social Solidarity Coalition
and a staff member usually participates in
the central bodies of these important coali-
tions. But in the provinces and at the
regional level there is a very different situa-
tion. Like most of the labour movement,
CUPE has not been a driving force in build-
ing grass roots coalitions all across the
country. Why not? Clearly the answer can
only be found in the understanding of
CUPE members and leaders across the
country, and in the determination of the
leadership to bring that awareness to the
whole organization in the context of

= CUPE’s national policies.

It is somewhat representative of this
problem that the most talked about issue
before the CUPE convention seems to be
the election of a new secretary-treasurer,
rather than the kind of union that 350,000
public sector workers really need. And look-
ing over the published materials of the three
principal candidates, B.C.’s Mike Dumler,
and Ontario’s Judy D’Arcy and John
Murphy, one finds a strong emphasis on
personal qualities and keeping the books.

This speaks to the gap between CUPE’s
generally advanced policies and the real
level of mobilization and activism. For
regardless of how progressive the policies
are on paper, unless the leaders are
genuinely committed to carrying them out,
they will remain on paper. In my books,
that means we need political leadership.
which sees the union as more than just a
collective bargaining agency. We need men
and women who have committed them-
selves to the fight for a new Canada, and
who will bring CUPE and the whole labour
movement into the centre of that fight.

That is the message I’m hoping to hear at
the CUPE national convention.

Diane Jolly is secretary-treasurer of Local
389 of CUPE in North Vancouver.

Projectionists locked
out by theatre chains —

rand PLEAS
CINEPLEX ODEON CORP. #8

Projectionists Frank Emery (I), Bill Clayton and Bert Gilbert maintain picket line
outside Famous Players’ Capitol 6 theatre in Vancouver on Oct. 12, the first
day of action against a lockout imposed by the chain and its main rival, Cineplex
Odeon. Members of the B.C. Projectionists Union have been without a collec-
tive agreement for four years. The companies are bargaining jointly after
securing an Industrial Relations Council ruling, which the union says they have
not honoured since they have failed to name a person with which the union can
bargain. The employers meanwhile are demanding rollbacks in wages and
cost-of-living provisions. All theatres of the chains in B.C. are behind picket
lines, with management and scab labour attempting to operate all but eight
outlets.

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