Workers of the world, unite, already

The debacle that greeted the general strike the morning of May 3 will reverberate for a generation to come, and maybe longer, unless workers can learn the benefits of progressive social development

by Kevin Potvin <kpotvin@republic-news.org>

There are two traditions in the union movement. Like Siamese twins with two spines, they do not always pull in the same direction. The deal that Hospital Employees Union head Chris Allnut and British Columbia Federation of Labour head Jim Sinclair cut last week with BC premier Gordon Campbell averted a near-certain general strike. But it also put in high relief the tension between the two often conflicted traditions that animates the core of the historic union movement.

On the one hand, modern union organization grew out of pre-industrial craft guilds in England that sought to put upward pressure on rates by limiting the supply of trained workers through an enforced labour cartel. Alongside that tradition, and employing the former's ability to quickly and deeply motivate and mobilize a great number of people, is the social development tradition inside the union movement.

The two are not at odds generally. State legislation enforcing social equality and social justice creates a milieu in which labour cartels can thrive. And strong labour cartels can give funding and momentum to strong, widespread social development movements. Both are either exclusively or predominantly concerned for the welfare of workers. It's no surprise that the labour cartels should sustain, and be sustained by, social development movements, and vice versa.

The phenomenon is not dissimilar to capital's sponsorship of equality and justice achieved through state enforcement of tort law. A good investment climate steeped in equality and justice is good for business prosperity, just like a good social climate also steeped in equality and justice is good for worker prosperity.

Still, the labour cartel side of the union movement and the social development side are not automatic partners in all endeavors. For example, the social development side sees merit in resolving First Nations land and resource claims speedily and in recognition of historical wrongs delivered upon that community. The labour cartel side sees merit in converting as much of the remaining resources to the exploitation of them by as many unionized workers as can possibly be arranged. There is no resolution that keeps both sides happy. If peace breaks out between the two camps on this specific issue, it will only come at the price of compromise by both.

Another example of the essential split in the union movement was laid bare last week at the close of the union action against the hospital employers and the provincial government's action against the unions. The social development side of the provincial union movement felt now was the time to stop the overall government drive toward a rash and extreme plan to privatize as much of the public sector as can be done before the next election. The labour cartel side, which won this battle, felt that now was not the time (if ever there is a time) to attempt to bring the government down.

The reasons the cartel side felt this way run deep. Among the more conservative elements in society at large today are private sector union members (if not their leadership). The cartel side is not presently cognizant of the role played in their success by the quality of the social development milieu. Unionized workers voted massively for the present right wing Liberal regime in Victoria, and confirmed their conservative bona fides by voting massively in favour of the federal Alliance party in the last national elections. Aging, relatively wealthy, and in ownership of substantial property, the average union worker is most interested now in whatever sustains the status quo. A sale at Walmart, not a march for revolution, is what brings them out now.

The social development side of the union movement, on the other hand, sees grave threats to that part of the hull that remains hidden under the water line. Steeped in history and scholarship, the social development side understands the profound connection between styles of financial arrangements like bond issues or private-public partnerships, and the general social trends toward or away from individualism or collectivism.

It is a difficult argument to make (and obviously too hard in this case) to convince a union leader interested mostly in getting the best contract for his members, that the compromises he is making profoundly destabilize the foundation of equality and justice society has been carefully and tenuously built up upon over the last 150 years.

It is no less difficult today, as is evidenced by the outcome of the HEU strike, to even convince the labour cartel side that deals they make under the present circumstances can only result in even worse circumstances for the cartel in the future by directly undermining the thrust of the social development tradition.

The social development side of the union movement generates the circumstances that then come to prevail over negotiations conducted by the cartel side. If the cartel side cannot make that connection in their minds, and cannot listen to or take the advice of the social development side when it is screaming its loudest, it only hurts itself in the future. But this is what happened when Allnut and Sinclair met with Premier Campbell late night on May 2 nd to hammer out a compromise deal and avert a certain general strike. They dismissed the social development side, and withdrew their support from it. That decision will carry a price.

A new mercantilism has gripped this province and most of the western world. What will result by way of response is a rejuvenation of the social development tradition in the labour movement. This was easily apparent in the reaction of workers who had committed themselves to this more important fight, at no small risk to themselves, but who found their ranks sold out Monday morning, and let the cartel leaders know their displeasure about that in no uncertain terms.

As is the case in politics at large in this province and country, and indeed the world, so it is in politics within the BC labour movement: the people are presently so far ahead of their leadership, the leaders can't even see them anymore. It isn't often the public at large is motivated to support a union-driven social development-issues fight. They were this time, but the drive was undermined.

A rare opportunity to advance the greater cause was squandered last week by a grab at a chance to serve a more immediate, but minor, self-serving, and ultimately self-defeating, cause. One might be inclined to suggest that representatives of the social development tradition in the union movement withdraw their support, in turn, from the labour cartel tradition. But they can't, because unlike the cartel side, the social development side knows its history, and knows what happens when the split cracks open. Someone has to find a new way to educate the workers, is what the situation in this province boils down to.

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