Introduction
A local leader of a leftist workers’ organization here in Toronto stated that I kept repeating the same thing. Yes, I did–the issue is the same throughout. How can the so-called left refer to a fair wage or a decent job even in unionized settings when workers are used as things by employers for their own purposes? I will continue to post fairly regularly management clauses from various collective agreements to show that, unless otherwise specified in the collective agreement, workers are subject to the power of employers as a class. They may work for a particular employer, but the economic power which employers wield as a class means that the power which obliges any particular worker to seek to work for an employer is the “general employer” or the employer as a class. In general, no worker is obliged to work for a particular employer, but every worker is obliged to work for an employer due to economic blackmail. Practically, employers say: ‘If you do not like it here, there is the door.’
Unions modify the general power of a particular employer–but they do not challenge that power.
Collective Agreement Between Arctic Canadian Diamond Company Ltd. and the Public Service Alliance of Canada (as Represented by its Component, The Union of Northern Workers, Diamond Workers Local X3050)
From Collective Agreement Between Arctic Canadian Diamond Company Ltd. and the Public Service Alliance of Canada (as Represented by its Component, the Union of Northern Workers) Diamond Workers Local X3050, page 2:
Article 4 – Management Rights
4.01 Unless specifically restricted by a provision within this Agreement, the Employer reserves all management rights with respect to operating and managing its business, including but not limited to, the right to establish hiring policies, to select Employees for hire, to determine what work will be performed, what equipment and processes will be employed, how the workforce will be directed and evaluated, whether to increase or curtail
operations, to schedule shifts and vacations, to grant leaves of absence, what security measures are required and including the right to make and enforce workplace rules that are not inconsistent with this collective agreement, and generally maintain order, discipline and efficiency.
Since this clause forms part of the collective agreement, does the collective agreement express a fair contract? Does it express the freedom of workers? Does it express a democratic way of life or its opposite? Does it express economic democracy? Economic dictatorship? Economic justice?
There is nothing fair about collective agreements which concentrate most decision-making power over our work lives in the hands of the representatives of employers called managers. Collective agreements limit such power–but they do not by any means challenge such power. Indeed, they do not challenge the dicatorship of employers (see for example Employers as Dictators, Part One). Nor do they challenge the use of human beings as things that are treated as means for other people’s ends. Nor do they challenge the exploitation of workers (see for example The Rate of Exploitation of Workers at Magna International Inc., One of the Largest Private Employers in Toronto, Part One).
The law certainly does not prevent the exploitation and oppression of workers; workers may be able to use the law to limit their exploitation and oppression–but not abolish them.
What do you think? Do collective bargaining and collective agreements express something fair? Do they enable workers to be treated as human beings and not as things? Do union members really discuss such issues to any great extent? Do so-called leftists or “progressives?” Why or why not?
The Abolitionary 