Continued from Page 6
What Kind of internationalism ?
applicable to U.S. unions "entrenched in purely Canadian enterprises.
"What about the international railway unions? There is no imaginable reason why the employees of the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific railways should not all be members of a single national union instead of being scattered among one national union and 16 internationals."
Finn contends that the international ties of a majority of CLC unions, far from cementing labor unity, now act as a roadblock to consolidation of the labor movement in this country.
refusal to affiliate the UFAWU on the grounds that congress is opposed to the "proliferation" of unions. (The hollowness of this argument needs no further rebuttal and the UFAWU can stand on its record of 25 years as the one effective industrial union in the fishing industry anywhere in North America — and the union which, despite limited resources, initiated an organizational campaign among Atlantic coast fishermen three years ago while the CLC remained deaf and blind to their needs. >
If the CLC were serious about ending the proliferation of unions in this country, it could devote some attention to the large number of U.S. unions in Canada with overlapping jurisdictions. And, since bigness is claimed to be a virtue, it could consider the fact that about 60 of these U.S. unions have fewer than 10,000 members each.
FRAGMENTATION
Merger of the badly fragmented railway unions, for example, is precluded by the American affiliation of 16 of them The CBRT. with some 34.000 members, is the one Canadian union in the field. But Canadian sections of the American railway unions are powerless to merge with the CBRT, or with each other, on a national basis.
Finn also charges that affiliation of big national unions such as the CBRT with the congress actually "contributes greatly to proliferation of small national unions outside the congress."
This is because the jurisdiction of American unions in Canada "are zealously guarded by the CLC. whose national affiliates are prohibited from tres-[ passing," he says.
That such jurisdictions are "zealously guarded" even in situations where the appropriate international union has shown no interest in organizing is confirmed by Finn when he notes that "unions such as the CBRT and CUPE (Canadian Union of Public Employees) are compelled to refuse membership to workers, organized or unorganized, in industries that fall under American union hegemony.
"The result is that growing numbers of tiny organized groups, denied a haven with the major national unions, except for the CNTU in Quebec, have had to struggle for survival as independent organizations.
"The fragmentation of Canadian labor by the internationals has thus generated a corresponding division within the national labor movement."
MERGER PROBLEMS
Implicit in the situation Finn describes is a direct link between the fragmentation of Canadian labor and its frequent inability to act independently in response to Canadian conditions and needs.
' It is within this perspective that one must view the congress'
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U.S. MERGERS
The congress, one might suppose, would be encouraging such units to merge, either with each other or, where appropriate, with a large national union having similar jurisdiction.
But this is the congress' Achilles heel, the area in which its brave talk of unifying and consolidating is exposed as humbug. To promote the needed changes would mean, in many instances, clashing head on with American leaders of international unions concerned with preserving their Canadian domains at all costs.
Many international unions, including some which count their members in this country in the scores or hundreds, are also affiliates of AFL-CIO trades departments which operate in Canada almost as a law to themselves, even to the point of refusing to work alongside members of national unions or, indeed, with members of CLC internationals not affiliated to a particular department.
GRANDIOSE CLAIM
As for top Canadian officers of many internationals, with a few honorable exceptions their role, as Finn says, is to "maintain peace in the 'colonies', not stir up the natives."
When mergers have occurred among internationals in Canada, inevitably they have followed a similar move by their parent organizations in the U.S. There does not appear to be one example, in fact, of a merger taking place in Canada between American based unions, other than in the wake of a fait accompli south of the border.
(This has not prevented MacDonald from asserting that "Canadian union members are consolidating their organizations
through mergers" and that "these developments are in accord with a longstanding policy of the CLC."
(Of five mergers referred to by MacDonald when he made that rather grandiose claim, only one, the entry of a 2,200 member national union into CUPE, was initiated in Canada by Canadians.)
This, then, is part of the background to the CLC's rejection of the UFAWU application, and the congress' arbitrary ruling that the Canadian fishing industry is the preserve of an American union with no history of activity in the field.
Forcing the UFAWU to merge with an international union as the price of admission to the CLC would, for one thing, give some substance to Morris' boast that "not only are international unions going to continue, but they are going to expand . . ."
Playing the part of a broker for shotgun marriages which wed national Canadian unions to constitutions enforced from the U.S. does no credit to the leaders of this country's largest central labor body.
No more creditable is their espousal of trade union con-tinentalism at a time when more and more Canadians are indicating their willingness to fight back against U.S. domination in all walks of life.
Although CLC spokesmen are sometimes inclined to dismiss independent organizations contemptuously as "rump groups," they can barely conceal their dismay at any indication that independent unions may be gaining influence.
LOOK TO CAUSE'
One sign of this concern was a letter from the CLC circulated last year to labor councils in B.C. asking for information on growth or development of "breakaway" unions, or efforts being made to set them up.
As The Fisherman pointed out at the time, "If the CLC is really concerned about the extent of potential support for what many workers believe are alternatives to existing unions in some fields, it should look for the causes of dissatisfaction . . ."
The path that a breakaway
Canadian Labor photo
• Growth of multinational corporations is repeatedly cited by Canadian Labor Congress leaders to back up their support of existing international union structure in this country. Advocates of labor continental ism include CLC president Donald MacDonald, seen here (left) at New Orleans convention of the International Chemical Workers Union in 1968.
policies are made in Canada by Canadians and for Canadians . . ."
union must follow is often hard, sometimes involving bitter struggles for very surviv al in which, it is charged repeatedly, time and energy are expended ST/KTUS QUO which otherwise might be used in wresting gains from the employers.
But sizeable groups of workers in a number of industries have shown they are prepared to pay a price in order to operate freely without the straitjacket of control from a foreign country.
ONLY FRATERNAL?
All the generalizations in the world about labor unity and the dangers of splintering the trade union movement, however well founded, are unlikely to prevent such developments as long as the conditions which spawn them persist.
The CLC has stressed in the past that the relationship between congress and the AFL-CIO is a fraternal one only, and that Canadian unions, national or international, "belong to an independent labor centre whose
To live up to that billing, the CLC might be expected to promote mergers in Canada without waiting for moves to be made in the U.S.; affiliate all bonafide unions now outside the congress, despite protests by affiliated internationals; curb interference by American chartered trade departments, regardless of AFL-CIO opposition, and support unequivocally the right of all Canadian trade unionists to full self determination.
Statements by MacDonald, Morris and Beaudry suggest that congress leaders, far from adopting any such stance, are prepared to fight a rearguard action to preserve the status quo.
At best, they can only slow down the advance. In doing so, however, they bear heavy responsibility for existing or future divisions in labor's ranks.
SEASON'S GREETINGS
GOOD LUCK FOR 1971 To All Fishermen and Their Families
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THE FISHERMAN — DECEMBER 18, 1970
