Should We Outlaw American-based Labour Organizations?

Just saying......(and it's spelt "Labour" not "labor")

One of the striking and important impacts on the Canadian economy that may be the outcome of the imposition of tariffs by the current U.S. Administration[1] is the potential loss of employment for many Canadian workers. This potential is heightened by the imposition of countervailing tariffs imposed as a retaliation to the attack on the Canadian economy. It is one of the reasons we have suggested that retaliatory tariffs should not be part of the Canadian response, as doing so is expected and merely increases the pain to Canadian consumers and Canadian workers.

The better strategy is to diversify our trade portfolio by aligning with other trading partners in Europe, Asia and perhaps South America. Expanding trade to other markets also means we have to look at our capital investment in the development of natural resources, create a powerful infrastructure to support expanded economic activity and make every effort to improve worker productivity to world leading standards of performance.

In making this effort, which has to occur expeditiously, we need to engage worker representatives, i.e. labour unions. They are an essential element in our democracy and by actively engaging their participation we are promoting a distinct part of Canadian culture that separates us from our neighbours to the south.

However, it is now timely to take stock on how unions are structured in Canada and to perhaps make some much needed changes. To illustrate the point, consider the differences between the unions that represent autoworkers in the two countries. In the U.S.A. the workers in the auto industry represented by a union are mostly members of the United Autoworkers (UAW) - which has about 400,000 members. In Canada unionized autoworkers are mostly represented by Unifor, a uniquely Canadian union that originally was a part of the UAW.

Unifor, began life in the 1980s when the Canadian division of the UAW separated from the parent Union because of clear differences in interests. The U.S. parent was willing to make concessions to the Big Three auto-makers during a period of crisis in exchange for certain guarantees including representation on management boards. The Canadians were asked to make the same concession without the same quid pro quo. In fact The U.S> based companies made promises that decidedly favoured the U.S. manufacturing plants to the detriment of Canadian workers. The fledgling CAW newly divorced from the UAW set about ensuring the interests of Canadian workers were put first on the bargaining agenda with the Big Three.

The CAW expanded through aggressive organizing campaigns and mergers with other Canadian unions to form what today is Unifor with about 450,000 workers. In the face of the current trade war between Canada and the U.S. the UAW openly sides with the U.S. administration, while Unifor sides with Canada’s approach.

UAW spokes-people have made clear statements such as:

"We are glad to see an American president take aggressive action on ending the free trade disaster that has dropped like a bomb on the working class."

In response Unifor National President Lana Payne said:

"To think that Canada could just suffer and eat up these kinds of tariffs and it not to have an impact is completely naive in my opinion." [2]

The differences are obvious and predictable. For Canadians it drives home how important the UAW-CAW split was in the history of Canadian labour relations. It is a model that we need to consider today as the example of what unions should be.

Unions serve many functions as representatives of workers’ rights and interests. This includes a political function in which unions raise the collective worker voice in order to influence government policy. It makes no sense that Canadian workers continue in many instances to contribute their hard-earned wages to support American-based unions whose interest clearly run counter to the interests of Canadian workers.

Given the reality that unions are political entities that are involved in lobbying efforts it only makes sense that regulations are in place to ensure they are representing Canadian interests and not the interests of a foreign workforce.

Another example of how Canadian interests differ from American interests occurs with the Building Trade Unions. The BTU are organized by trade; electricians represented by electricians, carpenters by carpenters, etc. In a large-scale economy which employees a large group of workers in construction the resulting jurisdictional lines are workable. That is a system that defines narrowly the work that is performed by each trade can be made to be productive on a large scale.

However, in a smaller economy with less construction activity strict work rules around trade jurisdiction have a dampening effect on productivity. Moreover, under current conventions disputes regarding jurisdictional disputes are regulated a body residing in the U.S. While the unions do recognize local practices, it remains that the ultimate arbitrator over work jurisdiction disputes is American (hence foreign) based. A review of this whole situation is a mater relevant to Canadian sovereignty.

Requiring these unions to divorce themselves from their U.S.-based parents would likely force a consolidation of unions within Canada. This would lead to discussions on multi-trade unions wherein workers could be more diversified which would improve their marketability and have a significantly positive impact on productivity.

Such consolidation has been talked about for years but runs counter to the interests of the U.S.-based unions.

Finally, there is a clear distinction between Canadian and U.S. attitudes towards unionization. This is reflected in the statistics where in Canada approximately a third of the workforce is unionized and in the U.S. the representation is less than a tenth of the workforce (and declining).

In fact, in all the noise going on as a result of the chaos reaped by the current U.S. administration the war on trade unions is not making the headlines. In early March the Department of Home Security director unilaterally declared the collective agreement between the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and the Transportation Safety Association is rendered null and void.[3] The rationale being that by being a vocal advocate for worker rights the AFGE poses a threat to the government’s efforts to fix the TFA and was harming the very officers (TSOs) they represent.

Such an attack on the rights of association is a clear violation of the norms of a liberal democracy, counter to international laws and a violation of U.S. laws. In Canada we would not contemplate such an overt and obvious attack on the labour movement. But our mission is not to protect American workers. We need to put Canadian workers first.

So why don’t we consider regulations requiring unions to be Canadian based, and which make it unlawful to force Canadian workers to contribute funds to foreign based labour organizations. We need to encourage more divorces of Canadian units from American-based unions. We also need to encourage Unions to engage in a dialogue regarding how they can contribute to and benefit from economic expansion in Canada. There is not room to engage American interests in those discussions.

Should we outlaw American unions and advocate for Canadian Unions? What do you think?

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[1] By design we do not refer to the U.S. President by name; nor do we attribute American policy decisions to a single individual as they need to be supported by many in the administration to be put into effect.

[2] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/uaw-trump-tariffs-canada-unifor-why-1.7483459

[3] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.345853/gov.uscourts.wawd.345853.1.0_1.pdf