Unions want to open up membership in merger

The Toronto Star:



The two unions contemplating the biggest merger in Canadian labour history want to open membership to workers who don’t have bargaining rights.

In a revolutionary move for the labour movement in North America, a committee of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) and Communications, Energy and Paperworkers (CEP) unions will reveal the proposal Wednesday as part of an “innovative plan” to attract and organize many more employees, a centrepiece in their merger talks.

“We would be opening up the union to a whole new group of workers who we can’t reach right now,” Gaétan Ménard, CEP’s secretary treasurer and a committee member, said Tuesday. “We get to really walk the talk.”

Representatives for the two unions view the proposal, obtained by the Star, as critical in building a stronger and more influential force in the community and at the bargaining table, where organized labour’s clout has weakened over the past two decades.

The CAW, which has 195,000 members, and the CEP, representing another 120,000 workers, confirmed merger talks late last year. In a surprisingly blunt assessment of organized labour’s difficulties, they said in January that unions must overhaul themselves quickly and become more relevant or face a slow demise.

The proposal, which still needs work, indicates one way of meeting that challenge is a new membership category with includes workers who are unemployed, laid off, part time, as well as young people.

“Millions of Canadian workers, like part-time workers and contract workers, have no effective possibility of forming a traditional union,” said CAW economist Jim Stanford. “These unorganized workers should not be cannon fodder for unethical employers. We can find other ways for them to use the power of numbers.”

The two unions say governments have implemented tougher union certification procedures that are business-friendly and allow for more employer intimidation. Furthermore, economic downturns have made bargaining progress for workers more difficult and reduced interest in unions.

“Eroding union density (especially in the private sector) and the daunting obstacles to new organizing mean that a majority of Canadian workers have no effective access to unionization and they can come to see unions as distant or even ‘privileged,’ ” one discussion paper noted.

Continue reading here.