I | INTRODUCTION |
Labor Unions in
Canada, organizations that represent Canadian workers in their
negotiations with employers. Labor unions engage in collective bargaining with
employers to determine issues such as wages, the terms and conditions of work,
and worker security. Unions also engage in political activities on behalf of
workers and have historically had ties to political parties, such as the New
Democratic Party (NDP). At the beginning of the 21st century nearly 4.2 million
workers in Canada belonged to a union, or about one quarter of the country’s
workforce.
II | TYPES OF UNIONS |
Unionized workers in Canada include industrial
and office workers and public employees in government administration, school
systems, and hospitals. They also include engineers, professors, nurses,
teachers, and other professional employees. Employees are less likely to be
unionized in private service-sector firms such as retail stores, restaurants,
banks, and insurance companies, because employers in those areas have
aggressively opposed unions.
Unions have traditionally been divided into
craft unions and industrial unions. Craft unions, which were the earliest form
of union, are formed by skilled workers in a trade such as printing or
carpentry, but they typically exclude unskilled workers. Industrial unions, by
contrast, include all workers, skilled as well as unskilled, in a single
industry such as automobile or steel manufacturing.
In the late 20th century other types of
unions arose in Canada. Public-sector unions emerged in the 1960s after the
government passed laws allowing government workers to organize (to form
groups to protect their rights and interests) and bargain collectively. In the
1980s and 1990s general unions, which represent workers from widely varying
industries or occupations, became more common as unions broadened their
membership to include people working in jobs outside the union’s original
industry. For example, the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) expanded to represent
workers in the fishing and airline industries, among other areas. In the private
service sector, the CAW organized employees at the first unionized McDonald's
restaurant in North America.
III | THE ROLE OF UNIONS |
Unions help workers negotiate the terms and
conditions of their work with their employers. Before unions existed, workers
often labored for low wages and long hours in unsafe or unhealthy workplaces.
They could be fired without cause at the whim of an employer and thus had no job
security. In unionized jobs, employees work under conditions negotiated through
the process of collective bargaining, in which the union negotiates with the
employers on behalf of the employees. The collective agreements they negotiate
include clauses that outline job classifications, rates of pay, workday length,
overtime rates, workers’ health and safety measures, and work distribution. Such
agreements also include grievance and arbitration procedures that are designed
to settle conflicts that arise during the term of a contract.
Unions also negotiate with employers to
determine the level of union security (the extent to which workers are
required to join or fund the union once it is established). Types of union
security arrangements include the closed-shop agreement, in which union
membership is a condition of employment in a workplace, and the union-shop
agreement, in which a person does not have to be a union member to be hired but
must join the union after becoming employed. A third form is known as the Rand
Formula, named after Canadian Supreme Court justice Ivan Rand, who created it
when he arbitrated a strike against the Ford Motor Company in Windsor, Ontario,
in 1945. The Rand Formula does not require all workers to join the union, but it
requires them to pay union dues because they receive the benefit of the union’s
collective bargaining. The formula also allows the employer to automatically
deduct union dues from workers’ paychecks.
Collective agreements last for a set period
of time, after which they are renegotiated. If the employers and unions cannot
reach a collective agreement, either party can apply pressure to the other
through a work stoppage. A work stoppage by workers is called a strike, while a
stoppage created by an employer is known as a lockout. Lockouts are less common
than strikes. Often just the threat of a work stoppage is enough to push the two
sides to an agreement. However, before a legal work stoppage can occur in
Canada, the parties must apply for conciliation. Under conciliation, a
government-appointed mediator tries to help the two sides reach an agreement. If
they do not, a cooling-off period of about ten days follows, in which employees
remain at work and the parties may continue to negotiate. Only after the
cooling-off period ends can the employers or employees begin a legal work
stoppage.
In around 90 percent of negotiations, the
parties reach collective agreements without a work stoppage. Most workers in
Canada have the right to strike, except firefighters, police, some hospital
workers, and others who perform essential services. Those employees normally
have another recourse to settle disputes such as binding arbitration. In binding
arbitration, an outside arbitrator hears the arguments of the parties involved
and issues a decision that the parties must accept.
Unions in Canada have also taken an active
role in politics. Much of this political work is done by central labor bodies,
organizations formed by groups of unions to represent the general concerns of
unions and workers. Central labor bodies, the most prominent of which is the
Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), lobby for legislation that is in the interest of
their members and other workers. They have supported legislation setting
workers' compensation and minimum standards for working conditions. Unions have
also pushed for social welfare measures, including universal medical coverage,
unemployment insurance, and health and safety legislation. In addition, unions
have supported broader community issues, including human rights, pay equity for
women, and environmental standards.
Historically the Canadian labor movement has
affiliated itself with socialist and social-democratic political parties outside
the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party, the two mainstream parties. In
1961 the CLC was instrumental in founding the New Democratic Party (NDP), which
has remained an influential party in Canadian politics. A substantial minority
of union members follow organized labor's lead in supporting the NDP, but the
majority of members more often support the mainstream parties.
IV | UNION ORGANIZATION |
Labor organizations exist on a variety of
levels, from local workplaces to international organizations. Most local unions
belong to national or international unions that are organized around an industry
or an occupation—for example, the United Steelworkers of America or the Canadian
Union of Public Employees. Unions also belong to central labor bodies such as
the CLC. Central labor bodies are not unions themselves because they do not
directly represent workers in negotiations with employers. Rather, they
represent the general interests of workers and unions, particularly in the area
of public policy.
At the local level, workers in a particular
workplace can join a local union. Before a union can represent a group of
employees at a workplace, it must apply to the provincial labor board, a
government agency, to be certified as the bargaining representative. To
determine whether the union should be certified, the labor board either counts
union membership cards or holds a representation vote to determine if the union
has the support of the majority of workers at the workplace. If a majority
supports the union, the board determines the appropriate bargaining unit
(the group of workers that is represented in a specific collective agreement) at
the workplace and certifies the union. Once certified, a local union seeks to
negotiate a collective agreement with the employer to determine the terms and
conditions of employment.
Workers in local unions elect local executives
to supervise the work of the union. They also elect officials known as shop
stewards to handle grievances that arise on the job. Before collective
bargaining begins, workers elect a bargaining committee. The bargaining
committee determines the workers’ demands and strategy in negotiations with the
employer.
Local unions usually are part of national or
international unions. These national and international unions employ a staff for
organizing workers at the local level, doing research, educating union members
about labor and political matters, and working with local union leaders. Unions
hold regular conventions of delegates elected from local unions to discuss
policies and hold elections for union leadership positions. Unions are governed
by constitutions developed and voted on by the membership.
Unions are democratic organizations.
Unionized workers elect their local officials in secret ballot elections. They
elect their national and international union officials in different ways
depending on a union’s constitution. Some unions, such as the United
Steelworkers of America, which has a large number of Canadian members, hold
referendum votes of the membership to elect district directors and national and
international union officers. Other unions elect delegates from each local union
to attend an annual convention, where the delegates elect district and national
or international union officials by secret ballot.
Most Canadian unions are affiliated with
central labor bodies. Central labor bodies include national congresses, local
labor councils, and provincial federations of labor that represent workers’
interests at the municipal and provincial levels. These organizations lobby
governments for legislation that benefits both organized and unorganized
workers. They represent the labor movement in government or societal
institutions and in international labor organizations. The largest central labor
body in Canada is the CLC, a national congress that represents about 3 million
workers. The largest central labor body outside of the CLC is the
Confédération des syndicats nationaux (Confederation of National Trade
Unions), an organization that includes a significant number of unions in
Québec.
V | LABOR LAW |
Labor law establishes the rules that govern
labor relations between employers and employees. In the 19th century, most labor
law in Canada restricted, and even outlawed, worker organization and strikes.
The government often considered organizations of employees to be illegal
conspiracies that restrained trade. By the end of the 19th century, however, the
government no longer legally restricted most trade union activity. In 1900 the
federal Conciliation Act established voluntary dispute-settlement mechanisms for
employees and employers. The Industrial Disputes Investigation Act (1907)
included compulsory conciliation, in which workers and employers were required
to meet with a mediator prior to a legal work stoppage. Compulsory conciliation
became a distinctive feature of the Canadian industrial relations system.
During World War II (1939-1945) the federal
government, after much pressure from labor and the public, passed an emergency
wartime measure, known as PC 1003 (1944), that established Canada’s first
wide-ranging national labor code. This code was replaced after the war with
similar, more permanent legislation: the federal Industrial Relations and
Disputes Investigation Act (1948) and equivalent laws in the provinces. These
acts created Canada’s modern industrial relations system. As PC 1003 had done
during the war, these acts supported collective bargaining and provided for the
certification of unions with majority support in a workplace. The acts also
outlawed unfair labor practices, including employer discrimination against
employees for union activity, and established labor boards to administer the
legislation.
This legal structure, which remains the basis
for labor relations in Canada, was modeled on the National Labor Relations Act
(1935) in the United States, but the Canadian law is significantly different.
Canadian law emphasizes compulsory conciliation as a means of settling labor
disputes and outlaws strikes during the term of a collective agreement. Canadian
legislation provides a certification process for local unions that is faster
than the process in the United States. Canadian law also goes further in
recognizing the legitimacy of union security arrangements that require all
workers in a unionized workplace to join the union or at least to pay union
dues. In many areas of the United States, right-to-work laws prohibit such union
security arrangements. See also Labor Unions in the United States.
In the 1960s legislation extended and adapted
collective bargaining rights to include public-sector employees. In 1967 the
Public Service Staff Relations Act created a new collective bargaining structure
for federal employees. Provinces passed similar legislation concerning their
employees. By the mid-1970s the country had firmly established public-sector
collective bargaining and the right for public-sector employees either to strike
or to seek binding arbitration. Some provinces recognized the right of their
government employees to bargain collectively but not to strike. Others merely
limited the right to strike for employees engaged in essential services,
although which services are essential is sometimes debated. In rare instances
governments have passed back-to-work legislation in public-sector disputes.
Back-to-work legislation temporarily suspends the right of certain government
workers to strike.
The jobs of striking workers are protected by
law, and normally they must be reinstated at the end of a dispute. There are
regulations that govern conduct during a strike, such as prohibitions in Québec
and British Columbia on the use of replacement workers to break strikes. Some
provinces outlaw the use of professional strikebreaking agencies, which help
employers undermine strikes with tactics such as hiring replacement workers,
intimidating strikers, and bringing charges against picketers. Such laws and
regulations can protect workers. They also protect the public interest by
contributing to a relatively high level of industrial peace. They encourage
employers and workers in Canada to settle issues through legal processes rather
than through confrontation.
VI | HISTORY |
A | Unions in the 19th Century |
The first workers to unionize in Canada
were skilled artisans, such as printers and carpenters, whose skills were in
demand. Their skills gave them bargaining power, and beginning in the mid-19th
century they were able to establish craft unions to protect their jobs and the
standards of their work. At the same time, the introduction of mechanized
processes into these trades threatened the position of skilled workers.
Mechanized systems broke down production into specialized tasks, which could be
performed by less skilled and lower paid workers, including women and children.
In response, the craft unions continued to
try to control the labor supply in their trades. If they could not prevent
technological change, at least they could regulate who would work on the new
machines by limiting access and advancement in their trades. The craft unions
introduced training processes, systems of apprenticeship, and work rules. In
1886 the American Federation of Labor (AFL), an international alliance of craft
unions, was founded and stimulated organization among skilled tradespeople in
the United States and Canada. See also American Federation of Labor and
Congress of Industrial Organizations.
At the same time, the first industrial
unions formed in Canada. The most significant of these unions was the Knights of
Labor, which originated in 1869 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and spread into
Canada beginning in 1881. The Knights focused on organizing the unskilled
workers who were excluded by the craft unions. The Knights organized all workers
in an industry, regardless of their training or position. The Knights also
tended to include more women and black workers than other unions at the time,
although they were not open to immigrant Chinese workers and fought against
their use by employers.
Employers and craft unions opposed the
Knights of Labor, and the Knights declined in power after the 1880s. The Knights
helped establish the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada (TLC) in 1886, the
first central labor body to represent Canadian workers by advocating legislative
and political reform. The TLC existed until 1956 when it helped form the
Canadian Labour Congress.
Around the turn of the century, the federal
and provincial governments passed legislation that set labor standards to
prevent employers from exploiting workers. This legislation limited work hours
and established minimum wages for women and eventually limited child labor. It
also instituted factory inspections and workers' compensation for accidents on
the job.
B | Radicalism and World War I |
In 1905 the Industrial Workers of the World
(IWW), an international industrial union, was founded in Chicago, Illinois. The
IWW espoused one union of all workers and organized among itinerant unskilled
laborers, who were often poor immigrants working in resource industries such as
logging and mining. In Canada the IWW organized primarily in the West. Its
philosophy was revolutionary syndicalism, a belief that after workers became
organized, they would initiate a general strike, defeating capitalism and
replacing it with a society run by workers. The Wobblies (as the members of the
IWW were called) opposed the limited 'bread and butter unionism' of the AFL,
which was more concerned with wages than with revolution. The IWW sarcastically
dubbed the AFL the 'American Separation of Labor' because it excluded unskilled
workers.
In 1918 the Canadian government banned the
IWW because political leaders feared it was too radical. The one-union idea was
then taken up in 1919 by some western Canadian workers who formed an
organization called the One Big Union (OBU). The OBU advocated industrial
unionism, socialism, and more attention to the needs of western workers and
their leaders.
During World War I (1914-1918), union
membership grew and industrial conflict increased. Many labor leaders became
disenchanted with the federal government when it ordered conscription into the
armed forces in 1917. The labor leaders feared that conscription would require a
greater sacrifice by the working class, while wartime industries accumulated
large profits. In the following year the government instituted war measures that
recognized the right to bargain collectively but not the right to strike. The
measures also banned many labor newspapers and immigrant workers' organizations.
The government’s actions, along with high inflation that eroded the spending
power of workers’ wages, contributed to labor unrest.
The unrest climaxed in the Winnipeg General
Strike of 1919, which began when local metal workers in Winnipeg, Manitoba, went
on strike. Winnipeg’s other labor organizations shut down the city’s factories,
stores, and government services in support of the strike. Government leaders
feared the paralyzing tactics of the general strike. They also feared the
radical labor movement, which they associated with the Russian Revolution of
1917. The OBU, which was formed in Calgary, Alberta, during the strike,
exemplified that radicalism—some of its leaders called for socialist revolution.
The government sided with the Winnipeg employers to defeat the strike forcibly
and arrest its leaders. The result was a setback for labor, and the OBU rapidly
declined, but many workers became more politically active after the general
strike failed. Following the strike, they began to elect socialist, prolabor
representatives at the municipal, provincial, and federal levels of government,
particularly in the western provinces.
In Québec in the early part of the 20th
century, most unionized workers joined the national and international unions in
Canada. However, unions affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church began to
attract a significant minority of Québec workers during World War I. In 1921 a
group of these unions formed the Canadian Catholic Confederation of Labour
(CCCL). In their early years the Catholic unions reflected the conservatism of
Church doctrines that opposed socialism and materialism in unions and argued for
greater cooperation between workers and management.
C | Great Depression and World War II |
Union membership increased during the Great
Depression. The Communist Party of Canada established the Workers' Unity League
(WUL) in 1929 to organize workers, in competition with the established unions.
The WUL had significant success, particularly among miners and lumber workers.
In 1935 the party disbanded the WUL because the international Communist movement
had turned toward more cooperation with other labor movements. In the United
States industrial unions associated with the new Congress of Industrial
Organizations (CIO), which was founded as the Committee for Industrial
Organization in 1935, won vast job improvements in collective agreements in
major industries, such as steel and automobiles. Their success led Canadian
workers to join the CIO. In 1932 the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF)
was founded. The CCF was a political party that aimed to represent farmers and
workers, and by the 1940s it had union affiliates.
The labor movement increased its organizing
in Canada during World War II (1939-1945). During the war, the national economy
had full employment, which raised labor’s bargaining power. By the end of the
war, Canadians had organized extensive portions of the economy's industrial
sector and created the Canadian Congress of Labour (CCL) for industrial unions.
The CCL was a central labor body that rivaled the TLC, the older craft union
congress. In 1943 the CCL endorsed the CCF as 'the political arm of labor.' In
1944 the CCF was elected as the provincial government in Saskatchewan.
During and after the war, the federal and
provincial governments passed labor laws that created the modern industrial
relations system in Canada. The wartime measure PC 1003 and its postwar
replacement, the Industrial Relations and Disputes Investigation Act, created a
system based on union recognition and collective bargaining.
As the Cold War began in the late 1940s,
the TLC and the CCL actively purged themselves of unions and union leaders that
had ties to the Communist Party. The two congresses began to unite, and their
differences over political involvement and the issue of craft versus industrial
unionism faded. In 1956 the TLC and the CCL merged to form the Canadian Labour
Congress (CLC). In the era of postwar prosperity, the labor movement continued
to grow, and unions won wage increases and extensive benefits packages for their
members. The CLC and the CCF helped to found the New Democratic Party (NDP) in
1961.
D | Postwar Union Movement in Québec |
The Catholic union movement in Québec had
been hurt by the Great Depression and its competition with the industrial unions
during the war. However, during the 1949 Asbestos Strike in the Eastern
Townships of Québec, workers at asbestos mines clashed with police, and the
Catholic unions represented by the CCCL became more aggressive in their
confrontations with employers and the government. In the 1950s the CCCL
distanced itself from the Catholic Church, and in 1960 the group transformed
itself into the secular Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN).
In the 1960s and 1970s the CSN embraced
French Canadian nationalism. In the early 1970s workers in Québec agitated for
more labor rights, and the major Québec unions joined in an alliance known as
the Common Front for strikes and negotiations. In 1972 the Common Front led a
general strike by public employees that defied court injunctions against strikes
by hospital and hydroelectric workers and led to the jailing of many union
leaders.
E | The 1960s to the Present |
During the 1960s, public-sector employees
were given the right to organize, and they embraced collective bargaining. In
Québec, during the reforms of the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, the CSN
organized public employees, assisted by a new Québec Labour Code (1964). The
code granted public employees collective bargaining rights and the right to
strike. The rest of Canada soon followed. After a strike in 1965 by postal
workers across the country, the government passed new federal legislation that
permitted collective bargaining and strikes for most public employees. Public
workers formed labor unions, which included the Public Service Alliance of
Canada and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). Both were affiliated
with the CLC. Public employees quickly became the most heavily unionized workers
in Canada as they attempted to bring their wages, working conditions, and
benefits to the level of unionized private sector workers. By 1992, 79 percent
of workers in public administration were members of unions, and CUPE was
Canada’s largest union.
Alongside this shift in union membership,
women became increasingly involved in unions. As more women began to participate
in the labor force in the 1960s, they joined unions at a faster rate than men.
Women influenced union bargaining issues with their desires for equal pay, child
care, and maternity leave, and they assumed union leadership positions. In 1985
Shirley Carr, a former municipal employee in Niagara Falls, Ontario, became the
first woman president of the CLC. By 1992 women made up about 47 percent of
total union members, compared to 16 percent in the mid-1960s.
The 1960s and 1970s also saw a shift of
Canadian workers from international unions based in the United States to
national, Canadian-based unions. Before that time the national unions that had
arisen in Canada were often small, short-lived (except in Québec), and short of
resources. Canadian union members previously found that the benefits of
belonging to a large international union with substantial resources outweighed
their nationalistic tendencies, particularly as the American and Canadian
economies became highly integrated. However, in the 1960s the rise of
public-sector unions, which were all national unions, started the shift away
from international unions. Beginning in the 1970s, Canadian districts within
international unions sought and mostly won greater autonomy within the
international unions in order to accommodate the differences between the two
countries.
During the economic recession of the
1980s, some Canadian unionists refused to follow the lead of American unions and
adopt bargaining that granted wage cuts and other concessions to employers. In
the automobile industry, this conflict resulted in the Canadian section of the
United Automobile Workers of America, an international union based in the United
States, breaking away to form the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW). The separation
allowed the CAW to devote itself to more aggressive organizing and political
activism.
In the 1980s and 1990s rates of union
membership remained relatively high in Canada, while rates in the United States
declined. Unions in both countries faced many of the same conditions, including
conservative governments, hostile employers, plant shutdowns, and free trade
agreements. Unions in Canada, though, were more aggressive about organizing and
faced a more tolerant legal environment than unions in the United States.
Canadian unions actively supported the independent politics of the NDP, stronger
labor legislation, and social reform measures.
Canadian unions, like U.S. unions, opposed
the Canadian-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (1989) and the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA, 1994), which removed barriers to trade between Canada, the
United States, and Mexico. In the unions’ view, the new trade arrangements did
not take account of workers' needs and rights, potentially weakened Canadian
social welfare measures and cultural institutions, and made no provision for
environmental standards. Since the adoption of NAFTA, labor has faced plant
shutdowns, employee layoffs through corporate downsizing, and the contracting of
work out to foreign and nonunion employers. In response, labor unions have
negotiated severance packages and job retraining for laid-off employees and
aided the employee purchase of companies in industries such as timber processing
and steel.
The Canadian economic environment was not
friendly to labor in the 1990s, particularly as provincial and federal
governments introduced budget cuts that threatened public-sector workers.
Nevertheless, the labor movement, with difficulty, held its own and sought to
grow. Unions began to organize aggressively in the less-unionized private
service sector, including restaurants, retail stores, and banks. They also
continued to be politically active.
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