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In the lengthening shadows of economic recession,
debilitating labour concessions, and a global food crisis, the 25th
Constitutional Convention of the Canadian Labour Congress convened, and
was marked mostly by platitudes, policies and plans devoid of
action.
Over 1800 delegates assembled in Toronto, representing
31 international unions, 14 national unions, 7 provincial unions, 12
provincial labour federations and 130 municipal labour councils.
But the presence of hundreds of empty chairs in the hall was a glaring
reminder, throughout the May 26-30 gathering, of labour’s deepening
disarray.
The major absentee was the huge delegation of the
National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE), the umbrella
organization of the provincial public service unions including the
Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union. NUPGE delegates were not
seated due to a dispute over an attempt by the Service Employees’
International Union (SEIU) to raid the Alberta Union of Provincial
Employees, a NUPGE affiliate. Rather than punish the raiders, CLC
officials suspended the complainant for withholding a portion of its dues
to the CLC to cover the cost of repelling the raid.
This was symptomatic of a much larger malaise –
bureaucratic inaction in the face of declining wages and living
standards, disappearing manufacturing jobs, shrinking union density, and
shrivelling union democracy.
On the eve of the Convention, about 200 delegates
responded to the call of the Toronto and York Region Labour Council to
discuss its widely circulated “Action Agenda: To Build Labour Power in
the 21st Century.” The document proposes a number of progressive reforms
(card-check union certification, restriction of temporary agencies,
adequate funding of labour councils), offers some vague sentiments (on
peace, fair trade, minimum wage and organizing) – all set in a context of
Canadian nationalism and illusions of a more ‘green’ capitalist
economy.
But the weakness of the “Action Agenda” is not limited
to its political perspective. Just as bad is its proponents’
reliance upon the good will of the existing labour leadership. This
was reflected in their failure to mount an election challenge to CLC
President Ken Georgetti or to any member of his out-going executive – all
of whom were re-elected by acclamation.
At the 2005 CLC Convention in Montreal, Communications
Energy and Paperworkers’ activist Carol Wall ran against Georgetti.
On a shoe-string budget and a robust reform agenda, she garnered 38 per
cent of the delegates’ votes. Her campaign inspired hope in many
that a cross-union, rank and file, left opposition movement would arise.
Unfortunately, in the absence of a clear, militant programme and a
commitment to challenge the current labour leadership from the bottom up,
such a movement did not materialize. This year’s Action Agenda
group did not even purport to offer the needed political alternative or
direction, and thus it had almost no discernable impact on the
convention.
Since labour bureaucrats specialize in denial and
damage control, this CLC gathering was another showcase for their dubious
talents. Instead of dealing with internal raiding and
pro-management sweet-heart deals, they talked about “rogue unions”
operating outside the CLC (i.e. the tiny, pro-employer Christian Labour
Association of Canada), and in very general terms, they targeted the
right wing business agenda of governments and employers.
A number of high-powered speakers addressed the
convention, including Assembly of First Nations Grand Chief Phil
Fontaine, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives top economist Armine
Yalnizyan, David Suzuki Foundation speaker Dale Marshall, and
Saskatchewan NDP Leader Lorne Calvert, who spoke on the topic of a needed
universal public drug plan, Pharmacare.
A number of policy papers lambasted the corporate
agenda and its consequences, including: the growing income gap, the
denial of equality to women, the lack of justice for aboriginal peoples,
and the severe threat posed to humanity’s future by environmental
destruction.
In one shining moment, delegates rose to applaud, many
moved to tears, as the CLC bestowed its Award for Outstanding Service to
Humanity to Dr. Henry Morgentaler. Eighty-five and frail,
Morgentaler accepted the award and thanked unions for standing with him
in the long struggle to secure for women the right to choose abortion.
The CLC reaffirmed its support for the New Democratic
Party, but failed to address the weakness of NDP economic and
environmental policies, or the major obstacle to electing an NDP federal
government which stems from the party’s estrangement from the Quebec
labour movement and the national aspirations of Quebecois workers.
The seemingly most radical resolution adopted at the
convention was one demanding nationalization of the oil industry,
although it was couched in terms of the need to regulate fuel prices and
restrict the sale of energy resources abroad.
A heated discussion on CLC structure (including the
problems of union raiding and inadequate funding of small labour
councils) produced only a special task force which may suggest changes as
to how the CLC functions.
Official CLC evening forums on Human Rights, Women,
Youth and International Solidarity showcased good speakers and
interesting information, but were divorced from any strategy – thus
reduced to a kind of ‘show and tell’ exercise.
Indeed, absent from all of the progressive adopted
policy papers and resolutions was any active connection to actual social
struggles now occurring (such as aboriginal land-claim protests, or the
fight against job loss in the auto sector, or the effort to provide
sanctuary in Canada for U.S. war resisters, or the growing global
campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israeli
apartheid).
Missing, moreover, was a strategy to establish a
workers’ government that would put human needs and environmental
sustainability before private profits.
On the positive side of the ledger, a significant
minority of delegates demonstrated their interest in exemplary struggles
and in radical ideas.
Over a hundred packed an evening forum organized by
the Canadian Peace Alliance to hear Clarence Thomas, a leading member of
the International Longshore and Warehouse Union in San Francisco.
On May 1, 2008, 25,000 members of the ILWU took strike action against the
Iraq war, shutting down thirty ports on the U.S. west coast.
Another fifty delegates met at a Labour for Palestine forum to hear
Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions representative Manawel
Abdul Al, and President of the Haitian Workers’ Federation Paul Loulou
Chery, describe struggles against foreign occupation and for workers’
rights in their homelands.
Delegates bought over 150 copies of Socialist Action
newspaper during the convention, along with a small number of SA booklets
and one subscription to the paper. But the idea of a class struggle
caucus in the CLC and across its major affiliates is still the music of
the future.
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