CLC secretary Dan Radford swears in the new exe 18, 1966 at the “unity” convention in Vancouver. The new following the CCL-TLC merger earlier in the year. hepement, aided and abetted by pc tip of both the TLC and , The TLC leadership for a time iN d directives from the AFL in on ashington to expel the militant Seamen’s Union that Such outstanding gains dian seamen. In 1949, President Percy Bengough famous ‘‘Co-operation > Domination No!” reply to the when he refused to expel the «SU. But U.S. pressure increased. i CSU was expelled -and the g-C, the U.S. and Canadian Overnments and the shipowners borated to smash the CSU. lad Won for i ee United Fishermen and. Workers Union was expelled fm the TLC because it refused to OW to McCarthyism. So were NCouver’s outside civic workers. ! The Canadian Congress of Babor, now led by leaders pledged » CCF Support, also expelled a a, of progressive left-led Hons, including the United Elec- cal Workers and the Mine, Mill, id Smelter Workers Union. At fesame time union locals that pur- Militant policies, like locals of ihe Carpenters and Electrical Morkers in Vancouver, were plac- } Under trusteeship by their U.S: d offices and their leaders Oved from elected positions. ' In 1955 the AFL and CIO in the Puited States merged to form the BiCio. The following year the 4 and TLC in Canada merged ae the Canadian Labor Con- f What lay behind the merger? Bg esses at work were con- Padictory, ; fae tOubtedly the biggest single he: T leading to the Canadian 5 8e Was that such a merger had patty taken place in the U.S. The Fanadian trade union’ movement De Still closely tied to that of the BS differences: between the AF poaanly craft unions in the red and TLC, and the he Ceunantly industrial unions in 1O and CCL were no longer ans Both the CIO and the - had moved to the right, ad- bolic; IMcreasingly conservative icles. All of them had supported et governments in the Cold War Nd all ste ld Wart them had carried ‘the ar into the labor movement ihi;ce® it against militants and fesuir et, Policies. An inevitable i Of this was a form of class Staboration with governments €mployers against the needs hte mands of the trade union i “mbership, : wetcouraged by this class col- phe Tation, the employers adopted glemao ooh attitude to all of labor’s ds. The Canadian Manufac- ae {0s oh Association in Canada in Hopes for example, put out the Ae of “‘No wage increases!. shor ees in Ford had to strike ie days to win any gains. | at General Motors had to i H t strike for 148 days in 1955-56 to wr- ing some concessions from their employers. It was becoming evident to trade unionists, and even their conser- vative leaders, that if the trade union movement was to make any ins and if indeed, it was to sur- vive, the rivalry between.the two main groups in both countries had to be replaced with unity. ‘The merger convention of the TLC and CCL in April, 1956, to establish the Canadian Labor’Con- gress brought together 1,600 delegates representing approx- imately 1,000,000 .workers. (640,000 from the TLC and 330,000 from the CCL). Not in-- cluded were 100,000 in the Cana- dian and Catholic Federation of Labour and abour 200,000 in _ unions not affiliated with the CLC or the Catholic Federation. It was an enthusiastic conven- tion with the delegates expressing high hopes for advances by a united labor movement. Looked at historically it was undoubtedly one of the high points in the history of the trade union movement in In ‘an editorial at the time, the Tribune welcomed the constituent convention of the CLC as ‘“‘an ‘event of the greatest significance, laying the basis for a great united, self-governing Canadian trade union movement. _ “That many obstacles have yet to be overcome is not denied,”’ the editorial noted. ‘‘There are political prejudices, dictation and domination by U.S. bureaucrats and hatchetmen in the service of _ reaction, the. poison of McCar- - thyism, the differences that stand in the way of mobilizing labor’s economic strength at the ballot box — all these and more. But the first great step, that of healing * the breach and opening the way for a single, united Canadian Labor Congress is being consummated this May Day.” The new Congress was, in fact, ‘still far from free of Cold War in- FISHERMAN PHOTO— GEOFF MEGGS fluences. Its constitution contained The 1980 CLC convention; largely boycotted by the cutive of the B.C. Federation of Labor elected Nov. CLC-affiliated Federation was established a clause barring ‘‘any organization controlled or dominated by com- munist, fascist or other totalitarian’? groups. This was, of course, directed against militant or left-led unions and was used for many years after the merger to keep out unions expelled earlier by both the CCL and TLC. In the 25 years that followed the merger the CLC made impressive gains. Gradually its policies also moved in more progressive direc- tions. The membership grew from one million in 1956 to 2.3 million in 1981. A big section of the new members came from the organiza- tion of public sector workers, over 600,000 of whom today belong to” unions. They not only added a new note of militancy to Canadian labor, they also added more Cana- - dian content since these were all Canadian unions. Today Cana- dian, or national unions asthey are sometimes called, account for 37 percent of the membership of the ‘CLC and 50.1 percent of total union membership in Canada. With detente making progress in international affairs, the Cold War in the labor movement also subsid- - ed. After a long and persistent struggle and under considerable pressure from unions affiliated with the B.C. Federation of Labor, particularly, the CLC took the historic step of re-admitting, by direct affiliation, the United Elec- trical Workers and the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union. Earlier, both Mine-Mill and the Vancouver Outside Civic Workers had been re-admitted through mergers with the Steelworkers and the Canadian Union of Public Employees respec- tively. The anti-communist clauses in - the CLC constitution were also removed. A further significant change was - the growth of the demand for | Canadian autonomy — for the right of Canadian members of in- ternational unions to run their own affairs in Canada, elect their own” we Officers and decide their own policies. In 1970 the CLC adopted what it called minimum standards of self government and urged every inter- national union to modify its con- stitution accordingly. Many inter- national unions were compelled to grant a greater or lesser degree of autonomy to their Canadian membership. Some unions, such as the Canadian Paperworkers Union - as it is now called, separated — amicably in the case of the CPU — from their internationals to form completely independent Canadian - unions. The main holdouts on the autonomy standards have been the international building trades unions which have maintained a tight grip on their Canadian membership. Democratic rights, at least as Canadians know and understand them, have been severely restricted. : The Canadian sections of inter- national building trades unions want the right to run their own af- fairs in Canada; of that there can be ~ no doubt. In 1975, at a conference in Winnipeg representative of . building trades unions locals and also local and provincial building trades councils, they drew upacon- stitution for a Canadian building trades council, which would be elected by Canadians and run by Canadians. This was swept aside by the Washington head. office of the building trades and in its place, Washington established a Cana- dian Executive Board appointed in Washington, and provided for bi- ennial conventions for which the ._ internationals in Washington would also appoint the delegates. The head offices of the interna- tional building trades unions have been pressuring the Canadian Labor Congress for some time for constitutional changes. They want the right to appoint all delegates to CLC conventions instead of the locals electing them as is presently done. They want the sole right to send resolutions to CLC conven- tions, instead of them coming from ° locals as at present: Iding Trades following their per capita dues boycott. United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union president Homer Stev- ens (centre) accepts the new charter from CLC officers (I to r) Jean Beaudry, Bill Dodge, Donald MacDonald and Joe Morris following ‘the UFAWU readmission in 1972. They tried to get these changes made at three successive conven- tions of the CLC but each time they were voted down by the delegates. Now that they can’t have their way i they are pulling out. But there are other equally im- portant reasons. The Washington © offices of the building trades unions resent and strongly oppose the demand of the CLC that inter- national unions grant a measure of -autonomy to their Canadian membership. They oppose the sup- port of the CLC for the NDP (in the U.S. many of them support Reagan). And they bitterly oppose the progressive trends in CLC policy such as its stand for detente and disarmament, its critisicm of U.S. multinationals, its refusal to ~ go along all the way with U.S. cold war policies. So now they are pull- ing out of the CLC and have an- nounced that they plan to set up their own Canadian trade union © centre to compete with the CLC. The CLC has countered by tak- ~ ing steps to set up.its own building trades departments to which locals of international building trades unions may affiliate. But of course the head offices of these unions in the U.S. oppose this and are ‘threatening’ disciplinary action against locals that respond to the CLC invitation to remain within the house of labor in Canada. The actions taken by the U.S. head offices of the international unions to split and divide the labor movement in Canada will help only the employers and will most cer- tainly weaken labor. The years ahead for Canadian labor, because of the divisive ac- tions of these U.S. labor leaders and their interference in Canadian affairs, will be difficult ones. But today the desire for unity and the demand that Canadian trade unionists be allowed to run their own affairs are both stronger than they have ever been. Whatever the present difficulties, and they are ‘many, there is reason for optimism that Canadian labor will achieve both unity and autonomy. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MAY 1, 1981—Page 11