White

By LARRY SEFTON
: (Excerpts from an address)

O LONGER are we just

talking about white col-
Ae ar workers, their prob-
cs and their status within
Ndustrial society. We are be-
(Sitning to act. Folklore would
eee us — and frankly,
aS convinced very many
Ride of our movement —
xt these myths, that:

® labor is not attracting
collar workers because
es Wages and salary earn-

er 3
a are not receptive to our
€ssage:

: white collar unionism is
€cent thing:

e
Fiabor Wants to attract
set oot employees to off-
€ inipact of automation

ap blue collar member-

Tap git Bumber of white col-
Niciang. Oyees, be they tech-
TOfess; Office employees or

e heen people, who be-
8sted in cae or are inter-
is Pitifuny, Saath bargaining,

Challenging these
Stak it necessary to
at is meant by white

Separate “ang” There are five
€s in this

er as civ

Plo
ieg 0 80vernment agen-
those in Crown corporations;
Offices retail trade; those in
th ae Tectly associated
those w Uction facilities; and
Wit 3 ‘0 Work side by side
~~ Production workers.
Bere look at the de-
Nlonization in these

» the claim that the
a Worker is aloof
Unionism disinte-
in the finance in-

dustry, where employees of

banks, trust companies, insur-
ance firms, financial institu-
tions and the real estate in-
dustry have almost no union-
ization, have we failed to
move. This industry employs
some 238,000 men and women
as paid workers, about four
percent of the Canadian labor

force.

In the public service field,
there is overwhelming ac-
ceptance among civil servants
of the need for union organ-
ization and collective bargain-
ing. Two of every three men
and women in the public ser-
vice — federal, provincial and
municipal — have some form
of organization. This category
includes the 163,000 salaried
employees of the federal gov-

(NST ETE

LARRY SEFTON is director
of District 6 of the Steelwork-
ers union, vice-president of
the Canadian Labor Congress
and chairman of the
Committee on White Collar
Organization, The
printed here was made to a
CLC White Collar Conference
held early this year in To-
ronto.

SN

ernment; the 173,000 emplo-
yees of the provincial gov-
ernments, including those of
crown agencies and public
bodies such as hydro com-
missions. The kind of organ-
ization varies from recogniz-
ed trade unions with legiti-
mate bargaining rights, as in
Saskatchewan, to associations
of employees which so far
have been denied formal bar-

gaining rights.

In retail trade, our ranks
have been growing, not as
quickly as we would like but
nevertheless in such numbers
as to indicate that there is a

address -

- ynions in larger numbe

genuine desire on the part of
these employees to bargain
collectively and take their
place as employees who pre-
fer to meet with their employ-
ers to solve their problems
instead of being content to
let the employer make all the
decisions.

In offices directly associat-
ed with production facilities,
there is a definite ground-
swell by employees to join
the unions. Organizing cam-
paigns in this area have been
successful where the unions
have had the resources and
the staff to allocate to such

drives.

And there are the forgot-
ten white collar workers —
forgotten, perhaps, because so
many of them are included in

the scope of production and

maintenance unit contracts,
and therefore, to the pes-
simists, virtually non-exist-

‘ent. In almost every large in-

dustry, growing numbers of
technicians, white smock em-
ployees and others work side
by side with production work-
ers. Invariably, they are part
of the bargaining unit and
have played a substantial role
in trade unionism.

This breakdown dispels the
myth that white collar work-
ers are not interested and
that we are not attracting
them to trade unionism. The
truth is that they are inter-
ested, and they are joming

rs than

ver before. The experience of
ae own union, the Steelwork-
ers, and that of many others,
is that conditions have never
been brighter for white collar

organi :
suits of recent campaigns.

~ The second myth is that all
this is a recent thing. Ignored
is the fact that two outstand-
ing unions of Canada, os

zing, based on the re-_

Canadian Brotherhood of Rail,

Transport and General Work-
ers, and the Brotherhood of:

Railway and Steamship.

Clerks, successfully organized
their white collar jurisdiction
on the railways decades ago.
White collar workers in the
pulp and paper industry have
been unionized, and bargain
as intensively in that indus-
try as do the plant unions.
The civil servants, federal and
provincial, erroneously  la-
belled as the employees most
interested in status, have a
tradition of associations,
forms of grievance procedure
and so forth, and are steadily
moving in the direction of col-
lective bargaining as we in
the union movement know it.

The. third myth that labor
wants white collar workers to
offset the loss of blue collar
workers, is plain nonsense.
We want white collar work-
ers to have "trade unionism
and its benefits because we
think that collective bargain-
ing and democratic trade
unions are the cornerstone of
industrial democracy. White
collar workers are not a spe-
cial breed that prefer to be

-supplicants before their em-

ployer. They are human be-
ings with human needs and
they want to be as self-suf-
ficient and self-governing as
are wage and salary earners
in unions, associations and in
professional associations.

That white collar workers
are interested in collective
bargaining is obvious. Our
primary and secondary school
teachers certainly are and

have been successful in com-
pelling school boards to bar-
gain. Our registered nurses
want collective bargaining
and are moving toward it be-
cause they feel it is the only
way they can regain lost pres-
tige which comes from_sub-
Standard pay and working
conditions. This is only fair;

other components of the pro- .

fessional registry in the health

field, doctors and dentists, are

strongly organized. We also
see professional engineers,
those working in-large indus-
trial groups such at Ontario
Hydro, the aircraft industry
and communications industry,
starting to organize along
union lines.

Just as the old relation-
ship between employer and
employee was ended by the
first industrial revolution
which introduced mass. pro-
duction to replace craftsman-

- ship, so has our own second

industrial revolution ended
the traditional relationship
between clerical and office
employees — and many pro-
fessionals and technicians as
well — with the employer.
The computer is an imper-
sonal object, it has ushered
in the day when the white
collar employee will begin to
work on shifts, can see his
job displaced almost over-
night, and more and more be-
comes part. of an overall pro-
duction process.

Many of the established
privileges of white collar
workers. such as sick pay,
pensions, regular vacations
and employment made secure
by long service are now

rights enjoyed by most pro-

duction workers. While pro-
duction workers have attain-
ed these rights, they also
achieved a much higher stand-
ard of living. Office employees.

_ have been left behind.

4

wT

August 6, 1965—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 3