from Vol. 22 | Issue 4 | August-September 2003
ADAPT TO CHANGE
By Megan Flannigan
I read the article "Organizing at a Crossroads" with
great interest. I think the author, Bill Murnighan, might have
been less pessimistic about the labour movement's future if he
were more familiar with the remarkable organizing momentum of unions
such as UFCW Canada (United Food and Commercial Workers), the union
I am interning with this summer.
Since its founding in 1979, UFCW Canada has grown faster than the
Canadian workforce. Last year, the union's membership grew by four
per cent (9,500 workers) and was, once again, the leader in organizing
the retail-trade and service sector workers who, Murnighan rightfully
points out, are under-represented. UFCW Canada now represents over
230,000 members, a majority of whom work in the private-sector
service industries.
Murnighan says that "a good measure of the attraction of a
union to unorganized workers is the idea that a union can make
gains." And a union that makes gains has happy union members
who help organize prospective members just by their very existence.
With this in mind, UFCW Canada is continuously adapting to shifting
demographic currents within the workforce and its own membership,
finding out what the members want, and acting on it.
The union's efforts to meet the employment-related needs of women
and youth are good examples of its ability to adapt. Women now
make up nearly half of Canada's paid workforce and more than half
of UFCW Canada's membership, and the union has been paying attention
both nationally and locally. Local unions have their own, individual
approach to addressing women's issues, depending on the nature
of the workplace they represent. As well, more than a decade ago,
the national union established a women's advisory committee to
give more recognition and resource support to those issues that
are widely shared by working women, such as sexual harassment,
reproductive health and safety, equity of opportunity, and family
leave. The union's achievements in these areas are attractive to
women who are deciding whether or not to sign a union card.
Another good example of the union's ability to adapt to change
is the attention it pays to its younger members. UFCW Canada is
the youngest union in Canada, demographically speaking, with well
over 30 per cent of its membership under the age of 30. Many of
these members are students who work full time in retail stores,
earning money to further their education and help contribute to
their families' economic well-being. Having a union on their side
gives them respect, seniority and job security, things they would
never have in most jobs populated by young, part-time workers.
As well, virtually every one of UFCW Canada's retail-sector collective
agreements provides for health care and dental insurance benefits
for part-time workers, as well as membership in the union's national
pension plan. It is not uncommon for a young, part-time clerk in
a UFCW Canada-represented supermarket to have better benefits than
her parents. The union also awards hundreds of thousands of dollars
in scholarships every year to members and their children. Plus,
there is a national program directed at young members, and a very
popular youth internship program aimed at developing the union
leaders of tomorrow. All of this attention that is being paid to
young members and their concerns not only makes members happy,
but it also means their friends and acquaintances hear good things
about unions.
While there is no substitute for the face-to-face contact so essential
to organizing and servicing success, UFCW Canada has also not been
slow in adapting to technological change and using it creatively,
both in organizing drives and in servicing members. For example,
during the recent BSE ("mad-cow disease") and SARS crises,
more than 1,700 UFCW Canada members were laid off, with no warning.
The union quickly challenged Human Resources Development Canada
Minister Jane Stewart to urgently address the economic pain being
suffered by its members. An Internet-based fax-your-MP campaign
was developed in just a few days and resulted in a flood of written
pleas to members of parliament in every province, not just those
in Alberta and Ontario. The government responded with a range of
programs to assist workers hit with this sudden change in their
lives.
The fax-your-MP program is just one of the innovative ways the
union has adapted to new communications technology and used it
to reach not only its current members, but prospective ones as
well. The national union as well as every major local union has
a main web site, and special-purpose web sites are used for large
organizing campaigns.
The union's experience and technical savvy is now being poured
into two new organizing drives.
The first is an intense and aggressive drive to organize workers
at the retail giant Wal-Mart, possibly the most anti-union corporation
in the industrialized world. Besides doing traditional leafleting
and home visits, the union has established a bilingual hot-line
and a web site specifically devoted to the organizing campaign
(www.walmartworkerscanada.com).
And it's working!
On May 8, 2003, the British Colum-bia Labour Relations Board found
Wal-Mart Canada guilty of unfair labour practices for interfering
with the formation of a trade union in a store in Quesnel, British
Columbia. UFCW Canada Local 1518 was awarded time with all employees
without the presence of management. Management was also ordered
to read aloud the decision summary to all employees. Six weeks
later, the Manitoba Labour Relations Board conducted a vote at
a Wal-Mart store in Thompson, where UFCW Canada Local 832 had signed
up the majority of workers. Many more local Wal-Mart campaigns
are underway, helped along by the union's reputation as a strong,
dependable voice for retail workers, young and old, male and female,
full-time and part-time.
The second organizing campaign is aimed at agricultural workers
in Ontario, who had their right to union representation and collective
bargaining rights stripped away in 1995 by the province's Conservative
government. UFCW Canada spent seven years fighting the Tory legislation
through the courts and, in December 2001, they won a landmark Supreme
Court of Canada decision that stated that denying "right of
association" and "equity under the law" to agricultural
workers violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Amazingly,
the Eves government has tried to sidestep this decision with a
sham law that gave these workers a feeble right to "associate," but
not the right to bargain collectively. The union immediately defied
this law by organizing an overwhelming majority of workers in a
Kingsville mushroom factory and applying for certification to the
Ontario Labour Relations Board. (The board conducted a vote on
July 7, 2003, but sealed the ballot box. It will hear arguments
from all sides, including from government rep-resentatives, UFCW
Canada, and the plant's management, before determining if the vote
will be counted. The union expects ongoing legal battles until
either a new government respects the letter and spirit of the Supreme
Court decision, or until the Court itself makes its prior ruling
clearer and overturns the Conservative ploy.)
Both of these union drives are expected to take years. Nonetheless,
UFCW Canada is committed to helping these two large groups of workers
win the benefits of a union, no matter how long it takes. With
such signs of energy, creativity and commitment from unions like
this, I think there are grounds for optimism about the future of
the labour movement in Canada.
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