Concessions in Oshawa: The End of an Era?

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In the early 1980s General Motors workers in Canada refused to follow their American parent (UAW) in opening their collective agreement. The ensuing conflict eventually led to the Canadians breaking away to form their own Canadian union (CAW). Earlier this month the CAW leadership opened the collective agreement in Oshawa, threatening the end of a proud era of autoworker resistance and working class leadership.[...]

In 1996, the CAW struck GM - successfully - over the very outsourcing issue it was now giving up in the middle of an agreement (endorsing the loss of some 400 janitors - preferred work for some senior workers - and indicating more ‘flexibility’ as needed). Since the breakaway from the UAW the CAW consistently fought for improvements in work time. Now, in spite of added pressures on workers and an older workforce, relief time is being surrendered.[...]

When the CAW earlier rebelled against its own parent, the fight was led from the top. Without such leadership, fighting off concessions will be all the more difficult. As of now the fragmented voices from the membership are limited to demoralized complaints and the frustrations that exist may, as happened in the US, evolve into a backlash against the union itself. Yet the legacy of the CAW has left it with impressive internal resources, including a strong staff and impressive activists at various levels of the unions. The revival of the CAW (and, perhaps, the Canadian labour movement as a whole) will depend on the development of these internal resources and voices from below, and their orientation towards the recovery of the earlier spirit of confident resistance.

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[Edited to provide better link.]

[ 24 March 2006: Message edited by: unionist ]

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The point is not to deny the crisis within GM, but rather to emphasize that the crisis is not of the workers' making and cannot be solved by focussing on workers. Workers cannot correct GM's decisions on models nor set exchange rates. They cannot, on their own, fix the bizarre American health care system which accounts for almost half of the total world expenditures on health yet excludes numbers that far exceed the total population of Canada. Because of the integrated nature of the company, this mess in the U.S. system also affects Canadian GM workers. And workers cannot deal with the irrationality of the repeated bouts of excess competition that now threaten GM.

With regards to the latter, consider Toyota which is, to much fanfare, getting $125 million to build a car plant in Canada (part of the auto policy that included $450 million to GM - for exactly what is increasingly unclear). Toyota hardly needs the money and is coming to Canada, as it has itself noted, because of the favourable exchange rate and quality of the workforce. The subsidy adds one plant but will, if successful, mean increased pressures to close a competitor's plant (perhaps one belonging to GM). So the net result of the tax transfers will be no new jobs added (in fact, because of Toyota's lower North American content, jobs may decrease); the loss of funds that could have gone to social programs; and an industry which, because of the shift from union to non-union plants, is less democratic in terms of worker representation.

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What Gindin doesn't mention, but which is another factor that damns the CAW today, is that despite more favorable Canadian labour laws the CAW has enjoyed no more success than its U.S. brethren in organizing "transplant" manufacturers such as Toyota. This has helped the transplants get a significant edge on their domestic rivals, because even though they pay similar wages they don't bear the same "legacy costs" in terms of pensions or retiree benefits.

Also, because the transplant workers are nonunion and don't pay any dues, the survival of the CAW itself remains tied up very much in the survival of the USian auto companies, its largest employers, who are failing. It is not surprising, then, that the union bureaucracy today would seek concessions, where they fear the alternative is total annihilation of their organization.

[ 24 March 2006: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]

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Originally posted by robbie_dee:
What Gindin doesn't mention, but which is another factor that damns the CAW today, is that despite more favorable Canadian labour laws the CAW has enjoyed no more success than its U.S. brethren in organizing "transplant" manufacturers such as Toyota.

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True. Do you know why that might be? It reminds me of Dofasco, co-existing for decades with Stelco in Hamilton, but always resisting the USWA by paying the same wages. What's the story on CAW efforts to organize non-big-3 plants?

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Also, because the transplant workers are nonunion and don't pay any dues, the survival of the CAW itself remains tied up very much in the survival of the USian auto companies, its largest employers, who are failing. It is not surprising, then, that the union bureaucracy today would seek concessions, where they fear the alternative is total annihilation of their organization.

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Well there, I don't follow you at all. GM, Ford and Chrysler today account for less than 20% of CAW membership:

CAW membership data

[NOTE: The total membership has increased since these 2002 data, and the number of auto plant workers has declined, so the auto assemby workers may now be closer to 15% of the total.]

Admittedly the Big 3 workers are well paid and contribute more than their share of dues, but the sheer numbers are elsewhere.

Most North American industrialists never understood this, but the Japanese sure do. And the North Americans are slowly getting the drift.

After reading Gindin's debunking of the Oshawa situation, it doesn't leave much wiggle room for Buzz.

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Originally posted by unionist
True. Do you know why that might be? It reminds me of Dofasco, co-existing for decades with Stelco in Hamilton, but always resisting the USWA by paying the same wages. What's the story on CAW efforts to organize non-big-3 plants?

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That is a good analogy, although I fear that the transplant manufacturers are capturing a much larger share of the auto market than currently held by non-union steel. But yeah, I think that in a similar way to what Tommy intimates above, Dofasco has run an impeccable "union avoidance" operation over the years, and what gets really dangerous for the union is the possibility that other employers will learn from them.

I don't know much about the history of CAW organizing in the sector. What I do see is a massive labour movement-wide campaign against Walmart these days, and I wonder why there seems to be nothing similar targetting Honda or Toyota?

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Well there, I don't follow you at all. GM, Ford and Chrysler today account for less than 20% of CAW membership:

CAW membership data

[NOTE: The total membership has increased since these 2002 data, and the number of auto plant workers has declined, so the auto assemby workers may now be closer to 15% of the total.]

Admittedly the Big 3 workers are well paid and contribute more than their share of dues, but the sheer numbers are elsewhere.

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I had not realized how diverse the CAW membership had become. I note from your link, though, that much of that diversity has come from mergers. That speaks well for the CAW's appeal to already-organized workers, but not to their ability to recruit the unorganized.

Also, even if the auto industry workers only account for 25% - 30% of dues, that could still be a devastating blow for the organization.

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In 1985, when the CAW was formed, its membership had to be about 80% auto workers. And there was a huge movement for concessions in the U.S., one of the key reasons the CAW broke away from the UAW. If the CAW wasn't giving concessions when Chrysler was threatening bankruptcy, and when the vast majority of CAW members were in the Big 3, why now? Your analysis doesn't account for this mystery.

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How does the market share of the auto companies compare now to twenty years ago? Maybe there was a sense then that the companies were "too big to fail?" In the end, Chrysler did wind up getting bought out by the Germans, and it is the healthiest of the big three. Also - what impact does NAFTA have?

I am sure there is also a role to be attributed to the union leadership, too, which is what I guess you and Gindin are getting at. But is there someone better than Buzz out there? I have heard rumours of a challenge at the CAW convention this summer, but no-one has stepped forward yet. If there is a leadership race, I am sure that the the crisis in the industry will be a key issue debated, far more significant than the petty squabbles about the NDP.

[ 24 March 2006: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]

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Originally posted by Tommy_Paine:

After reading Gindin's debunking of the Oshawa situation, it doesn't leave much wiggle room for Buzz.

A more dedicated leader would have steered a different course, lnavigating with facts such as Gindin presented, instead of what seems to me, sheer panic.

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Originally posted by robbie_dee:
What I do see is a massive labour movement-wide campaign against Walmart these days, and I wonder why there seems to be nothing similar targetting Honda or Toyota?

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I don't know, is there? I checked the CAW website:

CAW women mobilize for Toyota sisters

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The CAW drive to organize Toyota has been on going for a number of years and the number of signed union cards is growing. CAW director of organizing Mike Shields says mobilizing the sisters will add to the growing momentum.[...] CAW sisters from St. Thomas, London, Woodstock as well as the Kitchener Waterloo Cambridge area have joined the Toyota action committee and are planning strategies to reach the over 200 women working at Toyota.

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Robbie_dee: Also, even if the auto industry workers only account for 25% - 30% of dues, that could still be a devastating blow for the organization.

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Yes, if all the Ford, Chrysler, GM plants in Canada closed, that would be a devastating blow for auto workers and for the Canadian economy as a whole. But I was merely responding to your prediction of "total annihilation" of the CAW, which I think was a bit excessive.

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How does the market share of the auto companies compare now to twenty years ago? Maybe there was a sense then that the companies were "too big to fail?"

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You were talking of 1985. I think you've missed the point. The North American economy was tanking ("stagflation"), the auto companies were crying poverty, and the American UAW actually gave concessions while the Canadian section resisted successfully. So why were the Canadians stronger than the Americans in 1985, and why the apparent difference today - or is there enough evidence just from the Oshawa deal to justify Gindin's fears? After all, they didn't give back wages or fringe benefits or pension or paid vacation etc.

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I am sure there is also a role to be attributed to the union leadership, too, which is what I guess you and Gindin are getting at. But is there someone better than Buzz out there?

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Originally posted by robbie_dee:
Does Buzz have to sign off on local union bargaining in the auto sector? As National President it seems he bears ultimate responsibility for the fate of the union in the industry, doesn't he?

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I can't see how the national president would "sign off" on a local union deal affecting only that local. Surely it's the local union bargaining committee which inks the tentative agreement and the members of the local who ratify? We're not talking about master agreement bargaining with the Big 3 -- and even there, I can't imagine that Hargrove would even have a vote on the committee, as he's not elected by the members of the relevant locals.

Here's the report on that event:

CAW Local 222 members support agreement with GM

No mention of Hargrove - the quotes are from the Local 222 president.

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Section 4
(a) When a Local Union or unit becomes a party to an agreement on wages, hours or working conditions, it will make sure the agreement is written and properly signed by the authorized representatives of all the parties.
(b) The Local Union or unit must send a copy of each agreement to the National Secretary-Treasurer, along with a complete and up-to-date schedule of job classifications and wage rates.

Section 5
National agreements and supplements must be ratified by the members of the Local Unions and units involved.

Section 6
The National Executive Board will protect Local Unions or units who have succeeded in gaining better agreements, so that Local Unions doing similar work but with inferior agreements cannot infringe on them.

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Link: CAW Constitution

Do you really feel these concessions are "purely local issues?" If so, why should any of us care? It's up to the local to do what is the best for them, right?

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From my own union experience, I think it's overly simplistic to say that union members go from militancy to compromise to self-sacrifice to capitulation and round and round again, just because they elect different leaders from time to time. If that were so, we would be surprised every day to see a formerly lacklustre union become a leader of the struggle for 2-3 years, then collapse again, or vice versa. It just ain't so.

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What are you proposing, then?

[ 24 March 2006: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]

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Originally posted by robbie_dee:
Well, this is what the CAW constitution says.

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Well, as I predicted, it doesn't say the national president or national executive board have veto power. It does say they'll intervene to stop lower-wage locals from grabbing work from higher-wage locals, if I understood your excerpt properly.

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Do you really feel these concessions are "purely local issues?" If so, why should any of us care? It's up to the local to do what is the best for them, right?

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Absolutely not. Where do you get that? The whole labour movement must fight against concession bargaining. Why do you think I started this thread?? All I said was that one person (the national president) can't veto such deals bureaucratically on the basis of the rules of any union that I'm aware of. Instead, the leadership and activists in the CAW and other unions must (IMHO) wage a many-sided battle against the ideology of concessions "saving" jobs -- a battle we have waged before but it looks as if that victory is getting stale.

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What are you proposing, then?

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What I just said. But to blame an individual - be it Hargrove, or Layton, or whoever - for the faults of the movement is short-sighted and wrong-headed. These leaders come from somewhere. We all need to invest in mirrors.

[ 24 March 2006: Message edited by: unionist ]

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When the CAW earlier rebelled against its own parent, the fight was led from the top. Without such leadership, fighting off concessions will be all the more difficult. As of now the fragmented voices from the membership are limited to demoralized complaints and the frustrations that exist may, as happened in the US, evolve into a backlash against the union itself.

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You can blame NAFTA and you can blame GM and you can blame the NDP and you can blame the membership for apathy, too. There is some truth to all of that.

But ultimately, leadership is about stepping forward, taking responsibility, and taking a stand:.

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Originally posted by robbie_dee:

But ultimately, leadership is about stepping forward, taking responsibility, and taking a stand:.

If Buzz is not prepared to show such leadership than I hope and pray that someone else in that union will.

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In terms of content, what specifically are you talking about? The recent deal at Oshawa? Should Hagrove have condemned that publicly? Do you know exactly what the deal was?

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Originally posted by unionist:
In terms of content, what specifically are you talking about? The recent deal at Oshawa? Should Hagrove have condemned that publicly? Do you know exactly what the deal was?

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Sam Gindin outlined a broad concessionary drift in his earlier open letter to Buzz Hargrove posted on this site.

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First, coming out of GM bargaining in October, 2005 the union proudly declared that GM had agreed to limit job losses to 1,700 due to “efficiencies.” Within a few short weeks — and with nothing changing that wasn't known — GM announced some 3,000 additional job losses including the closure and loss of a shift at its two best plants in North America (measured in terms of productivity, quality and a $10/hr cost advantage relative to the U.S.).

Yet the union offered no criticism of GM. Where was the union's anger or sense of betrayal? Where was any challenge to the neo-liberal promise that competitiveness brings job security?

Furthermore, the CAW had virtually led the lobbying to get GM $450 million in public funds to save jobs. Again, what happened to the job guarantees? It might have been too much to expect the union to admit the failure of its policy, but why — having gone in this mistaken direction — did it at least not challenge GM and call for withholding that subsidy until the company reversed its decision?

Second, the subsidies policy has led the union to also publicly support subsidies for Toyota. But is there no concern that such a further increase in North American capacity will only lead to further job losses at the Big Three plants?

Third, the CAW has recently joined the Big Three call to open up the Japanese and South Korean markets. But how does this help workers here? Even if those markets were fully open, won't they be met with either direct Big Three investment into Japan and South Korea, or from facilities in China and the rest of Southeast Asia? Doesn't making such an argument further legitimate free trade, in contrast to arguments against free trade based on using the leverage of our market to regulate investment? (When the Liberals called for free trade agreements with South Korea and Japan, the union was trapped into rightly — but uncomfortably and confusingly — rejecting such agreements).

Fourth, the CAW recently held a conference of auto parts workers that passed a strong resolution against concessions — a very positive and commendable initiative. Yet questions remain about concessions that have already been made, and about the definition of concessions: Will only wages and benefits be treated as concessions and attacks on hours and working conditions ignored?

In the airlines, the CAW did give up significant workplace gains won in earlier periods, but refused to consider this “concessions.” (The issue here is not whether the union really had any choice in that tough round of bargaining — some felt that the union should have politicized the issue by reviving its demand for public ownership — but where the line will now be drawn). In any case, the test will be in whether this important conference will be followed up by education, mobilization, and support for, and encouragement of, local struggles.

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You know, Tommy, that's really tiresome.

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I have not yet begun to be tiresome on this subject, but ye have certainly strained the patience of the most tollerant person for synchophantic attachment to Buzz the traitor.

Evidence? Would this have happened under Bob White?

[ 24 March 2006: Message edited by: Tommy_Paine ]

It seems to me that the "Buzz" debate on babble is running along two separate but related tracks. The first is a discussion of strategic voting and the NDP, the second is a broader discussion of Buzz's leadership of the CAW.

As for me, I think I have more sympathy for the logic of strategic voting than the average NDPer. And its not just because the NDP isn't "pure" or perfect. Since moving to the U.S. a few years ago I've been a Democrat. So I am well familiar with the need to make painful compromises if you want to effect meaningful change through electoral politics.

I do think that because the NDP exists in Canada, while nothing similar exists in the US, and because parties in Canada get public funding based on the number of votes they receive, progressive people should try to support the NDP wherever possible. The NDP is certainly a far cry better than any other major party. But I recognize that does have to be balanced against the imperative of keeping power out of the hands of people like Mike Harris or Stephen Harper. The last federal election was definitely a mixed bag in that regard, although in the end I don't think Buzz helped on either front.

Still, in terms of the "strategic voting/NDP" debate, my quibble with the knee-jerk Buzz defenders on this site and elsewhere is really that they seem blind to how far beyond "strategic voting" Buzz has gone. And its not just hugging Paul Martin. It's also chumming up with the likes of Belinda Stronach and Gerry Schwartz, while watching his members take increasingly painful concessions. And now the olive branch to Bob Rae?!

I think that in the early 1990s, Hargrove had a good core of people around him, like Sam Gindin, who I guess may have been holdovers from the Bob White era. Back then, I figure, Hargrove had his own reasons to want to stick it to the NDP. The break over the social contract was a convenient excuse. But I think the Days of Action and the proposal to create a new left party were really driven by Hargrove's aides, and he stuck with them only as long as it suited his own agenda.

The raid on the SEIU was another example of Buzz's agenda running parallel to, but not one in the same as that of the labour-left in his union. I think that the labour-left recognized that the SEIU was providing crappy representation and wanted to help the workers, as well as build a stronger Canadian union, etc. Buzz went along with it, but I suspect what he was really looking at was the extra dues money. In the end, he cut a deal with the CLC, and I am of the understanding (but please correct me if I am wrong) that CAW representation of its new health care workers has improved little from when they were SEIU.

The CAW cut the Windsor Walmart loose after merging with RW right around the same time. I don't deny that in part it was because maintainting certification at that store had become quite expensive and ultimately, likely a losing battle. But I note that the CAW has done little to organize Walmart since then, leaving it up to the UFCW whose record in the retail sector is mixed at best.

Anyways, these days many of the older leftists have retired from CAW leadership, and those who have taken their place are much more beholden to Buzz rather than the other way around. So Buzz has been free to steer the union in a much more openly collaborationist direction.

It hurts to watch, because I have a lot of respect for many CAW staffers I have worked with in the past, who I expect joined the union with a lot of high ideals. But without an independent power base in the union they are forced to tow the line.

There does seem to be a political opening for a challenge to Hargrove's leadership, though. Reading Gindin's columns I know he is trying to stoke that fire. I don't think the fight in the union will be over its orientation to the NDP. That would be silly. Most auto workers don't care. The state of the auto industry, today, is a different story. And if a leadership battle did happen, it would also say a lot about the state of CAW as a democratic union because we know how unusual contested elections are at the higher levels anywhere else in the North American labour movement.

Thoughts?

[ 25 March 2006: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]

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Originally posted by robbie_dee:

Sam Gindin outlined a broad concessionary drift in his earlier open letter to Buzz Hargrove posted on this site.

That is what I had in mind.

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No. The only concession bargaining Gindin mentioned in that earlier letter was at Air Canada. All the unions made concessions in the face of CCAA protection, with CAW being last and least as usual -- and trying hard not to give up wages, pension, etc. The IAM chair at one point wanted to tamper with the pension plan, and had to be removed by demand of the other unions and his own International.

As for the rest of Gindin's letter (point 1 to 4 out of 5), it is not about concessions at all, but about the wisdom (or lack thereof) of the CAW's lobbying for subsidies, primarily, and whether it is "bargaining hard" in exchange for same.

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Originally posted by Tommy_Paine:

[Re unionist asking Tommy for evidence that Buzz engineered the Oshawa concessions:]

Evidence? Would this have happened under Bob White?

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Originally posted by unionist:

In terms of content, what specifically are you talking about? The recent deal at Oshawa? Should Hagrove have condemned that publicly? Do you know exactly what the deal was?

Or have you seen the CAW leading the bandwagon for concessions elsewhere? I'd like to understand your point in concrete terms.

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[Note to self: Be careful what you ask for.]

[ 27 March 2006: Message edited by: unionist ]

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The CAW’s decision to open its just signed local agreements with GM in Oshawa marked a momentous turning point in our union’s history. With this decision the CAW stepped on the accelerator in the corporate race to the bottom. The result is a great leap backwards that will ultimately affect every Canadian worker.

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