Critical Education Articles Placed in the Teacher Staff Lounge While I Was a Teacher, Part Twenty-Two: The Need for the Working Class to Defy the Law When Necessary

This is a continuation of a series of posts on summaries of articles, mainly on education.

Hello everyone,

Attached is another article that I sent to the ESJ Ning. I prefaced it with the following:

Bryan Palmer, well-known Canadian labour historian, in his article, “System Failure: The Breakdown of the Post-War Settlement and the Politics of Labour in our Time,” implies that the class struggle waged by the hospital workers in British Columbia in the first decade of the new millenium was a culmination of organizational efforts by west-coast workers that was to lead to a General Strike and that would have won the working class major gains—only to be betrayed by the labour or trade union bureaucracy.

Palmer points to an earlier labour tradition in Canada (and throughout the world)—one where human dignity in the face of employers was a constant theme. Trade unions, despite their rhetoric, are weak when compared to their forefathers. They do not dare speak of a vision different from the capitalist economic system—unlike their forefathers. The so-called left political parties, like the NDP, have abandoned any pretence to being socialist and have accepted wholeheartedly Margaret Thatcher’s declaration that “there is no alternative.”

The Canadian working class now has to work more for less, is experiencing a decrease in union density and has less influence over the tide of events than before.

Palmer then outlines how the Canadian working class won union recognition rights and freedom of association through mass struggle against employers. When they finally did win the right to legal recognition of unions of their choice, he argues, their victory was paid at a price. Workers’ rights, instead of being supported by struggle at work, became subject to an expansion of legalese so that workers, when they had a grievance, learned to rely less on the support of their fellow workers and more on the support of lawyers and trade-union bureaucrats. The length of collective agreements expanded accordingly since judges (and later arbitrators) interpreted contracts between unions and employers as limiting the power of employers who, otherwise, had all the rights of management that existed before the emergence of collective agreements and collective bargaining.

Politically, communists in the 1940s and 1950s were purged from the labour movement so that grievances of workers would be often be controlled by more conservative union leaders.

At its best, workers achieved more gains in income because of the post-war expansion, but the organization of the working class as a whole stagnated. There was little change in union density for decades.

It was only in the period in the mid-1960s that a younger generation unfettered by union bureaucratic rules exploded, focusing less on increases in income and more on addressing such issues as supervisory oppression at work and sexual harassment. This union movement was more violent, with such tactics as sabotage of company property surfacing as well as clashes with the police. This surge in private sector wildcat strikes, reaching almost 400 in that short period, was followed in its wake by a surge in public-sector unionization, such as teacher unions and civil servant unions. Unionization then reached a high of 40 percent. Women became more unionized, and their concerns began to be heard, formulated and struggled for within the union movement.

A third force for the radicalization of the union movement was the unionization and politicization of Quebec workers following the “Quiet Revolution.” Teacher unions, Catholic unions and other organizations emerged and were politicized. They challenged the power of employers to direct the economy and were only defeated after the capitalist government jailed some of the leaders and exacted (or threatened to exact) heavy fines and jail terms after injunctions and back-to-work legislation were instituted. The media, of course, presented such a movement as the devil incarnate.

However, by the early 1970s, the capitalist world economy was in an economic crisis that undercut the economic basis for the accord between employers and unionized workers. With an increasingly militant organized labour force in Canada, the Canadian capitalist government experienced a burgeoning deficit through increased demand on its resources (such as unemployment insurance) and decreased revenue (because of a decreased tax base). Employers began to argue that their profits were being eaten by exorbitant wage increases of workers and those on welfare and unemployment insurance. Inflation increased dramatically.

Trudeau instituted a so-called Wage and Price Controls Program and an Anti-Inflation Program, but there was virtually no control on employers’ income and much control on workers’ wages and salary.

The trade-union bureaucracy organized a feeble Day of Protest in 1976 that did nothing to oppose the program, and Trudeau consequently rode roughshod over organized workers.

NDP governments in B.C., Saskatchewan and Manitoba supported wage controls—in effect, supporting employers over workers. Such is social democracy. As Palmer notes, similar tactics were used by Bob Rae in Ontario, which alienated unionized workers and led to a shift to the right in that province that led, in its turn, to the union-bashing government of Mike Harris—especially against teachers’ unions.

The Canadian capitalist economy shifted gear as manufacturing was gutted and minimum-wage jobs emerged with a vengeance, while capitalists invested in speculative schemes rather than in expanding the economic base. Simultaneously, both public and private sector unions were under increased attack, but the English-speaking union  bureaucracy generally capitulated (such as Jack Munro, head of the International Woodworkers of America, during the 1983 attack on unions by the Social Credit government). In 1986, the Alberta government rewrote the labour-law code, making union certification much more difficult and threatening decertification for any illegal strikes. Courts regularly proceeded to grant injunctions against union picketing. Strike activity during the 1980s took a nosedive, and union density decreased dramatically in certain provinces (such as Alberta and Ontario).

Unions were slow in coming to realize that the end of the golden years of capitalism, where unions were supported by labour laws. Such a situation depends generally on economic prosperity, and capitalism can now generally only haltingly deliver such prosperity. Unions can assume that labour laws will become increasingly draconian in their nature (with, of course, some exceptions, but with a trend of oppressive labour laws becoming the norm). When the labour movement has organized many resources to fight against the employers’ attacks, its leaders have, in general, abandoned any sustained counter-attack, abandoning the workers’ growing solidarity as a source for renewed militant action: the 1983 Solidarity movement in British Columbia, the 1997 Ontario teachers’ movement, the Days of Action in Ontario in the late 1990s against Mike Harris’ union-bashing tactics and the hospital workers’ battles in the first decade of the new millenium. All these movements could have galvanized and renewed the union movement, but the union bureaucracy lacked vision and resolve. The union bureaucracy, used to engaging in collective-bargaining tactics, could not shift gears when the government and employers changed tactics and abandoned free collective-bargaining as a means by which to control workers. The skill set required to engage in free collective bargaining is not the same skill set as that required when unions are under attack from employers and supported by government. Focusing on legal remedies when organization and action were required, many union leaders left workers at the mercy of reactionary governments and pressures from employers in a restructured economy.

Workers have experienced governments and employers who have displayed nothing but contempt for the workers as a class, and workers, though they are outgunned in resources, have the weapon of their capacity to produce—as the real agents of production (not the pseudo-agents called employers)—and they also have the weapons of solidarity and organization. They need to conserve and use these weapons to their advantage and not have them squandered by a timid union bureaucracy used to struggles exclusively through legal means.

Civil disobedience by workers was outlawed by the Canadian labour-law system. Palmer likens it to a harness, with workers as horses. The harness worked well during the immediate post-war period in the sense that, although workers were still had a master (the class of employers), they at least got relatively well fed. However, as the economic crisis emerged, increasingly the workers are becoming less and less well fed, with the harness becoming increasingly a burden around the necks of workers. Employers increasingly see no need for responsibility towards employees at all or, and the legal system supports them in this attitude.

Palmer provides a welcome criticism of the fetish for respect of the law by union leaders. He notes that most advances in the collective interests of workers has been through breaking the law in some fashion. Unions were considered by Canadian governments (and employers) in the nineteenth century as organizations of conspirators. The strike by the printers was illegal, but it contributed to the legalization of unions. Participants of the Winnipeg General Strike were jailed, and non-citizens were deported. Many actions by workers in the 1930s were illegal. The strike wave that hit Canada during and immediately after the Second World War was in many instances illegal. The modern collective-bargaining regime, in which union dues are automatically deducted, was due to illegal strikes that included threats to destroy company property.

After the post-war settlement between unions, employers and the government, illegal strikes and acts still arose, including the illegal 1983 teacher walkouts in British Columbia and the illegal 1997 Ontario Halloween strike by teachers.

Palmer in fact argues that it was the willingness of workers to defy the law that saw advances in the collective interests of workers.

The author maintains that there are three lessons to be learned in the face of modern globalization. Firstly, it is necessary to face the power of employers as a class and the Canadian and provincial governments; the struggle must have as its focus the Canadian context. Secondly, the union movement must expand its connections to other unions throughout the world. Thirdly, the union movement must establish ties between union organizations and other anti-capitalist organizations outside the union movement.

Palmer maintains that Canadian unions are in a position similar to the unions in the 1930s; the unions in the 1930s were stagnant, conservative and faced with substantial changes in the world capitalist economy. Unions need to do what some in unions did in the 1930s (such as John Lewis); they need to develop a movement—a social movement that systematically opposes the trend in the modern world economy. Minor moves characteristic of the earlier collective-bargaining regime are insufficient to address the issues facing Canadian workers in the twenty-first century. Unions need to fight for the abolition of poverty, for ethnic and racial equality, for gender equity. They must be advocates for the homeless and the downtrodden. They must make as their priority the movement and not the collective-bargaining process since the latter is increasingly under attack and will not survive without a shift in focus. The watchword of the new movement needs to be that an injury to one is an injury to all.

It is now through class power and not through only through legal power that workers’ rights will be defended and expanded. What is required is also a larger vision of what a progressive movement means.

It will be in support of organizations outside the union movement that support and fight many battles for the poor, for the downtrodden and for the oppressed. One such organization is the Ontario Coalition against Poverty (OCAP), and yet Ontario unions and the NDP have as often as not criticized the tactics of OCAP rather than supported them.

The gloves are off from the employers’ and governments’ point of view in many jurisdictions in Canada. Are we then to fight without gloves? Or are we to fight with as much energy and tenacity as did earlier union members and leaders? Are we to rely exclusively on legal means and the collective-bargaining process? Or are we to expand our means—and our goals?