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CANADIAN UNIONS ARE A DISGRACE
Unions in the past have served a vital purpose
in protecting the workers, but the union movement in Canada
today is a disgrace. It is profoundly undemocratic. Its leaders
throw around money they receive by way of compulsory union
dues to suit their personal whims, without making any effort
to consult their members. Canadian unions have, in fact, become
the personal fiefdoms of their leaders.
This is occurring despite the fact that unionization
in the private sector has been rapidly decreasing. It now
stands at only 20% of those employed in the private sector.
Even with the addition of public sector unions, only 32.4%
of those employed in Canada are unionized.
There is a huge difference in unionization
between Canada and the US as only 14.3% of those employed
in the US are unionized. This big difference is due to the
fact that 60% of the unionized workers in Canada are in the
public sector. Public sector unions organize entire categories
of workers, such as teachers or nurses, in a way that would
be almost impossible to do in the private sector. As a result,
81.6% of nurses and 89.5% of elementary and secondary school
teachers were unionized in Canada at the end of 2004. This
strong public sector unionization also means that these unions
have an iron grip over health care, municipal services, education,
and other government monopolies.
Since public service unions enjoy a monopoly
over public services they are a political force. Especially,
since they use strikes as their weapon of choice. If it's
not teachers, it's health care providers, or university professors
or CBC broadcasters striking. Politicians are easy to roll
and successive federal and provincial governments rapidly
give in to the public sector strikers rather than risk being
blamed for the strike by the public. It always works in the
unions' favour.
Another reason for the power of unions in
Canada lies with the poorly conceived, 1946 decision by Mr.
Justice Ivan Rand of the Supreme Court of Canada, who had
been called in to resolve a raging labour dispute in Windsor,
Ontario. He concluded that a way of resolving labour disputes
was to require workers to pay dues to a union whether or not
workers wanted to belong to the union. This decision completely
changed the labour movement in Canada, as compulsory union
dues soon became the cornerstone of Canada's labour-management
relations and was enacted into all labour legislation across
Canada.
The problem with compulsory union dues is
that, although they are supposed to be used for the collective
bargaining process and work-related uses, union leaders have
moved from this original mandate and use these fees to expand
into all areas of left-wing, socialist economic and social
activism. In fact, the hallmark of unions today is the dispersing
of union funds to promote left wing socialist issues, such
as abortion, feminism, homosexuality, and, more recently,
same-sex marriage.
Union negotiations also usually stipulate
that same-sex benefits be included in contracts. Unions also
instigate same-sex demands in union-financed court challenges,
such as the Rosenberg case, in which the Canadian Union of
Public Employees (CUPE) intervened in the case in which Madame
Justice Rosalie Abella of the Ontario Court of Appeal declared
homosexual couples were "spouses" for the purposes
of RRSP provisions in the Income Tax Act. (REALity, May/June
1998, p.1 "Courts Reject Traditional Values".) In
the 1999 Alberta Vriend case, the Canadian Labour Congress
was an intervener on behalf of homosexual employment rights.
Unions also regularly participate in Gay Pride Parades "in
solidarity" with homosexual activists.
REAL Women itself has been caught in the cross-hairs of the
CLC (Canadian Labour Congress) for, horror of horrors, upholding
traditional values. In 1988 the CLC passed a resolution condemning
REAL women for opposing rights for lesbians, homosexuals,
feminists and pro-choice advocates, as well as for our opposition
to no-fault divorce and universal child care. The union found
it intolerable that a woman's organization would dare to publicly
reject the left wing agenda.
More recently, the Canadian Labour Congress
(CLC) became deeply involved with the same-sex marriage issue
in that it was a founding member of the pro-homosexual organization,
Canadians for Equal Marriage, which was the organization that
actively pushed for same-sex marriage in Parliament during
this past year.
In addition to the CLC promoting same-sex
marriage, other union leaders have also done so. These include,
Buzz Hargrove, President of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW);
James Clancy, President of the National Union of Public and
General Employees (NUGE); Ken Neumann, National Director of
the United Steelworkers of America in Canada, Deborah Bourque,
President of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW),
the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) and the Canadian
Union of Public Employees (CUPE). All have heavily lobbied
Prime Minister Martin to pass same-sex marriage legislation,
supposedly on behalf of their membership.
The CLC also held a conference on homosexual
issues in Quebec City on November 13-15, 2005. The purpose
of this conference called "Beyond Legal Equality to Social
Equality" was to determine strategy to further the agenda
of homosexual activists including:
- Obtaining legal protection for the transgendered,
and
- Stopping the alleged harassment in the
schools of homosexual/lesbian/transgendered students
These objectives are exactly the same as those
established by the Ottawa based homosexual lobby group EGALE
last March (See REALity, September/ October, 2005 p. 1)
In addition to their homosexual issues, the
unions are also involved in the daycare issue. They are determined
to limit child care choice to publicly controlled, non profit
centres only - so as to increase their membership by the addition
of thousands of child care workers onto the union rolls. In
October in pursuit of this objective, the Canadian Auto Workers
(CAW), Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) and the United
Steelworkers of America sponsored an Australian day care activists,
Lynne Wannan, on a speaking tour of Canada to lobby in support
of government operated day care centres. This objective, ignores
the wishes of Canadian parents (only 13% of families in Canada
regard child care as the preferred option) and the best interests
of children, in order to promote happy unions by increasing
their memberships and their finances by way of the compulsory
union dues paid by child care workers.
Canadian Public Rejects Union Dues Used
for non-work Purposes
It is significant that the decision of union
leaders to support left-wing causes is contrary to the views
of the Canadian public. For example, In April, 1999 Dr. Reginald
Bibby, a respected sociologist and social trends analyst from
the University of Lethbridge, conducted a poll in which he
found that although 58% of Canadians approve of unions for
work-related objectives, an overwhelming 75% are opposed to
union involvement in politics and 80% believe that the use
of dues for non work-related activities should be voluntary
only. Yet, workers obliged to pay union dues are forced to
contribute to the promotion of many social issues with which
they do not agree.
How Union Leaders Promote their Anti-family
Social/Political Agenda
The Annual General Meetings (AGM) for unions
are usually limited to delegates from the union locals, not
rank and file members. As a result, only the most dedicated
activists attend. It is at general meetings, however, that
major policy decisions are made, such as the raising of union
dues (which creates a treasure chest for union bosses). It
is also at these meetings that union officials vote themselves
pay hikes and generous pensions without too many questions
being asked. It is at AGMs, too, that resolutions reflecting
an anti-life/family world view are adopted as policy.
The initiators of these left-wing proposals
at the AGMs are usually the left-wing professional union officials
and managers, i.e. "white collar" types with pretensions
to intellect, whose salaries are paid through the dues of
the regular working members, "blue collar workers".
The latter are usually social conservatives who are regarded
with contempt by union managers for their traditional values.
Efforts to Overturn the Power of the Unions
A Northern Ontario community college professor,
Mervin Lavigne, assisted by the National Citizens Coalition,
in 1985 challenged the courts' compulsory union dues paid
to his union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE)
and the use of these dues for non-work related issues. It
was a six-year battle that ended in the Supreme Court of Canada,
which concluded, in June 1991, that the use of union dues
for a broad range of activities contributes to the overall
good of society. Mr. Justice LaForest wrote in his opinion:
Many activities be they concerned with
the environment, tax policy, day care or feminism, can be
construed as related to the large environment in which unions
must represent its (sic) members.
The court did state, however that:
… any restrictions on how a union
might spend its dues is a legislative matter rather than
a matter for the courts.
The unions predictably took the Lavigne decision
as an affirmation of their freedom to do as they like with
enforced dues which they certainly are continuing to do.
The fact that these union bosses claim they
speak for all their compulsory members is insulting to their
members' intelligence, independence and dignity. Unions leaders
do not represent their membership. This is evidenced by the
fact that unions over the years have poured millions of dollars
of union funds into support for the NDP, both federally and
provincially. However, that political party has not received
much support from the voters, although presumably it includes
many rank and file union members. For example, the NDP only
managed to capture 19 seats out of 308 in the 2004 federal
election.
The fact is union memberships consist of people
with different social, moral and religious beliefs, yet they
are expected to finance left-wing socialist policies. This
is coercion, not democracy.
Changing our Unions
One way of correcting this enormous problem
with Canadian unions is to change the law so that workers
are no longer compelled to finance the union bosses' political
agenda through forced dues. Better yet, why not change the
law so that no worker is forced to join a union? Freedom of
association should also mean freedom not to associate.
As night follows day, if union leaders had
to rely on voluntary union dues, they would become much more
responsive to their members.
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