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The article reviews the book, "Union Revitalisation in Advanced Economies: Assessing the Contribution of Union Organising," edited by Gregor Gall.
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As many of the traditionally unionized sectors of the economy experience crisis, unions are turning to social unionist strategies of coalition-building and community mobilization as a means of defending jobs through external solidarity. This paper explores the politics and dynamics of the Canadian Auto Workers' (caw) organization of a union-community coalition and rally in Windsor, Ontario as a means of defending the manufacturing base. The paper contends that while Windsor's May 2007 Manufacturing Matters rally was quite successful in its short-term aims, due to the caw's strong mobilizing structures and longstanding relationships between local unions and community organizations, internal coalition dynamics and framing processes led to decisions which limited the longer-term capacities of the campaign. The coalition opted to emphasize place over class as the unifying element, to produce non-adversarial discourses and tactics so as to avoid appearing anti-business, and to marginalize more militant talk and tactics. These outcomes raise questions about both the sustainability for ongoing solidarity and mobilization amongst the Windsor working class, and the capacity of the local labour movement to articulate counter-hegemonic interpretations of economic problems and promote policy options not dominated by the needs and interests of economic and political elites.
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This article explores the contradictions in the Canadian Auto Workers Union’s (CAW) approach to environmental issues, particularly climate change. Despite being one of the Canadian labor movement’s leading proponents of social unionism— understood as a union ethos committed to working-class interests beyond the workplace, and a strategic repertoire that involves community-union alliances— the CAW’s environmental activism demonstrates the contradictory way that social unionism can be understood and practiced by unions. Through a critical discourse analysis of CAW policy documents and leadership statements, we show the union has not reframed its bargaining demands to emphasize both economically and environmentally sustainable production. Instead, the CAW’s relatively uncritical defense of the North American auto industry and the jobs it provides, despite the clearly negative role such production plays in the climate crisis, its acceptance of the structures of automobility, and its emphasis on environmental issues that have little to do with the nature of their industry, indicates the way that social unionism can be an add-on rather than a fundamental reorientation of a union’s role and purpose. We argue that, for social unionist environmental activism to be effective, the CAW must incorporate social unionist goals and analyses into their bargaining priorities, and confront the contradictions between their members’ interests as autoworkers, on the one hand, and as workers and global citizens who require economically and environmentally sustainable livelihoods, on the other.
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This article seeks to engage Jansen and Young’s recent research on the impact of changing federal campaign finance laws on the relationship between organized labour and the New Democratic Party. Jansen and Young use models from mainstream comparative politics to argue that unions and the NDP retain links due to a “shared ideological commitment” to social democracy, rather than an expectation of mutual rewards and despite changes in the global economy. We critically assess the evidence, method of comparison, and theoretical assumptions informing their claims and find many aspects unconvincing. Instead, we propose that better explanations of this enduring yet strained relationship can be formulated by drawing insights from Canadian political economy, labour history and working class politics, and comparative social democracy.
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- Journal Article (4)