Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology
CONTESTING THE CRISIS
Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology
CONTESTING THE CRISIS - CUPE, THE CAW, AND THIRD WAY NEOLIBERALISM IN
ONTARIO FROM 2003-2013
By JAMES WATSON, M.Res., B.A.
A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements
for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology
McMaster University DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (2020) Hamilton, Ontario (Sociology)
TITLE: Contesting the Crisis – CUPE, the CAW, and Third Way Neoliberalism in Ontario from
2003-2013
AUTHOR: James Watson, M.Res, B.A. (McMaster University)
SUPERVISOR: Professor R. Storey
NUMBER OF PAGES: xii, 264
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Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology
Lay Abstract:
This research analyzes strategies of resistance deployed by the leading public sector (Canadian
Union of Public Employees - CUPE) and the leading private sector (Canadian Auto Workers -
CAW) unions during the pre- and post-Great Recession phases of the McGuinty Liberal government in Ontario. This work explores how unions representing differing institutional and industrial sectors made strategic interventions based on the key challenge areas faced by their respective memberships over the given period. This work contributes to the existing literature by examining the tensions between state governance strategies and union resistance, by analyzing how policy and political decisions are contested ideologically, and by exploring capacities and limitations of certain strategies in contesting neoliberal capitalism in the context of a large-scale economic crisis.
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Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology
Abstract:
This research uses Gramscian claims about culture and resistance to assess the radical potential of trade unions under neoliberalism. Using a comparative case study, this research examines the implications of chosen strategies of resistance deployed by the leading public- and private-sector unions (Canadian Union of Public Employees – CUPE, and Canadian Auto Workers – CAW, respectively) during the pre- and post-Great Recession phases of the McGuinty Liberal government in Ontario. The key contributions of this work are relevant for the fields of political sociology, political economy, and labour studies. In the field of political sociology, this work finds that contesting hegemonic governance strategies requires both a resistance against opportunities for integration and incorporation and the articulation of and organization around radical and non-sectionalist (systemic) alternatives. Second, this work demonstrates how political economic considerations are contested both structurally and culturally through both organizational-institutional and ideological-symbolic interventions. Finally, this research holds implications for strategies of union renewal by analyzing the capacities and limitations of certain strategic interventions in the leadup and aftermath of a large-scale economic crisis.
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Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology
Acknowledgements:
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Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology
Table of Contents Chapter 1: Third Way Neoliberalism, Organized Labour, and Systemic Crisis ...... 1 The Emergence of Third Way Neoliberalism ...... 2 Neoliberalism in Ontario ...... 5 Neoliberal Restructuring and Organized Labour ...... 7 Union Renewal and Strategies of Resistance ...... 14 Systemic Crisis...... 17 Research Methodology ...... 20 Data Collection ...... 20 Data Analysis ...... 21 Case Selection ...... 22 Conclusion ...... 24 Chapter 2: Gramsci, Trade Unionism and Strategies of the Left ...... 27 Marxism, Trade Unionism and Capitalism ...... 27 Gramsci and Trade Unionism ...... 32 Gramsci – Analytical Concepts...... 39 Hegemony and Force: Consent and Coercion ...... 39 Counter-Hegemony – the War of Position and War of Maneuver ...... 42 Adapting Gramsci ...... 47 Gramsci and Social Movements Theory ...... 49 Components of Social Movements Theory ...... 51 Conclusion ...... 56 Part I: Third Way Neoliberalism in Ontario ...... 59 Chapter 3: The McGuinty Liberals and Third Way Neoliberalism ...... 63 Austerity ...... 63 Pre-crisis Phase: 2003-2008 ...... 64 Post-Crisis Phase: 2008-2013 ...... 72 Competitiveness ...... 82 Pre-Crisis Phase: 2003-2008 ...... 82 Post-Crisis Phase: 2008-2013 ...... 99 Conclusion ...... 112 Part II: Union Strategies of Resistance ...... 116 Chapter 4: Pre-Crisis Wars of Position ...... 122
vi Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology
CAW Pre-Crisis: 2003-2008 ...... 122 Electoral Realignment ...... 122 Issue-Based Campaigns ...... 127 Union in Politics Committees (UPCs) ...... 136 Organizing: Traditional and Non-Traditional Sectors ...... 143 CUPE Pre-Crisis: 2003-2008 ...... 149 Social Agitation ...... 150 Coalition Building ...... 157 Co-ordinated and Centralized Bargaining ...... 162 Political Partisanship ...... 168 Incursions into the War of Maneuver ...... 173 Conclusion ...... 177 Chapter 5: Post-Crisis Wars of Position ...... 183 CUPE Post-Crisis: 2009-2013 ...... 184 Political partisanship ...... 185 Coordinated and centralized bargaining ...... 191 Coalition building ...... 199 “Increasing capacity” (for social agitation) ...... 206 CAW Post-Crisis: 2009-2013 ...... 211 Neocorporatism and Social Dialogue ...... 211 Labour movement coordination ...... 219 “Building Strong Locals” ...... 224 Organizing and Mergers...... 228 Incursions into the WoM ...... 234 Conclusion ...... 240 Chapter 6: Conclusion ...... 244 Third Way Neoliberalism, Unions, and the Global Financial Crisis in Ontario ...... 246 The CAW, CUPE, and the Third Way ...... 246 Strategic Similarities ...... 253 Recent Strategic Directions: Wynne, Ford, and Beyond ...... 258 Future Directions ...... 260 Neoliberalism, Unions, and Counter-Hegemony ...... 263
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Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology
List of Figures and Tables Figure 1: Increases in Program Expenditures by Government ...... 70
Figure 2: Debt-Servicing Expenses ...... 75
Figure 3: Ontario job growth and decline, select industries (2003-2008) ...... 93
Figure 4: School Board Expenditure (2018, real $ CAD, millions) ...... 107
Figure 5: Infrastructure Spending by Policy Area (2005-2013) ...... 109
Figure 6: Declining Auto Sector Employment – Ontario (2001-2008) ...... 126
Figure 7: Top 5 Unions by # of Certification Drives in Ontario ...... 144
Figure 8: CAW Membership (1979-2009) ...... 147
Figure 9: Strike Incidence by Institutional Sector ...... 174
Figure 10: CAW and CUPE strikes by industrial sector (2004-2008) ...... 175
Figure 11: Average strikes per year by time-period, union, and government in Ontario ...... 176
Figure 12: Strike Trends from Harris to end of McGuinty Era ...... 235
Figure 13: Average strikes per year by time-period, union, and government in Ontario ...... 236
Figure 14: Ontario Strikes, 2004-2013 – Top 10 ...... 237
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Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology
List of all Abbreviations and Symbols Abbreviation Definition ABC Anyone But Conservative AFP Alternative Finance and Procurement AG Auditor General BIPOC Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour BRIC Brazil, Russia, India and China CAD Canadian Dollars CAT Caterpillar CAW Canadian Auto Workers, CDO collateralized debt obligations CFS Canadian Federation of Students Canadian Industrial Entertainment and Warehouse Workers CIEWWU Union CIO Congress of Industrial Organizations CLC Canadian Labour Congress COVID Coronavirus disease CPE Campaign for Public Education CPI Consumer Price Index CSR Common Sense Revolution CSWU Canadian Service Workers Union CTU Chicago Teachers Union CUPE Canadian Union of Public Employees EI Employment Insurance EMD Electro-Motive Diesel ETFO Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario EU European Union FDI Foreign Direct Investment FIPA Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement FTA Free Trade Agreement G20 Group of Twenty G7 Group of Seven GDP Gross Domestic Product GEA Green Energy Act GFC Global Financial Crisis GM General Motots HERE Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union HST Harmonized Sales Tax IAM International Association of Machinists IBEW International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers ICT Information and Communications Technology
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Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology
IMF International Monetary Fund ISDM Investor-State Dispute Mechanisms IWW International Workers of the World KBE Knowledge-Based Economy LGBT Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender LIUNA Laborers' International Union of North America MBS Mortgage-Backed Securities MP Member of Parliament MPP Member of Provincial Parliament NAFTA Norther American Free Trade Agreement NDP New Democratic Party NEB National Executive Board NPM New Public Management OAG Office of the Auditor General OCAP Ontario Coalition Against Poverty OCHU Ontario Coalition of Hospital Unions OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development OFL Ontario Federal of Labour OHC Ontario Health Coalition OLP Ontario Liberal Party OLRB Ontario Labour Relations Board OMERS Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System ONA Ontario Nurses Association ONDP Ontario New Democratic Party ONTA Ontario Northland Transportation Commission OPS Ontario Public Service OPSEU Ontario Public Service Employees Union OSSTF Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation OUWCC Ontario University Workers Coordinating Committee P3 Public-Private Partnership PC Progressive Conservative PDT Provincial Discussion Table PEL Paid Education Leave PM Prime Minister SCC Sectoral Coordinating Committee SEIU Service Employees International Union SMO Social Movement Organizations SSA Social Structures of Accumulation Syndicat des travailleurs et des travailleuses du Sheraton STTSC Centre SUNPAC Sunwing Pilots Association of Canada
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Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology
TD Toronto Dominion Bank TTC Toronto Transit Commission TWN Third Way Neoliberalism UAW United Auto Workers UFCW United Food and Commercial Workers UK United Kingdom UNITE Union of Needletrades, Industrial, and Textile Employees UPC Unions in Politics Committee US United States USW United Steel Workers WFC Work-Family Conflict WoM War of Maneuver WoP War of Position WTO World Trade Organization WWI World War One
xi Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology
Declaration of Academic Achievement
I, James Watson, declare this thesis to be my own work. I am the sole author of this work and no part, full or partial, has been submitted for publication or for the purposes of attaining a degree at another postsecondary institution. Except where otherwise indicated, all research and writing contained in this thesis is my own work.
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Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology
Chapter 1: Third Way Neoliberalism, Organized Labour, and Systemic Crisis
The neoliberal project has now been underway for approximately 40 years. While the politics and economics of neoliberalism can hardly be said to have brought about a lasting stability, there has nonetheless been a certain resilience to the neoliberal order. Though neoliberalism as an overarching policy paradigm has remained dominant over the past few decades, what has been challenged and adapted has been how to rule hegemonically. These “varieties” of neoliberalism have each come with their own strategies for advancing the ascendance of capital and market power and for maintaining political power. That is to say that in each historicized system of domination there are varying weights assigned to coercion and persuasion. This organic composition of power is not fixed but is constantly being contested as it is contingent upon both the actions and ideologies of the ruling and subaltern blocs.1
A common delineation between these differing forms is often framed as “roll-back” and
“roll-out” neoliberalism.2 A roll-back regime (or regime of reorientation) refers to a state-led neoliberal project primarily concerned with “a frontal onslaught on the labour movement and the destruction [or restructuring] of the social and institutional structures of the post-war social democracy.” This form of neoliberalism is often associated with the vanguard phase of (in the
Anglosphere) Margaret Thatcher in the UK, Ronald Reagan in the U.S., and Brian Mulroney in
Canada. Conversely, roll-out regimes (or regimes of consolidation) “[involve] the gradual commodification of huge new areas of social life and the creation of new institutions [and ideologies] specifically constructed on neoliberal principles.”3
1 See: Guha, R. (1997). Dominance without hegemony: History and power in colonial India. Harvard University Press. 2 See: Peck, J., and Tickell, A. (2002). Neoliberalizing space. Antipode, 34(3), 380-404. 3 Davidson, N. (2010). What was neoliberalism. Neoliberal Scotland: Class and society in a stateless nation, 1-89.
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Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology
In the inaugural roll-back phase of neoliberalism, coercion was a central and prominent feature used to push neoliberal restructuring. However, with the waning and fall of inaugural roll-back neoliberalism, the main left-of-centre opposition parties (UK Labour, U.S. Democrats and Canadian Liberals) were presented with an option: offer a radically alternative strategy to the regimes of Thatcher, Reagan, and Mulroney, or adapt to the new social, political and economic terrain.4 What resulted was an historic capitulation of left-of-centre parties to the hegemonic terrain established by their predecessors. The result was a transition from roll-back to roll-out neoliberalism and an adaptation of hegemonic common sense and neoliberal practice designed to fill in the shortcomings of the roll-back variety.
The Emergence of Third Way Neoliberalism
The emergence and electoral success of the “Third Way” governments of Bill Clinton (US
Democrats), Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin (Canadian Liberals) and Tony Blair (UK Labour) represented the first transition to neoliberal regimes of consolidation in the Anglosphere. While the main theoretical work of the Third Way emerged in the work of sociologist Anthony
Giddens, the policies and ideologies of Third Way governments have moved a fair deal from their theoretical origins.5 The Third Way presents itself as a “centrist” style of governance, often blending centre-right economic policy with centre-left social policy. It is espoused as a strategy of governance which can operate beyond old divisions between Left and Right in its pursuit of
“modernization.” This modernization implicitly accepts Thatcher’s famous postulation that
“there is no alternative,” referring specifically to neoliberal globalization.
4 Hall, S. (2005). New Labour's double-shuffle. The Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 27(4), 319- 335. 5 See: Giddens, A. (1994). Beyond left and right: The future of radical politics. Stanford University Press; Giddens, A. (1998). The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy. Cambridge: Polity.
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Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology
In terms of neoliberal economic policies, the Third Way governments of the Anglosphere all embraced varying degrees of fiscal consolidation, public sector structural reforms, the continued flexibilization of labour markets, increased global integration for production, trade and finance, a reduction in policies geared towards wealth redistribution, a gradual retreat from social programs, privatization, and deregulating capital and financial markets. Where it differed from the roll-back regimes was in the role of the state. The Third Way deviates from more orthodox theoretical forms of neoliberalism by promoting a more active and prominent role for the state in maintaining favourable conditions for capital profitability. For Third Way leaders and policy makers, the role of the state is to “row, but not steer” the economy. What this means in practice is that rather than the state “getting out of the way of the market,” governments should partner with capital to enable conditions for maximum profitability and capital accumulation in areas under their territorial and jurisdictional control.
The goal of the Third Way is not to reverse the shifting balance of class forces, but to continue to widen domestic profit margins through state intervention in the economy. In discussing the political economy of the Third Way, Ramano (2006) has suggested that the two main elements of Third Way economic strategy have been (a) economic growth driven by investment in physical and human infrastructure; and (b) fiscal discipline.6 Areas such as education, healthcare, and infrastructure had all been the targets for “slash and burn” retrenchment under roll-back regimes. In comparison, roll-out regimes tended towards “spending restraint.” While cuts to education, healthcare, infrastructure, and social services were all pursued by Third Way governments, they also allowed for periods of investment in these areas provided the government created the “fiscal capacity” to do so. Furthermore, cuts have tended to
6 Romano, F. (2006) Clinton and Blair: The Political Economy of the Third Way. London and New York: Routledge.
3 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology be directed towards what the government designates as “non-core” service provision, thus opening spaces for the private sector to provide what were formerly public services. Again, rather than exclusively pursuing wholesale privatization, Third Way policymakers have also mixed in public-private partnerships.
Despite Third Way governments ascribing to similar types of policy as their roll-back or
“orthodox” counterparts, their change in form (if not content) has helped them to secure power as the “left” alternative. Third Way governments, during their peak in the mid-90s to the late 2010s, so successfully bounded mainstream political and economic debates around a core of neoliberal assumptions that any true neoliberal alternative seems inconceivable. Its aim, in hegemonic terms, is/was to not only capture the constituents of initial neoliberal regimes, but to expand to create an even more comprehensive bloc by drawing in neutral and passively opposed portions of the populace. In the words of David Marquand, the hegemonic project of the Third Way has been to:
“Mobilize the suburbs as well as the inner cities; rich as well as poor; old as well
as young; Christians as well as unbelievers; hunters as well as animal-rights
activists… Its warm embrace covers all men and women of goodwill, provided
only that they are prepared to enlist in the relentless, never-ending crusade for
modernization.”7
While these regimes often did turn to coercion to pursue their goals, it was not the leading, or dominant focus of their strategy in the way that is was during the roll-back regimes. Instead, the
Third Way lead with a ‘relational progressivism’ that allowed them to appear as the gentler,
7 Marquand, D. (2000). Revisiting the Blair paradox. New Left Review, 3, 73.
4 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology more inclusive form of neoliberalism. Not only did this serve to obfuscate the types of coercion used by these regimes, but it often helped to manufacture consent for these types of coercion – a hallmark of a successful hegemonic project. While each of the three national Third Way regimes in the Anglosphere did this in different ways, and with varying degrees of success, their consolidation at the national level meant imitation and adaptation at the sub-national level. While the UK Blair government is often thought of as the most successful Third Way project, it comes up against a hard challenger in the Third Way government of Ontario under Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne.
Neoliberalism in Ontario
The political trajectory of Ontario progressed in a similar way to Anglosphere politics at the national level. The transition from crisis Keynesian/creeping neoliberalism, to roll-back neoliberalism, to the emergence of the Third Way occurred in Ontario on a slightly lagging timeline. To understand how the Third Way McGuinty Liberals gained power, it is first necessary to provide a limited historical snapshot of neoliberalism’s progression in Ontario.
The first neoliberal government of Ontario emerged under the social democratic New
Democratic Party led by Bob Rae. When Rae was elected in 1990, Ontario was deep in recession, facing mounting fiscal problems, high interest rates and cuts in federal transfers. The supposedly pro-labour government’s response was to implement a public sector austerity program to opened collective agreements and unilaterally rolled back wages (thus the “crisis
Keynesian/creeping neoliberal” designation). The “Social Contract” austerity program opened the door for the roll-out of further neoliberal solutions as even a supposedly labour-friendly
5 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology government demonstrated a willingness to use state power to discipline labour.8 This eventually led to long-standing cleavages between the NDP and labour and opened the door for the
Thatcherite Harris Conservatives when the NDP government was routed in the 1995 elections, losing 57 out of 74 seats.
In the 1995 election, the Conservatives were elected to a strong majority under Mike
Harris. The Harris Conservative government was elected on an anti-labour, pro-corporate agenda which took form in the party’s “Common Sense Revolution” (CSR). The CSR was structured around principles of neoliberal orthodoxy: tax reductions, balanced budgets, privatization, a reduced role for business regulation and the public sector and restricting the power of organized labour.9 The depth, breadth, and rapidity with which the Harris government implemented their neoliberal agenda was eventually met with extra-parliamentary mobilizations and political strikes that coalesced into labour-community alliances around the “Days of Action.”
The Days eventually took the form of one-day city-wide political strikes in London
(December 1995, 10,000 demonstrators); Hamilton (February 1996, 100,000 demonstrators);
Kitchener-Waterloo (April 1996, 20,000 demonstrators); Peterborough (June 1996); Toronto
(October 1996, 250,000 demonstrators); Sudbury (March 1997, 7000 demonstrators); Thunder
Bay (April 1997); North Bay (September 1997, 30,000 demonstrators); Windsor (October 1997);
St. Catharines (May 1998, 4,000 demonstrators); and Kingston (June 1998). However, despite these mass and militant mobilizations, contradictions and disagreements over strategy emerged in the Ontario labour movement with the result that the Days eventually collapsed into a renewed
8 Ross, S., & Savage, L. (Eds.). (2013). Public sector unions in the age of austerity. Winnipeg, MB: Fernwood Publishing. 9 See: Panitch and Swartz (2003); Reshef & Rastin (2003).
6 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology agenda of NDP-centered electoralism. The labour movement was left divided over strategy, the
Conservatives were re-elected in the 1999 election with another majority, and while their neoliberal policy agenda may have been dulled, it was certainly not reversed.
Following Harris’ sudden departure as Premier in 2002, the party was headed by former
Finance Minister Ernie Eves until the Dalton McGuinty Liberals displaced the Conservatives in the 2003 election. The turn to the McGuinty Liberals represented a consolidation of neoliberalism in Ontario through a Third Way form of governance that helped the party maintain power for 15 years. During this time, and in the aftermath of the Days of Action and confrontational relationships with the provinces’ unions, the Liberals attempted to portray themselves as a party capable of maintaining labour peace. While this portrayal frayed in the aftermath of the global financial crisis (GFC) and corresponding recession, the Liberals governance strategy often allowed them to pivot, regroup, and offer the necessary countermeasures to keep some semblance of a progressive image. As discussed in Chapter 3, the
Liberals were able to roll-out neoliberal policy often with the support of organized labour as they attempted to govern consensually rather than through coercion.
Neoliberal Restructuring and Organized Labour
To secure continued capital accumulation, growth rates, and rates of profitability that can be considered “competitive” in the global market, the neoliberal state continuously turns to coercive measures. The existing literature on neoliberalism exposes the ways in which the state is used to create a “favourable business climate” by undermining all forms of social solidarity that challenge capital accumulation.10 Historically and cross-nationally, the main targets that need to
10 See: Harvey (2007).
7 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology be undermined to establish a favourable business climate tend to be organized labour and the welfare state.11 Recent evidence has shown that organized labour and their associated political parties have historically been the most effective organizations in expanding political and economic democracy through citizens’ rights, expanding social rights, and pressuring for state interventions to reduce inequalities.12 Additionally, research also indicates that inequality rates are “ inversely correlated with the strength of the trade unions.”13 As neoliberalism has developed and been reorganized around different centres and sites of accumulation, the groups needing to be disciplined to maintain a favourable business climate have expanded, shifted and proliferated to include climate activists, Indigenous movements, civil rights groups, and those broadly placed into groups associated with the “anti-globalization” movement. As collective actors in the market, these groups are viewed as an impediment to the individual property rights of both individual workers and of corporations, and to the fostering of a favourable business climate. While the actions and interactions of all subaltern groups are an important consideration, the primary focus of this work is on unions.
The curtailment of labour power by neoliberal regimes has been pursued through several avenues. Among the most common in the advanced economies are increasing the mobility of capital relative to labour, decreasing employment security through “flexibility” or precariousness, increasing the strictness of unemployment benefits and changing benefits from
“welfare” to “workfare”, and a retrenchment of union’s rights and ability to collectively
11 See: Harvey (2007); Esping-Andersen (1990); Wallerstein and Western (2000). 12 Dahlum, S., Knutsen, C. H., & Wig, T. (2019). Who revolts? Empirically revisiting the social origins of democracy. The Journal of Politics, 81(4), 1494-1499.; Della Porta, D. (2016). Where did the revolution go?: contentious politics and the quality of democracy. Cambridge University Press. 13 Checchi, D., Visser, J., & Van De Werfhorst, H. G. (2010). Inequality and union membership: The influence of relative earnings and inequality attitudes. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 48(1), 84-108.
8 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology bargain.14 In response, unions have met neoliberalism with varying strategies of consent and resistance based on a host of structural and cultural factors.15
The organizational challenges faced by different unions in the same geographical jurisdiction will likely have a great deal of overlap in that they must contend with the same mode of regulation – including a certain legal framework, including the industrial relations regime – as well as similar overarching threats brought on by neoliberalism in the forms of precarious work, stagnating wages, the retrenchment of the social wage, and a generally anti-union climate.
However, once the top and most obvious layer of grievances are pulled back, another layer of grievances becomes apparent. Those that can be described as sectionalist. While unions often take on issues and challenges that relate to the broader working class, there are varying and contradictory tendencies within unions as to how they balance the narrow interests of their dues- paying members and the broader interests of broader working-class non-members. Indeed, Sam
Gindin (2013) has described unions as “at their core sectional, not class organizations,” that
“represent particular groups of workers confronting specific employers around one (albeit very crucial) dimension of their lives.”16 Therefore, in addition to overarching challenge areas for organized labour, there are also challenge areas that could be described as “sectoral” – that is, they predominantly apply to a union’s structural position within a given regime of accumulation and mode of regulation. The distinguishing line between private and public unions is one of the commonly used differentiations in most of the work on organized labour and union renewal.
14 See: Harvey (2007); Panitch and Swartz (2003). 15 Bieler, A., & Bieling, H. J. (2019). Conceptualising the development of the European political economy from a neo-Gramscian perspective. In Trade Unions and European Integration (pp. 51-68). Routledge. 16 Gindin, S. (2013). “Up Against the Wall: The Political Economy of the New Attack on the Canadian Labour Movement: A Reply to Andrew Jackson.” Just Labour. P. 65.
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In their 2003 work From Consent to Coercion Panitch and Swartz outline how anti-union legislation including making it more difficult to certify a union, back-to-work legislation undermining strike potential, and restricting the scope of collective bargaining have all become common in the public sector in Canada. In Ontario alone from 1990 to 2016, restrictive labour laws have been issued by the government a total of 29 times.17 The government has increasingly turned to coercive measures against public sector unions, often undermining their right to collectively bargain and strike creating a climate of “permanent exceptionalism,” where the state can legislate unions back to work in the name of the “public interest.” These explicit anti-union measures are compounded by drives for “balanced” budgets, the introduction of New Public
Management (NPM) and public sector restructuring, nonstandard employment (including contracting-out and rolling contracts) arrangements, and full- or partial privatization.18
Compounding the problem of state coercion is a widely held belief – propagated by large segments of the mainstream media – that public sector unions are operating in a fashion that is counter to “the public interest.”19
While private-sector unions have had to contend with many of the same challenges as public-sector unions, they face their own unique challenges as well. In a context of global competition, private sector workers must contend with relatively low union density and a hostile organizing climate, the expansion of non-standard forms of work, a movement away from
Fordist government interventions, capital flight, offshoring, whipsawing, financialization, deindustrialization, automation, and constant pressures to maintain competitiveness and
17 Canadian Foundation for Labour Rights (2020). “Restrictive Labour Laws – Ontario”, Canadian Labour Institute for Social and Economic Fairness. Retrieved from: https://www.labourrights.ca/restrictive-labour-laws. 18 See: Hebdon and Warrian (1999); Reshef and Rastin (2003); Klein (2007); Loxley (2012); Whiteside (2009); Coulter (2009). 19 See: Knight (2001); Kozolanka (2006); Ross (2011).
10 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology efficiency.20 While private sector unions must contest anti-union discourse too, the damaging narrative they contend with addresses a different component of “the public interest.” Instead, the narrative that private sector unions contend with revolves around issues of labour market
“rigidities,” “labour advantages,” and remaining on the “front lines of competition.”21
As social movements theory has noted, these organizational responses – referred to in this work as strategic interventions – are “in part, contingent on the institutional target a movement selects… based on the target’s vulnerabilities and capacities for response.”22 Applied to organized labour, this idea is summarized in Public Sector Unions in the Age of Austerity (2013), where Stephanie Ross and Larry Savage claim that there is “a close relationship between union sector and a particular mode of praxis,” and that public sector workers face “different strategic conditions” because their power is rooted in “political organizational” resources rather than economic resources. While what they are referring to is a reference to a unions institutional sector – that of having the state-as-employer – a similar logic can be extended to a union’s industrial sectors and the sectoral composition of their membership. For example, even within the private sector, workers in the transportation industry (trucking for example) will face different strategic conditions than those in the manufacturing sector, who will face different strategic conditions than those in low-wage retail work. Therefore, the strategic conditions that a union faces, and therefore their corresponding strategic interventions, are partially dependent the unions’ institutional sector (private or public), the composition of industrial sectors (industry
20 See: Bronfenbrenner (1997); Kleiner (2001); Fowler (2012). 21 See: Kumar (2008). 22 Walker, E. T., Martin, A. W., & McCarthy, J. D. (2008). Confronting the state, the corporation, and the academy: The influence of institutional targets on social movement repertoires. American Journal of Sociology, 114(1), 35-76.
11 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology classifications) as well as the given structural and ideological circumstances encountered in a specific conjuncture.
Two subsets of the union renewal literature fail to fully account for how “vulnerabilities and capacities for response,” modes of praxis, and sectoral compositions interact to influence strategic interventions. The first subset of union renewal literature analyzes specific challenges faced within either the public or the private sector with direct comparison across unions being quite rare. These works may deal with the institutional-sector specific themes of bargaining regimes (Rose 2004; Panitch and Swartz 2003; Bronfenbrenner 1997, Camfield 2007), sectoral restructuring (Hebdon and Warrian 1999; Jordhus 2012; Swimmer 2001), austerity (Ross and
Savage 2014; Albo and Fanelli 2014), repertoires of contention (Lipsig-Mummé 1990; Foley
2006; Walker et al. 2008), privatization (Warskett 1993; Loxley 2012) or union decline (Kleiner
2001), among a host of other topics.
The second, and more micro-level of analysis tends to focus on one union, industry, or city in its analysis. While this level obviously offers the least generalizability, it also tends to offer the most empirically rich material. These studies are numerous and varied, but for the purposes of this project, the most relevant include studies on the CAW (Gindin 1995; Anastakis
2018; Allen 2012; Fowler 2012; Fowler 2016; Ross 2011; Ross and Russell 2018; Shantz 2010) and CUPE (Ross 2005; Pilon et al 2011; Black 2018; Fanelli 2014; Fanelli and Meades 2011;
Savage 2014).
Aside from a few notable exceptions (Draper 2000; Foley 2006; Walker 2014; Nesbitt
2018) there is almost no direct comparison between public- and private-sector unions. Even rarer is a comparison of how their sectoral challenges influenced their corresponding strategic
12 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology interventions. While there are important cultural factors that help explain how these different challenges are met, the focus of this work will be on unions’ organizational responses to self- identified challenge areas. This will make it possible to discuss how organizations move – on aggregate – towards certain tendencies and strategic orientations. The focus here is not overly concerned with internal decision-making procedures and internal power dynamics, but instead on the implementation of strategic decisions themselves. In the same way that it is possible to say
"the NDP has drifted towards the center," or "The Liberals' policy pillars were austerity and competitiveness," it will be possible to say "CUPE recommitted to coordination and centralized bargaining as a key strategic intervention." It is worth noting here that this approach assumes union officials (executive leadership and full-time staff) are largely charged with the development, implementation, and coordination of strategy at an organizational level through various departments and committees. While the membership plays a key role (varying with the degree of internal democracy) in determining, ratifying, debating and undertaking their own strategic interventions, one of the most prominent roles of union officials and the internal structures they inhabit is giving strategic direction and coherence to the “diffuse centres of resistance” which emerge at the local union level.23
While it is understood and appreciated that the strategic interventions deployed were a product of internal debates, power structures, and agency, the predominant focus in this work is on the interventions undertaken through the mobilization of organizational resources.24 That is, while it is important to understand both how decisions are made internally, and how these
23 Panitch, L., and Gindin, S. (2020). The Socialist Challenge Today: Syriza, Corbyn, Sanders. Haymarket Books. 24 See: Child, J., Loveridge, R., & Warner, M. (1973). Towards an Organizational Study of Trade Unions. Sociology, 7(1), 71–91; Form, W. (1979). Comparative industrial sociology and the convergence hypothesis. Annual Review of Sociology, 5(1), 1-25.
13 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology decisions are implemented externally, the focus of this work is on the latter. In summary, the intention of this line of thinking, and the theoretical lens that accompanies it, is to demonstrate how considerations of self-identified challenges, institutional targets, and organizational responses can be useful analytical tools to explore the possibilities and limitations of union renewal within a specific and historicized period.
To do so, this project also uses Burawoy’s methodological differentiation between the
“politics in production” and the “politics of production.”25 While the politics in production primarily concerns itself with the power dynamics and effects of the productive process itself, the politics of production concerns itself with “the activities of the state – above all governments, central banks, regulatory agencies, etc. – and civil society actors” to understand “the dynamics of accumulation but also by specific modes of regulation and the social relations of production.”26
By focusing analytically on the politics of production, this work aims to understand how and why changing political, economic, and cultural environments evoke or inhibit changing forms of resistance.
Union Renewal and Strategies of Resistance
The contemporary works on union revitalization are often concerned with ways of reinventing
“the Left,” “organized labour,” or “the labour movement” in the era of neoliberalism (Kumar and
Murray 2003; Yates 2002; MacDonald 2014; Savage 2010; Fairbrother 2008; Thomas and Tufts
2016; Goldfield and Palmer 2007; Shantz 2009). These works generally outline the strategic difficulties that “labour movements” face, the new and changing role of organized labour within
25 Burawoy, M. (1985). The politics of production: Factory regimes under capitalism and socialism. Verso Books. 26 Bieler, A., & Bieling, H. J. (2019). Conceptualising the development of the European political economy from a neo-Gramscian perspective. In Trade Unions and European Integration (pp. 51-68). Routledge.
14 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology the Left, or strategies for rebuilding labour movements in advanced economies. This category typically ranges in scope from theoretical considerations for labour under neoliberalism to more specific studies of national or sub-national labour movements. While this broad level of analysis is useful for theorizing problems that are common for organized labour, and offers a valuable starting point for deeper insights, it does not necessarily represent the realities and dynamics of specific unions operating in historicized contexts.
Furthermore, discussions in the literature on union renewal often provide a type of
“strategic paradigm” by categorizing unions as belonging to various traditions such as business unionism, community unionism, social unionism, and social movement unionism. However, these distinctions alone offer little analytical power as each paradigm can contain a wide range of strategic interventions and an even wider range of tactics.27 Ross (2007) has identified this as a weakness of the union renewal literature in her work on the varieties of social unionism. Ross explains that lumping together unions into the social unionist camp, rather than distinguishing and comparing different strategic elements, “masks the relative implications and effectiveness of different element in the social unionist repertoire.”28 Ross’ intervention on this matter is one of the primary starting points for this work as she calls for a more explicitly comparative approach in order to reveal the complex and multifaceted nature of unions who claim to ascribe to the same variety of unionism.
It is my intention in this work to demonstrate that an analysis of union strategy must consider the interplay of common and differing concerns, organizational relationships, and
27 Ross, S. (2007). Varieties of social unionism: Towards a framework for comparison. Just Labour: A Canadian Journal of Work and Society, 11(16-34). 28 Ibid. p. 26.
15 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology tactical choices between various union and their interactions with a state-governance praxis. The unity and direction of the labour movement cannot be taken as a given. Solidity must be actively and politically created. Despite the focus of this research being on unions intervening as organizations in relations of political economy, strategies of union renewal must also note how labour markets, the working class, and union memberships have evolved under neoliberalism.
For example, the rise of precarious work and its negative implications have disproportionately been borne by women, racialized, and migrant workers.29 Additionally, the relations between stagnation wages, increasing work hours and multiple jobs, the increasing necessity of dual- earner households, and the implications for single parents also have implications for unions and their members. The “time bind” placed on workers, even unionized workers, holding multiple jobs and the disproportionate burden placed on women for the labour of social reproduction as manifested in the “double shift,” means that spaces and opportunities for union activism and leadership are unevenly distributed by race and gender.30 In order to create working class solidarity that can overcome old forms of racism and sexism as well as the new forms created by neoliberalism, unions must address forms of inequality that intersect with class.31
29 See: Vosko, Leah. 2000. Temporary Work: The Gendered Rise of a Precarious Employment Relationship. Toronto: University of Toronto Press; Cranford, Cynthia, Leah Vosko, and Nancy Zuckewich. 2003. “The gender of precarious employment in Canada.” Industrial Relations/Relations Industrielles 58(3):454-79; McCall, Leslie. 2001. Complex Inequality: Gender, Class and Race in the New Economy. New York: Routledge; Kaufman, R.L. 2002. “Assessing alternative perspectives on race and sex employment segregation.” American Sociological Review 67:547-63; Wingfield, A. 2009. “Racializing the glass escalator.” Gender & Society 23(1):5-26. 30 See: Hochschild, Arlie. 1997. The Time Bind. New York: Metropolitan Books; Cha, Y. 2013. “Overwork and the persistence of gender segregation in occupations.” Gender & Society 27:158-184; Correll, Shelley J., Stephen Benard and In Paik. 2007. “Getting a Job: Is There a Motherhood Penalty?” American Journal of Sociology 112(5):1297-1338. 31 See: Camou, Michelle. 2012. "Capacity and Solidarity: Foundational Elements in the Unionization Strategy for Immigrant Day Labourers." International Migration 50(2):41-64; Coulter, Kendra. 2013. "Raising Retail: Organizing Retail Workers in Canada and the United States." Labor Studies Journal 38(1):47-65;
16 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology
As for organizational considerations, the formation strategic interventions develop unevenly according to, among other factors, the dispositions of leaders and the union bureaucracies, the relationship of leaders to the rank-and-file, the threats they face, the openness of the movement (especially in terms of race, gender and non-unionized workers), the connections to political parties and other coalitions, the level and functioning of coordinating bodies, and how various parts of organized labour interact with the neoliberal state. A key part of this contribution will be the examination of how unions chose to make these strategic interventions during a widespread breakdown in the legitimacy of neoliberal capitalism during the global financial crisis (GFC) in 2007/08. 32
Systemic Crisis
This final piece of this research puzzle involves a brief discussion of the role of capitalist crises.
In various political economic intellectual traditions, periodic economic crises are treated as the norm rather than the exception in the processes of global capital accumulation. As McBride and
Whiteside (2011) have argued, neoclassical and ideologically orthodox economic theories are largely insufficient to deal with questions regarding the systemic nature of crises.33 These gaps have often been filled by several heterodox approaches form Marxist traditions. McBride and
Briskin, L. (2011). Union Renewal, Postheroic Leadership, and Women’s Organizing: Crossing Discourses, Reframing Debates. Labor Studies Journal, 36(4), 508–537. https://doi.org/10.1177/0160449X11422608; Foley, J. R., & Baker, P. L. (Eds.). (2010). Unions, equity, and the path to renewal. UBC Press; Yates, C. A. B. (1998). Unity and diversity: Challenges to an expanding canadian autoworkers' union. Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue Canadienne De Sociologie, 35(1), 93-118. doi:10.1111/j.1755-618X.1998.tb00224.x 32 Despite the focus on Ontario, it is worth noting that any meaningful political economic analysis of a regional government cannot be abstracted from its connections to other levels of government nor to connections with other national and international governing bodies and economies. Therefore, while the literature examined below deals primarily with neoliberal restructuring and organized labour in Ontario, it also incorporates analysis from other regions or levels of the Canadian federal system, as well as considerations of Ontario as part of an integrated world economy in which the United States is both the leading regional and world power; See: Panitch and Gindin (2012). 33 McBride, S., & Whiteside, H. (2011). Private Affluence, Public Austerity: Economic Crisis & Democratic Malaise in Canada. Fernwood Pub. P. 18-20.
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Whiteside point out that, “beyond the mainstream exists a multitude of perspectives that… point to the crisis-prone nature of the capitalist system and the ways in which the state and other extra- economic institutions and arrangements are integral to ensuring that growth and stability occur.”34
Among these perspectives are long-wave theories – including 1) the social structures of accumulation (SSA) perspective and 2) regulation theory – and theories regarding overaccumulation and spatio-temporal fixes. While each perspective has its own nuanced differences for explaining processes of capitalist accumulation, crisis explanations and fixes, all the perspectives point to:
“different ways of examining the three important roles commonly ascribed to the
capitalist state. These relate to activities that influence accumulation (ensuring
profitability of the system as a whole), legitimation (ensuring social harmony),
and coercion (repressing subordinate classes).”35
The purpose of placing the GFC as the “mid-point,” with pre- and post-crisis phases is to demonstrate how a breakdown of accumulation, legitimation, and a stronger turn to coercion on the part of the neoliberal state represented a critical juncture in the continued dominance of the neoliberal order. Viewing the GFC as a critical juncture assumes a recognition that every crisis is also a moment of reconstruction, and therefore a window of opportunity for reconstituting relations of power. However, as Hall (1987) notes, this “reconstitution” is not a given and is
34 Ibid. p. 33. 35 McBride, S. and Whiteside, H. 2013. “The Canadian State and the Crisis: Theoretical and Historical Context.” In Fowler, T., ed. From Crisis To Austerity: Neoliberalism, Organized Labour, and the Canadian State. Red Quill Books: Ottawa.
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dependent upon “forces and relations, in the economy, in society, in culture” that have been
“actively worked on to produce particular forms of power.”36
While the GFC did bring about a widespread crisis of legitimacy, resistance to neoliberalism (and more importantly, possibilities for “reconstituting” the order) developed in a highly uneven manner across a range of national and sub-national contexts.37 As Della Porta
(2020) has shown, the GFC was met with an increased use of general and political strikes in
Europe that seemed to signal a revival of union mobilizing capacities and militancy. In 2010 alone, there were 24 general strikes in European countries, outstripping the number of all general strikes on the continent in the 1980s and 1990s.38 While acknowledging that these movement dynamics occurred under different structural, ideological, and cultural conditions, it must also be noted that there was nothing that even approached an equivalent upswing in mobilizing and militancy amongst North American unions, despite the similar neoliberal crisis responses of various federal, state, and provincial governments.
To that end, the purpose of this work is to combine the disparate but related threads of
Third Way neoliberalism and union strategies of resistance in the leadup to, and aftermath of the largest economic crisis since the Great Depression. This requires an examination of the evolving strategic interventions of both the leading unions and the governing party within a specific historicized period. To that end, this research analyzes strategies of resistance deployed by the leading public sector (Canadian Union of Public Employees - CUPE) and the leading private sector (Canadian Auto Workers - CAW) unions during the pre- and post-Great Recession phases
36 Hall, S. (1987). “Gramsci and Us.” 37 Della Porta, D., & Portos, M. (2020). Social movements in times of inequalities: Struggling against austerity in Europe. Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, 53, 116-126. 38 Ibid. p. 117.
19
Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology of the McGuinty Liberal government in Ontario. Through this analysis, this work aims to make two contributions to the existing literature. The first, as referenced above, is to compare how unions representing differing institutional and industrial sectors made strategic interventions based on the key challenge areas faced by their respective unions over the given period. These strategies of resistance will be in direct reference to areas of conflict and opposition defined by the unions themselves. The second contribution is the exploration of how these chosen union strategies interacted with a state apparatus and a governing party that aimed to advance a neoliberal agenda by governing hegemonically in reference to the labour movement.
Research Methodology
This research used a mixed methods approach incorporating content analysis, descriptive statistics, and policy analysis. The chosen balance of methods is determined by the questions being asked in each of the subsequent chapters. For Chapter 3, which examines Ontario Liberal policy and rhetoric over the period of 2003 to 2018, the primary methods were content analysis and policy analysis. Chapters 4 and 5, which examine how the CAW-Unifor and CUPE organized against third way neoliberalism, content analysis and descriptive statistics are the primary methods.
Data Collection
For the analysis of the Ontario Liberal’s policy and rhetoric, content analysis included campaign and election materials, budgets, public accounts, speeches, press releases, and a host of other strategic documents. From the unions, the data collected is drawn from both the regional
(Ontario) and national union levels. However, national level data was only collected and
20 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology
integrated if it was directly related to events in Ontario. Analysis of strategy therefore combines content analysis of publications from CUPE Ontario, CUPE National, CUPE Sectoral
Coordinating Committees, various CUPE departments, the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW
National), the CAW National Executive Board (NEB), CAW Council, CAW Contact, and various CAW departments. Content analysis included convention reports, action plans, newsletters, press releases, calls for action, government submissions, campaign material, staff presentations, and other union generated cultural documents.
Data Analysis
Methodologically, this work relies on thematic content analysis outlined by Braun and Clarke
(2006) and aims to describe the patterns present across the gathered qualitative data. As a starting point, this content analysis has been approached using a “contextualist” method, which
“acknowledges the ways individuals make meaning of their experience, and, in turn, the ways in which the broader social context impinges on those meanings, while retaining focus on the material and other limits of ‘reality’.”39 Using Braun and Clarkes categorizations, this analysis is based primarily in a semantic approach, but where necessary delves into the latent level of meanings, associations, and ideology. Furthermore, this analysis is theoretically underpinned by a Gramscian framework that is discussed at length in Chapter 2. Data analysis was aided by
NVivo 12 software which allowed for a central repository to analyze hundreds of documents.
NVivo was used for thematic coding, text queries, and visualizations to draw inferences about the data and assess relevant patterns.
39 Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative research in psychology, 3(2), 77- 101. P. 81.
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Content analysis was the most appropriate method for this research for two reasons. The first is the timing and length of the period studied. Beginning in 2003, the use and analysis of archived content proved to be the most detailed and reliable data that provided valuable historical and cultural insights over time. As the exact timing of events was an important consideration for this research, the inclusion of sources such as dated press releases were a necessity. Secondly, content analysis allowed for the examination of the connections between policy and rhetoric, practice and propaganda, and the minute and specific connections between the material and the ideological in a neatly organized and historicized manner.
Case Selection
The cases selected here include a Third Way governing party in the Ontario Liberals, one high- profile and leading union from the private sector and a similar union in the public sector. The private sector case is the National Automobile, Aerospace, Transportation and General Workers
Union of Canada (or the Canadian Auto Workers, CAW) and the public sector case is the
Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). Though the nomenclature of private and public sector unions is muddied by unions organizing in non-traditional sectors, the presence of workers in public-private partnership (P3) workplaces and other complications arising from funding and ownership structures, the public-private union distinction will nonetheless serve as a theoretical dividing line between the two union structures.
In geographical terms, this project’s primary focus is on the province of Ontario but draws from events or circumstances in other locations insofar as they are relevant. Analysis has been restricted to Ontario as much as possible to control for the political-economic context and the institutional structures like the industrial-relations system, the business cycle, and government legislation.
22 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology
While a full historical overview of the Ontario Liberals and each union is beyond the scope of this chapter or work, it is useful to provide a limited background on each organization as it existed during the analyzed period (2003-2013). There are several reasons why CUPE and the CAW are able to serve as appropriate comparative cases. The first relates to the fact that they are structurally similar. Both are national, as opposed to international unions, both operate across
Canada, but have heavily concentrated memberships in Ontario, and both are multisector unions
– one based primarily in the private sector, one primarily in the public sector. CUPE’s Ontario membership is comprised primarily of workers in municipalities, universities, health care, social services, and school boards. The CAW’s membership in Ontario is much more diverse, concentrated broadly in manufacturing (auto, auto parts, aerospace, food and beverage) transportation (rail and air), mining and smelting, hospitality and gaming, retail and wholesale trade (warehousing), and services in health care and universities.
Methodologically, this work studies the “central levels” of the union structure. For
CUPE, this includes CUPE Ontario (CUPE-O), CUPE-O’s sectoral coordinating committees, and where relevant, the various servicing departments of CUPE National (Organizing, Political
Action, Research, etc.). The CAW, conversely, did not have a regional central level in Ontario and so analysis is structured around the actions and references of CAW National in Ontario. In terms of internal structures, this includes the CAW National Executive Board (NEB), CAW sectoral councils, the CAW Council, and where relevant, the various servicing departments.
The second factor that makes them good candidates for comparison would be their similar strategic positions during the early days of neoliberal entrenchment in Ontario.40 During
40 Nesbitt, D. (2018). Days of Action: Ontario's extra-parliamentary opposition to the Common Sense Revolution, 1995-1998. PhD Dissertation: Queen’s University Graduate Program in History.
23 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology the Rae NDP and then the Harris Conservatives in Ontario, CUPE and the CAW had a strong degree of strategic alignment. Both unions were leading parts of the “Common Front” faction that organized and backed the “Days of Action” political strikes as the appropriate extra- parliamentary response to the neoliberal governance of the Harris Conservatives.41
Finally, CUPE and the CAW/Unifor are important for comparison due to their ongoing importance in Canada’s and Ontario’s economy. Aside from being two of the largest and most high-profile unions in the struggle against neoliberalism, CUPE and the CAW/Unifor also have members in almost every unionized sector in the economy. CUPE and UNIFOR are the largest public and private sector unions in Canada, representing 630,000 members (258,000 in
Ontario)42 and over 300,000 members (158,100 in Ontario)43 respectively. As neoliberalism enters its third decade as the dominant political-economic and ideological paradigm in Ontario, it is vital to understand how these organizations have contested its implementation.
Conclusion
This project is first and foremost a project about resistance. It is about union responses to political and economic pressures implemented from the “top-down,” and the changing relative positions of capital and labour in a specific historical period. What often happens in discussions about the changing organization of political economies is that the focus remains predominantly on the decision-making of those in positions of power. This approach to social change focuses on the influence of powerful actors, institutions, or “social forces,” tending to leave subaltern populations – those outside the institutionalized structures of power – passively accepting their
41 Ibid. 42 CUPE Ontario (2018). “About CUPE Ontario”, https://cupe.on.ca/about-us/about-cupe-ontario/. 43 Unifor (2018). “Unifor by the Numbers”, https://www.unifor.org/sites/default/files/documents/document/unifor_by-the-numbers-ont-section_eng-v4.pdf.
24 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology fate. To say that all discussions on this topic focus on the top-down approach would be ingenuine. Many rich traditions exist in the fields of sociology, political science, history, and geography that focus on the struggles of subaltern populations and this project intends to continue in that vein.
Specifically, the aim here is to assess how key actors have contended with a specific form of neoliberal governance – the Third Way – and reoriented their organizational strategy accordingly. To begin it is necessary to provide more secure theoretical footing and place this project within wider questions of trade unionism and strategies for the Left. To this end, Chapter
2 discusses certain Marxist theoretical considerations related to trade unionism, capitalism, and the radical potential of unions. This analysis is even further nuanced by turning to Antonio
Gramsci and his concepts of hegemony and counter-hegemony, as well as how they will be adapted for the purposes of this work.
Next, Part I covers Third Way neoliberalism in Ontario and is comprised solely of
Chapter 3. Chapter 3 traces the historical evolution of Third Way Neoliberal policy and rhetoric across a ten-year period in Ontario, that covers the pre- and post-crisis period of the Global
Financial Crisis in 2008-09. The purpose of this chapter is to establish how the Third Way
McGuinty Liberals aimed to consolidate neoliberal policy and ideology through the mobilization of state resources and through promoting a new “common sense.”
Chapters 4 and 5 are contained under Part II: Union Strategies of Resistance. Both chapters explore how the terrain the Liberals attempted to establish was contested by the largest private- and public-sector unions in the province. Chapter 4 examines strategic interventions,
25 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology both organizational and ideological, that were made by each union in the years preceding the
GFC (2003-2008), while Chapter 5 does the same for the post-crisis years (2009-2013).
Finally, Chapter 6 contains the conclusions drawn from this research, provides a summary of the more recent strategic directions taken from each organization, as well as considerations of future directions for research, and reintegrates this work into wider theoretical conversations around unions and counter-hegemony under neoliberalism.
26 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology
Chapter 2: Gramsci, Trade Unionism and Strategies of the Left
Marxism, Trade Unionism and Capitalism
Theoretically, this work combines Gramscian analysis, theories of union renewal, and social movement studies. While it is primarily informed by the theory of Gramsci it is first necessary to discuss prior Marxist theories concerning the potentialities and limitations of trade unions under capitalism. The exact nature of trade union activity and consciousness has been a question which theorists such as Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Gramsci and many others have tried to answer.
Central to these debates has been the revolutionary potential of unions, or the potential threat that unions could pose to the capitalist order.
For Marx and Engels, unions had a limited economic role to play under capitalism. They acknowledged that unions could, under the right circumstances, gain material concessions from the owners of the means of production, but that this was loosely the extent of their economic function. However, Marx and Engels did view unions as having a consequential political function due to being the organizational form which first exposes workers to collective conflict along class lines. The combination of workers collectively attempting to secure better working conditions from the managers and owners of capital serves the function, according to Marx and
Engels, of bringing about class consciousness and transforming the working class from a class
‘in itself’ to a class ‘for itself.’
While the theory of class consciousness has been widely debated, there are certain integral components from which the concept cannot be separated. The first is a psycho-social process through which individuals come to see themselves as part of a group based in productive relations. Through this process the worker, as an individual, comes to see themselves as a
27
Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology member of the working class. This process of self-understanding develops through the everyday lived experiences of workers. Through their interactions with peers in their workplace and their grievances with managers and owners, the worker may come to see their interests as being aligned with other workers. When this happens at a mass level, whether in the workplace, a neighborhood, or beyond, then it can be said that the working class has developed into a ‘class in itself,’ meaning the collection of individuals understand themselves as members of a class.
The second component, once a ‘class in itself’ has been achieved, is the formation of the working class in opposition to the capitalist class. Not only will workers know they are part of a class, but they will also know that the interests of the capitalist class are diametrically opposed to the interests of the working class, and they will work actively to become the leading class.
According to Marx (1847), one of the primary ways a class moves from being ‘in itself,’ to ‘for itself’ is through the combination of workers into unions in opposition to the exploitative conditions of capitalism. The “mass” as Marx refers to them, moves from being a group of exploited individuals, into a class organization that articulates its interests in opposition to capitalism.44 Eventually, capitalism will not be able to accommodate the concessions demanded by class conscious workers and the workers will move their struggle from the economic to the political field through a revolutionary workers party. When bourgeois democracy too fails them, workers will have no choice but to overthrow the existing capitalist economic and political systems.
This “optimistic” and rather spontaneous view has not been borne out by the historical record. Apart from a handful of revolutions in primarily agricultural and quasi-feudal societies
44 Marx, K. (1847) “The Poverty of Philosophy.”
28 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology
(Russia, China, Cuba, Vietnam), Marx’s predictions on this front have not held true. Everywhere where trade unions and capitalism have developed in tandem has seen varying degrees of reform, not revolution. It is for this reason that subsequent Marxist theorists have modified Marx’s theory on the relationship between class consciousness, trade union consciousness, and their relations to revolutionary potentials.
In his work Marxism and the Sociology of Trade Unionism (1971), Richard Hyman discusses two important amendment to the original theories of Marx and Engels provided by
Lenin on the one hand, and Trotsky on the other. A brief overview of Lenin’s concept of integration, and Trotsky’s concept of incorporation are expanded on here and then reintegrated into the later discussion on trade unionism and neoliberalism.
For Lenin, the normal activities of trade unions as they had historically existed posed no threat to the stability of the capitalist order. The sectional nature of trade union struggles – typically concentrated within industrial or occupational divisions – allowed for narrow economistic gains, which in turn had the tendency to dampen the contradictions and clashes in the workplaces or industries that Marx had predicted. To the extent that these gains could be reasonably secured, Lenin viewed a tendency towards union integration within the capitalist system. Lenin viewed trade union politics – the negotiated improvement of working and living conditions – as bourgeois politics specifically because they do not challenge the wage- relationship or contest ownership of the means of production.45 Under this view, unions become
45 Lenin, V.I. (1902) “What Is to Be Done?”, Lenin’s Collected Works, Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1961, Moscow, Volume 5, pp. 347-530. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/iii.htm. The following quote from Chapter 3: Trade-Unionist Politics And Social-Democratic Politics is illustrative of this point: “Social-Democracy [Lenin’s term for revolutionary socialism] leads the struggle of the working class, not only for better terms for the sale of labour-power, but for the abolition of the social system that compels the propertyless to sell themselves to the rich. Social-Democracy represents the working class, not in its relation to a given group of employers alone, but in its relation to all classes of modern society and to the state as an organised political force.
29 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology an integral part of the capitalist process of accumulation, and arguably help maintain the system through dampening class conflict and providing certain levels of macroeconomic stability by increasing aggregate demand. In many historical instances, the aspirations and level of organization of the working class have been mitigated by a rising standard of living. The integration of organized labour therefore generates a trade union consciousness that views the union and union membership as central to identity and strategy, and is typically posited on quantitative gains within capitalism, rather than a qualitative shift from capitalism.
This differentiation has implications for class consciousness in that there seem to be varying degrees to which a class can operate as a class for itself. On the one hand, trade unions do in some ways operate in opposition to capitalist interest. Amongst other functions, they limit the amount of surplus value that can be extracted, they protect workers from the extremes of the labour market, and unions have also been successful across many contexts in generating a form of class consciousness. On the other hand, en masse, they have historically not been revolutionary but reformist, they have been integrated and incorporated into many state-capitalist relationships, and in some situations have enabled ‘business unionism’ to become a dominant union strategy. However, as Perry Anderson (1967) has argued:
“The very existence of a trade union de facto asserts an unbridgeable difference
between capital and labour in a market society; it embodies the refusal of the
working class to be integrated into capitalism on its own terms. Trade unions
thus everywhere produce working class consciousness – that is, awareness of the
Hence, it follows that not only must Social-Democrats not confine themselves exclusively to the economic struggle, but that they must not allow the organisation of economic exposures to become the predominant part of their activities.”
30 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology
separate identity of the proletariat as a social force, with its own corporate
interests in society. This is not the same as a socialist consciousness – the
hegemonic vision and will to create order, which only the revolutionary party
can crate. But the one is a necessary stage towards the other.”46
For Lenin, as Anderson seems to agree with, it was only a professional revolutionary party and its cadres (the vanguard) that could move workers from a narrow or economistic trade union consciousness to a revolutionary socialist consciousness. This was to be accomplished through the development and articulation of revolutionary ideology, but only after a working-class consciousness had been achieved, in part through the praxis of unions. Lenin viewed unions as economically useful, but politically limited in their purposes. Similarly, Trotsky viewed unions as conservative institutions which limited the potential militancy of workers.
The union bureaucracy and leadership, according to Trotsky, were used to further capitalist interests in two ways. The first was to incorporate labour leaders into close relationships with government officials for the purposes of government planning and administration, therefore tying together the interests of the capitalists and organized labour.
Secondly, union leaders took on somewhat of a managerial role in disciplining potentially militant rank-and-file members in order to maintain industrial peace. This incorporation requires union leaders to first acquire authority over their members, and then use that authority to maintain stable industrial relations and a semi-docile, though organized working class. In turn, the unions are given a seat at “the table” and are granted concessions when possible in terms of improved working and living conditions.
46 P. Anderson (1967) “The Limits and Possibilities of Trade Union Action”, In R. Blackburn & A. Cockburn (Eds.), The Incompatibles. pp. 274. Author’s emphasis.
31 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology
While Lenin’s concept of integration (or economism) almost certainly influenced
Gramsci’s thinking, the relation to Trotsky’s incorporation is less certain. However, examining
Gramsci’s writings as they relate to both concepts will prove useful for two reasons. The first is that even if Gramsci did not explicitly engage with the concept of incorporation, it centers on the question of the radical potential of unions, and the role of leadership amongst organizational- institutional forms (for Trotsky, “bureaucracies”) within the labour movement. Secondly, engaging with Gramsci’s views as they relate to integration and incorporation will allow for deeper insights when it comes time to adapt the concepts to deal with neoliberalism as an historical form of capitalism, rather than capitalism itself.
Gramsci and Trade Unionism
To put it succinctly, what is of concern for Marxist scholars when discussing trade unions is whether they tend to be institutions that have a tendency towards class compromise or class conflict. This tendency will in turn be predictive of union’s revolutionary or even radical potential. In his piece Unions and Councils (1919), Gramsci outlines, in similar fashion to Lenin and Trotsky, how trade unions are “an integral part of capitalist society, and [have] a function which is inherent to the regime of private property.”47 While they have revolutionary potential, this potential can only be realized if the union organizational form changes from or integrates into workers councils based on worker control and eventually, ownership. So long as unions accept private property relations, and do not challenge the underlying system of private ownership that defines capitalism, they do not constitute a revolutionary force.
47 Gramsci, A. (1919) “Unions and Councils,” L'Ordine Nuovo”, 11 October.
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The different institutional forms of unions and the council are present in a great deal of
Gramsci’s pre-prison writings as he tried to make sense of the radical events unfolding around him in Red Turin in the 1920s. In his earlier writings Gramsci was highly critical of the Italian anarcho-syndicalist movement, who on one occasion he referred to as “pseudo- revolutionaries.”48 He claimed that trade unions are “organically incapable of embodying the proletarian dictatorship,” and that as an organizational form, unions are “incapable of giving the worker’s consciousness a concretely revolutionary form.”49 Unions are incapable of being a revolutionary institutional site, according to Gramsci, for a number of reasons. The first, as mentioned above, is that trade unions as they have historically existed and developed are not an institution that is premised on organizing workers as wage-earners, not as producers who own the means of production. Therefore, the interplay between process and consciousness that is generated by the praxis of the trade union movement is not conducive to leading workers to view themselves as something other than commodities. In other words, trade union consciousness does not encourage workers to overcome the commodity status of their labour-power, but rather encourages a process of decommodification.
Gramsci is not dismissive of this decommodification process itself, but rather points to its limits in being able to “deliver more than its nature would allow it.”50 In this sense, Gramsci views trade unions as a site of limited class consciousness. In comparing “pseudo-revolutionary syndicalism” and “reformist trade unionism,” Gramsci is in favour of the latter. He acknowledges that trade unions are capable of securing a decent standard of living for workers,
48 Gramsci, A. (1977) “Syndicalism and the Councils”, Selections From Political Writings 1910-1920 (Ed. Hoare). University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis. P. 109. 49 Ibid. p. 112 50 Ibid. p. 111
33 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology but only “within the context of a bourgeois regime.”51 The Italian syndicalist movement on the other hand had not only been unable to secure tangible, and more importantly lasting gains for the working class but had also failed to generate mass revolutionary consciousness. For Gramsci, this failure is due to the syndicalists’ mistaken belief that unions alone (which rarely have organized a mass of the population) and not the combination of a revolutionary party and the workers council, are the appropriate revolutionary institutions.
Therefore, leadership becomes a second factor which may inhibit the revolutionary potential of unions. The question of leadership present in Gramsci’s discussions of the role of trade unions is two-fold.52 The first is which should be the leading institutional forms, and why?
The second is, from where will these leaders be drawn? As already discussed, Gramsci felt that in the sphere of production, the workers council – in which unions are subsumed – is the most appropriate organizational form. It is in the field of politics, which is conceptually rather than actually separate from production for Gramsci, that the question of leadership becomes paramount for revolutionary strategy. Unlike the syndicalists, who eschewed vanguardist strategies related to political parties in favour of developing independent working-class power of a type unmediated by the state, Gramsci felt that there was a need for a combination between the revolutionary party and working-class organizations (ideally led by councils).53 For Gramsci, the party was the leading institution that provided unity and direction to the working class and its
51 Ibid. 52 Gramsci also had significant contributions to the discussion of individual leadership in the concept of organic intellectuals. While this concept is an important part of Gramsci’s theory, it is beyond the scope of this work. 53 While the historical record has proven Gramsci and other Marxists correct thus far in the need to take the state to “take power,” history has also proven the anarchists correct, by virtue of the fact that the “dictatorship of the proletariat” (i.e. state socialism) has been an abject failure for the liberatory promises made by socialism (See: Mikhail Bakunin, 1873, Statism and Anarchy).
34 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology allies. He often leveled the critique that the syndicalists were “undisciplined,” which presented a strategic problem for coordination.
For Gramsci, a revolutionary party would be charged with organizing, leading, and uniting the struggles of the popular classes, though “they were not organizations that would become the workers’ state.”54 While Gramsci rejected rule through parliaments as a method of bourgeois rule, he nonetheless advocated for participation in liberal democratic structures as a propaganda tool, a way to gauge popular support, and a means to paralyze the parliamentary process in times of need.55 Unlike Lenin however, the Gramscian party was not a vanguard of
“enlightened” cadres who brought theory to the masses, but instead was organically linked to the workers through the councils and other working-class institutions. In this sense, there is less of a hierarchical division between the bureaucracy of the party, the institutions of which it is comprised, and the people who make up the base. Those who became the leaders of the party were deeply embedded in, emerged from, and could be removed by the everyday struggles of the working-class. While Gramsci may have been vanguardist in the sense that he viewed the party as the leading and coordinating body of revolutionary strategy, he inserted important caveats that were aimed at preventing the domination of the party over its social base.
When discussing the transition from trade unions to worker councils Gramsci sees a key role for trade union officials since they have been elected by “conscious workers” who can
“represent the will of the union members,” but only if they are properly integrated into the council structures.56 This perspective is at odds with Trotsky’s views over the tendency towards
54 Holst, J. D. (2009). “The Revolutionary Party in Gramsci's Pre‐Prison Educational and Political Theory and Practice”, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 41(6), p. 625. 55 Ibid. P. 630. 56 Gramsci, A. (1977) “The Programme of the Workshop Delegates”, Selections From Political Writings 1910-1920 (Ed. Hoare). University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis. P. 115.
35 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology conservatism amongst union leaders. However, it is important to differentiate between the federated leadership levels. The labour leaders that are incorporated into capitalist-state relations are unlikely to be shop-floor leaders and are more likely to be part of a centralized leadership at a higher level of the federal structure. As Robert Michels (1915) has theorized, it is these leaders who are likely to be farthest removed from the everyday lived experiences of the workers they represent.57 They may also be further removed from the pressures of militant union activists, who might be more likely to direct dissent towards their local leaders when the local leaders attempt to discipline them. Secondly, and as Hyman points out while discussing Trotsky, the ability of union leaders to maintain discipline amongst rank and file is also a question of the level of mobilization and engagement amongst the membership.
The supposed tendency towards integration and incorporation of unions and their leaders has and can lead to improved living standards for many workers, but only in a narrow economistic sense, and only if economic conditions allow for a sufficient portion of profits to be allocated to labour. One way to secure tangible and concrete economic gains may be through class compromise or aligning certain interests – such as providing industrial stability in return for increased wages and benefits. It was this option available to organized workers that Gramsci felt dampened union’s revolutionary potential. Specifically, the bureaucratic and legalistic structures that unions developed became centered around collective bargaining – a process which only allowed for intermittent and highly regulated forms of worker militancy. As a result, many union leaders, staff, and members come to see collective bargaining as a good in-and-of-itself, sometimes even when working conditions are deteriorating.
57 Michels, R. (1915). Political parties: A sociological study of the oligarchical tendencies of modern democracy. Hearst's International Library Company.
36 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology
Gramsci recognized unions as important sites for working-class cohesion and for being a
“school” of class conflict. However, he felt that the compromise of industrial legality should only be supported until the work involved in organizing the oppressed and exploited groups into a bloc capable of challenging the dominant system could shift balance of class forces in favour of the working class.58 While the wins garnered by unions may serve as educational experiences for workers and may create a sense of self-confidence, Gramsci also acknowledges that concessions won through co-operation and not struggle are often temporary concessions determined in the interests of the powerful.59 The types of concessions generated by struggle and conflict would require a continuously mobilized and militant working class; a goal which was at odds with the integrative and incorporative strategies intended to mitigate these types of conflicts by offering concessions through class-collaborative methods.
Sectionalism (or “corporatism” for Gramsci) is the final factor which Gramsci theorized would make unions incapable of being revolutionary forces. A large part of this corporatist framework is that workers are organized within unions according to their trade. More specifically, they are organized by trade for the protection and advancement of the economic interests of their members based on negotiations with employers. Organizing in this way may prevent workers from developing a class consciousness that is inclusive of the entire productive process. Unionized workers may see their interests related to a narrow identity as steelworkers, or autoworkers or healthcare workers, each of which come with unique challenges and potential solutions. In a more expansive case, shaping an identity around being a unionized worker itself is
58 Hyman, R. (1971) Marxism and the Sociology of Trade Unionism. 59 Coulthard, G. (2014) Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition. University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis. In this work Coulthard includes a fascinating discussion on the settler-colonial concessions that come under “the politics of recognition.” In similar fashion to the types of concessions that Gramsci discusses, Coulthard examines at length the importance of how concessions are won.
37 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology
representative of a restrictive membership and identity. The interests of non-unionized workers are often considered peripheral to the everyday functioning of trade unions and may cause some workers to “[reject] the main principle of trade unionism, which is organization of the masses in their entirely.”60 For Gramsci, it was not sufficient to organize workers only as wage earners, but also organize the “masses” (including the unemployed, the peasants, and certain segments of the petite-bourgeoise) in their multifaceted roles as producers, consumers and citizens.
According to Chris Harman (2007), Gramsci felt that the revolutionary movement in Italy had failed because it organized itself narrowly around sectionalist (corporatist) interests. The leading parties and working-class organizations had failed to draw in other oppressed and exploited groups.61 This sectionalist/factionalist/corporatist component, a highly salient feature of this research, can prevent unity and direction of interests and actions across any number of divisions. Therefore, corporatism represents a strategic outlook related to a narrow trade union consciousness. To the extent that corporatist leadership and corporatist strategies emerge as the dominant strategies, the potential of unions helping form a radical or revolutionary bloc is limited.
Outside of the failures of Red Turin, there is a more general problem associated with overcoming corporatism. One of the primary goals of political leadership – for Gramsci the revolutionary socialist party (i.e. The Modern Prince) – was overcoming the types of divisions incurred by corporatist praxis. Providing unity and direction to a disparate host of class interests through the construction of a “national popular will,” has again failed to emerge in Western
60 Gramsci, A. (1977) “The Programme of the Workshop Delegates”, Selections From Political Writings 1910-1920 (Ed. Hoare). University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis. p. 112 61 Harman, C. (2007) “Gramsci, the Prison Notebooks and philosophy”, International Socialism. 114. Retrieved from: https://www.marxists.org/archive/harman/2007/xx/prisnbooks.htm.
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liberal democracies outside of the economistic social democratic parties.62 It is therefore necessary for corporatist tendencies to be overcome by building a counter-hegemonic bloc capable of challenging the dominant system. It is to these concepts are methods that we now turn.
Gramsci – Analytical Concepts
Hegemony and Force: Consent and Coercion
The most often cited concept Antonio Gramsci is that of hegemony. Hegemony was a concept borrowed from Lenin and developed by Gramsci to explain how the dominant classes maintain their position of power through a delicate (and never-ending) establishment of consent, and with the backing of coercive capacities. The vehicle through which this domination is maintained is the state, which alone can claim a monopoly on legitimate violence in the modern era and is simultaneously the primary regulator of civil society. To rule through either coercion or consent exclusively, or to let one predominate over the other in an unbalanced way presents the dominant classes – and therefore the existing social order – with a crisis of authority. When the consent of subalterns is withdrawn, and if there is an emergence of protests, strikes, occupations, or other forms of direct action, the social order is reinforced “legally” through parliamentary orders, the judicial system, and the police or military. However, too much open force may further erode consent and encourage more widespread disruption. Therefore an “equilibrium” must be struck between the two methods of hegemony (consent) and force (coercion).
Specifically, hegemony refers to the consensual element of social domination, in which specific ideologies, value systems, and established norms are used to justify the current social
62 “Social-democratic” used here in the modern sense as opposed to the Leninist social-democratic party which was synonymous with the revolutionary socialist party.
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order. For this to be accomplished, the dominant classes must successfully present their interests
(and corresponding value systems) as universally beneficial to all social classes and not overly beneficial for the dominant bloc. It is not simply that the subaltern populations are “duped” into accepting their domination. Instead, “active consent” is generated through the granting of concessions – limited (though potentially valuable) political, economic, and cultural rights – and integration into a social system which supposedly works for all classes.
The ideologies of the dominant classes are proliferated and reinforced through the education system, mass media, religious institutions, and other institutions of “civil society.”63 In economistic ideology, we can think about the lauded values of individualism, competitiveness, growth, “flexibility,” and efficiency which promote the values of neoliberal capitalism at a structural level, and “personal achievement” at an individual level. It is not that values such as solidarity, co-operation, stewardship, and altruism are not promoted, or absent from modern value systems, but rather that they should only be pursued so long as they do not interfere with the functioning of the first (i.e. the dominant) set of values. The internalization of these values promotes a type of “common sense,” not to mean that they are rationally deduced, but meaning
“the uncritical and largely unconscious way of perceiving and understanding the world” that becomes “common” amongst the populace.64 In other words, the ways of thinking that benefit the dominant classes become the dominant way of thinking. It is important to note that Gramsci did not view hegemony as stagnant, all-consuming or a solely ideological force. Rather it is a fragmented, contested, and at times contradictory process with material relations. The hegemonic
63 Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s discussion of the propaganda model in the mass media demonstrates one of the modern mechanisms of manufacturing consent to the hegemonic order (See: Herman and Chomsky (1988) Manufacturing Consent). 64 Hoare and Smith. (1971) SPN, p. 322.
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Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology process must constantly be updated and reshaped to remain relevant. The hegemony of the historical bloc is made to endure by offering mechanisms through which the dominant order can be challenged, amended, and if necessary, transformed without disrupting the established relationships of power.65 Furthermore, although Gramsci largely theorized on the hegemony of the capitalist economic system, the concept can (and should) be expanded to include other forms in domination including gendered and racial considerations. In its totality hegemony is a method of domination that crates a loose and unstable consensus around the existing social order.
William Carroll (2010) has proposed taking an intersectional approach to “counter- hegemonic unity-in-diversity.”66 Any contemporary analysis of the modern working class must keep an eye to the ways in which racial and gendered forms of power (as well as sexuality, migratory status, ability or disability) intersect with class power. The fact that union membership looks so radically different than it would of in Gramsci’s Italy signals the need for unions themselves to be aware of these other relations of power and the ways they intersect.
Contemporary unions must develop corresponding strategies to address and dismantle multiple axes of oppression that influence multiple identities, and work towards replacing them with more equitable and just relations. While this work predominantly focuses on policy and responses of an economic nature, considerations of race and gender are incorporated where relevant.
One of Gramsci’s primary concerns was how Left parties, unions and factory councils would organize the working class against a state apparatus that sought to rule through consent
(that is, hegemonically). The concept of transformism (transformismo) is introduced by Gramsci in The Prison Notebooks to describe a method of governance pursued by successive Italian
65 Thomas, P. (2009). The Gramscian Moment. Haymarket Books: Chicago, Illinois. p.100. 66 Carroll, W. K. (2010). Crisis, movements, counter-hegemony: In search of the new. Interface, 2(2), 168-198.
41 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology
governments from 1848 to the early 20th century that represented a flexible, centrist governance style that isolated the extreme positions on both the left and the right. McKay (2010) has argued that this process involves “piecemeal absorption of only some [subaltern] demands,” and “the careful inclusion of some pivotal leaders whose absorption into liberal order deprives potential subaltern democratic movements of their own organic intellectuals.”67 By subduing, transforming and incorporating select interests of subaltern movements, the dominant classes are therefore able to prevent the formation of a revolutionary working-class movement. This programme of “accommodation and containment” was a form of what Gramsci would term the passive revolution. The work necessary to overcome the governance structures of transformism and hegemonic rule pose a different set of challenges to governance through force. While
Gramsci is certainly most linked to the concept of hegemony and methods of social domination, he was also a revolutionary strategist. This strategy has been termed counter-hegemony, a concept to which we now turn.
Counter-Hegemony – the War of Position and War of Maneuver
Gramsci’s theory is one of resistance in its prescriptions for replacing the hegemony of the dominant classes with that of the subaltern classes. According to Gramsci, to create a transition of power from the dominant classes to the subaltern classes requires a two-pronged strategy.
Which prong prevails on the part of the subalterns requires an assessment of the strategies used by the dominant classes. Gramsci, contemplating the failures of several uprisings in Western
Europe between 1917 and 1921, noted that only the Russian Revolution had succeeded. Gramsci theorized that a revolution like Russia’s could not take place in the “mature democracies” because Western societies had “generated a complex array of political groups and institutions
67 McKay, I. G. (2010). The Canadian passive revolution, 1840-1950. Capital & Class, 34(3), p. 368.
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Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology which would have to be disentangled from their relationship with bourgeoise culture before any revolution could succeed.”68 In other words, the Western democracies had established bourgeoise hegemony in civil society (including the social-democratic political parties and the trade unions), and for subaltern classes to become dominant they had to contend with this ideological and cultural domination.
It is from this point that Gramsci distinguishes between two strategic elements for establishing “counter-hegemonic” supremacy. The terms and analogies he uses are reflective of the post-WWI timing of his writing – the war of position and the war of maneuver/movement.
The war of position (hereafter WoP) is the appropriate starting point for subalterns in mature democracies as its primary objective is reformulating hegemony through education, agitation, organization and gathering influence. It is the process of dismantling consent for the current social order, and re-organizing consent around alternative value-systems, ideologies, and social relations. Its primary conceptual “site” is in civil society though in reality it of course extends to political society. To put it succinctly, the WoP aims to unify dissent and recreate consent around a new historical bloc (the counter-hegemonic bloc) which Stephen Gill neatly summarizes as “an alliance of different class forces politically organized around a set of [ideas] that [give] strategic direction and coherence to its constituent elements.”69
Stuart Hall (1986), has pointed out how the emergence or creation of a new historical bloc (or, indeed any social struggle) cannot be taken as a given, but that it must be actively and politically constructed.70 Gramsci’s reflections on “the Southern Question” provide insights into
68 Jones (2006). Antonio Gramsci. Routledge: New York, NY. p. 30. 69 Gill, Stephen (2008). Power and Resistance in the New World Order, Palgrave, Macmillan. p. 58. 70 Hall, S. (1986). Gramsci's Relevance for the Study of Race and Ethnicity. Journal of communication inquiry, 10(2), 5-27.
43 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology the difficulties of foraldZming an historical bloc as economic, cultural, and ideological dividing lines are established and reinforced between different segments of the non-dominant classes. In
Gramsci’s case, the great dividing line was between the Northern-Italian industrialized working class and the Southern agrarian peasantry, complete with complex relations between “city and countryside, peasantry and proletariat, clientism and modernism, feudalized and industrial social structures.”71 In the modern context, these complex relations have become further complicated as a “multiplicity of identities, communities, and contexts” have often hindered an intersectional building of “counter hegemonic unity-in-diversity” and the establishment a new historical bloc.72
For Gramsci, the WoP is undertaken to overcome many of these divisions. It allows the subaltern classes to advance their interests culturally and organizationally by, on the one hand, demonstrating how the existing social order is tilted in favour of the dominant classes, and by mobilizing ideological and organizational support amongst subalterns for an alternative worldview. As a goal, the WoP aims to bring together previously fragmented parts of the social base into a highly organized and disciplined bloc capable of shifting power dynamics and challenging the established order. In some ways, this concept is similar to the anarchist concept of dual power, which seeks to simultaneously organize resistance against all forms of oppression and to build co-operative alternatives in the available spaces. The difference again comes in which vehicle these forms of resistance and alternatives are built around. For many anarchists, it is the federated and freely associated organization of the working-class itself, free of unjustifiable and coercive hierarchies (including that of party “discipline”). For Gramsci, it is the historical bloc, which is in part led by a radical political party (“the Modern Prince”) that reflects
71 Ibid. p. 9. 72 Carroll, W. K. (2010). Crisis, movements, counter-hegemony: In search of the new. Interface, 2(2), p. 183.
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and is organically connected to the “collective will” of its social base. Once a consolidated counter-hegemonic bloc has been organized, there is an opportunity to shift the predominant strategy towards a war of manoeuvre.
The war of manoeuvre (hereafter WoM) is a revolutionary offensive in which force is the primary tactical method. Specifically, it is direct and open class conflict, and in Gramsci’s conception, is directed primarily against the state. Gramsci describes the difference between the
WoP and the WoM in mature democracies as analogous to trench warfare. While economic crises and depressions may destroy some of the outer fortifications (trenches) protecting the legitimacy of the dominant classes and the state, the leading ideologies, values, and norms insulate against popular uprisings and the loss of state power. If coercion becomes necessary on the part of the state, it is used. Unless the subaltern classes are sufficiently organized into an effective counter-hegemonic bloc, the dominant classes will simply adapt to the crisis, perhaps offer concessions to those who need appeasing, and regain their hegemonic position. As Gramsci summarizes:
“A crisis cannot give the attacking forces the ability to organize with lightning
speed in time and in space; still less can it endow them with fighting spirit.
Similarly, the defenders are not demoralized, nor do they abandon their
positions, even among the ruins, nor do they lose faith in their own strength, or
their own future.”73
However, if the WoP has been successfully waged by the subaltern classes, the inner trenches are not as effective in that those occupying the defensive positions may be demoralized, may have
73 Gramsci. SPN p. 235.
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Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology abandoned their position or duties, or they may come to see the subaltern’s articulated worldview as the one that should lead society. The WoP is the artillery which batters down the trenches protecting the primary objective – in Gramsci’s case the state. Most people in mature democracies will not agree to overthrow the capitalist state if you ask them on a street corner.
The thought and the actions necessary go against the grain of common sense. But, if a popular movement is built up “organically,” using organizational, educational, and propagandist tactics it may eventually gain enough legitimacy and constituents to challenge the existing hegemonic order.
At the point where the counter-hegemonic group can actively challenge for supremacy in a social system, it can switch from a WoP to a WoM. That is, it can switch from the predominant tactics of class organization and battles for influence, to tactics of an open revolutionary nature that aim to secure decisive strategic victories for the subaltern classes. According to Gramsci, only when the trenches of civil society in mature democracies have been sufficiently dismantled, and a popular will for radical change exists can state power be captured and effectively transformed.
It is important to consider however, that these two strategies do not unfold in an entirely linear fashion. It is not that the WoP is used as the sole tactic for x amount of time until a transition to the WoM is possible. Again, Gramsci’s thinking it dialectical, where one tactic predominates according to the balance of class forces in a given context. In some cases, the context already exists where the appropriate strategy begins with the WoM, such as the Cuban
Revolution. In other contexts, a seemingly small policy or piece of legislation may be “the straw the breaks the camels back,” and lead to widespread civil unrest. The focus is on whether the
WoP or WoM leads in the struggle to establish the dominance of new class forces. For example,
46 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology
Gramsci lists the strike as a tactic of the WoM in that it is open and direct class conflict.74 But many strikes are accompanied by a WoP, which builds the organizational capacities, solidarity and effectiveness of the strike both before and during direct action. Failure to prepare with a
WoP makes the likelihood of failure much higher. As Peter Thomas explains, these two tactics are “governed neither by a logic of ‘Either/Or’, nor by a temporal distance, but by their dialectical inclusion and implication.”75 So, to undertake an effective study of strategies of resistance from a Gramscian perspective, the WoP and WoM must both be considered as two sides of the same coin, separated only for conceptual clarity.
Adapting Gramsci
While Gramsci’s theories go far beyond the tensions and battles of hegemony and force, these are the main concepts that will be of concern in this work. However, to fit with the goals of this project they will need to be modified and made less ambitious in their scope. Specifically, the
WoP and WoM are adapted here to be seen not as revolutionary strategies to overthrow capitalism, but rather as strategic instruments in resisting and opposing neoliberal capitalism. It may be more appropriate to categorize them here as strategic instruments for radical, rather then revolutionary change. By war of position (WoP) Gramsci’s terminology has been co-opted here to mean organizing and mobilizing (in the broadest sense) class forces towards or into a counter- hegemonic bloc against neoliberalism, or against specific components of the neoliberal agenda.
The purpose of a war of position (WoP) from the point of a subaltern is to tilt the balance of forces in favour of a counter-hegemonic group so that if or when direct conflict with an adversary emerges, the result of the conflict leads to a lasting subaltern victory. To that end,
74 Gramsci. SPN p. 229. 75 Thomas, P. (2009). The Gramscian Moment. Haymarket Books: Chicago, Illinois. p. 166.
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WoP is taken in this work to revolve largely around organizing within unions to build a strong union with capacity for effective direct action (internal organizing), building solidarity and alliances through both parliamentary an extra-parliamentary means (external organizing), and contesting and replacing the dominant ideology with a new “common sense” (contesting ideology). The introduction before Chapter 4 further lays out the technical and methodological components of a WoP that will allow it to be used as a comparative analytical concept.
A key component in most unions’s WoP is the inclusion of strategies for the building and consolidating of solidarity. It is both a process and an outcome of strategic choices. The building of solidarity within the labour movement is usually based around the concept of the working class as an identity as well as the embodiment of a distinct set of interests. How these identities and interests are framed, and how they are expressed in action is a variable and contested process. Often, the atomizing tendencies of modern society undermine solidaristic principles and practices. The logic and practice of neoliberalism is hostile to any form of collective solidarity that put restraints on capital accumulation – putting unions in direct conflict with capital and the neoliberal regulatory regime.76 How unions and the labour movement contends with these hostilities is therefore an important consideration in an analysis of both the WoP, and the probabilities of success for the WoM.
In this paper I use the term war of manoeuvre/movement (WoM) to mean repertoires of contention that bring about direct conflict with the state and/or capital. For unions, these methods include strikes of varying kinds, boycotts, disruptive and non-routine protests, occupations, and
76 Harvey, D. (2007). “A Brief History of Neoliberalism”, Oxford University Press: Oxford. p. 75.
48 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology other contentious tactics that pit labour against capital or the neoliberal state at the federal, provincial, or municipal level.
While incursions into a WoM are an indispensable part of union collective action, the focus of this work is predominantly on union wars of position. As union militancy continues its downward trend across many of the advanced capitalist nations, it is important to step back and examine the work (WoP) that theoretically precedes and is inextricably linked to that militancy.
This is partially why the years preceding and following a deep economic crisis (the GFC) have been selected as a timeframe worth examining. The events surrounding the GFC led to a widespread breakdown in the legitimacy of (certain tenets) of neoliberal capitalism and led to an uneven emergence, and in some cases resurgence, of union militancy.77 In order to understand this “uneven emergence” using the cases studied here, it is equally important to analyze the predominant strategic interventions made on the part of both the state and two leading union organizations using a combination of Gramscian and social movements theory.
Gramsci and Social Movements Theory
While this work operates using a Gramscian framework as its theoretical lens, it also draws where necessary on social movements theory to augment and supplement analysis. This raises the question of what a Gramscian perspective can offer social movements theory? Specifically, how does the inclusion of Gramscian concepts improve the analytical capacity of social movements theory? The case made here is that a Gramscian approach includes all the necessary social movement components (resource mobilization, framing, political opportunity and
77 Della Porta, D., & Portos, M. (2020). Social movements in times of inequalities: Struggling against austerity in Europe. Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, 53, 116-126.
49 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology repertoires of contention) as well as the requisite concepts to understand how these components operate in reference to the state, politics, and the wider constellation of social forces.
In addition to being able to meld disparate but related concepts in social movement theory, a Gramscian approach is appropriate for analysis that is decidedly radical in its prescriptions. Much of social movements theory is directed towards organized groups garnering concessions from the state (or capital) or changing consciousness around certain issues and projecting them into the arena of “politics.” What if a group views concessions as temporary incorporation of subaltern demands to maintain the existing social order? What if the goal is not to challenge the dominant agenda, but replace it? These are radical goals, not reformist ones. It aims, not for spaces of incorporation and integration into systems that it believes to be fundamentally oppressive and alienating, but rather for the undermining and ultimate replacement of those systems with anti-oppressive alternatives. “Resistance,” while indispensable, is not sufficient. Inclusion, while crucial, is not adequate. The left must also create realistic and effective alternatives that show “another world is possible.”78 In this way, a
Gramscian approach has an emancipatory rather than inclusive vision of politics. Relatedly,
Gramsci was writing and theorizing in a period that has very important parallels to the current conjecture and circumstances for the left – the retreat and retrenchment of the working-class movement, the ascendency of fascism, and the transition to a new regime of accumulation.79
Secondly, a Gramscian approach takes an integral (expansive) view of the state by centering its role in promoting the reproduction of capitalism by securing the conditions for 1) the valorisation of capital (i.e. Fordism vs post-Fordism); 2) the reproduction of labour-power
78 See: Carroll, W. K. (2006). Hegemony, counter-hegemony, anti-hegemony. Socialist Studies/Études Socialistes. 79 Hall, S. (1996). The meaning of new times. Stuart Hall: Critical dialogues in cultural studies, 222, 236.
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(i.e. Keynesian welfare vs Schumpeterian workfare); and by 3) managing an unstable equilibrium of compromise.80 While the first two are undoubtedly important in this work, it is the third role that is of paramount importance to social movements by offering a theoretical model that allows for an examination of “the modalities of political power (hegemony, coercion, domination, leadership) which enable a historically specific power bloc to project power beyond the boundaries of the state and secure the conditions for political class domination.”81 That is, an integral state reaches into, regulates, and attempts to govern civil society in ways that maintain the “unstable equilibrium.” A precursory look at the expansion of government ministries, departments, and agencies in advanced capitalist societies demonstrates just how far this expansion has developed. By studying unions as the main organizational actors, this analysis can provide a linkage between the state’s efforts to secure the three abovementioned conditions, and subaltern efforts to resist the corresponding impositions. However, before making this case, it is necessary to explore further some of the social movements concepts that will be integrated into the Gramscian framework.
Components of Social Movements Theory
The four key concepts of social movement studies that are often cited are mobilizing structures, political opportunities, collective action frames, and repertoires of contention.82 While a full exploration of these concepts is not possible here, an overview of their main components, as well as how they shall be integrated, is warranted.
80 Jessop, B. (1992). “Regulation and Politics: The Integral Economy and the Integral State”, In A. Demirović, H. Krebs, T. Sablowski, eds, Hegemonie und Staat, Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot Verlag. Retrieved from: https://bobjessop.wordpress.com/2013/11/13/regulation-and-politics-the-integral-economy-and-the-integral- state/#_ednref17. 81 Ibid. 82 McAdam, Doug, et al. (2001) Dynamics of Contention, Cambridge University Press. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/mcmu/detail.action?docID=202055. p. 14-15.
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First, mobilizing structures are the instruments and processes through which resources are accumulated, controlled and deployed for the purposes of achieving a social movement’s goals.83
In both the labour movement, and resource mobilization theory more broadly, mobilization occurs both internally and externally. Internally, unions and/or social movement organizations
(SMOs) interested in “sustained political action” must be able to call upon their members in a coordinated, efficient, and effective manner, and their membership must be willing to offer their participation in collective action. Externally, unions (or SMOs) must also mobilize non-union members of the working- and middle-classes in their roles as consumers, voters, community members and in all the other multifaceted roles that people play in their daily lives. Additionally, unions must also mobilize resources to create lasting and effective coalitions and partnerships to increase collective power beyond the workplace. This includes not only other unions, but also political parties and other organizations with aligned interests.
Resource mobilization within unions, is often concerned how internal resources are accumulated and deployed to produce and develop dedicated trade unionists and the facilitation and building of alliances and coalitions that can successfully be used to exert leverage. These two forms of resource mobilization –organization and coordination – are important analytical concepts that can be used to distinguish between different strategic orientations, though they are rarely divided in this way in the literature. Despite these similarities, resource mobilization on its own does not capture the complexities of a WoP due to the fact that it cannot adequately theorize the symbolic and ideological work that is embedded (not separate) from that of internal and
83 Tilly, Charles. (1978). From Mobilization to Revolution. Reading Mass.: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co.
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external organizing. To address this shortcoming, social movements literature has turned to framing theory.
To understand the dynamics of symbolic and ideological contestation social movements theory relies on the concepts of collective action frames and framing strategies. The concept of framing is concerned with the contested process over the construction and maintenance of mobilizing and countermobilizing ideas and meanings.84 This element of social movements can be most directly linked to the WoP. In offering critiques of the existing social order (prognostic framing), presenting alternatives (diagnostic) and mobilizing ideological and organizational support (motivational), framing processes are closely aligned with the ideological work of the
WoP. Framing strategies are the built-in ideological components that aim to mobilize constituents, convert segments of “the passive mass” (bystanders) into supportive participants or neutralize and “demobilize” antagonistic forces.85
Smucker (2017) uses Gramsci’s concept of articulation to refer to the “two interlocking components” of the “symbolic contest” and the “institutional contest” which must be successfully welded together in order for any aspiring-hegemonic class to tilt the balance of power in their favour.86 Winning on the organizational-institutional level alone is necessary but not sufficient. The same holds true for the ideological-symbolic level. Articulation is therefore understood as symbolic challenges which also address institutional challenges.87 When these articulations are strung together into a coherent and coordinated set of strategic interventions that
84 See: Benford and Snow 200; Cress and Snow 2000; McCright and Dunlap 2003; McVeigh et al. 2004; Snow et al. 2014. 85 Benford, R. D., & Snow, D. A. (2000). Framing processes and social movements: An overview and assessment. Annual review of sociology, 26(1), 611-639. 86 Smucker, J. (2017). Hegemony How-To: A Roadmap for Radicals. AK Press. 87 See: Knight, G. (1998). “Hegemony, the press and business discourse: News coverage of strike-breaker reform in Quebec and Ontario”, Studies in Political Economy, 55(1), 93-125.
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Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology aim to challenge the dominant bloc, it can then be called a war of position. In this work, the strategic interventions undertaken by the unions will be defined regarding internal organizing and external organizing at the organizational-institutional level and contesting ideology at the ideological-symbolic level.
Of course, these strategic interventions do not occur in a vacuum. Under social movements theory, political opportunities relate to a movement’s political, economic, cultural, and social context, and how that shifting context can create “windows” for successful action.
This concept is primarily concerned with i) dynamic relations of power between actors and between institutions; ii) repression, toleration and facilitation, and iii) social changes that present opportunities to advance a group’s interests versus social changes that threaten a group’s interests.88
Political opportunities relate to Gramsci’s concept of hegemony as an ongoing effort on the part of the dominant bloc to establish an “unstable equilibrium” in which the consensual element of governing predominates over the coercive aspect. Additionally, Gramsci recognized that the state could often be adapted to accommodate and contain radical demands from subaltern groups. However, Gramsci also understood that the capitalist economy and the state that managed its affairs would also tend towards periodic crisis. Major political or economic events change relations between subaltern actors and authorities and can therefore create opportunities or threats for the interests of each group based largely on the balance of coercion and consent pursued by the dominant bloc. For example, the political party in power, periods of economic expansion or recession, or outbreaks of spontaneous and radical direct action (such as riots) are
88 Tilly, Charles. (1978). From Mobilization to Revolution. Reading Mass.: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co.
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likely to have an impact on the strategies and tactics of the state, capital and labour. Furthermore, the specific ways in which a state, or actors in positions of power interact with contending groups has implications for the types of strategies developed. Those in positions of power may engage in various levels of repression, toleration, facilitation, or co-optation. These strategies all present different political opportunity windows for subaltern actors.
Finally, the concept of repertoires of contention examines the changing use of disruptive, nonroutine tactics that aim to challenge the existing relations of power.89 Although a precise definition of what is included under a banner of contentious tactics is itself a point of contention, contentious tactics do not necessarily entail violence (although they certainly can), but instead are aimed at being disruptive to society’s status quo. This analysis will make a distinction between parliamentary and extra-parliamentary tactics, generally considering only extra- parliamentary tactics to be contentious.90 Therefore, this research examines not only contentious tactics, but also non-contentious tactics. These can be combined under the banner tactical repertoires. While parliamentary tactics cannot usually be said to be disruptive, nonroutine and contentious, they nonetheless are a key component of unions’ and the labour movements’ tactical repertoires. Specifically, parliamentary tactics include electoral and legislative advocacy, lobbying, rallies, and demonstrations to name the most prominent examples. Extra-parliamentary tactics will include acts of civil disobedience and economic disruption including strikes, riots, occupations, blockades, and civil disobedience.
89 Andrews, Kenneth T. (2001). “Social Movements and Policy Implementation: The Mississippi Civil Rights Movement and the War on Poverty, 1965 to 1971.” American Sociological Review 66(1):71–95. 90 Nesbitt, D. (2018). Days of Action: Ontario's extra-parliamentary opposition to the Common Sense Revolution, 1995-1998. PhD Dissertation: Queen’s University Graduate Program in History.
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The use of contentious (non-parliamentary) tactics is most closely related to the WoM in that it explores the precise forms of open and direct conflict with the state or capital. It is important to remember that while the WoP and WoM are separated for analytical purposes, in reality they operate together. For example, when a contentious tactic like a strike is used, the
WoP does not simply cease, but rather, organization, lobbying, and framing oppositional positions become tactics used in the service of the strike, rather than in preparation for it.
Conclusion
The reclaiming of Gramsci as a theorist of radical social change, rather than just a theorist of social control, allows for his analytical concept of the war of position to be systematically applied here. Central to the questions of radical social change posed by Gramsci and by both preceding and succeeding theorists of left strategy has been the role of unions. Various Marxist theorists, predominantly those who place the radical party at the center of left strategy, have been skeptical of unions’ ability to generate “more than their nature would allow.”91 This chapter has aimed to theorize on what exactly that nature is, how it fits into a wider conversation of hegemony and counter-hegemony, and how it can be adapted to the current conjuncture to analyze the existing social order.
On the nature of trade unionism, this chapter discussed important concepts such as unions as class organizations, sectionalism, integration and incorporation, and relationships with parties.
As many theorists have noted, unions are class organizations but of a specific and historically defined form. They have developed, in many ways, as exclusionary class organizations by virtue of organizing along sectoral, occupational, or some otherwise delineated lines. In this way, they
91 Gramsci, A. (1977) “Syndicalism and the Councils”, Selections From Political Writings 1910-1920 (Ed. Hoare). University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis. P. 111.
56 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology are sectional in that they do not predominantly aim to organize the entirely of the working class, but only sections of it. In turn, unions, and those who staff positions of authority within them, are responsible for representing the interests of their “dues-paying” members as their primary focus.
Related to these discussions is the wider conversation of union’s ability to pose a threat to the established order. For the purposes of this work, this “established order” has been narrowed to neoliberal capitalism, to assess whether certain unions were able to contest this even less ambitious hurdle. If order for this to be the case, unions would have to reject adapting to the new terrain through integration and incorporation, and instead demonstrate a tendency of organizing around radical alternatives. In other words, they would seek emancipation from the existing order, not favourable inclusion into the dominant system. The ability of unions, or indeed the labour movement as it is currently constituted across the advanced capitalist nations, to act as a counter-hegemonic force to capitalism is an empirical and still-open question. While unions with an anarcho-syndicalist orientation have continually contested neoliberalism and capitalism, and created importance spaces of resistance, they have thus far been unable to undermine the hegemony of neoliberal capitalism at a systemic level, either nationally or internationally.92
While the unions studied here have not undermined neoliberal hegemony enough to displace its dominance, it is still important to understand how they have challenged and attempted to undermine its agenda. Therefore, it is necessary to study both the structure of hegemony and the efforts to contest this dominance. Understanding hegemony in all its complexity is well beyond the scope of this work. To discuss how all the institutions of political
92 These organizations would include the International Workers of the World (IWW); Federación Obrera Regional Argentina (FORA); Confederación Nacional del Trbajo (CNT); FreieArbeiterinnen-und Arbeiter Union (FAU); Inicjatywa Pracownicza (IP); Unione Sidicale Italiana (USI); and the Liberatian Sydicalist Union of Athens (ESE).
57 Ph.D. Thesis – James Watson; McMaster University – Department of Sociology and civil society combine in a certain conjuncture to help the dominant bloc rule consensually is a massive undertaking that would have to be dealt with elsewhere. However, what can be examined is how a governing party aimed to advance neoliberalism by creating a new “common sense” through ideology and the mobilization of state resources as well as how the regime was used to accommodate and incorporate certain subaltern demands (“transformism”).
Once this is established, it is possible to draw on the Gramscian notions of a WoP
(against a certain manifestation of neoliberalism) and social movements theory to assess the extent to which two leading unions can be said to have acted counter-hegemonically. To accomplish this, notions of internal union organizing, external union organization, and ideological contestation are aided by concepts such as resource mobilization, political opportunity structures, framing, and repertoires of contention. Again, to capture every instance of internal organizing, or every frame would be beyond the scope of work. Rather, the goal is to capture the predominant (that is leading) strategic and tactical interventions and coalesce them into what will be termed a war of position. From there, it can be assessed the degree to which the unions acted counter-hegemonically, why or why not this was the case, and what changes would be necessary for unions to deliver more than their nature would allow.
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Part I: Third Way Neoliberalism in Ontario
The Liberal reign in Ontario between 2003-2018 represents a unique period in the province’s neoliberal project. During their fifteen years in power, the Ontario Liberals were only one seat shy of securing four consecutive majority governments. While the beginnings of neoliberalism in
Ontario are debated as to when and which party, there can be little doubt that the Liberals were most successful in maintaining their position of power. The 1987 Peterson Liberals lasted one term. The 1990 Rae NDP lasted one term. The back-to-back neoliberal Harris Conservative governments became deeply unpopular and lost 35 seats in the 2003 election, after only two terms. In the broader historical context, the only times the Liberals secured more than one term in the 20th century was in 1934 and again in 1937. Secondly, their fifteen uninterrupted years in government represented the third longest spell in Ontario’s post-colonial history behind the 44 years of Conservative rule between 1943-87 and the 31 years of Liberal rule from 1871-1902.
While recognizing that governments and the state institutions in which they are embedded are complex, sometimes contradictory institutions, it is also important to recognize and dissect the predominant, that is, the leading components of a certain governing regime. To do so, it will be necessary to examine the Liberals’ adoption and use of “Third Way” policy and rhetoric for its political, economic, and cultural components.
This research focuses on an especially important period during the Liberal’s fifteen years in power, covering the first ten years (2003-2013) under Premier Dalton McGuinty. This period of the Liberal period is critical for understanding union strategies of resistance for three reasons.
The first, is its unordinary length despite overseeing multiple political-economic crises. The
McGuinty Liberals were able to win elections in 2003, 2007 and 2011 all while managing a large-scale manufacturing crisis, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression (2007-08),
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and a turn to austerity and repressive labour legislation. The McGuinty Liberals, despite turning towards more orthodox neoliberal methods in the post-crisis period and though losing 17 seats to rival parties in 2011, were still able to win the popular vote and the election. The dividing line – between pre- and post-GFC – is especially important as it 1) represents a shift from Third Way to more orthodox neoliberal policy and rhetoric, and 2) represents an almost global, albeit brief, breakdown of neoliberalism at a material and ideological level. How the Liberals responded to this crisis will be discussed accordingly.
Second, this period was one of neoliberal consolidation where the practices and ideologies of neoliberal governance were deeply entrenched within the state and common understandings of political economy. Following the electoral capitulation of the Common Sense
Revolution (CSR) under the Harris-Eves Conservatives, the opportunity to contest the neoliberal agenda was opened for the incumbent Ontario Liberals. Instead of turning from many of the tenets of the CSR, the McGuinty Liberals embraced them, though in a way that spun and remolded them into a Third Way variety. This consolidation of neoliberal practices was then repeated in the aftermath of the GFC until, in 2011, leading scholars Bryan Evans and Carlo
Fanelli claimed that the Liberals had “come full circle back to the Common Sense Revolution.”93
Finally, the McGuinty Liberals were the most successful party of the neoliberal period in integrating and incorporating large parts of the labour movement into their project. The Liberals were able to create and expand an unstable alliance with several large unions and local labour councils in the Working Families Coalition (WFC) through offering strategic concessions and presenting themselves as the sole pragmatic choice. As Walchuk (2010) has noted, the WFC
93 Evans, B. and Fanelli, C. (2018). Ontario in an Age of Austerity: Common Sense Reloaded In Evans, B. and Fanelli C. (Eds.). The Public Sector in an Age of Austerity: Perspectives from Canada’s Provinces and Territories. p. 145.
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engaged in a nuanced and negotiated alliance with the McGuinty Liberals not only as part of a
“pragmatic and defensive stand against the very worst excesses of neoliberalism,” but also as a
“functional quid pro quo relationship.”94 This is turn led to a highly divided labour movement despite the forward march of neoliberal policy in the province.95 For this reason alone this period is worth studying as lessons can be drawn about how a state apparatus and a governing party aiming to advance a neoliberal agenda can still govern with the consent of organized labour.
Chapter 3 aligns theoretically with what Bob Jessop has termed cultural political economy (CPE), which acknowledges both material and discursive components in political economic analysis. While political economists often make highly detailed arguments regarding the complex social realities of the political and economic spheres, there is sometimes a tendency to slip into solely structural explanations. While the focus of this chapter – as well as Chapters 4 and 5 – remains on the “economic nucleus” of the McGuinty Liberals’ policy, the analysis will also incorporate discursive criteria that surrounds this “nucleus.” While taking a deep dive into the culture of Ontario over the Liberal period is beyond the scope of this chapter, it does aim to assess the ways in which the Liberals aimed to establish and a new common-sense about their variety of neoliberal policies. To do so, this Chapter 3 discusses how the Liberals crafted strategic discourse around their economic policy that would, for example, stir or quell anxieties, identify and name threats, ease social tensions, and would attempt to provide certain answers in
“uncertain times.”
94 Walchuk, B. (2010). Changing union-party relations in Canada: The rise of the Working Families Coalition. Labor Studies Journal, 35(1), 27-50. 95 Savage, L., & Ruhloff-Queiruga, N. (2017). Organized Labour, Campaign Finance, and the Politics of Strategic Voting in Ontario. Labour/Le Travail, 258.
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It is therefore necessary to determine how the Liberals aimed to manufacture consent, or a new “common sense” through ideology and the mobilization of state resources as well as how the regime was able to accommodate and incorporate certain subaltern demands. While a passive revolution cannot exist entirely independently of coercion, the focus here is to explore the
“practical and theoretical activities with which the ruling class not only justifies and maintains its domination but is also able to obtain the active consent of those over whom it rules.”96
96 Gramsci. SPN p. 244.
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Chapter 3: The McGuinty Liberals and Third Way Neoliberalism
As an overarching political project, the Liberals aimed to create a common sense understanding of the “naturalness” and “inevitability” of neoliberalism through manufacturing consent for their economic policy pillars of austerity and competitiveness. While these were also the primary policy pillars of the Harris/Eves Common Sense Revolution, they differed in important ways, both in policy and rhetoric, especially in the pre-crisis period. Specifically, the Liberal’s electoral hegemony involved the changing rhetoric and policy used to create a new common sense about how their neoliberal versions of austerity and competitiveness were: i) a “natural” course of action; ii) universally beneficial; and iii) the only viable option. The modes of thinking were aided by the generality, simplicity, and flexibility of their framings. The narratives offed ready- made ways of thinking about the world that build on neoliberal hegemony. While there is an overall consistency to the McGuinty Liberal regime, it can also be subdivided into a pre- and post-crisis period with distinct features.97 The pre-crisis period occurred between 2003 and 2008 and covers the first Liberal term plus one year after their second term begins. The post-crisis period emerges in the context of the global financial crisis which saw the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression (2008-2013).98
Austerity
The Liberal’s austerity agenda was characterized by fiscal consolidation, public sector restructuring, and the expansion of privatization schemes. The consistent themes that have been found regarding the Liberal’s attempts to “naturalize” this austerity agenda relate to: i)
97 See: McBride, S., & Whiteside, H. (2011). Austerity for whom?. Socialist Studies/Études Socialistes, 7(1/2) pp. 48- 50. This article provides a relevant discussion of the usefulness of “thinking in terms of phases.” 98 While it could be argued that there existed a third “phase,” that came with the leadership change and the Premiership of Kathleen Wynne (2013-2018), this period is beyond the scope of this chapter and work.
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presenting Liberal austerity as one which would enhance competitiveness (a natural course of action), ii) portraying austerity as a neutral policy agenda that will benefit all current and future
Ontarians (universally beneficial), and iii) presenting a “crisis” in public finances as an expenditure rather than a taxation issue (the only viable option).
Pre-crisis Phase: 2003-2008
The pre-crisis period began with the Third Way McGuinty Liberals displacing the Harris-Eves
Conservatives and ended around the time of the global financial crisis (GFC) in 2007-08. The end of this phase corresponded with an economic and political crisis of monumental proportion and, as we shall see in the second phase, required the Liberals to adapt their policy and rhetoric as they entered a more orthodox neoliberal policy period. While the three criteria listed above
(naturalness, universality of benefit, and viability) remain through both phases as part of the
Liberal’s framings, the ways in which these are frames were deployed changed depending on the social, political, and economic contexts.
To begin, it is necessary to differentiate the Liberal variety of austerity from the roll-back style of the previous government. Following two terms under the “Common Sense Revolution” of Mike Harris and Ernie Eves, the 2003 Ontario provincial election represented an opportunity for a break with roll-back style neoliberalism pursued by the Conservatives. At a surface level, one of the dominant themes of the 2003 platform was the destructive legacy of the past
Conservative terms in office. The Liberal’s campaign language was largely concerned with
“cuts” and “underfunding,” pairing the roll-back style neoliberalism of the Harris/Eves years with the words “reckless,” “senseless,” or “shortsighted.” The Conservatives had gone aggressively after public services and the Liberal platform addresses the negative impacts as such. Despite the economy growing by 13.1% over the Conservative’s last term (1999-2003),
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program expenditure had only increased by 8.97%, with the bulk of the increases coming in 2002 and 2003 in the leadup to the election. In their first term, the Conservatives cut program expenditure by 3.9% quickly bringing their governance strategy into tension with unions and progressive organizations.99 They closed hospitals, removed hospital beds, underfunded public schools and critical infrastructure, laid off thousands of public sector workers, and slashed the
Environment Ministry’s budget in half, leading to the Walkerton water crisis, all while adding
$21 billion to the debt.100
The political opportunity window was seized by the Liberals by using two framing tactics. The first was to point out the crisis in Ontario’s public services and infrastructure and to capitalize on the most manifest consequences. In the 2003 Liberal manifesto, the images of
“broke and battered public schools,” of hospitals with “severe doctor shortage[s],” and creeping
“American-style, two-tier care” were all evoked to highlight what roll-back neoliberalism had delivered. This crisis capitalization was further used to not only point to the “what” (public services under threat), but also the “who.” In a move that would become common throughout
McGuinty’s tenure as leader, the platform stresses concern for what liberal (small “l”) society views as being “vulnerable” parts of the citizenry. The rhetoric points out that the cuts brought by the Conservatives hurt school-age children, as well as the sick and the elderly. Certainly, deep cuts and austerity measures do hurt these groups, but under the Liberal’s rhetoric, disenfranchised elements of the population are largely devoid of class, race, or gendered
99 Department of Finance Canada (2016) “Fiscal Reference Tables”, Government of Canada. Retrieved from: https://www.fin.gc.ca/frt-trf/2016/frt-trf-16-eng.asp. 100 The Walkerton water crisis was Canada’s worst ever E. coli contamination, that saw 2,300 residents fall ill and seven deaths. The region’s public health officer has claimed the crisis was preventable as the outbreak was associated with provincial government cuts to Environment Ministry funding. See: CBC (May 10, 2010). “Inside Walkerton: Canada's worst-ever E. coli contamination”, CBC News. Retrieved from: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/inside-walkerton-canada-s-worst-ever-e-coli-contamination-1.887200.
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components. This was likely an intentional omission that aimed to capture a broader constituency, while avoiding giving offense to those with middle-class notions of meritocracy.
These notions of “inclusiveness” and general class-neutral framing represented the Liberal’s wider strategy to incorporate as broad a constituency as possible through what Bryan Evans and
Greg Albo have termed the “One Ontario” logic. 101 This was often accomplished by referring to
“communities,” “Ontarians,” “working families,” or “citizens.” This has the implicit consequence of creating a spatio-political ideal for subjects, who are tied together by their shared geography. The vagueness, deliberate omissions, and imprecision in language from the Liberals was consistently used to present the appearance of social cohesion. The Liberals presented an idea of a province that was moving forward together regardless of differences in class, race, gender, and other unequal power relations. For example, the Liberal’s balanced budget and spending priorities were presented as being universally beneficial, rather than policies that kept the tax burden shifted towards the middle and working classes and in which spending priorities were pursued in a way that would be beneficial to capital accumulation.
To the type of austerity that the previous Conservative governments engaged in – the kind which is palpable in its short-term destructive effects – the McGuinty Liberals consistently counterposed a different kind throughout their early years. Using relational progressivism, the
Liberals attempts to convey themselves as a progressive alternative were only plausible when comparing them to the relationally regressive Conservatives. While the Liberal’s committed to
“balance the budget,” “maintain fiscal discipline” and “keep taxes down” in the same way that the Conservatives had, they also pledged to “invest in higher productivity and a better quality of
101 Evans, B., & Albo, G. (2018). Divided province: Ontario Politics in the Age of Neoliberalism. McGill-Queen’s University Press.
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life” and to “improve the key public services on which our competitiveness and quality of life depend.”102 The Liberals attempted to distance themselves from the Conservative-style slash- and-burn austerity by speaking of “strategic investments” and “priority spending.” This had the effect of partially insulating this form of austerity from critique through the commitments of increased spending for healthcare and education during their first term.
In order to increase fiscal responsibility, the Liberals enhanced the power of the Auditor
General of Ontario through several pieces of legislation in the first term including the Fiscal
Transparency and Accountability Act (2004) and the Audit Statute Law Amendment Act (2004).
This was one of the Liberal’s most insidious (and effective) measures to present their austerity agenda as a neutral and necessary process. Furthermore, it represented an extension of New
Public Management methods being incorporated into the public sector during the Common
Sense Revolution.103 The Office of the Auditor General (OAG) became responsible for not only vetting the government’s finances to ensure “value for money,” but also conducting audits on any organizations receiving provincial grants, though excluding municipalities. This expanded the OAGs jurisdiction to Ontario’s hospitals, school boards, children’s aid societies, certain crown corporations, and post-secondary institutions.104 The introduction of auditing for the broader public sector not only reinforced the manta that the public sector is “inefficient,” but also further imposed private sector measures on public sector services. While value-for-money in the private sector can be relatively easily measured by indicators such as increased profits or market share, the measurement of “value” is much more difficult in the public sector.
102 Ontario Liberal Party (2003). Platform: Achieving our Potential, The Ontario Liberal Plan for Economic Growth, Ontario Liberal Party, p. 1. 103 Ibid. 104 Office of the Auditor General (2006). “2006 Annual Report of the Office of the Auditor General of Ontario,” pp. 6. Retrieved from: http://www.auditor.on.ca/en/content/annualreports/arreports/en06/100en06.pdf.
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Often, “value” in the audits was taken with a narrow view of outputs or what is referred to as “results-based planning.” Results based planning is concerned with output measures (the measure of tangible products), outcome measures (demonstrating the ministerial objectives), and high-level indicators (measuring social, environmental or economic conditions to which the government has contributed).105 While there were often very useful suggestions in the AGs report, such as those regarding “prudent purchasing practices,” organizational self-evaluations, and public consultations, the overall framework is one in which downward pressure on the dollar-to-output ratio could be forced onto organizations in a similar sector. Changes that were deemed effective in one organization for increasing value-for-money, whether they be related to labour relations, technology, or organizational practices could then be considered (in the frequently appearing words of the AG’s reports) the “benchmark” or “best-practices.”
Furthermore, the prevalent idea of efficiency in the broader sector, combined with spending restraint in several policy areas, meant doing more with less. This notion became particularly important in the post-GFC context.
The work of Kendra Coulter on Third Way politics in Ontario is highly similar to the work undertaken in this chapter. In her work, which was developed during the pre-crisis phase,
Coulter refers to the encroachment of private sector standards into the public sector as “deep neoliberal integration.” To justify this encroachment, the Liberal’s neoliberalism was presented as “merely pragmatic,” and as a policy path that moves beyond ideology. The Liberal’s policy was presented in a depoliticized way which aims to provide “technocratic solutions to problems, inadequacies, and inefficiencies.”106 In the pre-crisis phase, this was largely accomplished
105 Ibid. 106 Coulter, K. (2009). Deep neoliberal integration: The production of Third Way politics in Ontario. Studies in Political Economy, 83(1), 191-208.
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through notions of efficiency and “value for money” rhetorically, and by the Office of the
Auditor General and the usage of P3s in policy.
The notion of efficiency for taxpayer dollars also emerged in the Liberals continued use of public-private partnerships (P3s). The Liberal’s Alternative Finance and Procurement (AFP) programme was designed to allow private businesses to procure and finance infrastructure assets.
The government’s 2005 infrastructure investment plan, Renew Ontario 2005-2010, saw an expansion of the types of public infrastructure projects that could be designed, built, financed, maintained, and operated by the private sector. The rationale for the expansion of this P3 program was related to the efficiencies of the private sector, the supposedly higher risks of public sector contractors going overtime or overbudget, and the assumption that competitive bidding would result in downward pressure on costs. Despite these claims, the Auditor General’s
Office repeatedly found that AFPs were more costly than traditional public sector procurement, that there was no empirical evidence showing public sector contractors go over time or over budget, and that Infrastructure Ontario’s system of scoring placed more weight on a low bid than on technical merits.107
Despite the empirical findings of the Auditor General and others, the idea of a more efficient public sector is appealing on a common-sense level, especially in the context of a neoliberal ideological framework where the public taxpayer is viewed as a customer rather than a citizen.108 While outright cuts were framed as damaging and hurtful early in the Liberal’s reign,
“expenditure restraint,” where government has a responsibility to spend “hard earned taxpayer
107 Office of the Auditor General (2014). “2014 Annual Report of the Office of the Auditor General of Ontario,” Retrieved from: http://www.auditor.on.ca/en/content/annualreports/arbyyear/ar2014.html. 108 Evans, B. (2005). How the State Changes Its Mind: A Gramscian Account of Ontario’s Managerial Culture Change. Philosophy of Management, 5(2), 25-46.
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dollars” responsibly, is justified. If this meant that modest increases to public spending amounted to real-terms cuts, then measures such as offloading government responsibilities to the private sector or intensifying the labour process were considered natural and necessary trade-offs. In the pre-crisis period, austerity, public sector restructuring through NPM, and P3s were salient parts of the Liberal agenda, but were being matched by program expenditures rising at an average of
6.4% per year over the Liberal’s first term (Figure 1). This meant that program expenditures were over 2.5 times higher than the comparable average for the whole of the Harris-Eves time in power and could plausibly be claimed to represent a progressive (even if narrowly so) alternative.
Figure 1: Increases in Program Expenditures by Government
Yearly increase Total Program average % Expenditure ($ Y-o-y % per Year millions) increase Notes government 1995-96 58,223 3.4% 1996-97 56,358 -3.3% First Conservative Budget 1997-98 56,599 0.4% 1998-99 56,030 -1.0% 1999-00 59,288 5.5% 2000-01 59,483 0.3% 2001-02 61,838 3.8% 2002-03 65,127 5.1% 2003-04 70,428 7.5% Harris-Eves Average 2.3% 2004-05 76,379 7.8% First Liberal Budget 2005-06 81,421 6.2% 2006-07 86,020 5.3% First Term Average 6.4% 2007-08 94,601 9.1% 2008-09 95,375 0.8% 2009-10 106,856 10.7% 2010-11 111,706 4.3% Second Term Average 6.2% 2011-12 112,660 0.8% 2012-13 112,248 -0.4% 2013-14 115,792 3.1% 2014-15 118,226 2.1% Third Term Average (to 2015) 1.4%
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Source: Department of Finance Canada (2016) “Fiscal Reference Tables”, Government of Canada. Retrieved from: https://www.fin.gc.ca/frt-trf/2016/frt-trf-16-eng.asp. Notes, year-over-year, and yearly average increase calculations are the authors. Following the 2007 election, the Liberals secured their second strong majority winning
71 seats out of 107. While the Liberal’s had come under fire for introducing the Ontario Health premium, delisting covered health services, some run-of-the-mill impropriety scandals and criticism from some progressive sectors for their expansion of P3s, they had mostly been able to push through their first term agenda unscathed. The perceived neutrality of the Liberal government is in part reflected by lowest voter turnout (52.8%) in Ontario since 1923.109 Despite presenting themselves as the “progressive” alternative, their image started to show visible weakness following their re-election. In the words of Greg Albo, it was at this point that their attempts to cast themselves as “progressives” began to “border on parody.”110 Albo goes on to explain:
“In 2008, the government finally put forward minor increases to the core social
assistance rates, not even coming close to reversing the punitive cuts of the
Tories from a decade earlier. The Liberals’ much-hyped anti-poverty strategy,
Breaking the Cycle: Ontario’s Poverty Reduction Strategy (2008), amounted to
nothing more than the first in a series of consultations with “community
partners” that continued endlessly on. It was only in 2009 that the real minimum
wage moved ahead of the rate frozen by Harris in 1995.”
109 CTV News (Oct 11, 2007). “Boring campaign behind poor voter turnout: analysts.” Retrieved from: https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/boring-campaign-behind-poor-voter-turnout-analysts-1.259618. 110 Albo, G. (2018) Divided Province: Democracy and the Politics of State Restructuring in Ontario In Evans, B., & Albo, G. (Eds.). Divided province: Ontario Politics in the Age of Neoliberalism (pp. 3-43). McGill-Queen’s University Press.
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While structural conditions had allowed the Liberals to increase spending and implement a “soft” version of austerity in their first term, these conditions would not last long. With the onset of the GFC, the Liberals had to pivot to incorporate different rhetoric, positions, and policy. While much of the rhetoric from the first phase did remain, as austerity and its justifications were deepened the Liberals had to find new ways to present the dominant policy regime as universally beneficial, following a “natural” course of action, and the only viable option.
Post-Crisis Phase: 2008-2013
Between 2004/5 and 2007/8, the Liberals increased program expenditures by 19%, increased revenues by 19% and decreased debt charges by 5%. This allowed the Liberals to run three consecutive budget surpluses in 2005/6, 2006/7, and 2007/8. While it seemed as though the
Liberals were having early successes in increasing spending and balancing the budget, they began to run into strategic dilemmas when the economy began to stagnate in the leadup to the
GFC. First, in order to balance the budget, not raise taxes and increase expenditure year-over- year, the economy and corresponding tax revenues would have to grow at a consistently high rate. Ontario’s cumulative nominal economic growth between 2003 and 2007 had been 9.3%
(averaging 1.84%/year) which, while certainly not impressive by historical standards, was manageable.111 When economic growth began to slow in 2007 and entered into recession in
2008, this manageability was compromised.
Second, a large proportion of this growth in revenues had come from federal transfers.
While the Ontario government’s own revenues increased from $72.3 billion to $87.5 billion (a
111 Statistics Canada. Table 36-10-0402-01 Gross domestic product (GDP) at basic prices, by industry, provinces and territories (x 1,000,000). DOI: https://doi.org/10.25318/3610040201-eng.
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17% increase) between 2004/5 and 2007/8, federal transfers had increased from $11.8 billion to
$16.5 billion (a 28% increase) driven in part by windfalls from oil and gas related revenues.
However, when the Harper Conservatives came to power in 2006 the increases in federal transfers became increasingly uncertain, especially in the post-GFC context. During Harpers’ time as Prime Minister (2006-2015), federal transfers to Ontario averaged 4.92% of revenues, but ranged from increases of 19.2% from the previous year, to 8.1% reductions from the previous year.
With growth and transfers uncertain in 2008, the Liberals took their earliest attempt at stimulating the slowing economy. In the 2008 budget speech, Finance Minister Dwight Duncan patted the Liberals on the back for running their third consecutive balanced budget and stated the
Liberal projection of running another three going forward.112 Duncan noted an “uncertain economic outlook” at the time while simultaneously committing to “major new investments in skills training, infrastructure and innovation” as well as staying within the Liberal mandate of
“prudent fiscal planning.” However, in the 2008 budget itself, this “balanced” approach is undermined with proposals under a section titled “Lowering Ontario’s Business Costs.”113 In their drive to remain a tax-competitive North American jurisdiction, the Liberals rolled out several tax breaks associated with manufacturing and resource extraction firms, as well as providing a 10-year income tax exemption for new corporations that commercialize intellectual property developed in universities, colleges, and research institutions. Before the depths of the crisis hit, the Liberals clearly felt that they had the fiscal capacity to cut taxes and decrease revenues as a means of economic stimulus. While the uncertainty of the conjecture may lead
112 Duncan, Dwight (2008) “2008 Ontario Budget Speech”, Ministry of Finance, p. 2. 113 Duncan, Dwight (2008) “2008 Ontario Budget: Growing a Stronger Ontario”, Ministry of Finance, p. 13
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some to believe this was not “prudent fiscal planning,” it reflects the Liberal ideology that corporate-led economic growth was the best way to promote the economic health of the province.
As the crisis deepened, it became apparent that the government would have to intervene with stimulus and bailout measures. In the 2009 budget, the Liberals laid out $32.5 billion for infrastructure spending on “shovel ready” projects, approximately $700 million for skills training, and various amounts to support the key Liberal sectors in manufacturing (including
Ontario’s one-third contribution to the $14.4 billion auto bailout), agriculture, and extractive industries.114 By 2010, the Liberal austerity agenda and its framing had become clear. The province’s stimulus spending would be short-lived, while the tax cuts would be permanent.
The Liberals, (as the Conservative’s had) pointed to growing interest costs associated with provincial debt. In 2009-10 the interest of provincial debt totaled $8.7 billion and represented approximately 7.54% of the province’s total expenditures.115 Despite this figure being much lower than the pre-crisis (2003-2008) average of 9.84% and with interest rates declining, the Liberals continued to point to the need to pay down interest on the debt. To do so, they had to move away from debt-financing through some combination of consolidating expenditures and increasing revenues. The argument was that these debt servicing costs were
114 Anastakis, D. (2018). “A Neolibral Pause? The Auto and Manufacturing Sectors in Ontario since Free Trade.” In Evans, B. and Albo, G. (Eds.). Divided Province: Ontario Politics in the Age of Neoliberalism. McGill-Queen’s University Press. P. 120-121. 115 Department of Finance Canada (2016) “Fiscal Reference Tables”, Government of Canada. Retrieved from: https://www.fin.gc.ca/frt-trf/2016/frt-trf-16-eng.asp. .
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eating into the money that could be filtered to key public services and infrastructure, and therefore was undermining Ontario’s competitiveness.116
In both the 2009 budget and the 2009 Auditor General’s report, there emerges an accounting slight-of-hand that serves to deepen the sense of crisis related to debt servicing costs.
While the concept does not occur at all in the first phase, in 2009 the Liberal technocrats start referring to the “interest expense to revenue ratio” and including measures on “net debt to revenues.”117 Before the crisis, interest expenses were often accounted for in relative terms as a percentage of total expenditure. However, following declining revenues brought on by Liberal tax cuts and the effects of a deep recession, interest expenses and the growing debt start becoming a growing percentage of (significantly reduced) revenues.
Figure 2: Debt-Servicing Expenses % of % of Year expenditure revenue 2003-04 12.00% 12.88% 2004-05 10.93% 11.13% 2005-06 9.97% 9.94% 2006-07 9.31% 9.09% 2007-08 8.61% 8.56% 2008-09 8.24% 8.78% 2009-10 7.54% 9.05% 2010-11 7.82% 8.85% 2011-12 8.21% 9.18% 2012-13 8.44% 9.12% 2013-14 8.37% 9.12% 2014-15 8.25% 8.97% Source: Department of Finance Canada (2016) “Fiscal Reference Tables”, Government of Canada. Retrieved from: https://www.fin.gc.ca/frt-trf/2016/frt-trf-16-eng.asp.
116 Office of the Auditor General (2009). “2009 Annual Report of the Office of the Auditor General of Ontario,” pp. 30. Retrieved from: http://www.auditor.on.ca/en/content/annualreports/arreports/en09/2009AR_en_web_entire.pdf. 117
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This type of framing is also used in similar measures such as the “debt-per-capita” ratio which outlines how much each citizen “owes” in public debt. It is often, and misleadingly, framed in similar terms to household debt for the purposes of having individuals associate their interests (rather than the interest of creditors) with keeping public debt at low levels.
Interestingly, lower “spending per capita” is used in a way that frames a lower figure as a more efficient use of taxpayer dollars, rather than as a figure demonstrating the reduction of wages, personnel, or services.118 Conversely, the measure of “assets-per-capita,” a measure that would divide all public assets by residents, is never comparatively used because it is not rhetorically useful for justifying austerity.
During the post-crisis period, rhetoric increasingly turned to the growing “debt burden” and the consequences of high indebtedness that acted as a “tax on future generations,” evoking again the protection of vulnerable (in this case, yet unborn) citizens.119 While this rhetoric had been previously used for the purposes of justifying continuous balanced budgets, in the aftermath of the Great Recession, the sense of urgency is amplified. The continued use of framing the political-economic conjuncture as a permanent state of crisis was then used by the Liberals as a strategy of governance.120 However, rather than this crisis being framed as one of neoliberalism
(systemic) or finance dominated accumulation (regulatory), the crisis is manufactured as one regarding public sector expenditure as the driving force of public sector debt. It is at this point that the Liberals turned to their most coercive measures in order to freeze public sector wages
(the Public Sector Compensation To Protect Public Services Act), contract the size of the public
118 Liberal Party (2011). “Forward Together: The Ontario Liberal Plan 2011-2015.” Liberal Party of Ontario. p. 56. 119 Duncan, D. (2010). “Budget 2010: Open Ontario, Ontario’s Plan for Jobs and Growth”, Ministry of Finance. p. xx. 120 Fumagalli, A., & Lucarelli, S. (2015). Finance, austerity and commonfare. Theory, Culture & Society, 32(7-8), 51- 65.
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sector, and began contemplating wholesale privatization of state assets.121 The Liberals made it clear that public sector spending restraint would be the primary method to pay for the crisis and gently reinforced the notion of the “privileged” public sector worker who had be shielded from the crisis, not because of their high union density, but because government and taxpayers had been too generous with their compensation. In the words of Finance Minister Dwight Duncan, it was incumbent upon “everyone who is paid through taxpayer dollars to do their part,” despite public sector expenditure and compensation not being a cause of the crisis.122
In the leadup to the 2011 election, Bryan Evans and Carlo Fanelli have claimed that the
2011 budget had “come full circle back to the Common Sense Revolution.”123 The Liberals planned to constrain expenditure growth well below levels needed to keep up with inflation and population growth, to freeze “non-priority” program spending by suppressing public sector wages, and planned to eliminate 1,500 Ontario Public Service (OPS) jobs over three years, in addition to the elimination of 3,400 planned full-time positions that had been announced in the
2009 budget. While new spending was approved for the Liberals priority areas of health care and education (including post-secondary) the stated commitment to reducing the deficit took precedence. However, this stated commitment was yet again undermined by including tax cuts in the 2011 budget that would cost an estimated $327 billion by fiscal year 2015-16.124
The 2011 election represented the Liberal’s greatest test for maintaining power. For a stretch between August 2010 and August 2011, the Hudak Conservatives were consistently
121 See: Fanelli, C, and Mark Thomas (2011) “Austerity, Competitiveness and Neoliberalism Redux: Ontario Responds to the Great Recession.” Socialist Studies 7 (1/2):141-70. 122 Ontario Ministry of Finance (2011) “FAQ: Public Sector Compensation Restraint.” Retrieved from: http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/budget/ontariobudgets/2010/faq_july.html. 123 Evans, B. and Fanelli, C. (2018). Ontario in an Age of Austerity: Common Sense Reloaded In Evans, B. and Fanelli C. (Eds.). The Public Sector in an Age of Austerity: Perspectives from Canada’s Provinces and Territories. p. 145. 124 Ibid.
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leading in opinion polls for favourability and voting intention. A year before the election, 65% percent of respondents in an Angus Reid public opinion poll felt that the McGuinty Liberals were poor economic managers, with the newly introduced Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) being their least popular policy.125 However, despite uncertainties about electing a third Liberal government,
Ontarians were also concerned that a PC government would cut provincial services (75%) and that NDP government would raise taxes (66%).126
With the economy being the most important issue, followed by unemployment, health care, tax relief and government spending, the McGuinty Liberals were able to frame themselves as the “pragmatic” option against the anxieties of cuts to public services and tax increases.127 In their 2011 Platform the Liberals lay this out explicitly referring to the PC’s taking Ontario back to the “dark days of cuts and pointless conflict” and the NDP’s plans to undermine recovery by introducing “devastating tax increases.”128 In many ways, the Liberals were successful in narrowing the scope of what was considered politically possible. As effective hegemonic managers, they were able to frame their policies as neutral and balanced approaches that were absent of ideology.129 According to Liberal discourse, the government was merely putting the province through the rigors of the necessary processes of “modernization.”
125 Angus Reid (Sept 8, 2010). “Ontario Progressive Conservatives Lead One Year Before Provincial Election.” Angus Reid Public Opinion. Retrieved from: https://web.archive.org/web/20120819164002/http://www.angus- reid.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/2010.09.28_Ontario.pdf. 126 Ibid. 127 Angus Reid (Sept 17, 2011). “Tory Lead Down to Four Points as Three-Party Race Develops in Ontario.” Angus Reid Public Opinion. Retrieved from: https://web.archive.org/web/20110924181937/http://www.angus- reid.com/polls/44047/tory-lead-down-to-four-points-as-three-party-race-develops-in-ontario/. 128 Liberal Party (2011). “Forward Together: The Ontario Liberal Plan 2011-2015.” Liberal Party of Ontario. 129 Coulter, K. (2009). Deep neoliberal integration: The production of Third Way politics in Ontario. Studies in Political Economy, 83(1), 191-208.
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Despite being reduced to minority status in the 2011 election, the Liberals continued their neoliberal consolidation. By 2012 they had committed to fiscal austerity for the rest of the decade, enacted corporate tax cuts, rolled out new public sector revenue generating measures through user fees, and restrained public sector compensation. To provide legitimacy for these measures and the ones to come, the Liberals appointed TD (Toronto-Dominion Bank) chief economist Don Drummond to head the Commission on the Reform of Ontario’s Public Services with the stated goal of finding further efficiencies and value-for-money strategies in the public sector.
The Drummond Commission’s 500-plus page report provided what Albo has called “the most comprehensive plan for the neoliberalization of fiscal policy and administrative modes that any government in Canada has yet delivered” and included calls for slashing real terms spending, privatization, expanding contracting-out, and increasing user fees.130 In hegemonic terms, the commissioning and use of the Drummond Report was a way in which the government could present their decisions as legitimate, as verified by “neutral” experts. The hundreds of proposals put forward from the Drummond Report to restrain and roll-back expenditure represented a lively debate within very constrained parameters. This “expenditure review,” which had no mandate to review taxation, represents the kind of technocratic legitimation that becomes necessary to push through policy with unpopular short- and long-term effects. While it may not be popular, it is justified as “necessary,” and therefore is considered the only viable option.
130 Albo, G. (2018) Divided Province: Democracy and the Politics of State Restructuring in Ontario In Evans, B., and Albo, G. (Eds.). Divided province: Ontario Politics in the Age of Neoliberalism (pp. 3-43). McGill-Queen’s University Press.
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This “necessity” was further augmented in April 2012 when the credit rating agency
Moody’s downgraded Ontario’s credit rating from “stable” to “negative.” Of course, this was the same Moody’s who had played a key role in the GFC by giving investment-grade ratings to toxic mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and collateralized debt obligations (CDO). Despite their monumental failure and complicity in the GFC, this downgrading was still taken seriously as the media, Conservatives, and the Liberals themselves pointed to the continued need for wage restraint in the public sector.131
As the Liberals tried to implement some of Drummond Report’s recommendations piece by piece through the budget and ministerial restructuring, they came up to a block when it came to the education sector. When the McGuinty Liberals, with support from the PCs, passed the
Putting Students First Act in August 2012, and then suspended the bargaining rights of teachers in January 2013, they were met with work to rule actions and a series of rotating one day strikes from the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario (ETFO). The McGuinty Liberals successful alienation of the teachers’ unions and their members, who had been one of their staunchest allies since the late 1990s, proved to be one of the final acts of McGuinty’s time as Premier. It was during this time, amid mounting unpopularity, that McGuinty resigned and the Liberals aimed to change leaders in a way that would allow them to recoup some of their “progressive” image.132
A change in leadership is often used to signal a new era in party politics. Despite many of the legislators, policy advisors, and staff remaining the same, a change in leadership has a symbolic effect. By the time McGuinty, and then Dwight Duncan left their positions, Ontario
131 D’Aliesio, R. (2012, April 26). Moody's debt-rating downgrade sour news for Ontario. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved from: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/moodys-debt-rating-downgrade-sour-news-for- ontario/article4103210/. 132 Savage, L., & Ruhloff-Queiruga, N. (2017). Organized Labour, Campaign Finance, and the Politics of Strategic Voting in Ontario. Labour/Le Travail, p. 262.
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had the lowest per-capita public spending of all the provinces, and the size of the public sector as a percentage of provincial GDP had been reduced to the same size as during Harris’ time in office.133 While Wynne styled herself as the “social justice” and “activist” premier, the 2014
Liberal Platform did little to distance the “new government” from the McGuinty Liberals. The
2014 election campaign, like the previous Third Way campaigns before it, built its planks around investments in education and transportation infrastructure, supporting a competitive business climate, and being “responsible financial managers.”134
The rhetoric of the 2013 budget speech by new finance minister Charles Sousa differed very little from that of his predecessor in Dwight Duncan. It holds to the McGuinty party line of touting the benefits of tax “reforms” (cuts), of protecting “high-quality public services,” of reducing the deficit and “excessive debt,” and of taking a “balanced approach” while simultaneously rejecting the slash and burn style cuts being put forward by the Hudak
Conservatives. Above all though, as Sousa reminds us, the Liberals reject “uncontrolled growth in program spending,” which would “increase debt and interest costs and would take resources away from key priorities” and would “shift the burden of debt to future generations.”135 In the following year, the increasingly centrist NDP rejected the 2014 minority Liberal’s budget, spurring an election.
133 Evans, B. and Fanelli, C. (2018). Ontario in an Age of Austerity: Common Sense Reloaded In Evans, B. and Fanelli C. (Eds.). The Public Sector in an Age of Austerity: Perspectives from Canada’s Provinces and Territories. p. 146. 134 Liberal Party (2014). “Opportunity for All: A Jobs and Investment Plan for Ontario”, Liberal Party of Ontario. p. 2- 3. 135 Sousa, C. (2013). “A Prosperous and Fair Ontario: 2013 Budget Speech”, Ministry of Finance. p. 4.
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Competitiveness
The Liberal’s attempts to naturalize and legitimize competitiveness was based around state interventions that would create a “favourable business climate.” The key components of this favourable business climate were human capital development, lowering business costs, and increasing capital mobility. The consistent themes that have been found regarding the Liberal’s attempts to legitimize this competitiveness agenda relate to: i) presenting competitiveness as a program of “modernization” (natural); ii) portraying this drive as one which would lead to a high-wage, high-skill economy (universally beneficial) and iii) the idea that failure to become more competitive would lead to economic decline and disaster (the only viable option). The
Liberal’s strategy to frame competitiveness as natural, universally beneficial, and the only viable option occurred, as it had with austerity, in phases. In a way similar to the methods aiming to secure consent for austerity, the competitiveness agenda also developed in distinct phases. As with austerity, the most important line is drawn between the pre-crisis (2003-2008) and post- crisis (2008-2013) periods, with a third phase emerging when conditions for profitability had partially been restored in the province (2013-2018).
Pre-Crisis Phase: 2003-2008
When the Liberals took power in 2003, it became evident quite early on that they would pursue a different path to competitiveness than the Conservatives. Where the Conservatives had moved towards a Thatcherite “free”-market model as the primary organizing force for driving productivity and growth, the first phase of the Liberals saw the state with a much closer role in assisting the market. For the Third Way Liberals, the role of the state is to make and keep
Ontario competitive through strategic public investments and by establishing the proper institutional structures. This modification of neoliberal orthodoxy by the Liberals is emblematic
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of what Jenson and Saint Martin (2003) have termed the social investment approach.136 The social investment approach focuses on investments that will aid productivity, labour market participation, and human capital development. As an ideology it is focused on fostering liberal
(small “l”) understandings of equality of opportunity, where people “get ahead in life” by making the proper investments in themselves – primarily through training and education. This points to the important distinction between availability and access in liberal democratic societies.
While post-secondary education is available to all in the sense that if one has the grades and the money they can attend, the access to this education is restricted by increasingly high costs, the difficulty or prohibitions of low-income and/or racialized families securing the necessary credit beyond student loans, gendered social pressures and discrimination in certain faculties, and the immediate needs for many working-class youth to enter the labour force during or shortly after high school. While equality of opportunity rhetoric is often completely absent of any critical analysis of how inequalities of condition (economic, racial, gendered and so on) impact supposed equality of opportunity, it appeals to the neoliberal common-sense of the government “helping those who help themselves.”137
As with their framing on austerity, the Liberals ran their 2003 campaign by presenting themselves as the only viable progressive alternative by pointing to the years of dis-investment led by the Conservatives. Framing this dis-investment in terms of economic competitiveness, the
Liberal platform tells voters that “unlike the Harris-Eves government, we choose not to run in that race to the bottom,” as the Conservatives had “cut taxes at the expense of investment in the
136 Jenson, J., & Saint-Martin, D. (2003). New routes to social cohesion? Citizenship and the social investment state. Canadian Journal of Sociology/Cahiers canadiens de sociologie, 77-99. 137 Liberal Party (2003). The exact quote: “We expect people to take responsibility for bettering themselves. In return, we will live up to our responsibility to help them get there.”
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skills of our people.”138 According to the Liberals, the Harris-Eves cuts to education (from primary to post-secondary) had damaged Ontario’s ability to compete for investment and good jobs. The Liberals point to the “fact” that the best way to retain good jobs in a “fast-paced global economy” is to constantly be developing the skills of the workforce. It was the Third Way version of, in the phase of Perry Anderson, “the ideological promise of an overdue modernity.”139
The framing of “investing in people” is optimistic, it is empowering, and it signals that the state sees itself as having a role for the individuals (notably not any collective sections of the working class) that had been most affected by neoliberal globalization and technological change.
What the Liberals offered was an alternative that gave a sense of hope to those who had lost jobs to such factors (through retraining schemes), to those looking to upgrade their skills for a rapidly changing economy (through increased secondary and post-secondary funding), and to those who work on shaping the labour force of the future (parents, students and teachers). Furthermore, the competitiveness that comes with a highly skilled labour force, productivity, and “innovation” is presented as being the only way to create “a prosperous economy and a high standard of living for all its citizens.”140
Though the phrase is only used once throughout the first phase, the Liberal’s strategy was in large part based on human capital development. Human capital – the term roughly equating to investments in people that raises productivity and prepares them for work in a “knowledge-based economy” – became one of the principle components of the Liberal competitiveness strategy. As
138 Ibid. 139Anderson, P. (2016). The heirs of Gramsci. New Left Review, (100), 71-97. 140 Duncan, D. (2006) “2006 Budget: Building Opportunity”, Ontario Ministry of Finance. p. 12.
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with any framing of competitiveness, it is a concept that is based on relativity. Competitiveness is adversarial as opposed to cooperative, and as such requires that the competitors in one way or another be recognized, if not named. “Competing jurisdictions,” named and un-named, are often evoked to either justify similar decisions or to point to ways in which Ontario was lagging competitors.
A common framing tactic that is used throughout the entire Liberal reign is that of comparative isomorphism. The Liberals point to investments or initiatives (such as tax cuts) made in other jurisdictions, typically referencing competing provinces or states in the Canadian-
U.S. economic bloc, that might be able to undermine Ontario’s competitive advantage should
Ontario fail to “keep up.” Therefore, according to the Liberals, the only logical course of action was to pursue an agenda that aggressively promoted the economic and extra-economic conditions that were deemed vital to economic success. To do otherwise would be to risk falling behind other jurisdictions, which in turn would undermine the economic health of the province.
In this sense, the competitiveness agenda represents a disciplinary factor when policymakers are choosing between an increasingly narrow range of options on certain issues. A tax cut or environmental deregulation in a competing jurisdiction may necessitate similar measures to maintain competitive advantage.
Of course, taxation and regulatory policies are not the only road to competitiveness.
However, it is the predominant strategies which are used to pursue competitiveness that are of importance here. The drive towards human capital development is reflective of orthodox views on the needs of labour market restructuring during the late 90’s and early 2000’s. Following the end of the Cold War, and in conjunction with rapid technological advancements, growing interdependence between economic blocs for trade and investment, and increasing capital
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mobility, many industries that were a) mobile and b) highly sensitive to labour costs, either relocated to parts of the world with lower labour costs, or else made workers redundant through automation and higher capital intensiveness (i.e. the introduction of technology). In response to these increases in structural unemployment, governments and intergovernmental organizations
(primarily the OECD, World Bank, and European Union) advocated for labour market restructuring that would increase the relative importance of “knowledge-intensive sectors” and the proportion of skilled workers in the economy. As advanced economies became increasingly
“un-competitive” in industries where labour costs were the defining factor of production, they moved towards capital intensive production of goods and services and attempted to shift the industrial composition of their economies towards these industries. A common casualty of this transition has been the erosion of the manufacturing sector, which has increased the capital intensity of production and/or moved production to lower wage jurisdictions.
On the surface, this shift seems advantageous for workers in advanced economies, who with increased skills can expect increased wages and job autonomy. However, this assumption is problematic for two reasons. The first relates to the discussion earlier between availability and access. The barriers to accessing these “good jobs” are higher. Inequalities of opportunity (based on inequalities of condition) in part define who is more-or-less likely to fill the new roles of the
“knowledge economy.” Secondly, despite the need for more knowledge intensive jobs, the availability of these jobs are not numerous enough to absorb surplus populations or to fully alleviate structural unemployment. World Bank statistics from 2016 show that the share of the
Canadian workforce employed in “knowledge-intensive activities” is only 43.72%, one of the
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highest figures in the world.141 Furthermore, advancements in productivity that are brought on by increasing capital intensiveness usually mean that less labour power is required for the same output, resulting in further structural unemployment. If education, retraining, and replacement programs are insufficient, this threatens to result in long-term unemployment as skills relative to job demands atrophy. What has resulted from this attempted shift to a knowledge-based economy (KBE) is not an upskilling of the entire labour force (which, since “skill” is a relative term would be moot), but rather a bifurcation of the labour market into high-wage professional or capital intensive jobs and labour intensive jobs that are increasingly located in the low-wage service sector.142
The role of the Third Way state under the Ontario Liberals was to support conditions of profitability at both ends of the bifurcated labour market by establishing the relevant extra- economic conditions and regulatory environment. The 2007-08 public accounts document lays out the fundamental tenets of the pre-crisis competitiveness strategy through a five-point economic plan that aimed to: make investments in the skills and education of our people; accelerate our investments in infrastructure; support innovation; lower business costs; and strengthen key partnerships to maximize our future potential.143
From the above list, all five points are relevant to capital intensive industries (or industries with high potential to be more capital intensive) while infrastructure investments and lower business costs are the most relevant to labour intensive industries. The Liberals clearly state throughout
141 The World Bank (n.d.) “Knowledge-intensive jobs, % workforce”, World Economic Forum: Global Information Technology Report. Retrieved from: https://tcdata360.worldbank.org/indicators/entrp.know.wkfc?country=CAN&indicator=3461&viz=line_chart&year s=2012,2016. 142 This bifurcation has been complicated in recent years due to the large increases in “independent contractors” and the “gig economy.” 143 Ministry of Finance (2009). “Public Accounts of Ontario, 2008-2009”, Ontario Ministry of Finance. P. iv.
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the first phase their commitment to these capital-intensive industries which they define as key
“business clusters.” Stating that “government has a key role to play in fueling these engines of growth,” these key clusters included pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, financial services, agriculture and food processing, information and communications technologies (ICT), entertainment and culture, and the central pillar of this industrial strategy being the automotive sector.144
Added to these key clusters, but kept less quiet lest they tarnish McGuinty’s reputation as a “Green” Premier, were mining and forestry, which received both direct government subsidies and tax incentives.145 Both the key businesses clusters and primary industries identified above are areas of the economy in which productivity gains driven by “innovation” are deemed to lead to international competitiveness and economic growth. In order to attract and maintain the investments and jobs that came with these firms, the Liberals chose to subsidize a whole host of corporate costs. The Liberal’s approach to these key sectors differed markedly than it did for the labour-intensive sectors. Some of the most notable factors the Liberals rolled out for establishing a favourable business climate for capital intensive industries included:
• Introducing tax credits for training programs, research and development, and labour
expenditures
• Investing in infrastructure to maintain and subsidize “affordable” energy costs
144 Liberal Party (2003). 2003 Platform, p. 1. 145 Office of the Premier (Nov 20, 2006). “Strengthening Northern Ontario Pulp And Paper Mills,” Government of Ontario Newsroom. Retrieved from: https://news.ontario.ca/opo/en/2006/11/strengthening-northern-ontario- pulp-and-paper-mills.html. Office of the Premier (Jun 19, 2006). “Supporting Ontario's Mineral Sector,” Government of Ontario Newsroom. Retrieved from: https://news.ontario.ca/opo/en/2006/06/supporting-ontarios-mineral-sector.html.
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• Cutting the capital tax rate and providing other tax incentives
• Adjusting the definition of “current accounts payable” for capital tax purposes to exclude
“the purchase or trading of shares, bonds or other securities,” 146 and
• Creating P3 partnerships between industry and universities to build such projects as the
Waterloo Research and Technology Park, the Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation in
Sudbury, the McMaster Innovation Park and the Medical and Related Sciences (MaRS)
Discovery District in Toronto for the purposes of commercializing new technologies.147
These measures of corporate welfare were typically geared towards the key clusters identified earlier. For low wage, labour intensive sectors (such as food and accommodation, retail, and many manual labour jobs) a favourable business climate required the maintenance of low unit labour costs. To this end, the Liberals’ laissez-faire approach to labour markets resulted in a form of “passive” internal devaluation. Internal devaluation is a term often used to describe the ways in which the state aims to restore conditions of profitability (and therefore competitiveness) by reducing labour costs. Often, and as we will see in the second phase, internal devaluation policies are used in export-oriented sectors to make exports more cost-competitive. However, in its passive form, the Liberals simply allowed businesses to continue the shift in labour markets towards “flexible” (i.e. precarious) and low-wage forms of work without serious state intervention. Between 2001 and 2008, an estimated one third of Ontario workers were employed in precarious work.148 While the Liberals did not actively restructure labour relations or
146 Sorbara, G. (2004) “2004 Ontario Budget: The Plan for Change”, Ministry of Finance, p. 126. 147 Duncan, D. (2006) “2006 Ontario Budget: Building Opportunity”, Ministry of Finance, p. 12. 148 Noack, A. and Vosko, L. (2012). “Precarious Jobs in Ontario: Mapping Dimensions of Labour Market Insecurity by Workers’ Social Location and Context”, Law Commission of Ontario, retrieved from: https://www.lco-cdo.org/wp- content/uploads/2012/08/vulnerable-workers-commissioned-papers-vosko-noack.pdf.
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unemployment insurance in avowedly detrimental ways, their passivity on policies like raising the minimum wage, updating labour legislation around precarious work, repealing anti-union legislation, and reversing cuts to welfare rates and eligibility maintained the favourable business climate for low-wage work that had been accelerated under the Harris-Eves Conservatives.
The other major way the Liberals aimed to reduce unit labour costs was through commitments to invest in public services that would give Canada a competitive advantage.
While these investments were presented in terms that would be beneficial for all Canadians, they were also clearly stated to be for the purposes of enhancing competitiveness by increasing productivity or removing indirect costs for employers. A section titled Lowering Business Costs, in the 2008 budget pointed to how businesses would benefit from basing themselves in Ontario due to “a well-trained and highly educated workforce, a publicly funded health care system, proximity to major markets, and excellent infrastructure and public services.”149 In this first phase, these were the “selling points” that predominated over a “competitive” tax regime or a light-touch regulatory approach.
The health care component of the social investment approach is two-fold. The first, and more politically salient aspect is that investing in healthcare with a “central focus” on
“preventing illness and injury” helps secure and maintain a healthy working-age population, thus reducing productivity and output losses.150 Furthermore, commitments to invest in long-term care (even if structured as P3s) encourages stronger labour market participation from women by alleviating some of the burden brought on by normative gendered expectations around elder
149 Duncan, D. (2008) “2008 Ontario Budget: Growing a Stronger Ontario”, Ministry of Finance. p. 13. 150 Sorbara, G. (2004) Budget Speech, p. 3.
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care.151 So long as the labour market can absorb additional workers (who in this care are more likely to be placed in precarious jobs) it is reasonable to project increased economic growth and increased tax revenues. Secondly, investing in health care is a political dog-whistle intended to attract international investment to Canada rather than competing U.S. jurisdictions. A state- subsidized health care system, such as Canada’s, reduces benefits costs and insurance costs associated with employer-sponsored health care plans that are the norm in America.
Additionally, these commitments to fund health care publicly did not necessarily coincide with the Liberal’s plans for operating increasing areas of health care privately, thus opening further market opportunities for investing in a state-subsidized sector.
The difference between public funding and private operations was especially pronounced in the area of infrastructure development, where P3s became a central component of public policy. While not directly related to labour costs, infrastructure spending was intended to increase the attractiveness of Ontario as a destination for capital by lowering other indirect costs for employers. One of the primary planks of the Liberal’s first term was to reverse the
“infrastructure deficit” suffered under the Harris-Eves governments. The Liberals planned to overcome this infrastructure deficit in several ways. Aside from direct government investment and transfers for infrastructure, part of the strategy was for the province to re-upload costs from municipalities to increase spending on infrastructure.152 While billions of dollars were spent for improvements in infrastructure for water, sewage, energy, and information and communications technologies (ICT) through the first phase, the main components of infrastructure development
151 See: Lilly, M. B., Laporte, A., & Coyte, P. C. (2007). Labor market work and home care's unpaid caregivers: a systematic review of labor force participation rates, predictors of labor market withdrawal, and hours of work. The Milbank Quarterly, 85(4), 641-690. Ettner, S. L. (1995). The impact of “parent care” on female labor supply decisions. Demography, 32(1), 63-80. 152 Sorbara, G. (2004) Ontario Budget: The Plan for Change. Pp. 32.
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related to transit and transportation. This priority for infrastructure is due to the Liberal’s desire to maintain Ontario as an “outward-looking” and “trade-oriented economy.”
During the first Liberal term merchandise exports accounted for approximately 33% of
GDP and remained a key part of their strategy for economic growth.153 In their own words, the
Liberals aimed to “build a truly global Ontario that trades and competes with the best in the world.”154 While the Liberals did attempt to establish favourable conditions for capital accumulation through production during their time in power, they also aimed to create favourable conditions for capital accumulation through circulation (i.e. trade and capital flows).155 This promotion of conditions for the smooth circulation of capital is reflective of wider changes to Ontario’s political economy and labour market over this time (Figure 3).
Deindustrialization and decreasing labour force employment in the manufacturing sector were met with increasing employment in trade, transportation, and warehousing. Over the Liberal’s first term (2003-2007), jobs in goods producing industries shrunk by 3.6% (41,218 jobs), with a decline of 9.4% in manufacturing (75,285 jobs). Jobs in infrastructure construction expanded by
37,919 (a 62% increase) over the same time frame. Additionally, jobs in trucking increased by
8% (4,706 jobs) and jobs in transportation support services increased by 14% (4,540 jobs).
153 Calculations made from the following sources: For GDP, Statistics Canada. Table 379-0025 - Gross domestic product (GDP) at basic prices, by North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) and province, annual (dollars). For Merchandise trade, Gauthier, A. (2013) “Ontario’s Merchandise Trade with the World”, Parliament of Canada. Retrieved from: https://lop.parl.ca/sites/PublicWebsite/default/en_CA/ResearchPublications/TradeAndInvestment/201433E#detai ls. 154 Ibid. 155 This included some high-profile trips to India, Pakistan and China for the purposes of establishing trade deals.
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Figure 3: Ontario job growth and decline, select industries (2003-2008) Total Total job 2003- 2007- 2011- 2014- Change change NAICS Classification 2007 2011 2014 2018 (%) (03-18) Goods producing industries -3.6% -8.9% 2.4% 5.1% -5.8% -64,756 - - Forestry, logging and support -25.8% 13.8% 1.1% 13.0% -85.3% -3,729 - Mining, quarrying, oil and gas 18.3% 13.9% 3.3% 4.8% 34.6% 9,147 Utilities 1.4% 5.9% -6.1% 6.5% 13.5% 6,756 Construction 11.9% 3.7% 8.6% 7.6% 37.3% 131,972 - Manufacturing -9.4% 15.2% -0.1% 3.8% -30.4% -208,903
Service producing industries 7.6% 1.3% 4.9% 4.0% 23.1% 1,208,431 Trade 4.5% -1.4% 4.2% 2.9% 14.5% 156,803 Transportation and warehousing 7.1% 0.0% 5.7% 6.4% 23.2% 64,385 Information and cultural industries 2.7% -0.4% 4.6% -6.3% 5.4% 7,774 Finance and insurance 11.4% 2.0% 4.6% 3.2% 28.0% 95,131 Real estate and rental and leasing 7.8% -4.9% 14.8% -2.4% 21.8% 25,559 Professional, scientific and technical services 13.5% 0.2% 8.5% 8.3% 33.0% 133,147 Management of companies and - enterprises 15.1% 21.8% -15.6% -2.6% -16.9% -5,926 Administrative, support, waste management and remediation 12.4% -6.0% 1.0% 5.6% 21.4% 79,115 Educational services 7.5% 2.8% 5.8% 4.4% 25.4% 126,746 Health care and social assistance 7.8% 10.2% 5.2% 4.4% 33.7% 244,277 Arts, entertainment and recreation 2.8% -1.7% 8.4% 2.1% 23.7% 27,238 Accommodation and food services 6.6% 2.2% 9.5% 5.3% 29.8% 146,441 Other services (except public administration) 4.4% 1.4% 4.4% 1.0% 12.8% 25,522 Public administration 7.3% 4.2% -1.5% 5.9% 19.4% 82,215 Source: Statistics Canada. Table 14-10-0202-01 Employment by industry, annual. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25318/1410020201-eng. The Liberal strategy to update highways and transit infrastructure to improve the
efficiency of merchandise exports was part of their larger project of improving capital mobility.
Capital mobility – understood as the ease with which goods, services, and money can cross
national (and sub-national) boundaries – had increased significantly through Ontario’s deeper
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integration in the North American economic bloc in the preceding decade under NAFTA. During
McGuinty’s first term several high-profile trips to India and Pakistan (with a trip to China coming shortly after re-election) were undertaken for the purposes of attracting “investment and jobs” to the province while helping link Ontario businesses with opportunities abroad.156 The agreements signed from these trips tended to create partnerships for foreign capital to be invested in Ontario businesses, for cooperation and exchanges of people and intellectual property (in the cases of the universities), or for Canadian capital to be invested abroad.
These changes to Ontario’s political economy represent what scholars such as Brenner,
Arrighi, and Clover have termed a shift in the regime of accumulation from one of production to one of circulation.157 While this “arc of accumulation” has taken on names and concepts such as late capitalism, deindustrialization, post-Fordism, and financialization (to name the most common), the defining aspect of this arc is a movement away from mass industrial production for domestic needs, towards the integration and proliferation of trade and investment in new industrial sectors and newly industrialized jurisdictions.158 This often is accompanied by “rent- seeking” capital taking a predominant position over “productive” capital. This shift to accumulation by circulation has necessitated a whole host of institutional infrastructure that have
156 Office of the Premier (Feb 5, 2007). “Strengthening Ties Between Ontario And Pakistan,” Government of Ontario Newsroom. Retrieved from: https://news.ontario.ca/opo/en/2007/02/strengthening-ties-between-ontario-and- pakistan.html. Office of the Premier (Feb 5, 2007). “Boosting Trade And Investment Between Ontario And India,” Government of Ontario Newsroom. Retrieved from: https://news.ontario.ca/opo/en/2007/02/boosting-trade-and-investment- between-ontario-and-india.html. Office of the Premier (Nov 3, 2008). “Canadian Leaders' Mission: China 2008 -- Beijing,” Government of Ontario Newsroom. Retrieved from https://news.ontario.ca/opo/en/2008/11/canadian-leaders-mission-china-2008---- beijing.html. 157 Brenner, N. (1998). Between fixity and motion: accumulation, territorial organization and the historical geography of spatial scales. Environment and planning D: Society and space, 16(4), 459-481; Arrighi, G. (1994). The long twentieth century: Money, power, and the origins of our times. Verso; Clover, J. (2019). Riot. Strike. Riot: The new era of uprisings. Verso. 158 Clover, J. (2016). “Riot. Strike. Riot.”, Verso. Brooklyn: New York. P. 18.
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been developed and maintained along neoliberal lines. At a global level, the World Trade
Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), free trade agreements (FTAs),
Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPAs) and “free-trade zones” have all been built to encourage the expansion of capital mobility. The Liberals understood that under this shift – which they moved with rather than against – it would be necessary to address capital mobility as a key part of their competitiveness agenda.
To this end, the Liberals had two strategic priorities: attracting foreign direct investment and improving capital flows at border crossings. These aspects of capital mobility became one of the most important components of the Liberal’s competitiveness agenda with the party claiming that:
“Trade creates jobs and grows the economy faster and better than any single
economic policy. Ontario is the world’s most trade-oriented economy, with
exports making up a larger percentage of our GDP than any G7 nation. We
have access to the world’s largest market and are blessed with the most diverse
population on the planet.”159
The ideas that social and institutional relations that promote free trade and capital mobility are natural, universally beneficial, and the only viable option, have been key planks of neoliberal ideology for several decades. The neoliberal argument, in its most simplified form, is that the states which can provide the most favourable business climate will attract investment in industries that will provide jobs and economic growth. Under these favourable conditions, companies can produce cheaper goods and services because of some combination of advantages
159 Ontario Liberal Party (2003). Platform: Achieving our Potential, The Ontario Liberal Plan for Economic Growth, Ontario Liberal Party. P. 25. [my emphasis].
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in labour costs, labour market flexibility, skills, infrastructure, or some other form of
“competitive advantage.” These cheaper production costs are then supposedly passed on to the consumer through lower prices and made available to wider non-domestic markets through the removal of trade barriers.
While this “common-sense” understanding of the benefits of capital mobility has prevailed, it has also been consistently challenged by heterodox economists and political economists who have pointed out the ways in which “free trade” has taken on a decisively neoliberal character. Capital mobility has been structured in such a way as to institutionalize advantages for multinational corporations over other segments of an economy and society. For example, capital mobility has been used as a coercive tool in labour negotiations and organizing drives, given anti-democratic powers to corporations through providing recourse to investor-state dispute mechanisms (ISDMs) and has prevented the governments of middle-powers and underdeveloped economies from subsidizing new industrial strategies.160 Furthermore, FDI is often tied to corporate mergers and acquisitions that lead to the restructuring of business operations which are intended to “lean out” the productive process to increase profits. While these potential pitfalls of capital mobility are never mentioned by the Liberals, there was less need to do so in the pre-crisis boom. Modest economic growth, stable employment and inflation, and interest rates that had been trending downwards since the 1990s were combined with almost across the board spending increases during the Liberals’ first term. These factors, along with a
160 Bronfenbrenner, K. (1997). We'll close! Plant closings, plant-closing threats, union organizing and NAFTA. Multinational Monitor, 18(3), 8-14; Sinclair, S. (2015). “Trade agreements and progressive governance.” In Critical Perspectives on the Crisis of Global Governance (pp. 110-133). Palgrave Macmillan, London; Clarkson, S., & Wood, S. (2009). A perilous imbalance: the globalization of Canadian law and governance. UBC Press.
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stable domestic bond market, resulted in the establishment of quite desirable business climate where FDI did expand. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the auto sector.
During the Harris/Eves years, Japanese and German automakers established 8 new facilities in southern U.S. states and invested over $4.5 billion in the region. US jurisdictions who had been vying for the facilities had used considerable state subsidies and attractive regulatory regimes to make their states the most appealing sites for capital investment. The failure to attract a new greenfield site in Ontario over the preceding decade led to a change of course by the Liberals from the Conservative years. In 2004, the Liberal government established a $500 million Ontario Automotive Investment Strategy fund to provide incentives. Several high-profile investments followed from GM, Ford, and a new $1.1 billion investment from
Toyota.161 The efforts of the McGuinty Liberals were not without recognition. In 2006, the
Financial Times-associated magazine Foreign Direct Investment, named McGuinty their
“Personality of the Year” for the work he and his party had done in securing new automotive sector investments and in boosting the province’s electricity supply.162 After three years of the
Liberal’s first term, the province was able to attract almost $7 billion as the government worked to “strengthen the competitiveness of the industry,” by “supporting innovation, high-value skills training, infrastructure, environmental technologies and energy efficiency.”163
161 Anastakis, D. (2018). “A Neolibral Pause? The Auto and Manufacturing Sectors in Ontario since Free Trade.” In Evans, B. and Albo, G. (Eds.). Divided Province: Ontario Politics in the Age of Neoliberalism McGill-Queen’s University Press. P. 118-119. 162 CBC (Aug 17, 2006). “McGuinty chosen 'Personality of the Year' by British mag”, CBC News. Retrieved from: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/mcguinty-chosen-personality-of-the-year-by-british-mag-1.572800. 163 Office of the Premier (August 21, 2006). “Ontario Automotive Industry Investments Creating Jobs And Prosperity For Ontario Families,” Government of Ontario Newsroom. Retrieved from: https://news.ontario.ca/opo/en/2006/08/ontario-automotive-industry-investments.html.
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Running throughout much of the Liberal’s strategic discourse in the first phase is the need for corporatism. The state, capital and labour were the three driving forces of innovation and growth and were encouraged to work together to achieve their common goals. The strategic documents often refer to “partnerships” and evoke notions of “togetherness” in the push to make the province more competitive. This is a fundamental difference between the roll-back regime of the Harris and Eves Tories and the Third Way Liberals. Where the former regime prioritized the coercive capabilities of the state to push through neoliberal reforms – and was subsequently met with mass resistance – the Liberal regime aimed to use the integral states’ abilities to co-opt, offer strategic concessions and bring formerly oppositional forces into line with the dominant policy pillars. While this topic is discussed in greater extent in the next two chapters, it is worth noting its presence here.
In a context of favorable conditions for accumulation and with capital willing to offer labour marginal concessions so long as the state should pick up the tab, the Liberals were able to frame their competitiveness agenda as mutually beneficial. Improved human capital development, expanding retraining schemes, investments pouring in, a declining infrastructure deficit, and tax incentives and subsidies did improve the competitiveness of Ontario’s economy.
However, when the conditions for financing these operations were undermined, so too was the supposed neutrality of the competitiveness agenda. It is primarily in the post-GFC context that the push for FDI and export-orientation became a weakness rather than a strength of Ontario’s political economy. It is at this point that the competitiveness and favourable business climate that the Liberals had built through their social investment approach was undermined by a deep and structural crisis. To re-establish their competitiveness agenda, the Liberal’s had to pivot to a more orthodox neoliberal approach.
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Post-Crisis Phase: 2008-2013
Following the onset of the GFC, the conditions for the social investment approach were undermined by deteriorating economic conditions and the corresponding effects on revenues. As outlined in the section austerity, the post-crisis period was typified by a phase of stimulus and public injections of liquidity into the economy, followed abruptly by a long phase of austerity. In the short run, the stimulus spending was largely directed towards alleviating mass spikes in unemployment and ensuring that Ontario’s GDP did not take too much of a nosedive.
One of the primary sites of this spending was the auto sector bailout. On December 8th,
2008 the Ontario and Federal governments announced they would be providing conditional financing to GM and Chrysler’s Canadian operations. PM Stephen Harper, stated that these measures would be used to “to restructure and renew the automotive industry in this country and ensure that Canada maintains our current production share of the North American market."164
Key among the provisions of this bailout were wage and benefit concession measures for CAW auto workers totaling $150 million. The government’s direct role in coercing concessions from the CAW represented a move away from a “passive” form of internal devaluation, to a very direct form. The Canadian and Ontario governments had vested interests in keeping auto manufacturing in Ontario, and prioritized conditions for profitability over the financial security of CAW members.165 The almost unprecedented step of the state interfering in private sector collective bargaining had a chilling effect on subsequent negotiations and set standards for the
164 Office of the Premier (Dec 8, 2008). “Prime Minister Harper and Premier McGuinty announce financial support for the auto industry,” Government of Ontario Newsroom. Retrieved from: https://news.ontario.ca/opo/en/2008/12/prime-minister-harper-and-premier-mcguinty-announce-financial- supoprt-for-the-auto-industry.html. 165 Fowler, T. (2012). “Does fighting back still matter? The Canadian autoworkers, capitalist crisis and confrontation.” Capital & Class. 36(3), p. 504.
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types of concessions that would be expected throughout the rest of the private sector. Companies whose profitability had been undermined (or those who could claim that this was the case) were granted significant leverage over their workers by posing the choice between concessions or closures.
At the time, other measures which had formerly given Ontario a competitive advantage were eroding. A weak US dollar undermined Canada’s exchange rate export advantage and rising oil costs made energy-heavy production more costly. The result, in both Ontario and
Canada, was wage suppression in both the private sector (for the purposes of restoring
“competitiveness”) and in the public sector (for the purposes of fiscal consolidation). According to figures published in a report by the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario, it was during the height of the recession (2008-2011) that income immobility peaked, upward income mobility reached its nadir, the share of workers in permanent full-time positions decreased, real wages declined then stagnated and the share of economy-wide income paid as corporate income increased.166
While the GFC represented both a threat to the viability of capital accumulation in the province, it also represented an opportunity for corporations (often large, multinational corporations) to restructure operations and deleverage bad debt that had been accumulated over the preceding decade. The primary way through which the Liberals attempted to decrease the threat level and expand these opportunities was by turning to supply side reforms, including measures to make Ontario “one of the most tax-competitive jurisdictions in the industrialized
166 Financial Accountability Office (2019). “Income in Ontario: Growth, Distribution and Mobility.” Financial Accountability Office of Ontario. Retrieved from: https://fao-on.org/en/Blog/Publications/income-report2019.
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world for new business investment.”167 Reduced fiscal space to invest in competitiveness enhancing measures (aside from infrastructure), combined with the decrease in the liquidity for investment in the domestic private sector meant further pursuit of FDI. The first phase of competitiveness had built its favourable investment climate through human capital development, infrastructure investments, and a host of corporate subsidies and tax incentives. In the aftermath of the GFC, this approach was viewed as being no longer possible or no longer sufficient to encourage the types of capital investment needed to sustain growth. In response, the Liberals’ efforts to support “a dynamic and innovative business climate” led with large corporate tax cuts and measures to “reduce red tape” in addition to subsidies.168 This represents an important shift towards further market fundamentalism than existed in the pre-crisis years. While corporate subsidies and tax incentives can be used by states to shift the spending priorities of capital, direct tax cuts allow for businesses to invest as they see fit. The state’s ability to “steer” the economy is reduced to allow market actors more “choice.” The tax cuts, wage suppression, public sector retrenchment and restraint, and expanded use of restrictive labour legislation in the second phase all demonstrated a shift towards more orthodox neoliberal policies in the crisis period.
Between the 2009 and 2010 budgets, in addition to the public sector expenditure restraint, re-regulatory measures for “risk-based” environmental assessments and “efficient resolution” mechanisms in employment standards claims, the Liberals included measures that decreased taxes for corporations (from 14% to 10% by 2013), eliminated the capital tax on corporate assets and introduced energy subsidies for corporations. While they did provide some tax relief to the
167 Duncan, D. (2010). “Budget 2010: Open Ontario, Ontario’s Plan for Jobs and Growth”, Ministry of Finance. p. xv. 168 Ministry of Finance (Nov 7, 2013) “Supporting a Dynamic and Innovative Business Climate,” Government of Ontario Newsroom. Retrieved from: https://news.ontario.ca/mof/en/2013/11/supporting-a-dynamic-and- innovative-business-climate.html.
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bottom income bracket and expand low income tax credits, the goal of the corporate tax cuts was to spur economic growth with the implicit assumption that, as the saying goes, “a rising tide will lift all boats.” These measures went hand-in-hand with the more direct austerity programs of the
Open Ontario Plan and the Open for Business Act. With the Liberal’s austerity agenda becoming more orthodox, tax cuts were construed as being both a natural course of action to increase competitiveness and as being universally beneficial through the creation of a favourable business climate that would lead to increases in capital investment, the creation of new jobs, and increases in household income.169
Like all good hegemonic narratives this plausible and logical sequence of events has a kernel of truth to it, and thus appeals to common sense. Tax cuts often have provided short term stimulus and spending, albeit not to the degree which neoliberal technocrats assume. Heterodox economists, including Jim Stanford in the Canadian context, have problematized supply-side assumptions by pointing to the fact that corporate tax cuts have, since the 1980s, failed to materialize into increased capital spending as a percentage of GDP. What Stanford concluded in his 2011 study on the topic was that:
“These results confirm that corporate tax rates have had no visible direct impact
on business investment, and that the indirect impact on investment (experienced
via higher corporate cash flow) is small and has become weaker over time.
Canadian business investment is influenced more importantly by GDP growth
169 Duncan, D. (2010). “Budget 2010 Speech”, Ministry of Finance. p. 4.
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trends, interest rates, exchange rates, and oil prices than by changes in corporate
taxes.”170
Despite this and similar findings, the crisis of accumulation outed the Liberals for their decidedly neoliberal ideology and in many ways undermined the “progressive” image they had been able to establish in the first phase. One of the least popular measures used to offset potential revenue shortfalls brought on by the corporate tax cuts was the introduction of the value-added HST tax
(Harmonized Sales Tax). The Liberals justified this measure by point out that Ontario was one of the few OECD jurisdictions not to have a harmonized value-added tax, and that its introduction would bring them into line with best-practice policy. Despite this rhetoric, the HST, as with many other value-added taxes, was found to be regressive and would shift the tax burden to consumers, with low-income consumers disproportionately affected.171
During the 2011 election campaign, the Liberals framed their issues through three themes: modernization or regression, uncertain times, and Ontario in the global market. Both the themes of uncertain times and Ontario in the global market were used to create a sense of anxiety about the economic climate, while the modernization versus regression framing presented the
Liberals as the only viable option. The combination of the Liberals success in swaying voters and the inability of the Conservatives or NDP to swing voters from Liberal electoral hegemony led to a 10-point Liberal polling lead, with 58% of polled respondents claiming the Ontario was moving in the right direction, and 56% of respondents approving of the provincial
170 Stanford, J. (2011). Having their cake and eating it too. Canadian Centre For Policy Alternatives. Retrieved from: https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/having-their-cake-and-eating-it-too. 171 Murrell, D. (2010). “Impact of HST on Ontario and British Colombia Households by Income Quintile. Canadian Centre for Policy Studies. Retrieved from: https://web.archive.org/web/20120522235653/http://www.taxpayer.com/sites/default/files/Impact_of_HST_ON _BC.pdf.
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government.172 In the 2011 election, the Liberals were successful in securing a minority government. While they did lose 17 seats (as the PCs gained 12 and the NDP 7), at 53 seats retained, the Liberals were still only one seat short of a third consecutive majority.
The framing of the election as a choice between continued modernization or regression was spun as a choice between “a low-skills, low-wage economy where you produce cheap goods that can be made anywhere” or developing “a high-skills, high-wage economy where you produce goods the competition can’t make.”173 As discussed in the section on austerity, the competitiveness of the province was tightly wound together with the fiscal decisions of the province.
As Fanelli and Thomas (2011) have pointed out, the rhetoric of modernization is not new, either in Ontario or elsewhere.174 The rhetoric of “modern” government had been used by the
Harris governments to introduce a 60-hour work week, freeze the minimum wage, and lower overtime premiums. The phrase has also been associated with Tony Blair’s New Labour, from who the McGuinty Liberals drew much inspiration. In Stuart Hall’s analysis of New Labour, he describes the process of Blairite “modernization” in the following way:
“Indeed, the Blair ‘revolution’ is principally directed, not at the modernization
of the economy, which is largely left to corporate initiative and the new
managerialism to accomplish, but at the modernization of society and
government via the ‘re-invention’ of the state. The neo-liberal origins of
172 Ekos Politics (Oct 4, 2011). “Liberals Headed to Majority as Lead Widens to 10.” iPolitics. Retrieved from: https://web.archive.org/web/20120425045355/http://ekos.ca/admin/articles/FG-2011-10-04.pdf. 173 Liberal Party (2011). “Forward Together: The Ontario Liberal Plan 2011-2015.” Liberal Party of Ontario. p. 1. 174 Fanelli, C., & Thomas, M. P. (2011). Austerity, competitiveness and neoliberalism redux: Ontario responds to the great recession. Socialist Studies/Études socialistes, 7(1/2).
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‘entrepreneurial governance’ are hard to disguise. Far from breaking with neo-
liberalism, ‘entrepreneurial governance’ constitutes its continuation—but in a
transformed way.”175
For the Ontario Liberals, this re-invention of the state towards entrepreneurial governance took its most orthodox neoliberal form in the aftermath of the GFC. The choice of modernization language is intended to provide a positive gloss which obfuscates the destructive and neoliberal tendencies of a modernization process which has reduced income, job, and industrial security, has transferred wealth from labour to capital, has encouraged privatization of need and individualism, and commodified formerly de-commodified areas of social and public life. It is presented as a natural evolutionary process through which all economies must transition if they wish to have or maintain their prospect of the good life.
Secondly, the Liberals played on people’s fears and insecurities surrounding the depth of effects related to the GFC. The narrative of “uncertain times” ran through the 2011 campaign and into the third term.176 The economies of the US and Europe are described as being on “the brink” where “people are anxious” and want answers “because the world is changing fast.”177
Ontario’s economic problems brought on by the recession were downplayed as a temporary setback on an otherwise successful road to provincial prosperity. The Liberals pointed to their record of investments in public services, of attracting FDI to the province, and their record navigating the GFC. The election is presented in some ways as a “devil-you-know” type scenario
175 Hall, S. (2005). New Labour's double-shuffle. The Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 27(4), p. 324. 176 Ministry of Finance (Nov 7, 2013) “Supporting a Dynamic and Innovative Business Climate,” Government of Ontario Newsroom. Retrieved from: https://news.ontario.ca/mof/en/2013/11/supporting-a-dynamic-and- innovative-business-climate.html. 177 Liberal Party (2011). “Forward Together: The Ontario Liberal Plan 2011-2015.” Liberal Party of Ontario. p. 1.
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to both capital and those portions of the electorate looking for both political and economic stability.
Finally, the theme of Ontario in the global market emerges as a central frame from the
2011 election campaign. In many ways, the GFC had brought to light the interconnectedness of economies and countries for finance and investment as a sub-prime mortgage crisis in the U.S. had brought about a deep global recession. Competition for finance and competitive advantages was expanded from geographically close U.S. jurisdictions to include the BRIC countries of
Brazil, Russia, India and China, who are “challenging the established economic powers.”178
India and China, who had been former partners of the McGuinty government and who in the first phase had been celebrated for deepening economic integration with the province, now represented a challenge to Ontario’s economic health. With “uncertainty now [characterizing] the whole global economy,” Ontario would have to continuously adapt and stay ahead of, not only competitors within the regional bloc, but also global competitors to maintain jobs and growth.179
According to the Liberal narrative, the modernization was not an end-state, but rather a continuous process dictated by market fundamentalism.
As a part of this continuous process, the Liberals made long-term efforts to upgrade human capital and skills through funding for postsecondary education and training. While the
Liberal’s rhetorical commitments to these institutions and programs remained much as it had in the first phase, fiscal retrenchment began to creep in as stimulus spending ended. Between 2010 and 2016, spending for postsecondary and training consistently fell under-budget and stagnated at approximately $7.5 billion until jumping to $10.1 billion in 2017 in the leadup to an election
178 Ibid. p. 6. 179 Duncan, D. (2012). “2012 Ontario Budget: Strong Action for Ontario”,
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year.180 Boasting about increases to education funding became a staple of the Liberal’s strategy across both periods that likely helped lend legitimacy to their claims to be investing in education.
However, when looking over the long-term, a trend emerges that demonstrates that these strategic injections were most likely to come in the leadup to a provincial election. This trend is especially apparent when looking at school board expenditure.
Figure 4: School Board Expenditure (2018, real $ CAD, millions)
Expenditure for School Y-o-y Expenditure Boards Real increases change (%) by Year (2018 m $’s) increases (%) term (by year) Notes McGuinty becomes 2003/04 21,414 Premier 2004/05 22,127 713 3.22% 2005/06 22,345 219 0.98% McGuinty 1st term 2006/07 23,029 684 2.97% 7.01% (1.75%/yr) avg 2007/08 23,378 349 1.49% 2008/09 23,605 227 0.96% Onset of GFC 2009/10 23,171 -434 -1.87% McGuinty 2nd term 2010/11 23,480 310 1.32% 0.44% (0.11%/yr) avg 2011/12 23,886 406 1.70% Putting Students First 2012/13 22,242 -1,644 -7.39% Act McGuinty 3rd term 2013/14 23,909 1,666 6.97% 0.09% (0.03%/yr) avg Wynne becomes 2014/15 24,348 439 1.80% Premier Protecting the School 2015/16 24,316 -31 -0.13% Year Act 2016/17 25,759 1,443 5.60% 2017/18 28,116 2,357 8.38% 13.40% (3.35%/yr) Wynne 1st term avg Source: Ontario Public Accounts (https://www.ontario.ca/page/public-accounts-ontario-past-editions).
180 See: Ontario Public Accounts Documents 2010-2014.
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As Figure 4.0 shows, year-over-year changes for real-term school board expenditures ranged from a decrease of 7.39% in 2012/13 in the aftermath of the Putting Students First Act, to an increase of 8.38% in 2017/18 in the leadup to the 2018 election. While year-over-year variation is important to monitor, a more comprehensive indicator would be the expenditure change per government term. This represents the real terms percentage increase in spending on education by each government administration. For example, the first McGuinty term saw an increase in education sector spending of 7.01%. This increase lent legitimacy to the McGuinty
Liberal’s claims to be investing in education, which was a central plank of all their election platforms and likely helped them shore up the support of some teachers unions in the Working
Families Coalition (WFC). However, following the onset of the GFC these figures decline significantly. In the McGuinty Liberal’s second term, real terms education spending increased only 0.44%. In their third term, this drops again to 0.09%.
These close ties between the austerity agenda and the competitiveness agenda are most pronounced during the post-crisis phase. The social investment approach was so heavily premised on the state having the fiscal space to invest in areas that would promote productivity that when fiscal conditions were undermined, so too was the social investment approach in terms of its focus on the skills and educational development. While the Liberals did not actively move away from their commitments in these areas, they were clearly of lower priority in establishing a favourable business climate by lowering business costs and improving infrastructure through the expanded use of P3s.
While the tax cuts became the leading strategy of the second phase, infrastructure development followed closely behind. The 2013 budget shows the growth in infrastructure expenditures between 2005 and the 2013 budgets’ release. Figure 5.0, taken directly from the
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2013 budget shows the changing composition and volume of infrastructure funding through the pre- and post-crisis phases. The volume of expenditure almost doubles over this period from hovering around $6 billion in the pre-crisis years to between $12 and $14 billion in the post- crisis years. While much of this expenditure was tied to stimulus spending, overall spending did rise. Spending on transit and transportation/highways ranged from roughly a third to half of all infrastructure spending with the proportion of healthcare infrastructure expenditure being the deciding proportional factor.
Figure 5: Infrastructure Spending by Policy Area (2005-2013)
Source: 2013 Ontario Budget, pg. 30.
A relevant point to note is the fact that this graph includes “third-party contributions to capital investments” (i.e. AFP investments) as well as federal transfers. Of the 75 P3 infrastructure projects rolled out by the Liberals up to May 2014, 47 had been in healthcare, 10
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in justice, and 10 in transit and transportation.181 While healthcare was the sector most targeted for privatization through P3s, continued expenditure for transportation and transit infrastructure
– both public and private – pointed to the continued desire to improve the mobility of capital and labour. For the Liberals, moving “people and products efficiently and safely” remained “an important cornerstone in Ontario’s economic prosperity and high quality of life.”182
Development of transportation infrastructure in Ontario’s northern regions was specifically targeted to help improve the efficiency with which forest and mining products could be exported.183
One of the driving factors behind improved transportation infrastructure was the provincial government’s push to establish “innovation corridors” to promote inter‐provincial trade and investment. In 2009, the Ontario‐Quebec Trade and Cooperation Agreement was signed between the provinces for the purposes of “establishing the fourth largest economic zone in North America… in order to compete against the next largest geo‐economic zones (New
York, California and Texas) and rising opponents (e.g. the Maritimes and western provinces).”184
A key component of the integration of trade and investment across the provincial boundaries was directed towards developing efficient export flows to the U.S. and other trade partners. As
Fanelli and Thomas (2011) have pointed out, the Ontario-Quebec agreement also contained provisions that undermined the use of public procurement methods and opened the door to further use of P3s.185
181 Office of the Auditor General (2014). “2014 Annual Report of the Office of the Auditor General of Ontario,” Retrieved from: http://www.auditor.on.ca/en/content/annualreports/arbyyear/ar2014.html. p. 196. 182 Ministry of Finance (2009). “Public Accounts of Ontario, 2008-2009”, Ontario Ministry of Finance. p. 22. 183 Dwight Duncan (2009). “2009 Ontario Budget Speech”, Ontario Ministry of Finance. p. 5. 184 Fanelli, C., & Thomas, M. P. (2011). Austerity, competitiveness and neoliberalism redux: Ontario responds to the great recession. Socialist Studies/Études socialistes, 7(1/2). p. 156. 185 Ibid.
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While the provincial Liberals were investing in physical infrastructure for capital mobility, many of the changes in institutional infrastructure were being directed at the Federal level through negotiations over the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (between
Canada and the EU) and through the proliferation of bilateral Foreign Investment Promotion and
Protection Agreements (FIPAs). The pursuit of deeper global integration resulted in several changes in policy for the Liberals with none more impactful that the changes related to the 2009
Green Energy Act. The Green Energy Act (GEA) was an attempt by the Liberals to build an infant industry in advanced green energy manufacturing. The GEA, which had provisions that required a certain percentage of solar and wind components be domestically made, was eventually challenged by EU, Japan, and additional third-party complainants in 2011 through the
WTO Dispute Settlement Body. The government of Ontario was found to be in violation of
WTO trade rules since the GEA discriminated against foreign firms by having domestic content requirements. The solar and wind manufacturing programs were scrapped in 2013 to comply with the WTO ruling. Despite the negative impact the WTO ruling had both in democratic and economic terms, the Liberals remained relatively quiet after the ruling.
In addition to this and other economic and political setbacks, McGuinty’s declining popularity was not helped by slow economic growth in Ontario. The winding down of stimulus spending in 2010/11 resulted in growth of 1.3% in 2012 (compared to 1.8% across Canada) and
1.4% in 2013 (2.3% across Canada).186 McGuinty stepping down as Premier to be replaced by
Kathleen Wynne in 2013 did not represent a drastic shift in the competitiveness agenda of the
186
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Liberals. Rather, it represented a minor reversion to the social investment approach based on political calculations and the economic climate.
Conclusion
The development of Third Way austerity and competitiveness policy under the McGuinty
Liberals represented a period of neoliberal consolidation in Ontario. The McGuinty Liberals fluctuated between a third way social investment approach in the pre-crisis phase and a more orthodox neoliberal approach in the post-crisis years. By the time Kathleen Wynne became
Premier in 2013, the OLP had embraced a flexible and hybrid approach which mixed elements of both the preceding phases.
The differences between the pre- and post-crisis phases were more apparent in the
Liberal’s austerity policies than in the “competitiveness” policies, though the two were closely intertwined. During, and following the events of the GFC in 2007-2008, the social investment approach and competitiveness based on a subsidy-oriented interventionist state were undermined. In a response to the challenges of the conjuncture the McGuinty Liberals moved increasingly towards more orthodox neoliberal solutions to resolve the crisis of accumulation and legitimacy. Whereas austerity in the pre-crisis years had revolved around “balanced budgets,” P3s, and an increasing role for the Auditor General’s office, there had nonetheless been increasing net expenditures throughout the public sector. In the post-crisis phase, the leading strategic interventions were corporate tax cuts, expanded the use of P3s, frozen public sector expenditures and compensation, the introduction of restrictive labour legislation, the roll out of user fees and regressive consumer taxes, and an aggressive plan for restructuring the public sector along neoliberal lines via the Drummond Commission.
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Ideologically, austerity has been justified in the pre-crisis phase through relational progressivism, notions of “accountability,” “value-for-money”, and spending “hard earned taxpayer dollars” in ways that would enhance competitiveness and “fix” the damage of the
Harris years. In the post-crisis phase, the Liberals justified their increasingly neoliberal orthodoxy by framing a “fiscal emergency” using debt per capita, comparisons to household debt, the political impossibility of raising taxes, technocratic justifications through the
Drummond report, and shifting the burden of the crisis onto the public sector as scapegoats.
Similarly, competitiveness policy moved from being typified by human capital development (increasing education and healthcare spending), strategic state subsidies for indirect business costs, passive internal devaluation, and tax credits and adjustments in the pre-crisis phase, to a policy regime defined by labour concessions for bailouts, corporate tax cuts, a “light touch” regulatory approach, and stimulus spending geared towards capital mobility. Throughout both phases the McGuinty Liberals also focused on subsidizing capital, human capital development (through state funding was rolled back in the post-crisis period), and increasing capital mobility (both inward FDI and outward merchandise trade).
Despite differences in policy and rhetoric over the pre- and post-crisis years, a comprehensive and overarching project can nonetheless be discerned. Over both phases, the
McGuinty Liberals pursued an austerity agenda that pursued fiscal consolidation, public sector restructuring, and the expansion of privatization schemes. Similarly, the overarching competitiveness agenda can be one defined by interventions undertaken to create favourable business climate where human capital development, lowering business costs, and increasing capital mobility played central roles.
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Ideologically, the Liberal’s hegemonic narrative for austerity revolved around establishing and legitimizing a narrative which: i) presented Liberal austerity as one which would enhance competitiveness (a natural course of action), ii) portrayed austerity as a neutral policy agenda that would benefit all current and future Ontarians (universally beneficial), and iii) presented a “crisis” in public finances as an expenditure rather than a taxation issue (the only viable option). For competitiveness, ideological justifications were centered on interventions that aimed to create a new common sense dictating that i) competitiveness was a program of
“modernization” (natural); ii) the chosen policy directions would lead to a high-wage, high-skill economy (universally beneficial) and iii) any failure to become more competitive would lead to economic decline and disaster (the only viable option).
While it is difficult to accurately quantify the extent to which the McGuinty Liberals were “hegemonic” by virtue of governing consensually, the qualitative aspects of their Third
Way policy regime and corresponding ideology nonetheless led the party to multiple electoral successes despite a deep crisis of accumulation and legitimacy. This electoral success was then carried forward for another term by Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals, who built on and modified the necessary components to keep presenting the Liberals as the natural leading party of the period.
While their neoliberal prescriptions would have undoubtedly been marked with contradictions and would have extended beyond the narrow economic policy discussed here, the strongest parts of their legacy in the consolidation of neoliberalism was in their austerity and competitiveness planks. They were able to see out their 15 years of consolidating neoliberalism without any sustained, mass opposition. They were successful in neutralizing, absorbing, rationalizing, and compromising where necessary, and in the few instances where the conditions
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prohibited these appeasement measures, they turned to coercion. Coercion, however, was never the leading strategy.
Overall, the Third Way was presented as a project that aimed to present neoliberalism as natural, universally beneficial, and the only viable option. That is, it aimed to pursue neoliberal governance consensually. What the Third Way Liberals were able to accomplish was a long-term securing of consent for neoliberal consolidation, even if this consent by subaltern groups was only given passively. Gilbert (2013), has termed this “disaffected consent,” and applying it to austerity, Clarke (2017) has stated that it operates “wherein a general dissatisfaction with neoliberalism and its social consequences is very widespread, but no popular alternative is able to crystallize or cohere with sufficient potency to develop the necessary critical mass to challenge neoliberal hegemony.”187
However, despite their electoral successes and their ability to generate active and passive consent for their neoliberal agenda, the McGuinty Liberals were still met with varying levels of resistance from groups that embraced various levels of counter-hegemonic practices and ideologies. As important actors in the provinces’ political economy, it is now necessary to turn our attention to how the leading public-sector union, CUPE, and the leading private-sector union, the CAW, aimed to contest Third Way policy and doctrine.
187 Clarke, J. (2017). "Articulating Austerity and Authoritarianism" In McBride, S. and Evans, B. (Eds.). Austerity: the lived experience. p. 35.
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Part II: Union Strategies of Resistance
The following two chapters examine a specific part of class struggle: that of organized labour contending with the state. To complete this task, it is necessary to explore the predominant strategic interventions that CUPE and the CAW deployed in their respective wars of position
(WoP) against the Ontario Liberals, as well as discuss how and why these strategic orientations differed or converged. Of course, the size and complexity of these organizations will inevitably lead to pushes and pulls of different strategic orientations, especially over such a long period of time. Furthermore, the inclusion of all strategies and tactics over a 10-year period is also beyond the scope of this work. Rather, the discussion in the following chapters relates to which strategies were predominant, meaning the leading strategies articulated and pursued in Ontario over the relevant timeframe.
While Chapter 2 gives reference to the WoP and how it will be adapted as an analytical concept for the purposes of this work (organizing class forces towards or into a counter- hegemonic bloc against neoliberalism, or against specific components of the neoliberal agenda) it is necessary here to break the WoP down further into its different component parts.
Methodologically, this means determining CUPE’s and the CAW’s strategic interventions by assessing strategic components and tactics. The strategic components of this analytical framework, each with their own associated tactics, include internal organizing, external organizing, and contesting ideology. These strategic components are based in part on Stinson and
Ballantyne’s (2009) three mutually reinforcing cornerstones to building union power.188 For this work, internal and external organizing are part of the organizational-institutional struggle while
188 Stinson, J., & Ballantyne, M. (2009). Union renewal and CUPE. Paths to Union Renewal: Canadian Experiences, 145-60.
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contesting ideology is part of the ideological-symbolic struggle. While methodically separate for the purposes of analysis, the organizational-institutional and ideological-symbolic interventions are in fact inextricably linked.
Internal organizing is aimed at facilitating varying levels of engagement and activation from rank-and-file activists and already existing members. In many ways, it is about building power on the shop floor and expanding its capacity beyond the shop floor to make interventions in the existing relations of power.189 Specific attention will be given to the “politicization” of members in ways that are consistent with the union’s strategic direction and the ways in which union structures allow for the participation and buy-in from wide and diverse elements of the membership. How internal organizing develops is a strategic question that is largely determined by “how unions function and allocate resources; how they relate to their members, the community and employers; how they develop leadership and how they bargain; and how they understand “politics”.”190 Tactically, internal organizing could involve initiatives such as education programs and courses oriented toward counter-hegemonic perspectives, the establishment and empowering of rank-and-file-led committees, campaigns directed towards membership engagement, developing organic leaders, and structure tests for escalating direct actions.
External organizing is aimed at increasing organizational leverage by bringing new members, allies, and organizations into the historical bloc. This strategic component includes
189 This type of strategic intervention has been various defined by union renewal scholars and union organizers. Jane McAlevey’s advocacy model, mobilization model, and organizing model; Ross’ (2007) leadership-focused (advocacy), membership-focused-mobilizational (mobilizing), and membership-focused-democratizing (organizing); and Camfield (2007) adding a seventh dimension (degree of membership participation, initiative and democratic control) to Murray’s (2002) six “axes of differentiation. 190 Gindin, S. (2016, Dec 8) “The Power of Deep Organizing”, Jacobin. Retrieved from: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/12/jane-mcalevey-unions-organizing-workers-socialism
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both parliamentary and non-parliamentary tactics. External organizing is largely defined by the types of alliances and coalitions that are built outside of the already existing union membership.
Some examples of tactics include organizing drives (certification), union mergers, coordination with labour federations, party-union relations (including consultations and lobbying), engagement in coalitions, public campaigns and rallies (which bridge internal and external organizing), and community-based initiatives.
Finally, contesting ideology, while methodologically separate from internal and external organizing, is a strategic component that runs through both organizational-institutional interventions. Ideological contestation assesses the extent to which a group aims at dismantling the dominant common-sense and replacing it with new cultural understandings and material practices, or the degree to which its ideological positions are reflective of integration and incorporation into the dominant bloc. Drawing on Stuart Hall’s Encoding/Decoding Model of communication this strategic component has three ideal-typical orientations.191 According to
Hall’s model, the social production of meaning means people are not simply passive recipients of ideology and can take one of three positions regarding ideological messages and meanings. The first, the dominant-hegemonic position, involves producer-consumers of ideology (in this case the union organizations) uncritically accepting the messages and meanings as they were intended by those within the hegemonic bloc. The second position is a negotiated position where producer-consumers of ideology accept certain components of the hegemonic bloc’s preferred meanings while rejecting others. Finally, an oppositional position involves the ideological producer-consumer rejecting the meanings intended by the hegemonic bloc and instead ascribing to and promoting alternative ideologies and meanings. The positions in Hall’s model have been
191 Hall, S. (2001). Encoding/decoding. Media and cultural studies: Keyworks, 2.
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adapted to be thought of as falling along a continuum, rather than as mutually exclusive positions, due to the fragmentary and sometimes contradictory nature of ideology.
Strategic Interventions Level of Struggle Strategic Examples of Tactics Components Internal education programs, the establishment and Organizing empowering of rank-and-file-led committees, campaigns directed towards membership engagement, developing organic leaders, structure Organizational- tests Institutional Level External organizing drives (certification), union mergers, Organizing coordination with labour federations, party-union relations (including consultations and lobbying), engagement in coalitions, public campaigns, and community-based initiatives Ideological- Ideological opposing, negotiating, or accepting dominant Symbolic Level contestation meanings, values, norms; proposing alternatives
The purpose of a war of position (WoP) from the point of a subaltern group is to tilt the balance of forces in one’s favour so that if, or when direct conflict with an adversary emerges, the result of the conflict leads to a lasting subaltern victory. To determine how CUPE’s and the
CAW wars of position unfolded, the next two chapters will examine both the organizational- institutional interventions and the ideological-symbolic articulations that were deployed by each union in an effort to gain favourable terrain for their members and their organizations between
2003 and 2013.
As with the previous chapter, the evolution of each union’s WoP will be traced over two periods. These two periods – 2003-2008 and 2008-2013 – are meant to loosely correspond to pre- and post-crisis periods during which the Global Financial Collapse (GFC) of 2008-9 serves as the dividing line. In this way, the phases that were established in Chapter 3 to describe shifts in policy, politics, and the economy are again used to describe how each union attempted to build
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power before and after the crisis. Chapter 4 will start with the CAW and then discuss CUPE’s
WoP referentially. Chapter 5 will invert this ordering and will start with CUPE and then discuss the CAW’s WoP referentially.
Therefore, it is necessary to contextualize each union’s strategic interventions in reference to two sets of criteria. The first is how challenge areas faced by the unions were related to their institutional and industrial sectoral compositions. In many ways, the challenges faced by each union have found to be determined by their respective institutional (public/private) and industrial sectors. Therefore, considerations such as the ownership and financing structure, the process of production and exchange, the ideological narratives around the “role” of the sector/industry, and respective target’s vulnerabilities and capacities for response will be integrated where relevant.
Secondly, the union’s strategies must consider how the dominant Third Way neoliberal
(TWN) policy pillars – austerity and competitiveness – interacted with sectoral considerations.
While both unions address austerity and competitiveness as part of their WoP, this research has found that each union’s institutional sector as well as their industrial sectors was a strong determining factor in the main challenge areas identified by each union (or parts of the union), as well as the corresponding strategies of resistance. The predominant challenge areas for CUPE, the public sector union, related to austerity: privatization, public sector restructuring, and fiscal consolidation. For the CAW, the predominant challenge areas related to competitiveness: capital mobility, industrial restructuring, and declining union density and membership.192
192 As will be discussed below, the CAW-Unifor’s predominant challenge area is complicated by their membership growth in non-traditional and public sectors.
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The analysis of how these challenges were met and rolled into a wider project that could be termed a War of Position will pay specific attention to how these orientations would interact with the Liberals as a governing party, and with the Liberals policy and rhetoric. This focus on the politics of production will then allow an assessment of the extent to which each one can be said to have acted counter-hegemonically. The chapters will conclude with a brief but important overview of the “incursions” each union took into the war of maneuver (strikes, occupations, blockades, and other forms of direct and overt militancy), the importance of one or several symbolically important strikes, and the connections between the WoP and the WoM during the time period in question.
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Chapter 4: Pre-Crisis Wars of Position
CAW Pre-Crisis: 2003-2008
A systematic analysis of CAW documents between the years 2003 and 2008 revealed that the most prominent strategic interventions for the CAW on an organizational-institutional level were electoral realignment, issue-based campaigns, activism through the Unions in Politics
Committees (UPCs), and organizing new members through certification. These were explicitly referenced numerous times across an array of documents, or were otherwise highlighted by the
CAW as the main strategic interventions that were deployed for the purposes of external organizing (electoral realignment and organizing for certification) and internal organizing (UPCs and issue-based campaigns). All of these strategic interventions were loaded with ideological and symbolic content and as such are incorporated into the analysis below.
Electoral Realignment
Following the disappointing experience with the NDP Rae government (1990-1995) and the trials and tribulations of Mike Harris’ Common Sense Revolution, the CAW under President
“Buzz” Hargrove commissioned a task force in 1999 to review “what the role of the union should be in representing our members’ political interests.”193 The resulting report, the CAW
Task Force on Working Class Politics in the 21st Century was released in 2002 after widespread consultations with members. The adoption of this document and the recommendations within signaled a change in the union’s intended internal and external organizing tactics in the leadup to the 2003 Ontario provincial election.
193 CAW (2002). “CAW Task Force on Working Class Politics in the 21st Century”, CAW Collective Bargaining and Political Action. P. 2.
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At an overarching level this strategic re-orientation can be described as one that was intended to move the union away from a partisan political position and towards efforts to develop independent and non-parliamentary working-class power. The task-force document recounts how a partisan political strategy that embraced the NDP – through financing, affiliations, endorsements and encouraging members to vote for the NDP – had proven to be ineffective in countering “pro-business changes in our society over the past two decades.”194 The
CAW called for a “re-defining” of politics, moving away from the traditional relationship between social democratic parties and unions and towards building a political culture within the union, addressing emerging critical issues through union campaigns, and by building alliances with other progressive groups. On the matter of elections, the strategic paper suggested that the role of the union should be to 1) improve working class participation in elections; 2) heighten awareness among our members of the issues and positions which are debated during elections and 3) offer our support for candidates who express progressive views.195
In terms of the CAW’s strategic reorientation to external organizing, the embracing of non-partisan electoralism is one of the most significant and lasting changes. The Task Force on
Working Class Politics cemented a direction that the CAW had slowly been moving in over the past decade and represented the formalization of the tactic of strategic voting. As Bruce Allen, founder of the CAW Left Caucus has written, in the 1995 Ontario election, the CAW’s made their support for NDP candidates contingent upon whether they had defied Premier Bob Rae by openly opposing the anti-labour Social Contract legislation. These deep divisions within the labour movement coincided with the Harris Conservatives securing a strong majority in their
194 Ibid. 195 Ibid. p. 16.
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first term. Harris then secured re-election at the same time that escalating militant action in the form of the Days of Action collapsed into electoralism (including strategic voting).196 Given the failures of partisan electoralism in delivering a break from neoliberalism, and in light of the
CAW Task Force on Working Class Politics finding that members “wanted to make up their own mind and not be told how to vote,” the union informally severed its ties to their traditional party and embraced strategic voting as part of the Working Families Coalition (WFC) in the 2003 election.197 The WFC was a loose coalition of unions that became active during election cycles by donating, supporting, and mobilizing for strategic voting initiatives. These activities were typically driven by an anyone but Conservative (ABC) logic that developed into a sometimes implicit, sometimes explicit support for the McGuinty Liberals.198 By 2006, and in the leadup to the federal election, partisan ties were formally severed as the CAW National Executive Board
(NEB) disaffiliated from the NDP and encouraged its staff and locals to do likewise after Buzz
Hargrove had his party membership revoked.199
With the NDP routed at the polls in 2003 (securing only 7 seats out of 103), and the
McGuinty Liberals being elected with a strong majority, the CAW had to prepare itself to contend with a new government. As discussed in the previous chapter, the McGuinty Liberals relational progressivism (in reference to the previous Conservative government) allowed them to roll out and realize much of their political agenda in a largely uncontested way. The Liberals
196 Bruce Allen (2006). “Inside the jacket: Understanding the Canadian Autoworkers’ break with the NDP”, Briarpatch Magazine. Retrieved from: https://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/inside-the-jacket. Note: Bruce Allen, the former Vice-President of CAW Local 199 in St. Catharines and founder of the CAW Left Caucus. 197 CAW (2002). “CAW Task Force on Working Class Politics in the 21st Century”, CAW Collective Bargaining and Political Action. P. 16. 198 Walchuk, B. (2010). Changing union-party relations in Canada: The rise of the Working Families Coalition. Labor Studies Journal, 35(1), 27-50; Savage, L. (2010). Contemporary party-union relations in Canada. Labor Studies Journal, 35(1), 8-26. 199 CAW (Mar 24, 2006) “NEB Encourages Withdrawal of Support for NDP”, CAW Contact. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/3773.htm.
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were able to successfully navigate their first term by pursuing their policy pillars of austerity and competitiveness in a way that also offered strategic concessions to potentially antagonistic groups. For example, the Liberals expanded P3s and encouraged “efficiency” in the public sector while simultaneously raising across-the-board program expenditures by a yearly average of
6.4%.200 They lowered business costs through tax reforms and subsidies while also offering
“strategic investments” in post-secondary, infrastructure, healthcare, and select private industries.
As the first phase progressed, the CAW can be described as moving from a negotiated- dominant position towards a dominant-negotiated position regarding the Liberal’s ideology and policy. This is a small distinction but an important one. The union entered the first phase with an orientation where a negotiated position was central while the dominant position (i.e. those ideological positions taken by the Liberals), while certainly present, was secondary. However, by the time of the election in 2007 and with the onset of the GFC in 2008, this orientation had been reversed. The movement from a negotiated-dominant position to a dominant-negotiated position is such that the CAW’s ideological position can be said to have moved from, on balance, offering tacit support with qualified critiques to offering qualified support for the Liberal agenda. These positions were often taken in relation to how specific policies would impact the membership.
In the early 2000’s, the largest sections of the CAW’s membership in Ontario were in manufacturing, transportation (road, rail, and air), and health and social services. Of these sectors manufacturing, and auto specifically, still held priority position with 30% of members across
200 Reference from C3.
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Canada (approximately 74,000) and half of all union resources coming from that industry.201
During this time, the primary challenge area in Ontario identified by the CAW was the continued shrinking manufacturing sector, which shed over 150,000 total jobs between 2001 and 2008. The widespread loss of jobs through restructurings, layoffs, automations, and closures represented not only a threat to the quality of life for CAW members, but an existential threat to the operational viability of the union. Analysis of union content from the Communications Department to members during this time identified manufacturing decline as the most pressing threat facing the
CAW. Specifically, declining business investment in manufacturing (especially auto), capital mobility and the effects of free trade, the continuing of the “concessions or closures” corporate agenda, pension security in the face of bankruptcy, and a high Canadian dollar were identified the other primary threats facing the CAW.202
Figure 6: Declining Auto Sector Employment – Ontario (2001-2008)
Industry 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 Manufacturing 922,459 903,171 896,256 875,269 854,352 835,430 799,984 753,952 Motor vehicle 46,062 x x x x x x 38,073 Motor vehicle body and trailer 5,173 4,793 5,093 5,095 4,766 4,839 4,545 4,483 Motor vehicle parts 89,317 86,849 87,725 87,449 86,688 82,434 77,721 71,249 Source: Statistics Canada. Table 14-10-0202-01 Employment by industry, annual. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25318/1410020201-eng. Despite a mobilized and relatively militant membership in the manufacturing sector, the structural leverage afforded to labour relative to capital during this period was limited.
Competition from other jurisdictions, the hyper-mobility of capital, and productivity enhancing
201 Hargrove, B. (Dec. 2005) “CAW President Buzz Hargrove Speech to CAW Council,” CAW President’s Report to CAW Council. P. 3. 202 CAW (2005) “2005 Convention Documents – Chapter 2: The Economic Context”, Twenty Years of Fighting Back - 2005 Convention Documents. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/5534.htm.
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technology meant that contesting the politics in production (i.e. collective bargaining and strikes at a local level) were largely insufficient to deal with the challenges. To address these shortcomings, the CAW engaged in a politics of production that including strategic voting and closer ties with the governing party. In exchange, the McGuinty Liberals rolled out a number of strategic investments for the manufacturing industry as part of its focus on “key business clusters,” where auto was the central feature. However, despite these interventions on the part of the Liberals, the CAW still demanded further actions to not only stem job loss, but work to reverse it. To do so, the CAW used issue-based campaigns.
Issue-Based Campaigns
Around the primary challenge area of manufacturing decline the CAW deployed a host of internal and external organizing tactics aimed at stalling and reversing the most immediate threat to the membership and the existential viability of the union. Primary among these was the mobilization of union resources toward campaigns.
The two most prominent CAW campaigns during the first phase were their
Manufacturing Matters and Made in Canada campaigns. While the Made in Canada campaign was not rolled out until 2006, its precursor emerged in 2004 as a Buy Domestic Vehicles campaign. Both campaigns were eventually subsumed under the Manufacturing Matters campaign. According to CAW president Buzz Hargrove, the purpose of the 2004 campaign was to “raise public awareness” for consumers about the “vital economic importance of the auto industry in Canada.”203 The campaign utilized broad public outreach through billboards,
203 CAW (Jan 11, 2004) “CAW's Buy Domestic Vehicles Campaign Underway”, CAW Contact. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/3882.htm.
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pamphlets, and local newspaper ads, urging consumers to buy vehicles manufactured in Canada or the United States by the Big Three – General Motors, Ford, and DaimlerChrysler.204
Both the Buy Domestic Vehicles and its successor Made in Canada campaign sought to address one of the main sectoral challenges for the CAW at the time: the growing market share of imported, non-domestic automobiles from, primarily, Japan and South Korea. In its initial stages, the Buy Domestic Vehicles campaign had two primary objectives in that it wanted to
“raise awareness” of the importance of the auto industry for the Canadian (and especially
Ontario) economy and that it called for consumers to purchase vehicles that supported Canadian jobs. This campaign represented an early form of CAW corporatism as the union essentially advertised for the Big 3 and tied together a narrative in which it was mutually advantageous for the domestic manufacturers to maintain their market share and keep investing in Canada, due to the fact that it would maintain good jobs in an important sector to Ontario’s and Canada’s economies.205
These nationalist and corporatist framings were replicated again in the subsequent Made in Canada campaign as the CAW called on governments at the local, provincial, and federal level to “buy Canadian made products whenever possible.”206 As the Buy Domestic Vehicles campaign had been largely insufficient to stem the rise of market share for imported vehicles, the
CAW moved its institutional target from the “consumer” to various levels of government and
204 Ibid. 205 Corporatist relations take different forms depending on institutional arrangements across supranational, national, regional, and sectoral varieties. While certain Western European countries have highly developed corporatist structures, in the CAW’s case, corporatism tended by be decentralized, voluntary, and ad hoc in nature involving non-binding, consultative bipartite and tripartite social dialogue. See: McBride, S., Evans, B. and Watson, J. (2019). Democratic austerity? Social concertation in the neoliberal state. In Plehwe et al. (Eds), Austerity: 12 Myths Exposed (pp. 81-85). Retrieved from: https://www.socialeurope.eu/book/austerity-12-myths-exposed. 206 CAW (Dec 15, 2006) “CAW COUNCIL: December 8-10, 2006, Toronto, Ontario”, CAW Contact. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/3809.htm.
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their respective procurement policies.207 This shift from targeting consumers to targeting the state required a tactical shift. In addition to the use of broad-based awareness and mobilizing campaigns to call for consumer boycotts, the CAW moved towards pressuring state officials to adopt policy alternatives.
The first successful result of the Made in Canada campaign came when the Toronto City
Council voted to award a $700 million subway car contract to Bombardier Thunder Bay instead of a manufacturer who wanted to build the cars in China.208 During the campaign, Bob Cherenki, assistant to the CAW president, claimed that the struggle over the Bombardier contract was about “supporting Canadian jobs, families and communities with Canadian tax dollars.”209 While supporting Canadian jobs, families, and communities had long been a ideological-symbolic centerpiece for the CAW, the inclusion of subsidizing private corporations with public money is reflective of the evolving organizational position of the CAW concerning the role of the state.
Despite the Liberal’s (limited) interventions and the efforts of earlier CAW campaigns, manufacturing employment was still declining rapidly year-over-year in Ontario.210 In response, the CAW formally rolled out their Manufacturing Matters campaign between 2006 and 2007.211
In early 2007, the campaign was described by Carol Phillips, Assistant to CAW National
President as "the most important campaign there is to the labour movement in Canada” and the
207 Between 1996 and 2006 Big Three market share declined from 71.5% to 52.7%. See: Ross, S. (2011). P.80. [citing Ker, 2006]. 208 Ibid. 209 CAW (Jun 30, 2006) “Why Made in Canada Matters”, CAW Contact. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/3789.htm. 210 When McGuinty appeared as a guest speaker at the CAW Council in 2007, he highlighted the $500 million fund his government had established to support the auto industry, while also outlining concerns with manufacturing job loss and free trade. This intervention, which was welcomed as a “step in the right direction” by Hargrove when it was announced in 2004. 211 As Ross (2011) points out, the unofficial opening of the Manufacturing Matters campaign was in October 2006 in response to Ford’s announcement that it planned to close its Essex Engine Plant and eliminate 650 jobs.
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union placed significant resources towards its development.212 While the campaign incorporated previous calls for consumers to buy domestic and advocated for various levels of government to buy domestic products, the main target of the Manufacturing Matters campaign was federal trade policy and the newly elected Harper Conservative government. The campaign developed over two phases between 2007 and 2008. Phase 1 aimed at raising public awareness around the devastating effects that manufacturing decline was having on families and communities. This was largely accomplished through a rebuilding of coalitions with other unions and community groups as well as building internal organizing capacities that could be used for purposes membership activism and campaign involvement. Phase 2 was directed towards “[increasing] pressure on local politicians and the federal government” to 1) an end to the unfair trade in vehicles with Japan and Korea, including a withdrawal from the FTA negotiations with South
Korea, and 2) strike a Federal Parliamentary Task Force on manufacturing job loss.213
Stephanie Ross’ 2011 work on the Manufacturing Matters campaign provides detailed analysis of the strategic components and tactics that were undertaken during, primarily, “Phase
1” of the campaign. The tactical components of town halls, coalition meetings, internal organizing through shop-floor networks, and activist training ultimately culminated in several large rallies in May 2007, including a 38,000-person rally in Windsor. Despite these impressive mobilizing efforts, Ross concludes that the outcomes of the campaign in reference to its stated goals, are ambivalent. Neither the raising of public awareness nor the rallies had any significant impact on employer or government decision-making. Furthermore, the Windsor rally seemed to
212 CAW (Apr 13, 2007) “CAW Council Joins The Manufacturing Matters Campaign”. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/news-events-video-audio-news-april-13-2007-caw-council-joins-the-manufacturing- matters-campaign.htm. 213 CAW (Aug 17, 2008) “CAW Manufacturing Matters Campaign Enters Phase Two”, CAW Contact. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/3741.htm.
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signify the height of the campaign as an organizational and mobilizational tool as the second phase reverted to lobbying strategies such as consultations and letter writing. As Ross notes, two key strategic decisions of the campaign were the choice of institutional target and how
“community interests” came to be defined:
“In the coalition’s strategic discussions and public statements, the target was the
federal government rather than employers. Employers were not to be directly
targeted or mobilized against because, as one CAW leader put it, “business is the
source of jobs and investment” and we must work with rather than “threaten”
them. The coalition’s interpretation of the political-economic structure
conformed with the hegemonic neoliberal view that workers and communities
need to attract investment by appealing to capital and its need in the context of a
competitive global economy.”214
The CAW’s aversion to presenting themselves as threatening or militant towards employers affected both their internal and external organizational tactics. As a result, the CAW ended up taking a position where “community interests” often included alliances with local capital and where building the internal or coalition capacity for militant tactics were deemed a risk to future investments. Phase 2 of the campaign, furthered this tendency as its main tactical intervention was having locals, through their UPCs, lobby local and federal politicians to pledge to support
CAW policy recommendations and the establishment of a Federal Parliamentary Task Force on manufacturing job loss.215 Throughout this, the McGuinty government largely escaped CAW
214 Ross, S. (2011). Social Unionism in Hard Times: Union-Community Coalition Politics in the CAW Windsor's" Manufacturing Matters" Campaign. Labour/Le Travail, 79-115. P. 100-101. 215 CAW (Dec 14, 2007) “CAW Council – December 7th: Phase Two of Manufacturing Matters Campaign”, CAW Contact. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/3761.htm.
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criticism despite, most notably, their position on FDI (which has been to found to have a significant negative impact on plant survival and stability) and their encouragement of increased capital intensiveness which raised the likelihood of structural unemployment in manufacturing through productivity and “efficiency” gains.216
Interestingly, the CAW’s Dignity Is A Minimum Standard Campaign, aimed at pressuring the provincial government to improve the standards of work in long term care facilities by using some of the same framings that were present in CUPE campaigns. The Dignity campaign took the most oppositional position to the provincial government by highlighting their inaction over restoring a minimum staffing standard of 3.5 hours of care in Ontario long term care facilities.
The campaign, coordinated by the CAW Ontario Health Care Council, was also critical of P3 hospitals and worked closely with the Ontario Health Coalition to demand that “Ontario Premier
Dalton McGuinty honour his election promise to stop the private P3 hospitals.”217 CAW members in the healthcare sector (of which there were approximately 20,000 in 2004), were fighting against contracting out, declining funding and staffing, and privatized healthcare in any form. However, despite the oppositional position to the McGuinty government’s management of the health care, this ideological-symbolic intervention was not broadened into a wider critique of the McGuinty government in the pre-crisis years. These more oppositional positions to the
McGuinty Liberals never became dominant within the union. While the exact reasons for this would require an examination of internal union politics at the time, it is worth noting that the health care workers – the bulk of whom had come from a raiding dispute with the SEIU in the
216 See: Alfaro, L., & Chen, M. X. (2010). Surviving the global financial crisis: Foreign direct investment and establishment performance. Harvard Business School BGIE Unit Working Paper, (10-110), p. 3. 217 CAW (Jul 18, 2004) “Trojan Horse Unleashed on P3s”, CAW Contact. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/3916.htm.
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early 2000s – were a relatively new addition to the CAW.218 Additionally, it is worth considering that many of these members would have been women, who, as the CAW would later find, were an underrepresented demographic within leadership positions in the union. By the early 2000s, just over 30% of the CAW membership was female.219 Furthermore, the health care sector did not have the same position in the unions’ collective identity or organizational structure and did not contribute the same weight of resources to the union as the manufacturing sector.
Charlotte Yates (1998) has written on how the CAW attempted to create unity in diversity throughout the late 1980s and 1990s as it began to expand into non-traditional sectors.
In her work, Yates discusses how the CAW aimed to overcome sectoral divisions by redefining its collective identity (centered on manufacturing, assembly-line, and what would typically be considered masculine work) while maintaining its orientation and culture of industrial unionism.220 The role of mergers played a significant role in this project. As Yates notes:
“Differences in union practices between sectors often continue after unions
merge, leading to strategic misunderstandings and conflicts around goals. These
weaken the union’s ability to represent its new members and successfully follow
through with a chosen course of action.”221
In the case of the health care sector, there would also be gendered considerations, around culture, authority, and decision-making power, as much of the membership from that sector would have
218 Yates, C. A. (1998). Unity and diversity: Challenges to an expanding Canadian Autoworkers' Union. Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue canadienne de sociologie, 35(1), 93-118. 219 CAW (2003). “Building Our Union Through Diversity, Equality and Solidarity”, CAW Constitutional Convention 2003. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/9779.htm. 220 Yates, C. A. B. (1998). Unity and diversity: Challenges to an expanding canadian autoworkers' union. Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue Canadienne De Sociologie, 35(1), 93-118. doi:10.1111/j.1755-618X.1998.tb00224.x. 221 Ibid. p. 109.
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been female. The CAW noted in 2003 that while women as a proportion of the membership was increasing, and while they were working to address the problem, “women members continue to be under-represented in many decision-making bodies of the union,” representing only 19% of local leaders, despite the membership being 30% women.222 Amongst executive positions, women were most often found in Financial Secretary or Recording Secretary positions.223 While the CAW has been a consistent leader in securing equity language and childcare provisions in bargaining as well as lobbying “in support of women’s rights,” Yates also points out how the
CAW had tended to promote “ideologically like-minded women into positions of influence,” which at times, “[deflected] alternative feminist voices and [slowed] the rate of internal union cultural transformation.”224 While the internal debates around these issues are not clear from the content analyzed, the outcome was one where concerns for the manufacturing sector predominated over those in health care.
In some key ways the CAW organizationally aligned itself with the Liberal strategic interventions for increasing Ontario’s competitiveness. Specifically, state subsidies to capital, infrastructure spending aimed at increasing the outward flow of merchandise trade and the inward flow FDI, and the introduction of tax credits for training programs, research, and labour expenditures were viewed as the right kinds of state interventions to aid CAW sectoral interests.225 CAW communications to the membership outlined how “government subsidies through such things as training, research and even tax holidays have become the norm when a
222 CAW (2003). “Building Our Union Through Diversity, Equality and Solidarity”, CAW Constitutional Convention 2003. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/9779.htm. P. 3. 223 Ibid. P. 4. 224 Yates, C. A. B. (1998). Unity and diversity: Challenges to an expanding canadian autoworkers' union. Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue Canadienne De Sociologie, 35(1), 93-118. P. 109-110. 225 Sorbara, G. (2004) “2004 Ontario Budget: The Plan for Change”, Ministry of Finance, p. 126.
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company is poised to make a major investment” and points out that this trend has “helped
Mexico and many southern U.S. states to lure plants and parts makers.”226 These interventions from the Liberals were viewed as beneficial to the union as they aimed to compete with other jurisdictions for capital investment. The CAW, much as the Liberals did, saw the role of the state as one which should facilitate a favourable investment climate. As such, the CAW’s pragmatic support for the Liberals and their fear of a Conservative provincial government led official union communications to scale back critiques of the austerity pillar of the Liberal’s agenda. While these critiques were present, they were secondary considerations in relation to the threats posed to the CAW’s manufacturing sectors.
To try patch this contradiction, the CAW attempted to link together the concepts of “good jobs”, “community,” and a “healthy economy” across several campaigns to demonstrate how all sectors benefited from the manufacturing sector. According to CAW discourse, the good, unionized jobs that the CAW provides – and manufacturing jobs in particular – are not only beneficial to their members, but also to the wider community through strengthening the tax base, providing a strong base of consumption, and pursuing social justice and community initiatives.
What evolved ideologically for the CAW is not these linkages per se, but rather who the onus is placed on to make the linkages between “good jobs,” “community,” and a “healthy economy,” and how the union should orient itself in this relationship.
During the post-War period, the corporatist arrangement between labour, capital, and the state permitted for a class compromise that allowed the union to be a focal, if not the primary driving force behind maintaining good jobs by expanding the share of labour income, pursuing
226226 CAW (Jun 13, 2004) “Conservative Policy Called Threat to Auto Deals”, CAW Contact. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/3907.htm.
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social unionist principles that expanded the sense of community, and maintaining a “healthy economy” through stabilizing aggregate demand. However, as neoliberal restructuring continued into the 21st century, the CAW felt as though the union’s declining position of structural power
(i.e. the declining relative importance and geographical rootedness of manufacturing to the regional economy) no longer allowed them to extract the types of concessions that had been won during the post-War period. As a result, the major organizational task for the CAW became developing strategic interventions that would allow for a return to a favourable political- economic regulatory framework through building associational power. As such, the onus on connecting “good jobs,” “community” and a “healthy economy,” became the job of the sitting government and the state apparatus.
That is, due to unfavourable structural conditions, the CAW attempted to use its leverage as a voting bloc rather than an industrial bloc to have the state re-establish a favourable political- economic regulatory framework. This orientation was reflected in their pragmatic ties with the
Ontario Liberals, their non-militant campaigns that relied primarily on lobbying for corporate subsidies, and the role of the UPCs and organizing for certification as part of the CAW’s strategic interventions.
Union in Politics Committees (UPCs)
In place of the extremely limited leverage granted to the CAW by virtue of tying themselves to the NDP, the union aimed to shift to an internal organizing model to “rebuild the participation and credibility of our political activism.”227 The internal organizing strategy revolved around the tactics of one-on-one conversations to activate members, expanding educational and training
227 CAW (2002). “CAW Task Force on Working Class Politics in the 21st Century”, CAW Collective Bargaining and Political Action. P. 12.
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opportunities for members and local leaders, encouraging ongoing and frequent two-way communication between leaders and members, and giving members (a degree of) ownership over the ensuing issue-based campaigns. On paper, these types of activities represent certain core aspects of an organizing model (proper) which aims to build organic leaders on the shop floor and have them bring in formerly “unactivated” co-workers. The internal structure through which the CAW aimed to accomplish this building of a political culture within the union became the
Unions in Politics Committees (UPCs). The UPCs were introduced at the 2003 CAW
Constitutional Convention and integrated into union locals in 2004 with the objective of organizing members around key, self-identified issues.
The CAW’s original design for the UPCs presented the committees as a medium through which a “political culture” could be (re-)established in the union. In the Task Force on Working
Class Politics in the 21st Century, the CAW mentions “winning [members] over to political activism” through a return to organizing methods of the past and by expanding what is understood by the notion of “politics.”228 This expansion of a political culture was defined in the
Task Force and in subsequent strategic documents as moving from a narrow electoral scope to one that encompassed educational initiatives, participation in campaigns, and developing strong local unions through leadership development.229 While this “expansive” view of politics was obviously preferable to a narrow electoral lens, it still begged the question as to where and how the CAW planned to make strategic interventions to shift the existing relations of power. While the initial founding of the UPCs left these questions slightly vague, this was likely because they
228 CAW (2002). “CAW Task Force on Working Class Politics in the 21st Century”, CAW Collective Bargaining and Political Action. P. 12 229 Hargrove, B. (Mar 2006) “The State of the Union Movement in Canada”, 2006 Don Wood Lecture Industrial Relations Centre, Queen’s University. P. 24.
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were intended to be directed by the rank and file, not union leadership or staff. The members themselves would then be able to define their own priorities and points of intervention within the existing relations of power.
Organizationally, the UPCs were intended to be spaces for union activists to come together, define worthy initiatives, and organize other members to join the undertakings. Part of these functions would include acting as a coordinating body with other union committees such as retired workers’ chapters; women’s, human rights, worker-of-colour, and LGBT committees, as well as coordinating regionally with other UPCs.230 However, as the UPCs developed, they transitioned functions over the course of the first phase in a way that was reflective of the
CAW’s defensive position. Over the first few years they were used as education and training sessions to local activists for the purposes of helping activists develop the skills they would need to participate and be effective in CAW campaigns.
The UPC training sessions were also supplemental to the CAW’s paid education leave
(PEL) programme which offered a highly developed, 4-week residential union education experience at the Port Elgin education centre. Sam Gindin has noted that the CAW’s membership education was “unparalleled” during this time and that the educative function of the
UPCs (and the union more generally) represented a part of the union’s ability to maintain a strong activist base.231 As the demographics of the union shifted around gendered and racial components, the CAW began encouraging deepening participation and leadership development from women and members who identified as Black, Indigenous, and Persons of Colour (BIPOC)
230 CAW (2003). “The CAW and Politics: Taking the Next Steps”, CAW Constitutional Convention 2003. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/7128.htm. P. 17-20. 231 Gindin, S. (Jul 14, 2006) “Towards a New Politics? After the CAW-NDP Divorce”, Socialist Project. Retrieved from: https://socialistproject.ca/2006/07/b27/.
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through education opportunities, having local leaders take “human rights training,” and having a certain level of representation within local executives.232 These educational interventions and the work of the UPCs were intended to offer an internal structure capable of carrying out the important work of politicizing members around issues in their workplaces, communities, and societies.
Despite these intentions, the UPCs were primarily transitioned into lobbying machines that were used to seek commitments from MPs and MPPs on issues such as pensions or the
Canada-Korea FTA, or else used for the purposes of “[identifying] worthy candidates and
[mobilizing] CAW support for them” during elections.233 The internal organizing component of the UPCs and the development of local leaders became a less pronounced feature. What remained, aside from the lobbying and electoral functions, was the campaign involvement from
UPCs. As the role of the committees developed, a linkage between the issue-based campaigns and the UPCs became a Taylor-esque approach where the CAW leadership and staff did the conceptual and strategic work while the UPCs (and community allies) carried out the execution of tactics. The CAW hoped to avoid the “professionalization” of this “new political activism,” but included a key role for the staff of the Communications Department, who were responsible for “developing and distributing published materials and other information associated with the
UPC campaigns (both electoral and non-electoral), as well as coordinating the approved campaigns.”234
232 CAW (2003). “Human Rights: Equality and Solidarity - Confronting Racism”, CAW Constitutional Convention 2003. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/7126.htm. 233 CAW (Sept 5, 2004) “Canadian Politics After the Election”, CAW Contact. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/3922.htm. 234 CAW (2003). “The CAW and Politics: Taking the Next Steps”, CAW Constitutional Convention 2003. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/7128.htm. P. 19-20.
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This mobilizing approach to organizing rank and file members (where professional staff or the union executive call on membership involvement in times of crisis of need) led the CAW to question, in 2006, why the resources they were spending on leadership and activist training wasn’t necessary translating into stronger locals.235 While it is difficult to assess exactly why this may have been the case, it is plausible that the mobilizing approach that became dominant in the
CAW was an important factor. The mobilizing approach may have led to “the usual” activists and leaders offering leadership-sanctioned campaign participation, but not drawing in those who were passively opposed, neutral, or passively supportive. This self-selection bias is not conducive to building strong locals because shop floor organization is not built to the level of a
“supermajority.”236
Furthermore, the largest campaigns, and those with the most resources being directed towards them, were concentrated in the sectors that were facing the gravest threats at the time.
The crisis in auto manufacturing was the focal point. While this is obviously understandable, it is not clear how the CAW aimed to link struggles in other sectors with the threats against auto beyond linking them to place-based communities and the health of local economies. As Ross
(2009) has pointed out, the community framing for mobilization, though useful in many ways for drawing out a broad coalition of actors, also included alliances with local capital that lead to a negotiated position of non-militant tactics and framings. By taking this negotiated ideological position, the possibility of presenting a counter-hegemonic vision, and building a counter- hegemonic bloc capable of challenging the neoliberal agenda, was extremely limited.
235 Hargrove, B. (Mar 2006) “The State of the Union Movement in Canada”, 2006 Don Wood Lecture Industrial Relations Centre, Queen’s University. 236 See: McAlevey, J. (2016).
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For the CAW to establish the type of broad popular alliance (both within and outside the union) that could have challenged the wider neoliberal framework within which the manufacturing crisis was occurring, their social struggle would had to have been successfully generalized in a way that would go beyond being perceived as a sectoral interest. The CAW’s task in this was a difficult one. First, they had to make those who had never set foot on a manufacturing plant floor understood what was at stake economically and socially, not just for
CAW members, but also for the communities in which these workers and industries were embedded.
Secondly, the CAW had to propose alternatives to the industrial transition taking place in
Ontario or else risk having the struggle be relegated to resigned sympathy and affectual gestures of solidarity. To do so would have required not only a challenging of government policy, but also contesting the way production and finance are undemocratically controlled by corporations that are almost entirely unaccountable to the communities in which they are based. While the CAW pursued a strategy that provided critiques and alternatives of (Federal) government policy, the same cannot be said for the economic relations of production. The CAW’s negotiated position on
“competitiveness” meant that only certain tenets of the dominant common sense were to be challenged.
In the face of concessions or closures, the CAW often made the difficult choice of working with employers to “reach agreement on a wide range of efficiencies, cost-saving measures, and productivity initiatives”, or to entice capital to keep investing in CAW plants because “Canadian workers continue to turn out vehicles of the highest quality, with the highest
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productivity numbers and at the lowest cost."237 The CAW’s embracing of “competitiveness corporatism” and alignment with many parts of the corporate and Third Way agenda therefore foreclosed on many options for rank-and-file committees that may have attempted to challenge neoliberal dominance.238 Worker input into what would be produced (or could be produced at recently shuttered plants), calls for nationalizations or co-operative enterprises, and the alternative of green production (though occasionally referenced), were not pursued as the dominant focus of the CAW’s ideological contest over how deindustrialization would be managed.
In Ontario, the Liberal’s priority in creating a favourable business climate for capital investment through strategic interventions (and their focus on the automotive industry in particular) brought into alignment certain material and ideological interests of the CAW and the governing party. In a way that an orthodox neoliberal governing party would not have, and to this point in Ontario and Federally had not, the Third Way Liberals were able to incorporate key challenge areas of the CAW’s into its policy paradigm. The Liberals did this not by contesting the terrain of free trade, capital mobility or the doctrine of competitiveness established by the previous neoliberal governments, but by transforming the role of the state to accommodate capital (by lowering business costs and direct subsidies) in a way that could be seen as also advantageous to labour (encouraging reinvestment in domestic production). During a period when manufacturing jobs were being shed at a rapid rate, the Ontario Liberal’s demonstrated a willingness to intervene in “key business clusters” to keep them viable.
237 CAW (Sep 30, 2005) “CAW Reaches Tentative Agreement With General Motors”, CAW Contact. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/3852.htm and (Apr 8, 2005) “CAW Council: April 1 to 3, 2005, Port Elgin, Ontario”. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/3826.htm. 238 Evans, B. and Albo, G. (Jan 11, 2008) “Limited Horizons: Ontario’s Election and After”, Socialist Project. Retrieved from: https://socialistproject.ca/2008/01/b79/.
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The state, in the strategic discussions of the CAW, is conceived of as an entity that is responsible for establishing and maintaining conditions for corporate profitability and worker prosperity. In reference to a $65 million subsidy from the federal and provincial governments for the Navistar truck facility, Hargrove praised federal Labour Minister Joe Fontana and Ontario
Economic Development and Trade Minister Joseph Cordiano for demonstrating “the important role that governments play in ensuring good jobs, a strong community and a healthy economy.”239
While the UPCs in their initial vision took an expansive view of politics – one intended to build rank and file strength and organization to make meaningful interventions in existing power relations and structures – the turn to electoralism and lobbying stunted their development and led
Sam Gindin to describe them as becoming “disappointingly dormant.”240 The UPC turn to lobbying for corporate subsidies and regulatory reform demonstrated a narrow vision of politics that focused on the role of the state. Despite granting the CAW several strategic concessions, the
Liberals did not intervene in a way that would halt or reverse industrial decline in the province.
Organizing: Traditional and Non-Traditional Sectors
To offset the job loss and membership loss in manufacturing, the CAW consistently pointed to the ongoing need to organize new members through certification drives. At the 2005
Constitutional Convention the CAW went so far as to state that they would have to face the choice to “organize or die” and in at the 2006 Constitutional Convention the new Statement of
239 CAW (May 20, 2005) “Government Support for Navistar Truck Plant”, CAW Contact. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/3832.htm. 240 Gindin, S. (Jul 14, 2006) “Towards a New Politics? After the CAW-NDP Divorce”.
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Principles committed to organizing as a new priority.241 Despite organizing an average of approximately 2000 members per year between 1998 and 2005, closures and layoffs were still threatening to roll back membership numbers.242 These commitments to organizing new members placed the CAW in the top five unions in Ontario pursuing certification drives between
2003 and 2011 with the most successful CAW drives being in smaller workplaces of between
50-150 workers.243
Figure 7: Top 5 Unions by # of Certification Drives in Ontario
Year #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 Labourers Carpenters 2003/4 (131) Bricklayers (95) (62) CAW (59) UFCW (35) Labourers Carpenters CUPE 2004/5 (159) (104) CAW (44) (41) Teamsters (40) Labourers CUPE 2005/6 (167) Carpenters (48) CAW (38) (29) Painters (37) Labourers Bricklayers CUPE 2006/7 (153) Carpenters (60) (50) (50) Teamsters (43) Labourers 2007/8 (184) Carpenters (93) CUPE (50), CAW (36) Painters (34) Labourers UFCW 2008/9 (206) Carpenters (92) CUPE (52) (40) IBEW (36) Labourers 2009/10 (133) Carpenters (63) CUPE (47) CAW (29) Painters (29)244 Labourers 2010/11 (124) Carpenters (69) CUPE (47) CAW (34) UFCW (33) Source: OLRB Annual Reports 2003-2011 (http://www.olrb.gov.on.ca/english/public.htm). As Figure 7 shows, while the vast majority of certification drives were dominated by the construction unions, both the CAW and CUPE were consistently among the top unions in the
241 CAW (2005) “Chapter 15 – Organizing”, Twenty Years of Fighting Back - 2005 Convention Documents. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/5543.htm. and CAW (2006) “Statement of Principles”, 2006 Constitutional Convention Documents. 242 Hargrove, B. (Mar 2006) “The State of the Union Movement in Canada”, 2006 Don Wood Lecture Industrial Relations Centre, Queen’s University. P. ? 243 Figures are based on a combination of Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) data (http://www.olrb.gov.on.ca/english/public.htm) and figures obtained from CAW publications (http://caw.unifor.org/en/3456.htm). 244 The Bricklayers also had 29 certification drives in 2009/10.
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pursuit of organizing new members, though they pursued different organizing models.245 Many of the CAW certification drives were organizing unorganized workplaces, while CUPE pursued a “wall-to-wall” approach of organizing unorganized workers in already-organized workplaces.
During the first phase (2003/4 – 2007/8) the CAW engaged in 208 certification drives and was successful in 104 (50% of them).246
The successes of the construction and trades unions in organizing was aided by the
McGuinty governments’ reinstating of card-based certifications for those specific sectors. In an effort to shore up support amongst the construction and trade unions, the Ontario Liberals granted a strategic concession in the form of Bill 144 by giving these unions the ability to become unionized automatically once 55 per cent or more signed union cards, dropping the requirement for the subsequent vote a few months down the line that had been introduced by the
Harris Conservatives. The vote-based system has been criticized for allowing employers time to disrupt an organizing drive by offering concessions or intimidating employees.
When Bill 144 was introduced it was critiqued by the CAW for being discriminatory in its restoration of the card-based certification process for construction unions only. Aside from making the case that card-based certification was a more democratic process, the CAW also pointed out that Bill 144 discriminated against women because “workers in the highly non-union sectors such as hospitality, cleaning services, food services, retail/wholesale, clerical. . . which predominately employ women," were being left out even as card checks were being reinstated
245 Labourers (LIUNA); Bricklayers (The International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers), Carpenters (United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners) and Painters (The International Union of Painters and Allied Trades). 246 Ontario Labour Relations Board (2020) “OLRB Annual Reports 2003-2011”, Retrieved from: http://www.olrb.gov.on.ca/english/public.htm.
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for the predominately male construction sector.247 This strategic articulation could have presented an opening for the CAW to agitate the membership around equity issues and find ways to pressure (both through parliamentary and non-parliamentary tactics) the McGuinty government on wider issues of gender equity and women’s rights by connecting the discriminatory parts of the card check legislation with other areas of employment, social, and welfare policy. However, this generalization was largely ignored and instead the CAW only made calls to “extend that sensible approach to the broader economy” despite labelling it as “the labour movement’s top priority in provincial politics in the coming years.”248
While there were repeated calls through the pre-crisis period for the reinstating of card- check certifications, and despite the CAW stating that “employer opposition to unionization is the main barrier inhibiting union growth”, the union never went beyond lobbying the provincial government. Instead, and in order to keep their organizational viability by not losing too many members, the CAW utilized techniques that would fall outside the conventional labour organizing practices. While these controversial techniques represented a small minority of CAW organizing drives, they were nonetheless significant moments for the Ontario labour movement.
The first technique involved was the CAW’s continued practices of absorbing already unionized workers through a mergers and acquisition-style organizing model.249 While the CAW had been involved in a highly public dispute over raiding the SEIU that had caused them to temporarily be expelled from the CLC in 2000, raiding workers from large, highly-visible unions
247 CAW (May 13, 2005) “Proposed Liberal Bill 144 Discriminates Against Women,” CAW Contact. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/3831.htm. 248 Hargrove, B. (Mar 2006) “The State of the Union Movement in Canada”, 2006 Don Wood Lecture Industrial Relations Centre, Queen’s University. 249 Across Canada between 1985 and 2012, there had been 45 mergers bringing in 146,871 members (CAW Mergers: http://caw.unifor.org/en/3012.htm).
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became less prominent in the 2003-2008 period. In Ontario between 2003 and 2008 and CAW absorbed four small, independent locals: the Ontario Beverage Workers Union (112 members),
United Bus Workers of Ontario Association, Local 120 (120 workers), McMaster University
Staff Association (2,700 workers), Canadian Racetrack Workers Union (600 members).250
Figure 8: CAW Membership (1979-2009)
Source: CAW (2009) “Building the Union in Hard Times”, 9th CAW Constitutional Convention, pg. 19. These mergers and acquisitions represented the bulk of the CAW new membership over this period and changed the demographics of the union. Not only was the industrial and gendered composition shifting, but as manufacturing jobs declined in Ontario, the proportion of CAW members concentrated in the province dropped from 70% in 2002 to 61% by 2009.251 As manufacturing declined as a percentage of labour market employment, the CAW moved increasingly into non-traditional sectors for their organization. While organizing in manufacturing (with the bulk coming from auto and food and beverage processing) was still a priority, the union also focused on hospitality and gaming (hotels, casinos, and race-tracks), the
250 CAW (2013) “Mergers”, CAW Website. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/3012.htm. 251 CAW (2002) “Bargaining in Tough Times - 2002 Convention Documents, Chapter 1 – CAW Profile”, Collective Bargaining and Political Action Convention. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/5567.htm.
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airline industry, warehousing, transportation, and health and social services (particularly long- term care).
Despite this diversification and move towards general unionism, the automotive sector remained the most dominant wing of the union. As a strategic intervention in the sector, the
CAW tried to organize the Cambridge Toyota plant for a third time in 2005. In response to the
CAW drive, Toyota announced that it would be investing $800m in an Ontario plant in
Woodstock in an effort to dissuade workers from unionization, stating that their investment would create thousands of additional automotive jobs at a time when the unionized sector of the
Big 3 automakers was in deep decline.252 The organizing drive was ultimately unsuccessful and non-unionized auto manufacturers continued to make up a growing share of the automotive industry in Ontario.
As a result of the inability to organize the auto sector along traditional lines, the CAW turned to an approach that involved a form of company unionism. The Framework for Fairness agreement signed between the CAW and auto parts giant Magna in October 2007 and was routinely critiqued by many within the CAW, as well as in wider labour circles. The Framework involved a pact between the CAW and Magna that allowed for union representation in a select number of Magna workplaces (3 out of 45), though shop floor stewards were replaced by
“Employee Advocates” who had to be approved by management, and the there was no union right to strike. While the Framework represented a shift in organizing tactics at an organizational-institutional level, it also represented a capitulation towards ‘non adversarialism,’
252 CBC (Jun 30, 2005) “Toyota to invest $800M in new Ontario plant”, CBC News. Retrieved from: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/toyota-to-invest-800m-in-new-ontario-plant-1.565471.
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corporatism, and incorporation at a ideological-symbolic level.253 While the move created a rift in the CAW leadership, a strong enough majority supported the Framework agreement and it was eventually passed despite it shedding provisions for the basic principles of trade unionism – stewards and striking.254
By the time the pre-crisis phase was coming to a close the CAW had drifted decidedly rightwards. Their electoral realignment towards strategic voting and their increasingly close ties with the Ontario Liberals, the non-adversarial stances of their campaigns, the relatively narrow
“political” scope with which the UPCs operated, and their organizing-at-any-cost approach.
CUPE Pre-Crisis: 2003-2008
In the pre-crisis McGuinty period, CUPE’s organizational response to the challenges posed by the Third Way government was markedly different than that of the CAW. In many ways, these differing challenge areas were reflective of CUPE’s institutional sector and the industrial sectors it represents. While the CAW’s primary challenges related to competitiveness, including capital mobility, capital strikes, and industrial restructuring, CUPE was contending with a government that promoted privatization, fiscal consolidation and public sector restructuring. In response to these challenges, CUPE’s predominant organizational-institutional strategic interventions included social agitation, coalition work, organizing for coordinated/centralized bargaining, and political partisanship. This analysis includes interventions made by CUPE National in Ontario, but largely focuses on CUPE’s Ontario Division (CUPE-O) and the associated sectoral
253 Gindin, S. (Oct 19, 2007). “The CAW and Magna: Disorganizing the Working Class”, Socialist Project: The Bullet. Retrieved from: https://socialistproject.ca/2007/10/b65/. 254 Fowler, T. (2016). Fighting Back After the Neoliberal Assault: Class Formation, Class Politics, and the Canadian Autoworkers (Doctoral dissertation, Carleton University). P. 128-129.
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coordinating committees. Again, these interventions were the most commonly cited and emphasized within CUPE’s strategic documents and were accompanied by ideological positions and ideological-symbolic interventions that will be explored below.
Social Agitation
CUPE’s sectoral presence in the health care, education (both school boards and universities) social services and municipal sectors requires that the union have a quite direct relationship with the consumers of public services and the communities within which these services are embedded.
The idea of “community” occupied a central role in CUPE’s ideological-symbolic interventions on an ongoing basis throughout both the pre- and post-crisis periods as the union attempted to articulate a connection between the public interest and the union’s interest. Where the CAW had often referenced community groups, community interest, community activists, and community allies as separate, but aligned considerations to be engaged with at a union level, CUPE often collapsed this boundary making the case that their union work, and the work of their members was inseparable from the idea of “community.”255
In 2004 CUPE declared October 5th “Communities Day” and encouraged celebrations that recognized “the important work CUPE members do to keep their communities strong and to protect them against the devastation of privatization and other community-destroying government decisions.”256 This type of framing, which is prevalent throughout the strategic discourse, has two implications. The first is that if the working conditions of CUPE members are under attack, it is tantamount to an attack on the community in which those members are based.
255 Black, S. (2018). Community Unionism without the Community? Lessons from Labor-Community Coalitions in the Canadian Child Care Sector. Labor Studies Journal, 43(2), 118-140. 256 CUPE (2004) “CUPE Celebrates – 2004”, CUPE Archives. Retrieved from: http://archive.cupe.ca/updir/NAT- ANNUALREPORT2004-EN_new.pdf.
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The second, is that as the provider and financier of public services, governments are the institutional target that pose threats to communities.
When the McGuinty Liberals assumed office in October 2003, they did so with a strong electoral majority and with a mandate to stop the “slash and burn” style austerity that the
Harris/Eves Conservatives had utilized and instead replace it with a relationally progressive approach to balanced budgets, partnerships, and efficiency improvements. In their 2003 campaign the Liberals portrayed themselves as the defenders of public services for
“communities,” “Ontarians,” “working families,” and “citizens.”257 However, both during and in the aftermath of the 2003 election, CUPE – who remained partisan NDP supporters at both the
National and Ontario Division level – took oppositional positions to the central pillars of the
Liberal’s austerity policies: privatization through P3s, fiscal consolidation through balanced budgets, and the further incursion of performance indicators and efficiency standards into the public sector.258 CUPE repeatedly made the case that even these forms of austerity “lite” were still damaging to communities in the same way that they had been during the Harris/Eves years and went even further to criticize the McGuinty government for “doing nothing to reverse these disastrous policies.”259
In efforts to demonstrate that the Liberals did not represent the public’s interests, CUPE engaged in internal and external organizing efforts to raise awareness of and build opposition to privatization efforts and underfunding. The loose collection of tactics that this required has in
257 See: Chapter 3, p. 4. 258 CUPE (May 19, 2004) “McGuinty budget creates virtual wage freeze in the public sector”, CUPE Archives. Retrieved from: https://archive.cupe.ca/media/mcguinty_budget_crea.html. 259 CUPE (Oct 1, 2007). “CUPE Ontario calls on voters to elect a government that will stop wholesale sell-offs of water, other services to private companies”, CUPE Archives. Retrieved from: https://archive.cupe.ca/municipalities/a4700f5cd9921e.html.
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various other places been referred to as “social agitation.” As Bowers et al. (1971) explain,
“agitation occurs when people outside the normal decision-making establishment advocate significant social change and encounter a degree of resistance within the establishment such as to require more than the normal discursive means of persuasion.”260
CUPE released frequent “P3 Alerts” that would keep members appraised of privatization efforts across the country and update members on successful campaigns to stop these privatizations. At an ideological-symbolic level, CUPE aimed to challenge the Liberal’s position that P3s would be more efficient (than public delivery), and that they would result in cost- savings for taxpayers by pointing out at every opportunity where P3s had cost overruns, initiated new or higher user fees, or had led to a decline in service quality.261
At a organizational-institutional level the primary tactics deployed by CUPE-O to carry this ideological-symbolic intervention involved running campaigns that highlighted the shortcomings of Liberal policy on P3s or underfunding, projecting this messaging through rallies and public visibility, and engaging in coalition work with community groups. CUPE campaigns and rallies varied in their successes of achieving this goal based on the level of government targeted, the issues addressed, the ideological-symbolic articulations, and the outcomes of mobilizational and organizational efforts. What CUPE often designated as “major victories” were the results of local municipal sector campaigns and rallies that were “against P3 efforts in
260 Bowers, J. W., Ochs, D. J., Jensen, R. J., & Schulz, D. P. (2010). The Rhetoric of Agitation and Control. Waveland Press. P. 3-4. 261 CUPE (2012). “Privatization Watch”, CUPE Archives. Retrieved from: https://archive.cupe.ca/privatizationwatch.html.
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municipal services including arenas, water treatment and contracting-in services, like garbage collection.”262
The majority of CUPE-O organized campaigns were run at the sectoral level. Campaigns were often developed and rolled-out by Ontario Division sectoral coordinating committees
(SCCs) on particular sectoral issues. However, CUPE’s “entrenched decentralization,” tendency towards local autonomy and broader community work meant that there was often a wide array of campaigns being run at once and often the sector campaigns would be even more disaggregated as some of the larger locals designed their own campaigns on grounded issues.263 For example, in the “2006 Report Card” portion of CUPE Ontario’s 2007 Action Plan – which provides an overview of CUPE’s strategic interventions over the past year – the social services sector alone was running or involved in three simultaneous campaigns: the “We Make it Possible” campaign for the community living sub-sector, the “Join Hands” campaign for the community agencies sub-sector, and the “Code Blue” campaign for the childcare sub-sector.264 This is common across other sectors as it is largely the sector coordinating committees that were the internal structures responsible for navigating the different struggles of different classifications of workers within the sector and generalizing them to both other members and the public.
While most campaigns in some way confronted underfunding and/or privatization they were never cohered into a single campaign to tackle these issues in the way that, for example, the
Manufacturing Matters campaign addressed manufacturing decline. In this way, many of the campaigns remained siloed in their own industrial sectors (social services, municipalities,
262 Ibid. p. 3. 263 Ross, Stephanie. (2005). The Making of CUPE: Structure, Democracy and Class Formation. PhD Thesis. 264 CUPE Ontario (2007). “CUPE Ontario Action Plan: 2006 Report Card”, CUPE Ontario Archives. Retrieved from: https://cupe.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/webarc/archivedat224.pdf. p. 11.
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postsecondary, etc.) despite the fact that they were attempting to raise awareness of and build opposition to the same policy planks. While CUPE did develop local CUPE Councils, which were the intended vehicles for sectoral coordination within a city or region, these councils developed unevenly, leading CUPE National to note in 2007 that many councils “[struggled] with low affiliation and low dues rates” with many locals “unsure of the role District Councils can and should play.”265 This approach is contrasted to the CAW’s more centralizing approach where resources and mobilizational efforts were consolidated around a small number of key campaigns at a time. This in turn led to nuanced differences in the strategic interventions from each union in two ways.
The first is the size and frequency of what was often the respective campaigns’ apex collective action tactic in their WoP: the rally. While the CAW Manufacturing Matters campaign brought out 38,000 people in Windsor, the proliferous nature of CUPE rallies meant that they were smaller, but much more frequent.266 The second difference related to what the respective unions were attempting to accomplish in reference to the McGuinty Liberals. For the CAW, the aim to tie together whatever public support could be demonstrated with lobbying and (qualified) electoral support to extract (limited) concessions from the governing party. For CUPE, their ongoing partisanship with the NDP and their oppositional position to the Liberal’s austerity agenda led to efforts to demonstrate the lack of support for the Liberal agenda amongst the public, and advocate for an increasingly centrist NDP replacement in government.
265 CUPE (2007). “CUPE’s First National Meeting for District Councils”, CUPE Archives. Retrieved from: https://archive.cupe.ca/district-councils/First_National_Distr.html. 266 Whether one tactical orientation is superior is an empirical question that lies outside of the scope of this dissertation.
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As one of – if not the – central tactics for CUPE in mobilizing activists and public support for direct action outside the workplace, it is worth briefly examining the tactical utility of a rally. While the specifics of a rally can vary widely, at an overarching level they tend to be an entry level mobilization for activists and formerly apathetic bystanders that are used to demonstrate and further galvanize public support for an issue. If they are large enough, or disruptive enough, a rally may gain media attention and project the issue to a more generalized audience, which may in turn raise public consciousness on an issue and help amplify public pressure. Routinized rallies that target the state represent a form of soft power that can demonstrate potential electoral leverage. If an issue is not placed on the political agenda, or not adequately addressed it may signal to political elites that their support may be undermined, with the ultimate implication that they could be removed from office. However, if mobilizational efforts are insufficient, or if the articulations put forward fail to gain traction and reorganize common sense either amongst political elites or the general populace, they are largely ineffective. As far as political calculations go, if it is less consequential for those in positions of authority to ignore calls to action than it is to appease, integrate, or work towards the demonstrators concerns, political decision-makers are more likely to ignore those concerns. In this way, rallies can also serve as effective structure tests that allow organizers to assess the successes and shortcomings of organizational and mobilizational efforts both in terms of membership and community uptake, as well as state or capital responses.
Overall, social agitational interventions had two overarching tendencies. The first is that campaigns and rallies were often organized in conjunction with community groups that had been formed into what were often support coalitions, discussed in further detail under Coalition
Building. The second is a relative absence of political escalation. The absence of escalating
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tactics is a frequent theme within CUPE’s pre-crisis WoP. Aside from what where often isolated local strikes (or other militant actions), the routinized rally remained the peak of coordinated militancy. At one level, this failure to escalate to more militant forms of direct action represented a contradiction and inability on the part of CUPE to generalize their community unionism successfully. That fact that more militant tactics – disruptive protests, occupations, blockades – could be successfully construed by the government and media as unions representing their own narrow interests (as was often were in the case of strikes) kept the possibility of escalating tactics in reserve. If CUPE could not win consent from the general public, who relied on the services provided by the members, for a disruption in those services, then militant actions might undermine CUPE’s ideological-symbolic position of representing, and being a key part of communities.
The lone exception to this case is when the Ontario Liberals attempted to restructure the
Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS) in 2006 and were met with the threat of a province-wide political strike from across the municipal, school board, and social services sectors. When the Liberals announced Bill 206 and its proposed amendments to restructure public pensions, CUPE Ontario moved quickly to engage in a province-wide wildcat unless the McGuinty Liberals met CUPE demands.267 Over 450 delegates, many of whom were local leaders, were summoned to an emergency meeting in Toronto where 93% voted in favour of striking unless the Liberals made significant changes to the Bill. After further negotiations under the threat of a political strike, CUPE was able to pressure the Liberal government to amend Bill 206 to grant a number of concessions to the union. While the OMERS battle
267 CUPE (Jan 25, 2006). “CUPE Ontario votes for strike against OMERS legislation”, CUPE Ontario Archives. Retrieved from: https://archive.cupe.ca/media/CUPE_Ontario_votes_t.html.
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demonstrated the ability of the union to stop and reverse political decisions through building militant responses, it was an approach that represented an isolated incident.
In 2007, a motion was brought to the CUPE National Convention by CUPE Ontario to open the national strike fund for “campaigns supporting strikes of a political nature” and was subsequently defeated. Ontario delegates walked off the convention floor in protest but did not make the issue a central mobilizing priority amongst the membership. As a compromise the
National Executive Board agreed to create a $2.5 million “Fight Back Fund… for the sole purpose of defending our members rights, jobs and communities outside of collective bargaining,” though no explicit mention was made of political strikes.268 While CUPE’s focus remained on social agitation without escalation, they also worked to protect themselves against charges of sectionalist by engaging in coalition building, which could also have increased the necessary mass to undermine the Liberal’s electoral hegemony.
Coalition Building
The frequent inclusion of community organizations in campaign work and rallies was a key part of CUPE’s external organizing strategy that aimed to demonstrate a broader base of community and public support that went beyond what could be construed as the union’s narrow sectoral interests. A wide array of coalitions were struck over the pre-crisis phase as CUPE partnered with community groups, service users, and other unions. Using Tattersall’s (2005) typology, these coalitions tended to be short-term, mutual-support coalitions that most often formed and
268 Rennick, C. (2008). CUPE Executive Board Convention Reports”, CUPE Ontario Archives. P. 15-16.
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articulated “so the issue at the heart of the campaign is in the mutual self-interest of the participating organisations and is not simply the direct concern of one of the parties.”269
Organizations such as the Hamilton Water Watch, the Stop Local Health Integration
Networks multi-union coalition, the Campaign for Public Education (CPE), the Ontario Fair
Funding Coalition, the Ontario Electricity Coalition, and the Ontario Coalition for Better Child
Care were just some of the most prominent examples of mutual-support coalitions which emerged during the pre-crisis phase that dealt explicitly with underfunding and/or privatization.
Similarly to the organizational structure of campaigns and rallies, of which forming coalitions was an integral part, this coalition work was often a reactive organizational-institutional intervention that relied heavily on short-term mobilizations. These single issue-coalitions never came together into a united bloc that could speak to both union and community concerns over privatization and underfunding as part of a wider policy paradigm. These coalition organizations, much as social agitation had, tended to stay in their sectoral silos. As a result, the Liberals were able to pick and choose where it would grant small concessions – such as an additional $200 million for developmental services (over 4 years), changes to staffing and care standards in long term care, and an additional $25 million for childcare – thus demobilizing potential adversaries
(as evidenced in the non-continuance of certain coalitions) while simultaneously maintaining their overall austerity agenda.270
Like the sectoral and rally interventions, coalition work aimed to put broad-based pressure on the Liberal government to change policy directions and, as time progressed, to
269 Tattersall, A. (2005). There is power in coalition: a framework for assessing how and when union-community coalitions are effective and enhance union power. Labour & Industry: a journal of the social and economic relations of work, 16(2), p. 103. 270 CUPE Ontario (2007). “CUPE Ontario Action Plan: 2006 Report Card”, CUPE Ontario Archives. Retrieved from: https://cupe.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/webarc/archivedat224.pdf.
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generalize select issues onto the 2007 electoral agenda. While CUPE was successful in some respects with the latter aim, it did not stop the McGuinty Liberals from securing an almost identically strong majority in the 2007 election and continuing with its agenda into second and third terms.
As a rhetorical frame to agitate and educate, the concept of “funding” is highly politicized throughout the strategic discourse to make the connection between public finance and the production and exchange of public services. CUPE made the case that, aside from the detrimental impact underfunding has on the producers (CUPE members) of public services, the
Liberal’s policy choices also had consequences for service users (framed as “communities”) due to the introduction of user-fees, cuts to programs and staff and an overall decline in quality and access.
This differed from the CAW’s framings which had placed the “good jobs” at the centre of the community narrative in their coalition work. Alternatively, CUPE placed “protecting public services” at the centre of their ideological-symbolic coalition work narrative. The difference between CAW and CUPE framing is partially explained by the structural and ideological considerations of the different institutional sectors represented by the unions. In the private sector, production is not (typically or predominately) financed by taxpayer dollars and as such, consumers with “choice” are less likely to feel that access to goods and services in the private sector are an entitlement or a right. This differs in the public sector, where ‘common sense’ dictates that a combination of monopoly status in many parts of the public sector and paying taxes to partially fund those sectors means an inalienable right to the services that said taxes provide. Therefore, under the currently dominant ideology, there is an increased burden of proof on public sector unions to demonstrate how their strategic interventions – most of all strikes – go
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beyond narrow sectoral interests and actually represent a worthwhile use of “scare” tax revenues.
In demonstrating value, the CAW pointed to their community contribution by highlighting the economic and social impact their members have at a local and regional level through strengthening the tax base, providing a strong base of consumption, and providing “upstream” and “downstream” jobs. Conversely, CUPE’s frames were closely tied to the notion of community, and often attempted to demonstrate value through highlighting the role that CUPE member’s play in safeguarding public services and therefore protecting those who rely on those services.
One of the key sites of this struggle became the healthcare sector. The Ontario Health
Coalition (OHC) was one of, if not the most prominent coalition during this phase and represented the deepest mutual support coalition as it initially drew in CUPE, the Ontario Public
Service Employees Union (OPSEU), the CAW, USW and a host of community groups during the Eves’ years, and then expanded to include the Ontario Nurses Association (ONA), Service
Employees Union International (SEIU), United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), and the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation (OSSTF) at later dates. The coalition also operated (sometimes effectively, sometimes not) at a central level through an administrative committee and at a local level through a host of municipal health coalitions (Brampton Health
Coalition, Niagara Health coalition, etc.). Tattersall’s (2013) analysis of the OHC during this time relays how CUPE’s dominant role in the coalition was used by the union’s officials to push back against health care P3s both in the leadup to the 2003 election through the 2007 election campaigns.271
271 Tattersall, A. (2013). Power in coalition: Strategies for strong unions and social change. Cornell University Press. Chapter 4.
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The OHC utilized two organizational-institutional interventions over the Liberal’s first term in an attempt to advance their common concern: the elimination of the privatization of healthcare. The first was a P3 campaign that took place between August 2002 and July 2004, targeting both the provincial election and the McGuinty Liberal’s once they came to power. The campaign revolved around a centrally controlled, provincewide canvass on health care that involved touring with a 14 foot “P3 Trojan Horse.”272 The provincewide tour stopped in more than 40 cities (with a focus on “swing” electoral ridings) where rallies would take place and
CUPE’s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU) worked closely with health care locals to try and mobilize members and get media coverage on the issue of P3s. While this tactic gained widespread engagement at a geographical level, its mobilization approach meant that numerous, small-scale rallies were frequently the height of rank-and-file engagement. Because the provincial tour was centrally controlled and based around generating media attention, local groups felt these “manufactured events” lead to a lack of control and therefore diminishing commitment.273
The second organizational-institutional intervention occurred between July 2004 and
January 2006 and involved locally-run, but centrally coordinated plebiscites that sought to demonstrate opposition to two P3 hospitals in Brampton and Ottawa, and to opposition against
P3s more generally. These community plebiscites ultimately led to over 80,000 Ontario residents
CUPE becoming the most active OHC participant during the P3 campaign and their dominance of the coalition’s agenda became a point of internal contention with other unions and community groups. These tensions developed in relation to 1) CUPE’s active criticisms of the Liberals both in the leadup and aftermath of the 2003 election; and 2) CUPE’s dominance of the OHC’s agenda, leading to deeper ties between OHC and CUPE staff, but also a narrowing a strategic interventions. 272 Ibid. p. 122. 273 Ibid.
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voting 90% against P3 hospitals.274 This tactic was effective in that it helped undermines the legitimacy of the government’s mandate by demonstrating large-scale opposition and it was an effective local mobilizational tool that also presented an opportunity for propaganda and the winning over of certain sections of the populace to the desired counter-hegemonic position.
According to Tattersall, the use of plebiscites proved to be an effective way to organize opposition to specific P3 projects and to create a political climate hostile to P3s more generally but resulted in little change to government policy.275
Running through both the P3 campaign and the plebiscite was the same ideological- symbolic articulation that is dominant in the rest of their strategic discourse: that of defending the public interest through defending public services. While this was articulated in a coherent way throughout both interventions, it was largely framed as a defensive position, rather than offering an alternative. In this way, as with other campaigns against P3s and underfunding more broadly, CUPE did not engage with the Liberal’s framing of these interventions as moves towards “modernization.” Instead, their ideological-symbolic interventions made calls for what would amount to a return to a social democratic compromise, without taking into account how the structural conditions for this compromise has been eroded over decades of neoliberal policy.
Co-ordinated and Centralized Bargaining
For CUPE, coordinated and centralized bargaining were an internal organizing intervention that would allow for greater leverage both in the workplace and at a sectoral and provincial level. As a public sector union, CUPE’s bargaining strategies have a more direct relationship with the state
274 CUPE Ontario (2007). “CUPE Ontario Action Plan: 2006 Report Card”, CUPE Ontario Archives. Retrieved from: https://cupe.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/webarc/archivedat224.pdf. 275 Tattersall, A. (2013). P. 137.
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than private sector negotiations. That is not to say that private sector bargaining is not political, for it is in an expansive sense of contending with existing relations of power. Rather, public sector unions deal with the state both as an apparatus for maintaining the social relations of
(re)production (as private sector unions do) and as an employer. Public sector bargaining takes place in state-owned or state-managed sectors and must directly engage with – and therefore can contest – the state’s regulatory framework through collective bargaining. While this division should not be overstated as capital relies heavily on the state for providing a favourable regulatory framework, the directness of state decisions on employment relations for the private sector is in essence “one step removed.” For example, budgets have direct employment consequences for public sector workers in a way that they would not for private sector counterparts.
Centralized bargaining has been associated with smaller wage differentials due to higher uniformity of wages across a sector, standardization of equity and job protection language, fewer and shorter strikes and generally positive macroeconomic trends.276 While these findings have come under scrutiny by NPM ideology as the neoliberal period had progressed, it is telling that neoliberal governments across OECD countries have made moves to decentralize bargaining in order to impose internal devaluation measures and place downward pressure on wages.277 At an ideological-symbolic level, building toward centralized or coordinated bargaining also helps to
276 Briskin, L. (2006). “Equity bargaining/bargaining equity (Vol. 124).” Toronto: Centre for Research on Work and Society, York University. See: Aidt, T., & Tzannatos, Z. (2002). “Unions and collective bargaining: Economic effects in a global environment”, The World Bank. Traxier, F. (1998). Collective bargaining in the OECD: developments, preconditions and effects. European Journal of Industrial Relations, 4(2), 207-226. 277 McBride, S., & Watson, J. (2019). Reviewing the 2018 OECD Jobs Strategy–anything new under the sun?. Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, 25(2), 149-163.
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politicize common concerns across workplaces and sectors and forces employers to raise standards and address issues in a uniform and more universal manner.
In 2004, officials in CUPE National and the Regional Directors re-committed to a long held strategic priority of co-ordinated bargaining to fight concessions at the bargaining table.278
Since the 1970s, CUPE was making rhetorical commitments to “regionalize bargaining” as they attempted to establish sectoral bargaining structures.279 Despite some uneven movement in
Ontario during the late 1960s onwards towards centralization of certain parts of the public sector
– specifically in municipal and school board amalgamations and the centralization of hospital bargaining – bargaining relationships remained largely at the employer and not sectoral level.
These efforts were renewed in the 1990s following CUPE National’s Commission on Structure and Services that led to a policy paper called CUPE Into the 1990s. One of the major areas locals wanted to see improvement was in coordinated bargaining, so long as the issues and strategies were not dictated by National, but rather were developed following meaningful input into collective decisions from the various federated and regional levels of the union.280
Despite the efforts of the previous decades, CUPE’s bargaining coordination remained highly fragmented in Ontario, where multiple local units bargained different collective agreements (often at different times) with the same employer. This fragmented and uneven bargaining structure led to varying bargaining outcomes from local to local. Locals with a strong union culture, politicized membership, and a certain degree of structural power granted to them by the nature of their work, had been able to fight many concessions and even win gains during
278 CUPE (2004) “Table Talk – 2004”, CUPE Archives. Retrieved from: http://archive.cupe.ca/updir/TABLETALK_summer2004.pdf. 279 Ross, S. (2005). The Making of CUPE: Structure, Democracy and Class Formation. York University. P. 407. 280 Stinson, J., & Ballantyne, M. (2009). Union renewal and CUPE. Paths to Union Renewal: Canadian Experiences, 145-60.
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collective bargaining. Even then, the strongest locals had not always been successful, especially when the state demonstrated its willingness to use coercive methods such as back-to-work legislation to undermine a local’s strength.281
To mitigate these differential bargaining outcomes and to increase overall leverage in each sector, CUPE planned to “[put] in place an effective coordinated bargaining plan for each specific region, sector or the entire province (as appropriate) so that we can lead bargaining from a position of strength and are able to establish no-concession patterns.”282 As coordinated and centralized bargaining moved in this uneven way, CUPE also included organizing wall-to-wall in workplaces as a key to shore up bargaining strength. Organizing “wall-to-wall” means that instead of looking to certify new bargaining units in non-union workplaces, locals would instead focus on making sure that workers in different department or different job classifications were unionized within an already unionized workplace. This would not only increase the structural leverage by giving each workplace a higher union density, it would also remove non-union competition from the workplace. While CUPE did conduct organizing drives in non-union workplaces, their predominant focus was on increasing union density in already-existing CUPE workplaces, and having those new members be either rolled into an existing unit, or to create a new unit with similar language where possible. Again, both centralized and coordinated bargaining were intended to be sectoral interventions that were intended as political interventions against underfunding, contracting out, and other incursions of austerity into workplaces. This coordinated bargaining plan also included the building of “solidarity pacts” between CUPE and
281 Panitch, L., & Swartz, D. (2008). From consent to coercion: The assault on trade union freedoms. University of Toronto Press. 282 CUPE (2004) “Table Talk – 2004”.
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other unions in the same sectors, though there is little-to-no indication that these pacts were struck even rhetorically, let alone in practice.
A CUPE research document from 2005 states that coordinated bargaining could range from information sharing amongst locals to centralized bargaining at a common table. At the high end of the range would be centralized sectoral bargaining where certain conditions of work would be standardized across a sector by being bargaining at a single (or “central”) table. The most appropriate internal structure for this level of bargaining was listed as the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU) which is a certified central bargaining agent.283 While CUPE did identify centralized bargaining as a central priority, it is unclear exactly how they planned to get locals across a sector to force the government to accept bargaining at a central table. In Ontario, most cases of central tables had been established as a result of government policy rather than union strategies of coordination.
While centralized bargaining consistently came up as a strategic priority throughout the pre-crisis years, the only example of a move towards such centralization came in the school board sector. In 2008, CUPE school board members endorsed a Provincial Discussion Table
(PDT) process that was initiated by the Liberals and would see some elements of bargaining brought to a central table, bringing together trustees, unions, and the Ministry of Education.284
While CUPE hailed this as a success, the Liberals plainly stated that the goal of the PDT and the
“framework agreements” was to minimize labour disruptions and to facilitate local bargaining.285
283 CUPE (2005). “Coordinated Bargaining Structures in CUPE”, CUPE Research. Retrieved from: https://cupe.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/webarc/archivedat260.pdf. 284 CUPE Ontario (Jan 22, 2008). “School board members endorse provincial negotiations process”, CUPE Ontario Archives. Retrieved from: “https://cupe.on.ca/archivedoc266/” 285 Ontario Ministry of Education (Feb 10, 2009). “Statement By Education Minister Kathleen Wynne On Final Proposal For English Public Elementary Teachers And Ontario Public School Boards”, Government of Ontario
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Aside from the increasing centralization of school board bargaining – initiated by the
McGuinty Liberals – and the ongoing centralized hospital bargaining, the predominant tendency for other sectors was still decentralized bargaining. While CUPE National had begun collecting data on various sectors and allocated financial resources (including cost-shares with local unions) for coordinated bargaining initiatives following the 2005 Convention, the social services, municipal, and university sectors remained highly fragmented.286 To aid the coordination of bargaining priorities, CUPE’s research department released quarterly bargaining updates
(Tabletalk) as a bargaining resource that included information on key bargaining struggles, innovative language, and CPI figures. Coordination was largely left to sectoral coordinating committees who would meet in conference usually once a year and have delegates from locals exchange information on a more regular basis through informal meetings and communications.
Sectoral coordinating committees often identified challenge areas for each sector, examined local’s responses (primarily through attempted or successful bargaining language), and planned to develop a strategy of response. These methods were used to encourage a very loose pattern bargaining in each sector where identification of mutual challenge areas and an exchange of bargaining language could potentially be replicated across locals. Despite these attempts co- ordinated bargaining developed unevenly.
A large part of the reason for this was differing collective agreement expiry dates. While coordinating on issues and priorities could be accomplished through internal discussions, timing of things like expiry dates and conciliation dates could be disrupted by employer delay tactics.
Newsroom. Retrieved from: https://news.ontario.ca/archive/en/2009/02/10/Statement-By-Education-Minister- Kathleen-Wynne-On-Final-Proposal-For-English-Pub.html. 286 CUPE National (200). “CUPE Celebrates: Year in Review 2006”, CUPE Archives. Retrieved from: https://archive.cupe.ca/updir/cupe-celebrates-2007.pdf.
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Lining up expiry dates was often identified as a strategic priority by the CUPE’s Ontario
University Workers Coordinating Committee (OUWCC) who negotiated with different universities in different years for different units within locals.287 In many cases, even bargaining units within universities were not able to line up simultaneous expiry dates, as employers were wary of having an entire local be able to strike at the same time. To date, only CUPE 3903 at
York University – one of (if not the) most militant local in CUPE – has been able to line up all
(3) of it’s units, while lining up common expiry dates across university locals has made little progress.
Secondly, even when locals did engage in coordinated bargaining with common expiry dates, there was no guarantee that a) they would come to an impasse, conciliation, and a legal strike position at the same time or b) that individual employers would not offer locals a wins on some of their bargaining priorities in exchange for a typically longer (4-years and up) contract that would disrupt common expiries. For either CUPE Ontario or CUPE National to mandate common expiry dates would have been a major affront to local autonomy and so co-ordinated bargaining remained limited in its effectiveness. As a result, voluntary coordinated bargaining became the norm, and developed in highly uneven ways.
Political Partisanship
While the CAW turned to electoral realignment, strategic voting, and corporatism as their structural power declined, CUPE Ontario returned to political partisanship by embracing and deepening ties with an increasingly centrist ONDP party. In large part, this was driven by
CUPE’s oppositional position to the Ontario Liberals as the ruling party, but also by the failures
287 CUPE (2006). “Tabletalk – Fall 2006”, CUPE Research. Retrieved from: https://archive.cupe.ca/updir/TABLETALK_fall_2006rev.pdf.
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and lessons of the previous decade. During, and in the immediate aftermath of the Days of
Action in the 1990s, CUPE Ontario had partially broken with a strategy of electoral deferral as it joined the Common Front unions in pushing for escalating militant actions. However, when the
Days of Action collapsed into electoralism and the Harris Conservatives were re-elected with another majority in 1999, a rift in electoral strategy was solidified in the Ontario labour movement as many unions chose to stay on the side of partisan relations or to embrace strategic voting.288
The breakdown in social democratic party-union relations is not a development unique to
Ontario. Social democratic parties both in and out of power across the world have struggled to develop and implement counter-hegemonic positions to neoliberalism. Even when social democratic parties have been electorally successful, they have been forced by a combination of internal party pragmatism and the “disciplining” mechanisms of capital to adopt policies around lower taxes, labour flexibility, free trade, and balanced budgets.289 In Ontario, the neoliberal turn and bitter legacy of the Bob Rae NDP not only set the stage for the consolidation of power for the Harris regime, but also led to the NDP losing much of its legitimacy as “the party of labour.”
This in turn lead to the NDP losing official party status between 1995 and 2011 and had them reduced to a distant third party for over two decades.
By the 2003 election, the lines between strategic voting unions in the Working Families
Coalition, and unions supporting the NDP were more clearly drawn. CUPE, who was critical of the Liberals at several OHC rallies in the leadup to the election, had to balance the possibility of
288 See: Savage, L. (2010). Contemporary party-union relations in Canada. Labor Studies Journal, 35(1), 8-26. doi:10.1177/0160449X09353028. 289 Evans, B. (2012). The New Democratic Party in the Era of Neoliberalism. Rethinking the politics of labour in Canada, 51-58.
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another Conservative government or a new Liberal government that had been relatively silent over the possibility of continued P3 use and had committed to balanced budgets without raising taxes. As the 2003 election approached, the NDP was polling so low in third place (between 11-
13%) that CUPE’s public critiques became much less pronounced. In an August 2003 Labour
Day message from Sid Ryan, the CUPE Ontario president called for a change in government and an end to privatizations, underfunding and tax cuts, but stopped short of encouraging members to vote NDP. Instead he encouraged members to “[help] the campaigns of candidates at all levels – provincial, municipal and school board – who support public services,” and to turn out to vote on election day.290
When the Liberals were elected with a strong majority (72 seats won with 52 needed for a majority) and the NDP only won 7 (losing 2 seats), CUPE quickly transitioned to social agitation tactics to try and hold the recently elected McGuinty government to their more progressive campaign provinces. Only four days after the 2003 election CUPE released a media bulletin titled “New Ontario premier supports public hospitals”, quoting several of McGuinty’s statements regarding moving the proposed Ottawa and Brampton P3 contracts into a fully public system. The media bulletin goes on to express skepticism and points to the other Liberal governments’ records on these issues, finishing with a call to action for members:
“Hopefully Dalton McGuinty will continue to take a strong stand against
British-style P3 hospitals, which have proven to be a disaster -- and support
public delivery of support services. Just to be sure, if you’re in Ontario, feel free
290 CUPE (2003). “Eves’ government won’t change; it’s time to change the government, CUPE Ontario president says in Labour Day message”, CUPE Archives. Retrieved from: https://archive.cupe.ca/media/ART3f4facb765790.html.
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to call your newly elected or re-elected Liberal MPP to remind them of their
leader’s campaign promises. And if you’re in one of the seven ridings that kept
their NDP MPP, phone your representative and tell them to keep the new Liberal
government in check.”291
By 2004, the Liberals were not only pushing ahead with the P3 Brampton and Ottawa hospitals, but were expanding P3 plans for additional hospitals as well. Neither lobbying Liberal politicians who were newly elected to a majority party with a strong mandate, or having 7 allied NDP MPPs was effective in contesting any part of the Liberal’s austerity agenda.
While the NDP Rae government and the subsequent fall-out had demonstrated the weaknesses of party loyalty regardless of ideological or policy orientation, the electoral failures of the NDP of the early 2000s onwards demonstrated the shortcomings of a divided electoral strategy for the labour movement.292 That is, while electoralism had been proven to be insufficient for challenging neoliberalism, it could not simply be ignored. CUPE also focused on municipal elections, which as decision making bodies of urban neoliberalism, would have implications for members and communities. While this was not strictly political partisanship,
CUPE often attempted to mobilize members around municipal election campaigns to vote for
CUPE-endorsed candidates. In 2006, the union listed as a major victory the fact that 49.5% of
CUPE-endorsed municipal candidates had been elected.293
291 CUPE (Oct 6, 2003). “New Ontario premier supports public hospitals”, CUPE Archives. Retrieved from: https://archive.cupe.ca/media/ART3f81ce1803e9f.html. 292 Ross, S. (2018). The Challenges of Union Political Action in the Era of Neoliberalism. In Evans, B. and Albo, G. (Eds.), Divided Province: Ontario Politics in the Age of Neoliberalism (pp. 522-548). McGill-Queen's University Press. Retrieved April 16, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvbj7g4v.21. 293 CUPE Ontario (2007). “CUPE Ontario Action Plan: 2006 Report Card”, CUPE Ontario Archives. Retrieved from: https://cupe.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/webarc/archivedat224.pdf.
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As the pre-crisis phase evolved, CUPE turned towards interventions that could potentially disorganize consent around the Liberals’ (primarily through social agitation). In the leadup to the 2007 election the union began aggressively campaigning for the NDP. CUPE
Ontario launched its campaign on Labour Day 2007 and began driving through the province with a campaign bus with giant caricatures of McGuinty and Conservative leader John Tory. The caricatures featured Tory with a “fist full of dollars” on one side of a coin and McGuinty “with a
Pinocchio long nose” on the other “side” of the coin, and read “two sides of the same coin.”294
The bus undertook “a 7,684 km tour visiting 20 cities and garnering feature media coverage estimated at $340,000 in value.”295 During the campaign, CUPE called on voters to “Put People
First” and highlighted education and healthcare as central election issues.
In the aftermath of the 2007, in which the McGuinty Liberals won another strong majority, 2nd Vice President Candice Rennick praised “an unprecedented number of CUPE members and staff” who had “offered themselves as candidates” for MP seats despite no CUPE members being elected.296 Included in the list of unelected CUPE candidates was President Sid
Ryan, who had failed for a third time to win an MP seat despite, theoretically, having the full organizational weight of the union behind him. While elections could hardly be ignored, the resources (both monetary and labour power) deployed by CUPE had failed to yield positive results at a municipal, provincial, or federal level. Secondly, even if it had yielded some positive results, CUPE still lacked the organizational power to exert leverage beyond lobbying as the
294 CUPE Ontario (Sept 18, 2007). “CUPE Ontario election bus banned from Plowing Match parade; campaign addressing disconnect between leaders, public”, CUPE Ontario Archives. Retrieved from: https://cupe.on.ca/archivedoc138/. 295 CUPE (2007). “2007 Year in Review”, CUPE Archives. Retrieved from: https://cupe.on.ca/archivedoc251/. 296 Rennick, C. (2008). CUPE Executive Board Convention Reports”, CUPE Ontario Archives. P. 15.
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NDP continued its trajectory of “electoral timidity and programmatic drift.”297 CUPE’s predominant ideological-symbolic articulations were often that the problems facing the public sector were a matter of the governing party, not the neoliberal state. The solution therefore was to put in power a social democratic party rather than building independent working-class power capable of challenging the power of the state and capital. Despite social democracy being increasingly hallowed out and seemingly unelectable in its current form, CUPE remained committed to partisan electoralism.
Incursions into the War of Maneuver
This section provides a broad overview of the forms of overt militancy – namely strikes – that were undertaken during the period in question. The secondary purpose, is to make connections between the predominant strategic interventions of the WoP and the nature of each union’s
“WoM.” As a first step, the charts below contain descriptive statistics that help contextualize the levels and locations of militancy within each union.
As Figure 9 shows, the frequency of strikes in Ontario has declined significantly since the early 1990s. This decline has been much more pronounced in the private sector than the public sector. This decline has been driven by the changes in private sector strike incidence. Between
1990 and 1999 in Ontario, there was an average of 92.4 strikes per year in the private sector compared to 25.3 in the public sector. Comparatively, in the decade between 2008 and 2017,
297 Evans, B. and Albo, G. (Jan 11, 2008). “Limited Horizons: Ontario’s Election and After”, Socialist Project. Retrieved from: https://socialistproject.ca/2008/01/b79/.
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there was an average of only 26.3 strikes per year in the private sector and 18.3 per year in the public sector.
Figure 9: Strike Incidence by Institutional Sector
Strike Incidence in Ontario by Institutional Sector (1990-2017) 45 40 35 30 25
20 Private # of # strikes 15 Public 10 5
0
1991 2014 1990 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2015 2016 2017 Year
Source: Workplace Information Division at the Labour Program, Employment and Social Development Canada, Government of Canada 2018. For the cases studied here, Figure 10 shows that 39 (51%) of the 76 CAW strikes in the pre-crisis phase were in the manufacturing sector and were often undertaken when firms presented “concessions or closure” style bargaining packages as employers sought to drive down labour costs to remain “competitive.” The second and third highest areas of strike frequency were in entertainment and hospitality, and wholesale and retail trade, respectively. In entertainment and hospitality, the majority of the strikes came from the gaming sector (racetracks and casinos) who would be managed by the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, a crown corporation. Workers in this sector were often battling against precarious work arrangements, outsourcing, and the casualization of work arrangements. Finally, strikes in wholesale and retail
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trade largely came from Big 3 car dealerships, which were having profits squeezed by declining market share, putting downward pressure on workers wages and work conditions.
Figure 10: CAW and CUPE strikes by industrial sector (2004-2008)
Pre crisis (04-08) # of strikes CAW 76 Educational, health and social services 4 Entertainment and hospitality 10 Manufacturing 39 Finance, real estate and management services 1 Primary industries 3 Transportation 6 Wholesale and retail trade 12 Utilities 1
CUPE 28 Educational Services 7 Social Services 7 Entertainment and hospitality 1 Public administration 6 Transportation 3 Utilities 3 Manufacturing 1 Information and culture 1 Source: Workplace Information Division at the Labour Program, Employment and Social Development Canada, Government of Canada 2019. For CUPE, the three sectors with the highest strike frequency were education and social services with 7 strikes each, and the municipal sector with 5 strikes. In all three of these sectors, workers were still struggling from the policy legacies of the Harris Conservative years which had cut funding, leaned out staffing, and in the case of municipalities, downloaded responsibilities without adequate funding through amalgamations and service realignments.298 While the
McGuinty Liberals represented a mildly progressive alternative to the Conservatives, they were
298 Sancton, A. (2000). “Amalgamations, Service Realignement and Property Taxes: Did the Harris Government Have a Plan for Ontario's Municipalities?.” Canadian Journal of Regional Science, 23(1), 135-156.
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still neoliberal in their orientations, and instead of reversing the damages of the Tory years, they simply adapted to the new terrain.
Figure 11 below shows the change in strike frequency for both unions between the
Harris/Eves Conservative years (1994-2003) and the pre-crisis McGuinty Liberal years (2004-
2008). Calculated as the average number of strikes per year during each time-period, there are downward trends within both union cases. For the CAW, there is a slight drop off in the number of strikes per year (from almost 17/year to 15/year) between the Harris/Eves years and the pre- crisis McGuinty years. CUPE, on the other hand saw a much steeper drop off moving from 10.5 strikes a year during the Conservative years, to 5.4 strikes per year during the pre-crisis Liberal years. This trend is generally consistent throughout the major unions in the province with the exception of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) seeing a slight uptick during the McGuinty Liberal’s first term.
Figure 11: Average strikes per year by time-period, union, and government in Ontario299
Years Government CAW CUPE CEP USW OPSEU ETFO OSSTF UFCW 1994- Harris/Eves 2003 16.7 10.5 6.1 17.3 3.1 0.8 2.5 6.3 2004- McGuinty 2008 (pre-crisis) 15.2 5.6 4 9.1 4.8 0.6 0.8 2.6 Source: Workplace Information Division at the Labour Program, Employment and Social Development Canada, Government of Canada 2019. While there are a host of macro and meso factors that would help explain the magnitude of these declines within and across unions – the strategies of the governing parties, the business cycle, employer strategies, waves of protest and mobilization, among others – ultimately, the
299 CEP - Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada; USW - United Steelworkers of America; OPSEU – Ontario Public Service Employees Union; ETFO – Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario; OSSTF – Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation; UFCW - United Food and Commercial Workers.
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decision to strike rests (often) with union locals and their members. While the central union bodies are likely involved in those decisions through the involvement of staff reps in bargaining, member and leadership development, cost-shares and monetary strike support, and a multitude of ways to support locals engaged in tough rounds of bargaining, local unions do have autonomy that allows them to decide (mainly through a strike vote) whether or not to take strike actions.
The question then becomes, did the central organizational levels of the unions coordinate wars of position in ways that tilted the balance of class forces, on aggregate, to make it more likely that local unions would win lasting gains in overt conflicts with capital or the state?
Furthermore, could these local wins be coalesced into a programme that could be said to pushing back upon provincially imposed neoliberalism? While this would vary according to the context, at a minimum a successful war of position would need to disorganize consent around the dominant culture and authority structures, secure widespread popular support for alternatives from both the union membership and the public, obtain a level of readiness and organization for direct conflicts, and prepare alternative institutional arrangements and structures that could replace the old. Based on the evidence from Chapter 4, both unions would have a difficult time claiming their wars of position were, on aggregate, able to tilt the balance of class forces in their favour. A combination of government and union action and inaction meant that union militancy was contained, despite the ongoing consolidation of neoliberalism in the province.
Conclusion
The strategic interventions undertaken by the CAW and CUPE to organize material and ideological forces to favour their organizations against the Third Way Liberals in the pre-crisis years had important similarities and differences. First, it is worthwhile to note that the term war of position (WoP) that has been used throughout this work, may be a slight misnomer. A WoP, in
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a Gramscian sense, requires the organization(s) in question to take an oppositional position to the current dominant ideological framework and requires the organization(s) present alternatives to that framework.
For the CAW the period was defined by a turn to pragmatic politics, the defense of sectionalist interests through deeper incorporation of the leadership with the Liberals, a turn to competitive corporatism, and building power as an electoral bloc through organizing for certification and lobbying. For CUPE, while they did take a strong oppositional position to Third
Way neoliberalism, their articulations suggested that the problems facing the public sector are a matter of the governing party – the choices of underfunding, the use of P3s – and therefore the proposed solutions were often to put in power a social democratic party, or otherwise to pressure the governing party to make alternative choices through social agitation and lobbying.
For the CAW, there was a large degree of separation between political and economic fights during this period where strikes at the local levels were not translated to similarly militant positions emerging at the central levels of union organization. Between 2004 and 2008, no union went on strike more than the CAW. Striking 76 times, the CAW was followed by the USW with
48 strikes (40 of which were in manufacturing), and then CUPE with 28.300 While the strikes undertaken by locals were often defensive battles against closures, layoffs, and the general downward trend in working conditions, the dominant-negotiated position of the CAW was nonetheless reflective large segments of the membership that could not, or would not be non- adversarial.
300 Employment and Social Development Canada (2019). Workplace Information Division at the Labour Program, Government of Canada.
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The CAW predominant organizational-institutional interventions were built around increasing the union’s associational power with the governing party, lobbying and creating public pressure for a more favourable regulatory climate, engaging members in leadership- sanctioned campaigns, and increasing presence in traditional and non-traditional sectors. At an ideological-symbolic level, the CAW predominantly moved increasingly towards a dominant- negotiated position, embracing neo-corporatism and accepting the Third Way role of the state to maintain a favourable investment climate, while tying members interests to the importance of unionized manufacturing (“good jobs”) for “communities,” the province, and the “nation” (“Buy
Canadian”). While there were challenges to select parts of the Third Way Liberal’s agenda
(namely from the health care sector), the CAW reserved most of its oppositional positions for the
Harper Conservatives, often leaving the McGuinty Liberal’s, who had demonstrated a willingness to provide a favourable investment climate for capital, largely uncontested. In both cases, the union’s perceptions on the role of the state played a central role in determining both organizational-institutional interventions and the ideological-symbolic position. The continuing use of balanced budgets, P3s, and New Public Management (NPM) initiatives in the public sector meant CUPE was constantly challenged by the Liberal’s governance.
For CUPE, there was an explicit connection between political and economic fights, in large part due to the nature of public sector unionism. CUPE’s approach is differentiated from
CAW’s seeming detachment between strategies in the workplace and “politics” largely as a result of having various parts of the state apparatus as an employer. While the CAW was forced into a “concessions or closures” environment, and even where they did have centralized and co- ordinated (pattern) bargaining that did frequently end in militant action (such as the auto parts sector), their structural position of weakness meant that bargaining with employers was not
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chosen as a leading strategy by the central union levels as a tool to defeat neoliberal competitiveness. Instead the CAW focused on the “political bargaining table.” CUPE on the other hand, identified co-ordinated and centralized bargaining as key organizational-institutional strategic interventions that could be used to address their primary political-economic concerns: privatization, fiscal consolidation, and public sector restructuring. For CUPE, centralized bargaining had the capacity to be counter-hegemonic, though only if it could be conducted in ways that could seek counter-hegemonic concessions from the state. This would have required mass membership engagement, public support, and the possibility of sector-wide (illegal) strikes.
However, centralized bargaining remained underdeveloped, and this capacity was never achieved.
During the pre-crisis phase, CUPE’s primary organizational-institutional interventions welded together social agitation, coalition building, and political partisanship to try and disorganize consent, not around neoliberalism per se, but around certain policy decisions undertaken by a party that still advanced and consolidated neoliberalism. As such, CUPE focused primarily on mobilizing groups of activists and coalition partners into relatively small and diffuse campaigns that would undermine the Liberal’s credibility to be representing the true interests of “communities,” and reorganize that credibility around the union and the NDP. The common tactics of rallies, petitions, and other non-disruptive forms of protest were often deployed so as to not undermine CUPE’s stated position of representing the interests of communities. However, insufficient internal and external organizing meant that CUPE could not weld together a bunch of disparate coalition partners nor move the generally indifferent public to support the union’s agenda against the Liberals. Furthermore, trying to reorganize this consent, not just around the union’s agenda, but around the NDP’s meant that this approach ignored the
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increasing centrism of the NDP, the distant possibility of an NDP majority, and the possibility that even if they could win an election that leadership would have a conservatizing effect on the social democratic party.
CUPE’s efforts to disorganize and reorganize consent were largely unsuccessful at a provincial level. While they were able to stop a number of privatization campaigns, bring some previously privatized services back in-house, and slow the rate of restructuring in certain sectors like healthcare, these successes were isolated within a larger context of continuing austerity.
While CUPE presented themselves as defenders of public services and critiqued the Liberals for not undoing the damage done by the Harris Conservatives, the extent of their counter-hegemonic ideology was a return Keynesian-style management of the public sector, ignoring the fact that culturally, this had been demonized by decades of neoliberal assault. They therefore struggled to win consent in the battle over the “public” or “community interest.”
These findings are reflective of Savage’s (2014) statement that unions adopt strategies that respond to, rather than challenge, neoliberal imperatives.301 As this chapter has demonstrated, there is no guarantee that unions will put forward anti-neoliberal ideology or organize for counter-hegemonic alternatives, though this tendency should be thought of on a spectrum rather than in absolute terms. Much like political parties, there is every possibility that unions will adapt to the new terrain of neoliberalism through a series of defensive struggles rather than organize for alternatives. Both the CAW and CUPE failed to center and articulate any systemic alternatives to neoliberalism in the pre-crisis phase and neither union commonly
301 Savage, L. (2014). Organized labour and the shifting landscape of local politics in Ontario. Studies in Political Economy, 93(1), 107-126. p. 123.
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challenged what could be termed “non-sectionalist” challenges beyond the level of traditional expressions of solidarity.
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Chapter 5: Post-Crisis Wars of Position
Having established the main organizational-institutional and ideological-symbolic interventions in the previous chapter, it is worth examining which, if any, of these interventions changed during a period of deep economic crisis in Ontario. Despite a more orthodox neoliberal turn by the McGuinty Liberals in the aftermath of immediate post-crisis stimulus measures, the Liberals were able to secure another term in the 2011 election, missing out on another majority by a single seat. The GFC in many ways represented not only a deep economic crisis, but also a legitimacy crisis for the dominant hegemonic order. The global integration of capital and finance meant that a sub-prime mortgage crisis in the U.S. cascaded into a banking crisis, global recession, and a debt crisis centered in Europe. The logics of the dominant regime of accumulation – financialization, financial deregulation, global interdependence for production and finance, and “the market” as the most “rational” way of organizing the economy – were all blown apart in the meltdown of the global economy. Globally, the corresponding austerity measures and doubling down on neoliberal “fixes” led to widespread social discontent and upheaval from a host civil society organizations and social movements – including, most notably, movements such as 15-M (Spain), the 12th March Movement (Portugal), Occupy (U.S.- centric), and the rise of Syriza (Greece).302
As states moved towards crisis-management and containment, the “crisis of authority” that had opened presented a political opportunity window for counter-hegemonic movements to articulate and organize towards radical alternatives. This chapter analyzes how CUPE and the
CAW responded to the crisis and the crisis management of the McGuinty Liberals both in
302 See: Cristina Flesher Fominaya (2017) European anti-austerity and pro-democracy protests in the wake of the global financial crisis, Social Movement Studies, 16:1, 1-20, DOI: 10.1080/14742837.2016.1256193.
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organizational-institutional terms and with ideological-symbolic interventions in the period between late 2008 and 2013. As is discussed in this chapter, while the main organizational- institutional interventions remained largely consistent through the post-crisis period, there were significant changes to ideological-symbolic interventions.
This chapter follows the same structure as Chapter 4, starting with a discussion of
CUPE’s WoP, then proceeding with the CAW’s WoP, and concluding with a brief section on each unions direct and overt conflict with employers through strikes and other forms of militancy. The focus again will be on the predominant organizational-institutional interventions including internal organizing (aimed at facilitating varying levels of engagement and activation from rank-and-file activists and already existing members) and external organizing (aimed at increasing organizational strength by bringing in new members, allies, and organizations). Added to the analysis of organizational-institutional interventions will be an examination of ideological- symbolic interventions where the dominant ideological frames are either opposed, negotiated, or accepted. The overall nature of the predominant organizational-institutional and ideological- symbolic will then be summarized into what can loosely be terms a war of position (WoP) despite that fact that, as was found in Chapter 4, these movements may not be counter- hegemonic.
CUPE Post-Crisis: 2009-2013
In similar fashion to the pre-crisis period, CUPE’s post-crisis WoP focused overwhelmingly on the imposition of austerity. Again, CUPE took oppositional positions to privatization, fiscal consolidation and public sector restructuring by organizing internally and externally against these policy impositions and by trying to counter Liberal articulations that deepening austerity was “natural,” “universally beneficial,” and “the only viable option.” While different ideological-
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symbolic frames were articulated by CUPE to fit the crisis and post-crisis conjuncture, the predominant organizational-institutional interventions remained almost entirely unchanged from the pre-crisis period.
Political partisanship
In similar fashion to the pre-crisis phase, CUPE’s core parliamentary external organizing in the post-crisis period was led by political partisanship with both the federal and provincial NDP. In
CUPE Ontario’s 2009 Action Plan, the union recommitted to “developing an improved relationship with the provincial New Democratic Party (NDP) and the Party’s new Leader,” referring to newly elected NDP leader Andrea Horwath.303 Under the Action Plan’s key strategic direction titled Build an Economically and Socially Sustainable Future for All, the 2009
Convention document goes on to commit CUPE to the following as part of its action plan:
“While CUPE members did not cause this recession, we will take this
opportunity to work with progressive economists, labour and community allies
and the New Democratic Party (NDP) to come up with a sustainable way
forward for Ontario.”304
Early in the post-crisis period, CUPE identified the crisis as a “moment of great opportunity” for a “progressive coalition of the left to champion alternative strategies.” This framing that combines crisis as opportunity, progressive coalitions, and alternative strategies ticks important boxes within a counter-hegemonic approach. To carry out this work, CUPE identified progressive economists, labour and community allies, and the NDP as the appropriate
303 CUPE Ontario. (2009). “CUPE Ontario May 2009 Convention Action Plan: 2008 Report Card,” CUPE Ontario 2009 Convention, p. 17. 304 Ibid. p. 5.
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bloc. While CUPE did recommit to working with the NDP, it was unclear at this point: 1) which alternative strategies would be articulated; and 2) exactly what role the party would play in relation to CUPE. How this party-union relationship was defined would come to bear directly on
CUPE’s orientation to the neoliberal state.
Throughout much of the pre-crisis WoP, CUPE’s strategic interventions in Ontario had pushed for the NDP during elections, used NDP MPPs for propaganda purposes within the legislature, and otherwise attempted to pressure the Third Way Liberals to adopt progressive policies through social agitation. In the post-crisis period, the party orientation of CUPE remained one of NDP partisanship (both federally and provincially) with both the Liberal and
Conservative parties bring consistently rejected. The continued embracing of the NDP as an electoral vehicle, with its specific historicized version of social democracy then begs the question as to whether or not this party-union relation had the potential to move Ontario beyond (or at the very least, away from) neoliberalism?305
Firstly, for this to have been the case, the NDP as a party would had to have been radically transformed to one that moved beyond a politics of social democratic class compromise at both the federal and the provincial levels. A progressive management of neoliberalism at the level of government simply dulls the harsher edges while leaving the underlying structural factors untouched. While a more moderate form of neoliberal governance may have been relatively beneficial in the short-term, unless it dismantled and replaced the key pillars of neoliberalism (corporate power, deregulated financialization, free trade, precarious work,
305 These considerations are even further complicated by the federal governing structures in Canada. For example, problems of banking, trade, and taxation policy cannot solely be resolved at the provincial level.
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privatization, etc.), it would only represent a temporary and highly-reversable phase of
“progressive” neoliberalism.
Secondly, if such a bloc did have counter-hegemonic potential, it would have had to not only come to power electorally, but have done so with a strong and broad social base that could act as a counterweight against capital’s coercive weapons (capital strikes, capital flight) as a new government went about dismantling and replacing core parts of the neoliberal state and regulatory apparatus. During this dismantling, the province would likely have suffered through what has been termed a “transition trough.”306 The NDP and allied base would have to have had supreme confidence that the NDP’s vision and actions were right and proper, despite what surely would have been retaliations from capital as it moved investment and shut down productive enterprises in protest, thus leading to economic hardship for many working people and communities. For an electoral strategy to have had anti-neoliberal, counter-hegemonic potential, it would have had to already of won the war of position, or at least have been able to contest for ideological and organizational supremacy.
Neither of these criteria had been fulfilled in the 2007 Ontario election, when the NDP had run one of its most centrist campaigns in recent history under Howard Hampton and had failed to offer anything that could be remotely described as counter-hegemonic.307 In order to push for the alternatives which CUPE advocated for within their electoral strategy, there would to have been long-term efforts to shift the NDP to the left of social democracy as well as deep and sustained organizing efforts to bring a substantial bloc into alignment with a new
306 Wright, E. O. (2015). Understanding class. Verso Books. 307 Evans, B. (2012). From Protest Movement to Neoliberal Management. in Schmidt, I., & Evans, B. (Eds.) Canada’s New Democratic Party in the Era of Permanent Austerity. Athabasca University Press. P. 70.
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“alternative” vision. As articulated in CUPE’s strategic discourse between 2009 and the 2011 election, CUPE’s calls for “alternatives” are largely based in a return to policies reminiscent of the post-War compromise and the Fordist regulatory regime: higher corporate tax rates, expanded social security and anti-poverty measures, financial re-regulation, and increasing public investments and ownership.308
These articulations have been categorized by Della Porta and Portos (2020) as “Polanyi- like countermovements” involving efforts to restore old protections and relations, and are contrasted with “Wallerstein-like antisystemic movements” which “argue that neither liberty nor equality is possible under the existing system and that both are possible only in a transformed world.”309 This differentiation raises the question to as whether strategic interventions are
“backward looking” or “innovative and forward-oriented.”310
Polanyi’s concept of the “double movement” theorizes the movements and counter- movements between the extension and scope of self-regulating markets on the one hand and efforts to “re-embed” market relations through regulations and social protections on the other.311
The concept of the double movement has regained prominence in the last few decades due to the development of neoliberal globalization and the various counter movements that have sought to check its power.312 However, it must be recognized that the tensions and movement between
308 See: 2009 Action Plan; 2010 Budget referred to as “wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing” by Hahn (https://cupe.on.ca/archivedoc1104/); 2011 Pre-Budget Submission (https://cupe.on.ca/archivedoc1374/); CUPE calls for raising taxes on the “mega-rich and corporations” (https://cupe.on.ca/archivedoc1565/); 2011 Election, CUPE endorses NDP (https://cupe.on.ca/archivedoc1578/) for relevant examples. 309 Della Porta, D., & Portos, M. (2020). Social movements in times of inequalities: Struggling against austerity in Europe. Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, 53, p. 118, citing Wallerstein, I. (1990). Antisystemic movements: History and dilemmas. Transforming the revolution: Social movements and the world-system, p. 36. 310 Ibid. P. 117. 311 Block, F. (2008). Polanyi’s double movement and the reconstruction of critical theory. Revue interventions économiques. Papers in political economy, (38). 312 See: Evans, P. (2008). “Is an Alternative Globalization Possible ?”, Politics & Society, June, pp. 271-305;
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commodification and decommodification (of labour, land, and money as “fictitious commodities”) are not naturally occurring phenomena, but are the product of specific social struggles at regional, national, and international levels. As Michael Burowoy has argued in his work seeking to align Gramsci and Polanyi in a complementary way, “the market unleashes a torrent of class mobilization that rushes in to (re)constitute society,” though he points out that
“we should not turn Polanyi’s double movement into an inexorable law.”313 The movement between marketization and re-embeddedness is not guaranteed, and the specifics of any movement in either direction are contingent on the specifics of the relevant social struggle(s).
The calls made by CUPE or the NDP during this time tended towards the Polanyian countermovement end of the spectrum by seeking a return to the class compromise and security provided by the Fordist mode of regulation and the Keynesian welfare state. While Andrea
Horwath’s winning the leadership in 2009 with backing from CUPE and some of the provinces largest partisan unions led to a stronger social investment approach in the 2011 NDP platform
(primarily in healthcare, postsecondary education, and public transit), these positive signs were contradicted by commitments to balanced budgets, “competitive corporate tax rates,” and fiscal
“prudence and flexibility.”314 In essence, the 2011 NDP campaign represented a progressive
Third Way approach rather than any significant departure from an overall neoliberal policy orientation. Despite the absence of a break with neoliberalism, CUPE still endorsed the NDP in the 2011 election with new President Fred Hanh claiming that the NDP was the only party
Silver, B. and Arrighi, G. (2003). “Polanyi’s ‘Double Movement’ : The Belles Epoques of British and U.S. Hegemony Compared”. Politics & Society 31 (June), pp. 325-355; 313 Burawoy, M. (2003). For a sociological Marxism: the complementary convergence of Antonio Gramsci and Karl Polanyi. Politics & Society, 31(2), 193-261. P. 237 and 244. 314 ONDP (2011) “Putting People First: The Ontario New Democrat Fiscal Framework Document 2011,” Retrieved from: https://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/66300889; CUPE Ontario (Mar 3, 2009). “CUPE Ontario president Sid Ryan will back Horwath in NDP leadership race.” CUPE Ontario Archives. Retrieved from: https://cupe.on.ca/archivedoc744/.
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promising to reverse “unfair corporate tax giveaways” (subsidies) and the “lone voice promoting
“Buy Ontario” policies.”315
In the aftermath of the 2011 Ontario election the union cited “one of the most active campaigns in CUPE history”, and took credit for keeping the Liberals to a minority and “sending the most New Democrats to Queen’s Park in a generation.”316 The union had booked-off members in “record numbers” and held its first-ever training weekend to equip rank-and-file activists with the tools they would need for an electoral campaign that focused on key swing ridings.317 While it was spun as a success, the deeply neoliberal Hudak Tories saw the greatest increase in seats, the McGuinty Liberals were one seat short of another majority, and the election had the lowest voter turnout in Ontario’s history (48%).318 While the NDP did now hold the balance of power in parliament, they did little to dampen the Liberal’s austerity agenda with the greatest successes coming through the halting of another round of corporate tax cuts and the introduction of a higher tax rate on those individuals earning above $500,000.319
Aside from provincial elections, CUPE also maintained its focus on targeting mobilizing efforts around municipal and school board elections. Both the 2010 and 2014 elections were framed as opportunities for CUPE members to directly elect the people who would be overseeing decisions relating to their workplaces in a way that was unavailable to many workers in the
315 CUPE Ontario (Sept 15, 2011) “Vote for positive change on Oct. 6, says CUPE Ontario”, CUPE Ontario Archives. Retrieved from: https://cupe.on.ca/archivedoc1578/. 316 CUPE Ontario (2011). “A Very CUPE Election”, Political Pulse – October 2011. Retrieved from: https://cupe.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/webarc/archivedat4122.pdf. 317 CUPE Ontario (2012). “2011 Report Card: CUPE Ontario 2012 Action Plan,” CUPE Archives. Retrieved from: https://cupe.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/webarc/archivedat4828.pdf. 318 Ciofle, T. (Jun 8, 2018). “Ontario election 2018: Four decades of voter turnout in one chart”, Maclean’s Magazine. Retrieved from: https://www.macleans.ca/politics/ontario-election-2018-four-decades-of-voter- turnout-in-one-chart/. 319 CUPE Ontario (2012). “2012 Convention Capsule #2”, CUPE Archives.
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health care, university, or utilities sectors. CUPE members and staff would identify favourable municipal candidates, organize local forums and meetings to strategize and plan ground game, and develop election tool kits and other campaign materials and educational and mobilizational purposes.320 The 2010 municipal election was framed as a referendum on public services, as
CUPE highlighted the threats of privatization, contracting out, and service cuts.
While elections are undoubtedly an opportunity for unions to have some input over who the top decision-makers in their communities will be, the current structure of liberal democratic elections represents an underdeveloped system of democracy. Elections are too rare, offer limited choices, and are often easily manipulated (whether it be voter suppression, gerrymandering, or the first past the post system). During the same time in Europe and with Occupy, conversations emanating from social movements were emerging around participatory and deliberative forms of democracy, and the democratization of the state and economy. These articulations were largely absent from CUPE’s discourse and ideological-symbolic interventions. Instead, CUPE remained focused on periodic and episodic mobilizations around narrow electoral windows, mobilizing the respectability of their members as “good citizens” instead of fostering and promoting their radical power as workers.
Coordinated and centralized bargaining
CUPE’s commitment to coordinated and centralized bargaining was carried into the post-crisis phase. Citing “real gains… for workers in sectors and occupational groups like school boards and associations for community living” as a result of coordinated bargaining the CUPE Ontario
Executive Board submitted a resolution to the 2009 Ontario Division convention to “continue to
320 CUPE Ontario (Sept 27, 2010). “Municipal & School Board Elections 2010”, CUPE Archives. Retrieved from: https://cupe.on.ca/archivesub229/.
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further the coordination of collective bargaining in Ontario.”321 The resolution was passed and integrated into the 2009 Action Plan where CUPE Ontario recommitted to duplicating this process in the university, municipal, long-term care, and social services sectors.322 The main internal structures CUPE put in place to achieve this goal were the continued use sectoral coordinating committees, sectoral conferences, and multi-sector bargaining conferences where cross-sectoral priorities could be identified. These were augmented by CUPE researchers and staff who would coordinate information sharing and track evolving bargaining priorities and language through informal communications such as conference calls and exchanging reports.
At an ideological-symbolic level, the push for coordinated bargaining was framed as a structural way to ensure “full funding” or to “push back against the free market and deregulation policies,” with the primary aim of this strategic intervention being to protect wages and working conditions against downward pressure and competition.323 Despite CUPE’s consistent oppositional position to the Liberals presenting their austerity agenda as one which would enhance competitiveness (“McGuinty plan an economic recovery killer”), one that was a neutral policy agenda (“Ontario's underfunding forces cuts that harm children, families in crisis”), and one that presented the crisis as one of public expenditures (“Ontario needs a recovery budget, not a poverty budget”) the lack of already-existing and effective coordinating and centralized bargaining outside of Hospitals meant that any efforts to put forward highly ambitious proposals that would redefine the nature and purpose of the public sector could only have emerged in
321 CUPE Ontario (2009). “Report from the Resolutions Committee”, CUPE Ontario Archives. Retrieved from: https://cupe.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/webarc/archivedat2762.pdf. 322 CUPE Ontario (2009). “Invest in People: 2009/2010 Action Plan – Summary.” CUPE Archives. Retrieved from: https://cupe.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/webarc/archivedat2108.pdf. 323 CUPE Ontario (Mar 11, 2009). “Executive Summary Coordinated Bargaining: Stemming the Tide, Opening the Floodgates”, CUPE Ontario Archives. Retrieved from: https://cupe.on.ca/wp- content/uploads/webarc/archivedat1851.pdf.
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fragmentary and uneven ways.324 Furthermore, a single or handful of locals putting forward radical alternatives or striking against the austerity agenda may have run the risk of being labelled “unrealistic” or “out of touch with reality” and therefore risk losing credibility with the
“community interests” they were supposedly representing. In this way, CUPE seemed to delineate between what could be accomplished through collective bargaining and what could be accomplished “politically.” Bargaining in the post-crisis period is largely referenced as a tool to defend existing and past gains while lobbying and electoralism were identified as the main avenues to pursue the Polanyian-countermovement proposals discussed in the previous section.
This is a shortcoming of collective bargaining that is especially prevalent in Canadian and U.S. industrial relations. In the North American model, union density (the number of unionized workers divided by the total number of workers, typically in a given sector or industry) is closely associated and nearly identical to collective agreement coverage. This enterprise level bargaining means that local unions bargain with their direct employer.
Conversely, many Western and Northern European countries have coverage rates that far exceed union density as they bargain, for the working conditions not only of members, but for the whole sector. For example, the Netherlands have an overall union density of under 20%, but a collective bargaining coverage rate of over 75%. This sectoral level bargaining means that union and non-union members alike – i.e. workers as a class – have a vested interest in the outcomes of bargaining. While sectoral bargaining has certain benefits for employers – predictability in wages, widespread labour stability during successful negotiations, higher levels of policy
324 See: CUPE Ontario. “McGuinty plan an economic recovery killer” (https://cupe.on.ca/archivedoc1728/); “Ontario's underfunding forces cuts that harm children, families in crisis” (https://archive.cupe.ca/social- services/province-underfunding-forces-cuts-harm.html); “Ontario needs a recovery budget, not a poverty budget” (https://cupe.on.ca/archivedoc1821/).
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coordination – sectoral level bargaining has been shown to lessen wage inequality and working conditions between organized and unorganized workers. Accomplishing this would have taken a degree of internal and external organizing that went far beyond what was possible for CUPE
(and continues to be possible) since it would revolve around 1) bargaining “scope” clauses across all sectoral collective agreements; 2) having all locals illegally strike over these issues when the employer fails to recognize the union as the bargaining agent for the whole sector; and 3) coordinating with other unions who represent workers in the same sector and having them follow the same strategy.
While establishing sectoral level bargaining would be extremely difficult in Ontario at any time, and was actively dismantled in other countries during the crisis, its pursuit would have represented both a propaganda tool against portraying union actions as sectionalist and a position where unions could negotiate “downwards” towards the more likely goal of centralized bargaining.
For many locals, the potential for proposing alternatives at the bargaining table was essentially foreclosed as notions of “what was possible” were largely deemed to have already been decided through budgetary proceedings or government mandate at either the provincial or municipal level. CUPE’s hospital sector was the most successful in contesting this position when, during 2010 consultations over public sector compensation freezes, the Ontario Council of
Hospital Unions (OCHU) proposed five five-year moratoriums on: 1) hospital and emergency room closures; 2) expansion of public‐private partnerships; 3) reductions in the number of hospital beds and services; 4) privatization of hospital services and 5) competitive bidding in the
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homecare sector.325 These proposals were augmented with CUPE putting forward alternative fiscal strategies including “cancellation of the corporate income tax reductions, a financial transactions tax, and the establishment of a new top personal income tax threshold that would raise an estimated $2 billion in new revenue alone.”326 While these proposals did represent a movement towards modest alternatives (at least by stalling further austerity) as well as interventions that would have defended public services, they were ultimately consultative in nature and were not embraced by the governing Liberals. As will be discussed in the next section, while OCHU’s propositions would have defended public services, they were hamstrung by other unions pursing negotiated positions with the Liberals.
As the Liberals rolled-out their Open Ontario Plan in 2010 and turned to fiscal consolidation measures that aimed to curb public spending, including “expenditure restraint” and
“expenditure reviews” (such as the Toronto Service Review in 2011 and the Drummond Report in 2012), unions were charged with “negotiating their way back to zero,” or fighting against deep concessions.327 Even attempts to hold on to past gains were portrayed as unions failing to be
“flexible” or “make sacrifices.” Even less modest goals – like holding onto sick days – was framed as sectionalist behaviour and not in the “public interest.” To truly resist attacks on public services and fight privatization locals were often forced to strike to defend past gains or take concessions in an atmosphere typified by increasingly aggressive employers, a largely unsympathetic and often complicit mainstream media, and an apathetic or hostile public. Those
325 Evans, B. (2011). The politics of public sector wages: Ontario’s social dialogue for austerity. Socialist Studies/Études Socialistes, 7(1/2). P. 174. 326 Ibid. Citing: McCarthy, Liam, Toby Sanger, Jim Stanford, and Erin Weir. 2010. Ontario’s Public Sector Compensation Freeze: A Critical Appraisal, 24 August 2010. 327 Sweeney, B. and Hickey. R. (2017) “Negotiate Your Way Back to Zero”: Teacher Bargaining and Austerity in Ontario, Canada. In Evans, Bryan M., and McBride, S. (Eds.) Austerity : The Lived Experience. University of Toronto Press.
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CUPE sectors that did not have centralized or effective coordinated bargaining were often engaged in one-on-one, and isolated struggles against employers demanding concessions and a state willing to intervene with restrictive labour legislation should a strike threaten to become too disruptive.
The McGuinty government deployed back-to-work legislation in April 2008 against TTC workers (including CUPE Local 2), against CUPE 3903 in 2009 during its 11-week strike against
York University, against TTC workers again in 2011, and suspended bargaining rights for education unions in 2012 through the Putting Students First Act.328 Included in the 2012 Putting
Students First Act (Bill 115) was CUPE’s school board sector, which had been moving towards a centralized table for over five years, thus demonstrating the limits of even centralized bargaining in a climate where the state is willing to use it’s coercive potential to discipline labour. While
CUPE did mount a legal challenge to the legislation in 2013 (along with ETFO, OSSTF, OPSEU and Unifor) through Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice, and the legislation was found to be unconstitutional in 2016, the “remedy” of monetary compensation was not resolved until
2017.329
Interestingly, the court challenge against Bill 115 proved to be one of the most highly coordinated efforts on a sectoral level in the post-crisis period. The perceived level of rights violations of restrictive labour legislation brought unions together around a common strategy.
While court challenges have had highly uneven outcomes for unions across the neoliberal period,
328 Canadian Foundation for Labour Rights (2020). “Restrictive Labour Laws – Ontario”, Canadian Labour Institute for Social and Economic Fairness. Retrieved from: https://www.labourrights.ca/restrictive-labour-laws. 329 Thomas, M. P., & Tufts, S. (2016). Austerity, right populism, and the crisis of labour in Canada. Antipode, 48(1), 212-230; CUPE (Jun 15, 2017). “CUPE education workers reach agreement on Bill 115 “remedy” with provincial government”, CUPE Archives. https://cupe.ca/cupe-education-workers-reach-agreement-bill-115-remedy- provincial-government.
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three recent rulings in 2015 by the Supreme Court of Canada (the so-called “New Labour
Trilogy”) have for the first time guaranteed that Canadian workers have a constitutional right to strike. However, despite these findings, the exercise of the right to strike had still been limited by
(what would now be considered) unconstitutional labour legislation. Since the Supreme Court’s ruling in January 2015, no less than 15 pieces of unconstitutional labour legislation have been deployed by the Federal and provincial governments.330
The austerity developments of the period exposed both the lack of organization, coherence, and direction from CUPE (and the labour movement as a whole) as well as the limits of collective bargaining within the existing institutional infrastructure – complete with its banning of sympathy and political strikes, back to work legislation, and restrictions on the scope of bargaining. The economic growth that had allowed unions to tread water in the pre-crisis period was now undermined as governments and employers went on the offensive.331
While coordinated and centralized bargaining may not have reversed the austerity agenda, the second stated aim of coordinated and centralized bargaining – whether it led or followed the first aim – was to “create solidarity within and across bargaining units and across locals.”332 By focusing on bargaining at “higher” levels, CUPE intended to have their highly autonomous locals coalesce around sector-self-identified key bargaining priorities that would help create “solidarity through negotiations” as the government and employers tried to use the
330 Canadian Foundation for Labour Rights (2020). “Restrictive Labour Laws – Ontario”, Canadian Labour Institute for Social and Economic Fairness. Retrieved from: https://www.labourrights.ca/restrictive-labour-laws. 331 Camfield, D. (2011). The ‘Great Recession, the Employers’ Offensive and Canadian Public Sector Unions. Socialist Studies/Études Socialistes, 7(1/2). 332 CUPE Ontario (Mar 11, 2009). “Executive Summary Coordinated Bargaining: Stemming the Tide, Opening the Floodgates”, CUPE Ontario Archives. Retrieved from: https://cupe.on.ca/wp- content/uploads/webarc/archivedat1851.pdf.
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crisis to roll back working conditions.333 As in the pre-crisis phase, organizing “wall-to-wall” also remained a priority to help remove wage and working condition competition. This type of organizing became especially important in the post-crisis years as employers aimed to reduce costs through outsourcing, contract flipping, or otherwise reducing the contingency of unionized workers in non-precarious work.
Despite coordinating and organizing efforts, movement towards solidarity across locals and bargaining units remained hampered by many of the same issues that had been present in the pre-crisis era. In sectors where coordinated bargaining remained largely ad hoc and advisory in nature (universities, municipalities, and social services) sectoral coordinating committees had to overcome the fragmentary style of “enterprise level” negotiations (different locals, different bargaining units, different expiry dates), as well as important considerations of differing levels of member engagement trust in the coordinated bargaining process. At the Ontario University
Workers Coordinating Committee (OUWCC) annual conference in 2012, then Vice-Chair James
Meades neatly summarized many of the impediments to coordinated bargaining that the university sector had faced and is worth quoting at length:
“…the central feature of the OUWCC has been the attempts to organize around
coordinated bargaining. This is a large task that faces challenges of geography
and differing priorities and interests for our diverse sector. Much of what has
been done in relation to coordinated bargaining from the OUWCC has been to
develop coordinated bargaining demands and information sharing through
conference calls. From my own experience at the bargaining tables for my own
333 Ibid.
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local in 2010, I put the interests of my members ahead of any set of guidelines
developed by this committee. Further, in looking over the settlements for various
locals contained within OUWCC, it is clear that my local was not the only one to
proceed in this way. Even something like the length of a collective agreement
that would be essential for truly coordinating provincially in our sector has
incredible variation.”334
Meades goes on to question the effectiveness of the coordinated bargaining strategy and poses the question as to whether the committees’ efforts would not be better served in placing it efforts at other levels of coordination. In the 2012 Action Plan, coordinated and centralized bargaining appeared to be much less of a focus with only the school board sector and the university sector recommitting to its pursuit as a key priority.335
Coalition building
The focus on building coalition strength remained a core organizational-institutional strategic intervention into the crisis and post-crisis period. Under the core priority to “Build an
Economically and Socially Sustainable Future for All” in the 2009 Action Plan, CUPE noted that
“the right‐wing ideologies of deregulation and free trade, paired with privatization and globalization, have demonstrated what havoc they can cause, it is up to the progressive coalitions of the left to champion alternative strategies for us all.”336 Identified as key partners in these external organizing efforts were community groups and other unions. Part of this approach
334 Meades, J. (2012). “OUWCC Vice-Chair Report”, OUWCC Conference 2011. Retrieved from: https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/34899221/ouwcc-bargaining-settlements-cupe-ontario. 335 CUPE Ontario (2012). “2012 Action Plan”, CUPE Ontario Archives. Retrieved from: https://cupe.on.ca/wp- content/uploads/webarc/archivedat4828.pdf. 336 CUPE Ontario (2009). “2009 Action Plan.” CUPE Ontario Archives. Retrieved from: https://cupe.on.ca/wp- content/uploads/webarc/archivedat2109.pdf. p. 5.
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involved calls for a “more common front approaches with other labour unions” that would allow for an effective challenge to the ongoing attacks on the public sector, though the CUPE discourse is unclear on key strategic questions as to how this approach would operate.
The first real test for the preparedness of CUPE and a common front strategy came following the 2010 budget, the introduction of The Public Sector Compensation Restraint to
Protect Public Services Act, and the 2010 Ontario government consultations over a public sector compensation freeze. This social dialogue for austerity involved the unions representing 700,000 public sector workers being invited to negotiate the terms of a two-year wage freeze.337 While
CUPE took the position that unions representing the same sectors should negotiate together to
“defend public services,” and sector coordinating committees (such as OCHU) put forward sectoral and fiscal alternatives to do so, other unions sided with the Liberals position of bargaining one-on-one with the government. Although Evans (2011) has argued that these consultations were little more than a piece of political theatre and were never meant to engage in meaningful dialogue with the unions, it nonetheless demonstrated just how weak, fragmented, and sectionalist the Ontario labour movement was during a moment of political instability.338
In the post-crisis period, the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) had become increasingly fragmented under the leadership of former-CUPE Ontario President Sid Ryan.
Following Ryan’s election in the fall of 2009, the leadership of some of Ontario’s largest unions,
337 Evans, B. (2011). “The politics of public sector wages: Ontario’s social dialogue for austerity.” Socialist Studies/Études Socialistes, 7(1/2). 338 Ibid. P. 183-84. This political instability was most evident after several unions had commissioned a public opinion poll in 2010 on attitudes to the McGuinty government. The McGuinty government was polling near its popular nadir with 73% respondents dissatisfied with the government and believing it was moving in “the wrong direction.” However, despite this overall level of dissatisfaction, 43% of public sector workers were broadly satisfied with the government, in part reflecting the strategic concessions and relationships that the Liberals had been able to build over the pre-crisis phase.
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including the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU), the Service Employees
International Union (SEIU) and the Ontario Nurses Association all disaffiliated over disagreements with the OFL leadership, and Ryan in particular. This “dues strike” left the OFL’s finances in disarray limited their campaign funding and leading to staff reductions. OFL capacities were further weakened when the United Steel Workers (USW), United Food and
Commercial Workers (UFCW) and the Machinists (IAM) chose to also disaffiliate in 2014. Ryan eventually stepped down in 2015. While CUPE continued closely coordinated actions and anti- austerity messaging with the OFL as a key strategic priority, the disarray of the Ontario labour movement meant that it could not rely on any semblance of a “common front” from organized labour.
Due in part to the weakness of the labour movement as a whole and because of the continued prominence of “community union” framings, CUPE continued its attempts to deepen community alliances throughout the post-crisis period. Working with many of the same community allies as the pre-crisis phase – including the OHC, the Ontario Coalition Against
Poverty (OCAP), Ontario Coalition for Better Childcare, Canadian Federation of Students (CFS), the Ontario Electricity Coalition, and the Council of Canadians, among numerous others – CUPE aimed to dislodge the narrative that deepening austerity would be necessary to pay for the crisis.
While the Liberal’s were making the case that in order for public services to be
“sustainable” there needed to be expenditure and service growth restraint, CUPE made the case that continued investment in public services would not only help communities endure the crisis, but would also act as a means of economic stimulus. CUPE advocated for continued public spending to keep the economy afloat, and warned that turning off the fiscal taps too quickly
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could lead to sluggish growth.339 To pay for these continued investments, CUPE called for fiscal reform including “fair taxation” (i.e. progressive and higher tax rates) on corporations and the wealthy as a way to fix the manufactured revenue crisis. In this way CUPE simultaneously took oppositional positions to the three pillars of the Liberal’s austerity narrative: 1) that austerity could lead to enhanced competitiveness; 2) that austerity was a “neutral” agenda that would be universally beneficial; and 3) that the crisis was in expenditures rather than revenues.
This framing mirrored the pre-crisis phase but was adapted to fit post-crisis narratives.
First, CUPE’s articulation that “workers didn’t cause the economic crisis and deficit”, frames the political choice over who should pay for the crisis. On one side of CUPE’s equations were
“corporations,” and “the wealthiest Ontarians, including Bay Street bankers”, who were not being asked to pay for the crisis, and on the other side public service workers and those who rely on the services (loosely defined as “communities”).340 A key part of these framings was highlighting the work that CUPE members actually did in their communities as the union tried to reach a broader base to show what kinds of services their members provided and where they were located in communities. CUPE’s public relations efforts to highlight members work emerged unevenly.
In some cases, such as the 2011/12 Toronto Public Library workers’ (CUPE 4948)
“Project Rescue” and corresponding strike, these efforts were quite successful. CUPE 4948’s
“Project Rescue” campaign and strike fought off closures and proposals for “stafless” libraries through long-term community and member organizing, utilizing favourable public opinion polls,
339 Evans, B. (2011). “The politics of public sector wages: Ontario’s social dialogue for austerity.” Socialist Studies/Études Socialistes, 7(1/2). 340 CUPE Ontario (Jul 21, 2010). “Ontario Government announces wage freeze”, CUPE Ontario Archives. Retrieved from: https://cupe.on.ca/archivedoc1184/.
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weekly information pickets, a petition with over 45,000 signatures, and the added bonus of having some high-profile Canadian authors (such as Margaret Atwood) support the campaign and even join the picket lines. Conversely, other campaigns were often overshadowed by short- term, negative media spotlights on public sector workers trying to prevent roll-backs to their working conditions and funding levels during collective bargaining. Namely, the widely unpopular 2009 municipal strike in Toronto (following shortly after a municipal strike in
Windsor) was dubbed the “garbage strike” as garbage collection ceased during the work stoppage. While only a small proportion of municipal employees were actually involved in garbage collection, the strike proved to be “a lightning rod for public and media distain.”341
Despite efforts to organize and combat these narratives, “highlighting the work” and generating
“a positive image of unionized workers” was often fighting an uphill battle against a frequently hostile corporate media.
As austerity deepened, CUPE also began to highlight the negative impacts that Liberal
“underfunding” and “spending cuts” were having on vulnerable populations and the disproportionately negative impact that would be felt by equity seeking groups who were more likely to be employed in precarious and low wage work.342 Aside from an overall decline in service provision due to overwork, under-resourcing, and understaffing, CUPE frequently brought attention to the disproportionate impact that austerity was having on workers and community service users in schools, child welfare services, long-term care, child care, shelters, libraries, and community centres. These were again tied to narratives on who was being forced to
341 Fanelli, C. (2014). Toronto civic workers bargaining without a base: The significance of 2012. Studies in Social Justice, 8(2), p. 133. 342 CUPE Ontario (2009). “Invest in People: 2009/2010 Action Plan.” CUPE Archives. Retrieved from: https://cupe.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/webarc/archivedat2109.pdf. P. 4.
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pay for the crisis as CUPE tied in considerations of gender and race. In this way, CUPE attempted to create a symbolic wedge highlighting the Liberal’s “neutral” austerity rhetoric, by emphasizing those being left behind by policy that was supposedly in “the public interest.” These types of ideological-symbolic articulations were even further entrenched following the rise and success of the Occupy movement in 2011. CUPE occasionally used the language of the 1% as an institutional target and a way to create unity out of diversity amongst the “99%.” CUPE went as far as to endorse the movement, commending it for “successfully changing the public debate,” in a way that CUPE and the rest of the labour movement had not.343
While the messaging of the Occupy movement around corporate power and inequality were adopted by CUPE, their tactics were not. CUPE and its coalition partners continued to rely heavily on highly routinized social agitation tactics that involved campaigns, lobbying, and rallies. Even as the political climate evolved to one where governments were becoming less responsive to public pressure and increasingly tied to the dictates of capitals’ needs, CUPE failed to adapt its tactical repertoire. While openings were created for meaningful discussions about appropriate and effective tactics – first by the G20 protests in Toronto, then by the Arab Spring,
European anti-austerity protests, Quebec Student Strike, and Occupy – there seemed to be little indication from CUPE or coalition partners that more militant tactics would be deployed.344
This hesitance (or inability) to deploy more militant tactics was a result of shortcomings in internal and external organizing. In terms of external organizing, fragmented coalitions along single-issue (or single sector) campaigns were also highly geographically variable depending on
343 CUPE Ontario (Nov 15, 2011). “An open letter to mayors, city councils and to the Occupy movement”, CUPE Ontario Archives. Retrieved from: https://cupe.on.ca/archivedoc1642/. 344 It was not until CUPE Ontario’s 2015 Action Plan that reference to “escalating action up to and including the call for a general strike” was included as part of the union’s strategy. While this call has been present in subsequent Action Plans, there is little indication that concrete steps have been taken to organize towards this goal.
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whether allied community organizations already existed, or whether they had to be developed
“from scratch.”345 The fact that CUPE found it difficult to challenge austerity measures at even municipal levels made an extra-parliamentary provincial challenge even less likely. While cities with traditionally strong labour and community organizations such as Hamilton, Oshawa,
Windsor, and Toronto were able to mobilize to a certain extent, the capacities for mass participation and disruptive tactics (such as occupations, blockades, or political work stoppages) was limited.
The dilemma, in part, was reflective of the fact that while more militant forms of action could have been taken on by a small number of activists, they would risk undermining CUPE’s position to be representing “community” interests and could have easily been cast as sectionalist and spun to justify and garner support for more repressive measures on the part of the state. In
CUPE Ontario’s 2012 Action Plan, there is a realization that organizing the membership would need to be addressed for the union to be able to deploy effective strategies. Under the section
Building the Base, the document notes that:
“To fight the austerity agenda we must train, resource and support members with
tools and workshops to engage in activism and electoral politics. In order to
build a movement we must first build the base of our union, because it is only
from this position, having a stronger, mobilized and informed base of members
that we will be truly successful.”346
345 See: Black, S. (2018). Community Unionism without the Community? Lessons from Labor-Community Coalitions in the Canadian Child Care Sector. Labor Studies Journal, 43(2), 118–140. https://doi.org/10.1177/0160449X18763442. 346 CUPE Ontario (2012). “2012 Action Plan”, CUPE Ontario Archives. Retrieved from: https://cupe.on.ca/wp- content/uploads/webarc/archivedat4828.pdf. P. 8.
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To a certain extent, CUPE realized that a lack of internal organization and rank-and-file mass engagement meant limited capacities both in the workplace and in coalition building. To address these limitations CUPE made efforts at “increasing capacity” through internal organizing.
“Increasing capacity” (for social agitation)
CUPE’s focus on external organizing, both through coalition building and partisan electoral support, meant that there was often a tendency towards coordination without sufficient organization. Members were often “mobilized” around elections or defensive struggles in bargaining in relatively short-term cycles. In the pre- and into the post-crisis period, even collective bargaining mobilizations had focused on co-ordinating bargaining logistics and priorities as opposed to local-to-local efforts to engage in deep internal organizing.
While “increasing capacity” in CUPE locals was a key priority identified by CUPE
Ontario in 2009, the extent of the measures taken to engage in internal organizing was condensed to “ongoing member education and member book off, political action training, campaign and media skills development.”347 The rest of the measures laid out in the strategic document
Strengthening Our Union related to external organizing: coordinating with CUPE National, solidarity pacts between locals, coalition building, coordinated bargaining, and electoral mobilizations. As the post-crisis period progressed, there seemed to be a growing awareness from leadership and staff that more had to be done to shift members to a state of activism.
However, this movement towards “building the base” was hampered in some ways by the assumption that if education, training, and book-off opportunities were available, that they would
347 CUPE Ontario (2009) “2009/2010 Action Plan – Summary”, CUPE Ontario Archives.
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be filled by willing and ready activists. This orientation is reflective of what Jane McAlevey
(2016) has referred to as “the mobilizing approach” to union activism.
In the mobilizing approach, union members are viewed as objects that can be activated at will from a state of general passivity or neutrality. This approach typically revolves around campaigns run by “professional staff, or volunteer activists with no base of actual, measurable supporters, that prioritize frames and messaging over base power.”348 While the approach does draw in grassroots activists, it tends to bring out already committed members and does little to activate the parts of the membership that would be passively allied, neutral, passively oppositional, or actively oppositional.349 In many ways, the mobilizational approach assumes that union members will, given the opportunity, flock to union campaigns and activities in times of need, simply by virtue of being union members. It assumes, incorrectly, that members will simply identify their interests as aligned with the union without a great deal of organizing or ideological work.
Conversely, the organizing approach aims to build a mass, continuously expanding base of people who often would not typically consider themselves activists. Ordinary people, and leaders that emerge organically from within the membership (whether union activists or not) recognize their collective power, analyze the terrain, and develop the strategy to achieve their own self-negotiated goals. Ultimately, this approach is about building a mass rank-and-file base that has the skills, confidence, and organization to “withdraw labour or other cooperation from
348 McAlevey, J. (2016). No shortcuts: Organizing for power in the new gilded age. Oxford University Press. P. 11. 349 This body of people operate, in Gramsci’s terms, as “the indifferent mass” acting as “the deadweight of history.”
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those who rely on them” using “majority strikes, sustained and strategic nonviolent direct action,
[and] electoral majorities” to accomplish their goals.350
While CUPE has continuously made a point of prioritizing equity work around issues of gender, race, disability, and queerness, this work has also fallen under a mobilizing approach, as self-selecting activists are drawn into the relevant committees, union education courses, and community alliances around these issues. In both the 2009 and 2012 CUPE-O Action Plans, the union committed to “Putting Equality Front and Centre in our Union” and, in terms of membership engagement, committed to strategies that would “raise awareness,” “broaden participation,” “provide internship opportunities,” “build activism,” “mobilize to double attendance” at conferences, and “step up efforts to educate all activists.”351 This work is indispensable in developing and expanding a core group of activists around equity issues, but never aims to organize a supermajority of rank-and-file participation. This is especially true of conservative elements of the membership who may not view equity work as “their fight.”
In 2014, CUPE National conducted the first ever comprehensive demographic survey of the membership. Nationally, they found that 68% of the membership was female (well above the labour force average of 48%), that 15% identified as racialized (compared to 19.1% of the labour force), 3.4% identified as Indigenous (compared to 4.3%), and 12% identified as having a disability (compared to 13.7%).352 Despite an obvious commitment to equity at a central union level (either CUPE-O or CUPE National) there are no recorded book-offs, campaigns or deep
350 McAlevey (2016) p. 11-12 351 CUPE Ontario (2009). “Invest in People: 2009/2010 Action Plan.” CUPE Archives. Retrieved from: https://cupe.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/webarc/archivedat2109.pdf; CUPE Ontario (2012). “2012 Action Plan”, CUPE Ontario Archives. Retrieved from: https://cupe.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/webarc/archivedat4828.pdf. 352 CUPE (May 11, 2015). “CUPE membership survey results for equality-seeking groups”, CUPE Archives. Retrieved from: https://cupe.ca/cupe-membership-survey-results-equality-seeking-groups.
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internal organizing drives in the documents analyzed, that demonstrated a desire to organize neutral, passively oppositional, or actively oppositional elements of the membership around questions of equity and other axis of power that permeate the workplace and society.
What was missing from CUPE’s orientation to “increasing capacity” was a deep organizing approach that not only tied together narratives of economic inequality, increasingly authoritarian government and corporate power, issues of austerity and equity, and the need for imaginable alternatives, but also the development of a mass base of the membership with the capacity, skills, and confidence develop shop-floor power first, and then begin organizing around community issues. If nothing else, expanding the base increases the division of labour and has the potential to lower time commitments across the board as those committed to organizing efforts, meaning more people – and especially those with care responsibilities (a key consideration for CUPE with over half of their membership being female) – may be able to prioritize a few additional hours of organizing work each week. For members to prioritize the type of organizing work that CUPE was hoping they would take on, there also needed to be a belief that the strategic and tactical interventions being deployed were effective. Spilling over from the pre-crisis period, CUPE remained tied to a mobilizational approach that tried to mount pressure against the Liberal’s through coalition building and partisan politics premised on electing the NDP. However, to the extent that these coalitions and alliances remained shallow in the sense that they were built largely from connections between already-existing activists, and not a mass movement, the demands for change (and the corresponding coercive potential of the alliances) were severely limited. Added to these complications was the perennial third party status of the NDP and an inability to reverse their electoral fortunes.
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The effectiveness of deployed strategies and tactics therefore raises questions surrounding “the message” and “the movement.” In 2011, CUPE Ontario commissioned a public opinion poll to gauge support for their anti-austerity message. The findings of the Angus Reid- partnered poll, Saving the Economy, laid out some of the fragmentary and contradictory positions held by the public. While a large majority of those polled supported increasing taxes on banks and the financial industry (83%) and higher corporate tax rates (81%), there was also a large proportion (42%) who supported cutting government spending on government programs and services. Furthermore, while 64% of respondents agreed that public services such as healthcare, education, childcare and social services should be exempt from the Drummond Commission’s mandate, 57% agreed that it was the right time to reduce government spending, and 48% believed funding reductions and privatization to some public services were a good idea.353
The public, and indeed union members themselves, may support maintaining or advancing better public services, but would they support a strike to get it? The hegemony of bourgeois respectability and the belief that “fairness” is something that is reasoned rather than won through struggle has proven difficult to dislodge for movements seeking radical, and sometimes even modest change. Therefore, it is not only sufficient to generate support for “the message,” (ideological-symbolic interventions), but also for “the movement” (organizational- institutional interventions and a select tactical repertoire). CUPE’s, continuing use of routinized social agitation without escalating tactics was likely a result of the former gaining some traction, while the latter remained deficient – both amongst the public and their own membership.
353 CUPE Ontario (Dec 16, 2011). “Liberal voters want Ontario government to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy, poll says”, CUPE Ontario Archives. Retrieved from: https://cupe.on.ca/archivedoc1667/ and https://cupe.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/webarc/archivedat4212.pdf.
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CAW Post-Crisis: 2009-2013
As with the pre-crisis period, there were significant differences and some similarities with the strategic interventions regarding the CAW. In the post-crisis period, the CAW’s predominant challenge areas remained around reversing manufacturing decline, membership loss, and challenges related to “competitiveness” and securing capital investments in their relevant sectors.
The union also took an increasingly oppositional position to the deepening austerity agenda. To address the mounting challenges, the CAW’s predominant strategic interventions were neocorporatism and social dialogue, increased labour movement coordination, efforts at
“building strong locals,” and organizing and mergers.
Neocorporatism and Social Dialogue
The CAW’s electoral alignment in the pre-crisis period had moved the union towards a pragmatic relationship with the McGuinty Liberals. The CAW’s continued presence in the
Working Families Coalition, their repeated use of strategic voting in the post-crisis period,
President Ken Lewenza’s insistence on maintaining a seat at the “political bargaining table,” and the union’s embracing of the Liberal’s industrial policy all combined to bring a certain convergence of interests between the government and the union. While the CAW was critical of the McGuinty Liberals in certain areas – such as their deepening austerity approach in the public sector after 2010 – the union’s critiques were often limited to policy “not doing enough” in certain areas rather than outright condemnations of the government and their policy pillars. The threat of a regressive Conservative Party under Tim Hudak in 2011 and 2014, the inability of the
NDP to move beyond third-party status, and a flagging manufacturing sector, meant deepening incorporative and integrating tendencies as the CAW became increasingly reliant on
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interventions from the McGuinty Liberals to provide stability and support in a way that a rigid
Federal Conservative government would not.
The shrinking of the Ontario manufacturing sector, which had begun in the early 2000s, entered full-blown crisis following the GFC which brought with it a global downturn in demand, rapidly rising business insolvencies, a credit crunch, and complications arising from large multinationals having toxic assets on their balance sheets.354 In other CAW sectors, such as transportation, retail, and hospitality and gaming, the economic crisis and recession put downward pressure on working conditions and wages. The combination of widespread business insolvencies and rising unemployment led to the state stepping in to provide a backstop and shore up capital. As a result, both GM and Chrysler had to declare bankruptcy and engage in restructuring efforts in 2009 as they aimed to keep their business operations viable. Central to these efforts were bailouts in the form of loan guarantees and credit from the Obama
Administration in the U.S., and the McGuinty Liberals and Harper Conservatives in Canada.
As early as January 2008 – and before both Chrysler and GM had filed for bankruptcy in
April and June, 2009 respectively – the CAW was meeting in tripartite forums with Harper,
McGuinty, and “top auto industry officials” to “discuss the challenges facing Canada’s auto industry.”355 Using their seat at the table as one of “three major stakeholders,” along with the government officials and auto assemblers, the CAW and provincial partners called for the federal government to support the industry by addressing a overvalued Canadian dollar, establishing an auto development fund, addressing “unfair trade with Asian economies,” and moving to
354 Between 2005 and 2009 alone, Canada lost 300,000 manufacturing jobs. A vast majority of these were in Ontario. See: Anastkis, 2019. 355 CAW (Jan 11, 2008). “CAW, Ontario Government and Auto Industry Push for Federal Action”, CAW Contact. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/3576.htm.
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“eliminate uncertainty” around continental environmental standards.356 After subsequent tripartite social dialogue led to a few small support measures, the federal and Ontario governments eventually announced on Dec 20, 2008 that it would be supporting the auto sector with roughly $14 billion in bailout funds.
While this move was initially lauded by the CAW’s newly elected President Ken
Lewenza, it became quickly apparent that the credit and funds would not be given without strings attached.357 In January 2009, the CAW began engaging in “extraordinary contract talks” with the
Big Three employers, all of whom demanded further concessions than those that had been agreed to in the 2008 round of collective bargaining. As Fowler (2012) has explained, one of the requirements for government loans was the extraction of $150m in labour cost concessions from the CAW, with Federal Industry minister Tony Clement claiming that funds would not be used to
“maintain the standards of living for Canadian autoworkers.”358
The result was that despite a concessionary agreement containing wage and cost of living freezes, lost vacation pay, and an end to annual bonuses and healthcare premiums, the GM agreement was ratified by 87% of a membership described by union staff as “nervous” and facing “internal shifts within the culture of the union towards a mood of fear.”359 Despite the voluntarist pattern bargaining in the auto sector, Chrysler demanded further concessions than those contained in the GM agreement and was backed again by Tony Clement who threatened to withhold funds unless the CAW made further concessions. Dalton McGuinty also weighed in on
356 Ibid. 357 CAW (Jan 9, 2009). “CAW President Lauds Auto Support and Maintaining Canadian Facilities”, CAW Contact. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/8001.htm. 358 Fowler, T. (2012). Does fighting back still matter? The Canadian autoworkers, capitalist crisis and confrontation. Capital & Class, 36(3), p. 504 359 Ibid, p. 504.
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the negotiations following Chrysler’s demands for further concessions by saying “I think it's getting closer to what we can justify on behalf of taxpayers," and, referring to the UAW in the
U.S., that “if we can't match what they're delivering down there, then we become less competitive, and there's much less incentive to keep our 20 per cent of the production up here."360
CAW President Ken Lewenza stated that “labour costs clearly did not cause this worldwide crisis in the auto industry”, but went on to say that the CAW could not “ignore the precarious financial state of these companies, the extraordinary government offers of aid and our need to remain fully competitive for future investment."361 While segments of the CAW initially took an oppositional position and began organizing demonstrations and mobilizing against further cuts to their agreements, concessionary agreements were eventually signed with Chrysler
(and again with Ford who had not taken government loans) under “unprecedented levels of pressure from the state and from capital.”362
Under circumstances where the auto industry could have completely collapsed in Ontario, the balance of class forces at the time meant the CAW’s leverage over the situation was minimal.
Threats of relocation from capital were especially heightened following the UAW signing concessionary deals in the Big 3 U.S. plants. With neither the power in the streets nor in parliaments to bring about radical alternatives, the CAW aimed to keep their “investment advantage” by integrating into a tripartite détente.363 According to Evans (2017), these types of
360 CTV Toronto (Apr 24, 2009). “CAW agrees to major cuts in deal with Chrysler”, CTV News. Retrieved from: https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/caw-agrees-to-major-cuts-in-deal-with-chrysler-1.392447?cache=yes. 361 CAW (Feb 6, 2009). “CAW Bargaining Committees Agree to Start Auto Talks”, CAW Contact. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/5447.htm. 362 Fowler, T. (2012). Does fighting back still matter? The Canadian autoworkers, capitalist crisis and confrontation. Capital & Class, 36(3), p. 505. 363 CAW (Mar 20, 2009) “Let Collective Bargaining Take Its Course, Lewenza Says”, CAW Contact. Retrieved from:
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corporatist arrangements are reflective of a movement from the social corporatism that had defined the Fordist-Keynesian period to a corporatism that included the accumulation criteria of capital and the neoliberal state.364 State interventions to secure continued auto investments were premised on the suppression of labour costs without any guarantees of future employment, EI enhancements, or retraining in the result of layoffs. While state and union measures secured production in the short-term, both productivity enhancements (brought on by a continued shift in the organic composition of capital) and relocations of capital became the reality in the not-so- distant aftermath.365
Whereas corporatist structures had been used by organized labour in the Fordist-
Keynesian period to negotiate relevant policy, regulatory, and social wage measures as a junior partner, in the neoliberal period (and to an even greater extent the post-crisis period), the room of what could be negotiated became razor thin. If workers want to stay employed (employment is the win) capital and the state have in select scenarios given labour the option of input on what they give up in pay, benefits, pensions, cuts to the social wage, and how work arrangements
(flexibility) are structured. Labour’s input in this period is not on what policy path can be pursued or what can be traded (social wage increases for wage moderation), or even what can be maintained or salvaged (job security for wage moderation and flexibilization), but rather is based on how an already selected policy path of internal devaluation can be achieved.
http://caw.unifor.org/en/7116.htm; CAW (Apr 2009). “CAW President Ken Lewenza Speech to CAW Council,” CAW Archives. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/7408.htm. 364 Evans, B. (2017) "Social Democracy and Social Pacts: Austerity Alliances and Their Consequences" in Austerity: the lived experience. Mcbride, S. and Evans, B. eds. University of Toronto Press. 365 See: Anastakis, D. (2018). A Neoliberal Pause? The Auto and Manufacturing Sectors in Ontario Since Free Trade, In Evans, B. and Albo G. (Eds.) Divided Province: Ontario Politics in the Age of Neoliberalism. McGill-Queen's University Press.
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In the immediate aftermath of the crisis, the CAW did not put forward any counter- hegemonic alternatives. The CAW’s embracing of competitive corporatism led to corporate restructuring based on lowering labour costs and meant that the union had tied themselves even more closely to the interests of both the Big 3 and the McGuinty Liberals as the only provincial party with a demonstrated willingness to subsidize the auto industry.366 The McGuinty Liberal’s ideological-symbolic articulation that any failure to retain competitiveness would lead to economic decline and disaster, and therefore that constant competitiveness the only viable option moving forward, was embraced by large enough (or powerful enough) segments of the CAW to make it the dominant position within the union.
By sliding even further towards the dominant position on competitiveness and by making social dialogue a key organizational-institutional intervention, the CAW tied itself to specific, and often multinational companies. This tied the CAW to corporations (a property relation) rather than to their workplaces (sites of social (re-)production), essentially foreclosing on the possibility of transferring ownership to the public, workers, or otherwise repurposing plants that were no longer deemed viable by capital. Despite its declining position in Ontario’s political economy, the manufacturing sector was still responsible for 14% of Ontario’s GDP in 2008
(down from 20.7% in 2003), representing the single highest contribution of any industrial sector including real estate (12.47%) and finance and insurance (9.07%).367 With the auto sector as the single highest subsector contributor to manufacturing GDP in Ontario, and with manufacturing
366 CAW President Ken Lewenza went as far as to campaign with Dalton McGuinty during the 2011 election in Thunder Bay and Windsor. 367 Statistics Canada (2020). “Table 36-10-0400-01 Gross domestic product (GDP) at basic prices, by industry, provinces and territories, percentage share”, Statistics Canada. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.25318/3610040001-eng. See also: Table 36-10-0402-01 Gross domestic product (GDP) at basic prices, by industry, provinces and territories (x 1,000,000). https://doi.org/10.25318/3610040201-eng.
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(45%) and transportation (17%) still making up 62% of the CAW’s Ontario-centric membership, an organized, militant and oppositional CAW may have been able to force the government to intervene in different ways.368 While this may not have necessarily been public ownership, it could have been in areas where the CAW did make calls that were not answered such as improvements to EI, changes to bankruptcy and severance legislation, or movements towards a
Nordic model “flexicurity” with retraining programs.
Beyond the crisis corporatism of the auto sector, the CAW, like CUPE, predominantly sought a Polanyian-countermovement towards certain elements of the Fordist-Keynesian mode of regulation.369 Just as CUPE sought the re-establishing of an expansionary welfare state, fiscal reform and counter-cyclical stimulus spending, and income redistribution through the public sector, the CAW sought longer run production of standardized goods, a labour-protecting interventionist state in periods of crisis, a circuit of capital more tightly controlled within national boundaries, and corporate expansion based on productive reinvestment. There were consistent calls from the CAW for “fair trade” policies, buy-domestic policies, regulation of foreign takeovers, and government interventions to foster productive investments.370 While these were punctuated with sporadic calls for nationalizations (Air Canada), re-purposing recently shuttered factories (Siemens Hamilton), and calls for green alternatives, these articulations were never taken on as central and continuous ideological-symbolic interventions.
368 CAW (2009). “Building the Union in Hard Times.” CAW Constitutional Convention. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/7753.htm. P. 10. 369 See: Jessop, B. (1996). Post-Fordism and the state. In Comparative welfare systems (pp. 165-183). Palgrave Macmillan, London. 370 CAW (2008). “Taking on the Challenge: Chapter 1 Economic Overview.”, CAW 2008 Constitutional Convention. P. 15. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/2008-chapter-1-economic-overview.htm.
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It was not until 2012 that the CAW made its first comprehensive effort at proposing an alternative to neoliberalism in the post-crisis period. The 2012 Convention Document “A Better
World is Possible” gave a comprehensive overview of both neoliberalism, its negative effects, and the union’s own progressive alternatives.371 While the document praises the symbolism and actions of Occupy, the Quebec student strike, European anti-austerity movements, and the Arab
Spring, it makes no commitments to incorporating similar strategies and tactics. According to the
CAW’s vision, the means to establish this “progressive economic alternative” – including calls for industrial planning, industry regulation of the extractive and finance industries, “greening” the economy, labour reform, stronger progressive and corporate taxation, public pensions, expanded public services, and stopping and renegotiating FTAs – would be a “a national summit to implement a National Jobs Strategy” that would include social dialogue between “federal and provincial governments, major business sectors, municipal leaders, labour, and other economic stakeholders.”372
This again raises questions of the “message” and the “movement.” While these articulations would have had to contend with the fact that the structural conditions for a return to a Fordist-Keynesian mode of regulation have largely been eroded by the constitutionalizing of the neoliberal state and the globalized liberal order framework, organizing and amplifying these issues could have lead to other important conversations and popular pressures around how the economy is structured.373 However, simply lobbying or engaging in social dialogue with
371 CAW (2012). “A Better World is Possible: Economic and Political Overview”, 2012 Convention Documents. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/11396.htm. 372 Ibid. P. 15-19. 373 See: McBride, S., & Mitrea, S. (2017). Austerity and constitutionalizing structural reform of labour in the European Union. Studies in Political Economy, 98(1), 1-23; McBride, S. (2016). Constitutionalizing austerity: Taking the public out of public policy. Global Policy, 7(1), 5-14; McBride, S. (2017) “The New Constitutionalism and Austerity”. In McBride and Evans, eds. The Austerity State.Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
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domestic governments under the conjunctural structural conditions had extremely limited potential to displace the current liberal order framework. While the CAW’s interventions against competitiveness remained focused on using cooperative negotiations to secure more favourable industrial and employment policy, this tendency was contrasted by the oppositional position of the CAW towards deepening austerity measures and the union’s attempts at closer coordination with the Ontario labour movement.
Labour movement coordination
During the April 2009 CAW Council meeting, delegates approved a recommendation from the leadership that called for talks with the OFL, which “may lead to re-affiliation with the provincial labour body” after an almost 10-year absence.374 The CAW had been ousted in 2000 following charges of raiding other affiliated unions. President Ken Lewenza stated that is was not about affiliation, or paying dues, but “doing what was right for workers” and “strengthening our collective ability to build a movement,” though he pointed out that it was important that the discussions “recognize that the CAW is the largest private sector union in the province.”375
However, despite having a large membership, the CAW was moving toward re-affiliation at a time when the provincial labour movement was as divided and ineffectual as ever. By the time
CAW National had reaffiliated in the summer of 2010 (and was encouraging locals to do the same), OPSEU, SEUI, and the ONA had all dis-affiliated from the OFL.
Even as the CAW was beginning to re-integrate itself into the regional labour movement, it did not attempt to engage in any common front strategies during the 2010 consultations with
374 CAW (Apr 24, 2009). “CAW Council – Ontario Federation of Labour”, CAW Contact. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/7390.htm. 375 Ibid.
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the Liberals over public sector wage restraint. The CAW attended the consultations on the first day for information gathering purposes, but did not stay for negotiations claiming in a letter to
Dwight Duncan that “it would be futile to proceed in good faith through negotiations in which only one side of the table is expected to concede on issues of interest and accept restraint.”376
Despite this stance, Lewenza had formerly stated at a CAW Council meeting that there should be
“some credit given to McGuinty since he did not introduce a social contract similar to the one introduced by Bob Rae,” and that “he indicated his respect for the collective agreements” by planning to hold consultations before imposing austerity measures.377 Lewenza and the CAW went on to express a willingness to trade job security commitments for wage restraint from the
Liberals, thus implicitly accepting the dominant ideological position that the deficits and debts have to be paid down through public sector wage restraint.378 However, as austerity deepened after 2010, the CAW became increasingly critical of the Liberal’s austerity plank. Despite this growing opposition, differing union’s ideological-symbolic positions on the McGuinty Liberals between, primarily, NDP-partisan unions and strategic-voting/Liberal-partisan unions (as well as those disaffiliating over Ryan’s leadership) put serious limitations on an effective level of political strategy at the level of the provincial labour movement.
As a result of these divisions and low overall levels of internal organization across the labour movement, the OFL’s tactical repertoire was largely reduced to the routinized trifecta of campaigns, rallies, and lobbying. Despite there being over 1.4 million union members in the
376 Evans, B. (2011). “The politics of public sector wages: Ontario’s social dialogue for austerity.” Socialist Studies/Études Socialistes, 7(1/2). P. 7; Lewenza, K. (Jul 22, 2010). “ 377 CAW (Apr 2009). “CAW President Ken Lewenza Speech to CAW Council”, CAW Archives. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/7408.htm. 378 CAW (Dec 2010). ““CAW President Ken Lewenza Speech to CAW Council”, CAW Archives. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/9724.htm. P. 5.
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province in the post-crisis period, the OFL’s largest rallies drew 10,000 (2010, Queen’s Park
“Rally for Respect”) and 15,000 (2012, Queen’s Park “We Are Ontario”).379 Even if these figures did not also included large segments of non-unionized community activists, a rally of
15,000 would only represent 1.07% of the provinces’ unionized members. Both “large” rallies had oppositional messaging to the Liberal’s austerity agenda, and were joined by the CAW and its activists, reflecting the contradictory and uneven ideological-symbolic position that the union took towards the Liberals in the post-crisis period. While the CAW was generally supportive of the Liberal’s industrial policy, there were strong oppositional currents to their austerity policies including the underfunding of healthcare, the process and recommendations of the Drummond
Commission, and the privatization of the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission
(ONTA).
In the private sector, the CAW also engaged in coordinated campaigns with the USW.
With the USW, the CAW had a joint initiative calling on the Federal government to embrace a
“Buy Canadian” policy to “level the playing field” with other NAFTA and WTO nations that had buy domestic purchasing policies.380 The USW-CAW initiative was short lived and ineffectual, and sought movement from the government, not outside of the global neoliberal framework, but only to its maximum allowable limits. These calls encompassed the ongoing use of nationalist ideological-symbolic articulations that would benefit “Canadian citizens” and the “broader
Canadian economy.”381 Yates (2001) has pointed out that the CAW built its identity “around notions of class and radical nationalism,” though over the pre- and post-crisis phases, the radical
379 Statistics Canada (2020). “Table 14-10-0129-01 Union status by geography”, Statistics Canada. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25318/1410012901-eng. 380 CAW and USW (Feb 10, 2009). “CAW/USW Joint Statement on a Buy Canadian policy”, CAW Archives. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/assets/pdf/CAWUSWjointstatement.pdf. 381 Ibid.
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component of that nationalism was largely absent, at times lapsing into a regressive nationalism.382 While the CAW recognized the need to organize against capital on a continental basis, there were few strategic interventions that went beyond symbolic discussions and actions of labour internationalism to create deep, meaningful, and effective ties with either U.S.-based on Mexican unions. Again, the CAW’s integrative approach has meant that the union had tied a large segment of its membership to capital profitability and competitiveness and had let falter the organizational and ideological capacities that could offer a radical counter-approach.
As with the pre-crisis period, the sector of the CAW that took the most oppositional positions to the McGuinty Liberals came from health care. There remained strong efforts at coordination between the CAW health care sector, the Ontario Health Coalition (OHC) and the
OFL and their sector-relevant campaigns. The CAW consistently opposed P3s, underfunding, contracting out, and the continued absence of minimum standards for staffing in long term care.383 Examination of the CAW Health Care Sector newsletter The Pulse shows that opposition to the austerity agenda became especially pronounced in the aftermath of the Drummond
Commission. The Pulse consistently called for an end to austerity and critiqued the decisions made by Premier McGuinty, Minister of Health and Long Term Care Deb Matthews, and
Minister of Finance Dwight Duncan. At a 2012 Health Care conference at the CAW Education
Centre in 2012, Deb Matthews was invited and subjected to a question and answer period. The newsletter goes on to explain:
382 Yates, C. (2001). “The Revival of Industrial Unions in Canada: The Extension and Adaptation of Industrial Union Practices to the New Economy.” In P. Fairbrother and C. Yates (eds) Union Organizing and Renewal: A Comparative Study of Union Movements in Five Countries. London: Continuum Publishers. P. 239. 383 CAW (2012). “Moving Forward: Developing the Health Care Sector”, 2012 Convention Documents. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/assets/pdf/582-Health_Care.pdf; CAW (2009). “Moving Forward: Developing the Health Care Sector”, 2009 Constitutional Convention Documents. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/7766.htm.
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“President of CAW Council and Local 27, Tim Carrie who introduced the
Minister, made the point that our union does not support the austerity measures
planned by the provincial Liberals that would restrain compensation across the
sector. “Our members work incredibly hard, and spend their wages to sustain the
economy in the province, so forcing austerity measures actually results in
prolonging the recession for all working people.” While the Minister clearly did
not support our positions, the delegates felt that this was an important
opportunity to have her hear first hand from front line health care workers.”384
Despite the oppositional position from the CAW towards the Liberal’s austerity agenda, there seemed to be a belief from the union that social dialogue and lobbying could be effectively deployed to change policy. While this social dialogue was backed by social agitation through health care campaigns (such as “Dignity is a Minimum Standard”), OHC, and OFL coalitions, as mentioned previously, the tactics of the divided and demobilized labour movement were relatively ineffective at this time. With many health care workers designated “essential workers,” and therefore prohibited from striking, routinized social agitation and social dialogue remained the predominant strategic interventions from the CAW’s health care sector, despite driving the union’s strongest critiques of neoliberal austerity.
With numerous unions in Ontario representing health care workers (the major ones being the CAW, CUPE, ONA, SEUI, and OPSEU), there was a political opportunity to present a common front in health care against the Liberals that could have been generalized to unite people across the province around a strategic vision of what public services should look like and the role
384 CAW (Oct 2012). “CAW Health Care – The Pulse”, CAW Archives. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/11626.htm.
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they should play in people’s everyday lives. These kinds of interventions, however, were outside of realistic expectations at the time. The labour movement’s fear of a Conservative government, the inability of the NDP to move past third party status, an overreliance on parliamentary politics, internal divisions within the Ontario house of labour, a labour movement dependent on a failing mobilization model, and the atrophying of the capacities necessary to take on escalating direct actions meant a collapse into the same tried and ineffective patterns.
“Building Strong Locals”
In the same way that CUPE began turning greater consideration to “building capacity” in the post-crisis period, the CAW acknowledged the need to build member engagement and activism.
In an April 2009 address at CAW Council, Ken Lewenza raised concerns from the leadership about how mobilized the membership was to fight back stating that: “It is time to get our members involved because maybe, just maybe, there is a sense of complacency.”385 Furthermore, there were worries from the CAW that the crisis had “eroded [the] activist base” through layoffs, demographic changes, workplace closures, and retirements. As the unions’ traditional base in manufacturing shrunk, so too did certain levels of institutional knowledge based in a culture of union militancy. These shifts were further complicated by shrinking union financial resources as
40,000 members had been lost between 2005 and 2009, with more than 75% of locals facing a decline in membership between 2007 and 2009.386 By December 2011, there were four active workers for every five retirees.387
385 CAW (Apr 2009). “CAW President Ken Lewenza Speech to CAW Council”, CAW Archives. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/7408.htm. 386 CAW (2009). “Building the Union in Hard Times,” CAW Constitutional Convention. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/7753.htm. P. 23. 387 CAW (Dec 2011). “CAW President Ken Lewenza Speech to CAW Council”, CAW Archives. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/10878.htm.
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While the Union in Politics Committees (UPCs) are mentioned in a sporadic and quite infrequent manner, they featured as one of many internal organizing structures in the CAW’s post-crisis repertoire. Instead of focusing solely on the UPCs as the primary member organizing and mobilizing tool, the CAW began to mobilize resources towards a wider array of internal structures, committees, and practices for “building union capacity.” In Building the Union in
Hard Times (2009), the CAW identified Women’s Committees, Human Rights Committees, and
Youth Committees as internal structures of increasing importance as the union aimed to remove barriers to participation, increase inclusivity, and develop opportunities and spaces for leadership capacities for women, racialized, and young workers. The inclusion of formerly marginalized groups and the expanding resources dedicated to their development is an important intervention that has long been held organizationally by both CUPE and the CAW (now Unifor), though both organizations still have extensive work to do in this regard.388 As the working-class becomes increasingly feminized and racialized (to say nothing of queer and disabled workers) building union capacities will have to incorporate the challenges, issues, demands, and counter- hegemonic visions of groups that have historically been absent from positions of power and privilege within the labour movement. To not do so risks the undermining of unions’ abilities to undertake member organizing that builds mass, inclusive, and collective power on the shop floor and in communities.
In addition to the highlighting of equity committees as vehicles for member engagement, the CAW also identified local leadership development, a higher allocation of dues returned to locals, and member education as ways to build strong locals. Under leadership skills development, strategic planning, media relations, and effective campaigns were the three
388 See: Fowler (2016) on CAW and Ross (2005) on CUPE.
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highlighted areas. At the level of coordination, local leaders were brought together to strategize through the new internal organizing structure of a Presidents’ Conference at the Education
Centre in Port Elgin or through the hosting of “stewards assemblies.”389 Finally, the continued use of the union’s comprehensive education programme and Education Centre was highlighted as a priority, and bargaining paid education leave (PEL) for locals became increasingly important.
Even as the central levels of the CAW began to encourage increased use of PEL and the
Education Centre, fiscal pressure for funding these programs began to mount. Despite the auto sector’s decreasing representation in the membership (both in absolute and relative terms) it was still the largest sector contributor to the PEL fund and the CAW Education Centre.390 This meant, not only that a decreasing proportion of the membership had access to PEL, but also that the jobs and collective agreements that had funded the CAW’s comprehensive education model were also being put in jeopardy. A repeated call from the CAW leadership during the post-crisis period was therefore to bargain PEL to fund the Education Centre and programme, but also that members use the underutilized resource.
The decreasing usage of the Education Centre was partially due to the rise of precarious work within the CAW’s ranks. The CAW identified precarious work as a main concern starting in 2009. Aside from the difficulties precarity posed for workers livelihoods, it also made building an activist base difficult in scenarios where membership turnover was high and members had to
389 CAW (2009). “Building the Union in Hard Times,” CAW Constitutional Convention. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/7753.htm; CAW (Dec 2010). “CAW President Ken Lewenza Speech to CAW Council”, CAW Archives. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/9724.htm. P. 41. 390 CAW (2008). “Taking on the Challenge – Chapter 15: Education and Training”, CAW Archives. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/2008-chapter-15-education-training.htm. P. 172.
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take on multiple jobs, often during non-standard hours.391 To address precarity, the CAW crafted a collective bargaining agenda to limit precarious work, while also focusing on using its seat at
“the political bargaining table” (i.e. social dialogue) to try and leverage favourable changes to labour law.392
The CAW’s interventions to expand the role of equity committees, develop local leaders, and efforts to maintain a strong union education programme, while undoubtedly worthwhile, still tended towards an orientation reflective of the mobilization model of internal organizing. This effect was even further complicated by shrinking PEL opportunities for growing parts of the membership. Those likely to staff the committees, take leadership training workshops, and spend a week at the Education Centre taking union courses were likely to be those who were either actively involved or potentially passively supportive of the union already. While it is certainly advantageous to give opportunities and help develop the capacities of a leaders and activists, the question must be: is it sufficient? In a 2010 speech at CAW Council, Lewenza stated that:
“The labour movement could always operate with 5 or 6 per cent of the activist
base in each local union. You could survive in a workplace with 20 or 30
activists. But, today, we need more activists. We need more people
understanding the challenges we have, and if we don't, we will fail.”393
While this sentiment is highly questionable in its quantitative assumptions, it highlights the understanding that without mass member engagement, unions would continue to struggle. For mass member engagement to make a reappearance, unions cannot simply rely on members
391 Fowler (2016). P. 173. 392 CAW (Dec 2010). “CAW President Ken Lewenza Speech to CAW Council”, CAW Archives. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/9724.htm. P. 40. 393 Ibid. p. 41.
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coming to be activists en masse when difficulties present themselves in the workplace or society.
The culture of workplace unionism has been so significantly eroded that it will need to be actively reconstructed if it is to resume to central component of people’s lives. Internal organizing is not only about tapping into preexisting discontent and support, but also involves extensive work to create, foster, and organize those responses into centres of collective power.
Even if sufficient organization can be generated, collective power must then also be deployed in ways that are strategically effective.
As the post-crisis period progressed, there seemed to be a certain level of acknowledgement from both the CAW and CUPE that the capacities of their members, often clustered into locals with differing levels of engagement, politicization, and militancy were in need of further development and coordination. By 2012, the CAW had identified a long-term goal of building “a permanent level of political activism (around the day-to-day issues facing working people, not just election campaigns) as a core part of our union’s work,” though its internal structures, goals and governance would be renegotiated during its merger in 2013 with the CEP.394
Organizing and Mergers
In an effort to stem and reverse declining membership numbers in Ontario, organizing for certification remained a key priority for the CAW. Between 2008 and 2012, the CAW organized
17,000 new members nationwide, with approximately 12,900 (76%) of those being in Ontario.395
While the auto sector (assembly and parts) remained by far the largest wing of the CAW, it had
394 CAW (2012). “A Better World is Possible.” P. 18. 395 CAW (2012). “A Better World is Possible: Organizing”, 2012 Convention Documents. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/11396.htm. P. 119.
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shrunk from 24% of the membership to 20% (-4%) between 2008 and 2012. In the same time period, healthcare became the second biggest and fastest growing sector within the union moving from 9% to 13% (+4%) to total 26,100 members.396
External organizing for certification continued to be a clear strategic priority for the
CAW in the post-crisis period and was often referenced as a way to encourage “union renewal.”397 Tactically, the CAW used methods such as neutrality agreements (where management agrees not to impede organizing efforts at other non-union facilities under their control), supplier conduct letters (where major auto suppliers must be neutral to organizing drives with card-based certification), and negotiated leaves of absence to use rank-and-file workers as organizers. However, despite some sizeable victories in organizing in the health care and transportation sectors, the continued expansion of non-union sectors combined with recession-driven layoffs meant that CAW membership in Ontario dropped from approximately
158,000 in 2008 (255,000 nationally with 63% in Ontario) to 121,500 in 2012 (195,000 nationally with 63.2% in Ontario).398
In the more traditional CAW sectors, the Big 3 closures and shift cuts meant a loss of approximately 10,700 members in assembly between 2008 and 2013, despite the fact that the province lost only about 3900 motor vehicle manufacturing (assembly) jobs over the same
396 CAW (2012). “Sector Profile: Health Care”, A Better World is Possible - 2012 Convention Documents. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/assets/pdf/582-Health_Care.pdf. 397 CAW (2009). “Building the Union in Hard Times.” CAW Constitutional Convention. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/7753.htm. P. 2. 398 CAW (2012). “A Better World is Possible: Profile of the Membership”, 2012 Convention Documents. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/assets/pdf/Profile_of_the_membership.pdf; CAW (2008). “Taking on the Challenge: Membership Profile”, 2008 Convention Documents. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/2008-chapter-3- membership-profile.htm.
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period.399 The failure to organize non-unionized, non-Big 3 producers who were taking larger chunks of employment and market share – namely Toyota and Honda – was an ongoing problem that the CAW did not overcome despite it being identified as a “crucial long-run priority.”400
This was further complicated by the loss of almost 18,000 jobs in the auto parts sector nationally between 2008 and 2012, bringing the total to almost 40,000 jobs lost across Canada since the abolition of the Auto Pact in 2001.
A CAW campaign that included unorganized auto parts workers (“Enough is Enough”) was rolled out in an effort to bridge the divide between organized and unorganized workers, though the height of militancy or contentious tactics from this campaign was a series of lunch hour rallies. As in the pre-crisis phase, the CAW’s main strategic intervention to preserve auto jobs (and therefore to create a more favourable organizing climate) was to seek state reregulation of the industry through lobbying and social dialogue.401 While the union did develop an alternative vision for the auto sector in their 2012 policy paper “Re-Thinking Canada’s Auto
Industry: A Policy Vision to Escape the Race to the Bottom” based largely on Polanyi-like protectionist counter-movements, there was little indication of how the CAW would force the governments to concede to their demands. The combination of a lack of government action on certification reform, the continued decline of unionized manufacturing and auto jobs, and the
399 Anastakis, D. (2018). “A Neoliberal Pause? The Auto and Manufacturing Sectors in Ontario Since Free Trade” See: Table 4.1.; Statistics Canada (2020). “Table 14-10-0202-01 Employment by industry, annual.” DOI: https://doi.org/10.25318/1410020201-eng. 400 CAW (2012). “Sector Profile: Major Auto”, A Better World is Possible - 2012 Convention Documents. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/assets/pdf/582-Major_Auto.pdf. 401 CAW (2012). “Re-Thinking Canada’s Auto Industry: A Policy Vision to Escape the Race to the Bottom”, York University Digital Library. Retrieved from: https://digital.library.yorku.ca/yul-823121/rethinking- canada%E2%80%99s-auto-industry-policy-vision-escape-race-bottom.
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CAW’s failure to organize increasingly prevalent non-unionized auto jobs, led to the union continuing its trajectory of expanding into non-traditional sectors.
In contrast to CUPE Ontario, which largely held to organizing “wall-to-wall” in its traditional sectors, the CAW expanded further into non-traditional sectors. In non-traditional sectors a combination of unfavourable labour legislation (which had not been amended by the
Liberals despite consistent CAW lobbying), inter-union jurisdictional competition, and the increasing prevalence of precarious work in targeted areas of CAW expansion (warehousing, hospitality and gaming, air transportation, and retail and wholesale trade) made organizing difficult.402 The inability to organize new members as quickly as members were being lost led the CAW to return to the strategy and tactics of pursuing mergers, initially with small, independent unions including the Canadian Service Workers Union (CSWU), Canadian
Industrial Entertainment and Warehouse Workers Union (CIEWWU), and Sunwing Pilots
Association of Canada (SUNPAC) and in Quebec, the absorption of the Syndicat des travailleurs et des travailleuses du Sheraton Centre (STTSC) and Syndicat des travailleurs et travailleuses
(cols bleus et cols blancs) de la mine Niobec in Quebec.403
These “mergers” eventually became a source of contention in the labour movement when the CAW absorbed the Canadian Flight Attendants Union from the Teamsters. This prompted
Ken Lewenza to defend the CAW’s position by framing raiding as a democratic choice of representation:
402 See: Patrias, C., & Savage, L. (2012). Union power: Solidarity and struggle in Niagara (Vol. 3). Athabasca University Press. “Chapter 6 – The House Advantage: Organizing Niagara Casinos.” P. 149-164. 403 CAW (2012). “Mergers”, CAW Archives. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/3012.htm.
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“Is there raiding going on? Yes, there is. Is it likely raiding is going to continue?
Yes, it is. Not because it is right or wrong, but because workers have the
democratic right to decide whether they want a union or not. Workers have the
democratic right to decide if their union is not representing them, they have the
right to go to another union. Some of the members who have come to our union
under my leadership have made it clear that if the CAW would not take them,
then they would go to another affiliate…We are not going to deal with raiding…
It is impossible. You have to recognize that and not let it preoccupy your
time”404
This approach, in dismissing the concerns of other (often international) unions over what is widely considered anti-union behaviour and an unproductive use of organizing resources, represented an extreme example of the limits of trade union consciousness and acted as a counter-tendency against the CAW’s efforts at deeper labour movement coordination. While the
CAW would go on to work with the CLC over processes that could govern disputes between affiliates and provide ways for workers to switch unions (Article 4) the actions and charges of raiding levelled against the CAW – not for the first, or last time – did little to foster greater cooperation amongst union leaders within a flagging labour movement.
Ultimately, the CAW chose to pursue a largescale merger with the Communications,
Energy and Paperworkers (CEP) in 2013 to reverse membership decline and to create Canada’s largest private sector union with over 300,000 members.405 In the 2012 strategic paper on the
404 CAW (2010). “Speech of CAW President Ken Lewenza to CAW Council - December 3-5, 2010”, CAW Archives. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/9724.htm. 405 The formation of Unifor was framed as the creation of a new union, not a merger.
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merger A Moment of Truth for Canadian Unions, the CAW and CEP highlighted the two decades of losses and attacks that organized labour had faced. The CAW-CEP identified the erosion of union density, failures of union organizing efforts to offset plant closures, political hostility from right wing governments, attacks by global employers, challenges in organizing young workers, the negative public opinion of unions, dysfunction of some labour centrals, and an overall lack of labour movement coordination as the predominant challenges that spurred the decision behind the merger.406
In justifying why a merger was the appropriate way to address these challenges, the
CAW-CEP pointed to how a increasing membership into one union would lead to more credibility and influence with governments and employers, more economic clout by broadening sectoral coverage, and pooled resources in order to prepare for and fight increasingly occurring
“epic battles” with strengthened corporations. Perhaps most importantly for the discussion here, the document also notes that significant strategic changes would be necessary for a reversal of labour’s fortunes. As such, it lists strategic interventions such as offering services and support to non-unionized workers (eventually developing into the Unifor Community Chapters initiative), the need to make organizing for certification a central priority (to which Unifor would designate
10% of dues, or approximately $10 million at its founding), the need to “spark a ‘cultural shift’ among staff and local union leadership” to engage in “movement-building” and “extra- parliamentary struggles,” and the need to “articulate a broader critique of the current
406 CAW-CEP (2012). “A Moment of Truth for Canadian Labour - CAW/CEP Discussion Paper”, CAW Archives. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/10895.htm.
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socioeconomic system (neoliberal capitalism), and position itself as fighting for long-run social and political change, not just incremental economic progress for its members.”407
With the exception of organizing for certification, these tendencies – supporting non- unionized workers, extra-parliamentary struggles, and a wider critique of, and alternative to, the named threat of neoliberalism – were all developed in uneven and fragmentary ways within the
CAW’s strategic repertoire in Ontario. Though each was periodically present, they were often secondary considerations to interventions that were sectionalist, neocorporatist, or took negotiated-dominant positions on the “competitiveness” pillar of Third Way neoliberalism. To say that the secondary interventions were not present would be misleading and incorrect. Rather, the CAW’s leading strategic interventions were based in sectionalism more than support for other unionized or non-unionized workers, neocorporatism more than extra-parliamentary struggles, and negotiated-dominant positions more the oppositional positions and counter- hegemonic alternatives. The CAW-CEP document acknowledges that any chance at union renewal would require a prioritization of the secondary interventions over the predominant ones.
Incursions into the WoM
The transition to direct and overt class conflict is reasonably well captured by analyzing strike trends though other forms of union militancy such as occupations, blockades and protests also certainly play a role. As with Chapter 4, this section focuses on the quantifiable trends in each union’s strike profile and briefly discusses a single, or cluster of symbolically significant strikes from both the CAW and CUPE. Figure 12 below is a visual representation of the number of
407 Ibid.
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strikes undertaken by each union through the Harris (1994-2003), pre-crisis McGuinty (2004-
2008) and post-crisis McGuinty years (2008-2013).
Figure 12: Strike Trends from Harris to end of McGuinty Era
Strike Trends - 1994-2013 25
20
15
Axis Axis Title 10
5
0
Axis Title
CUPE CAW Linear (CUPE) Linear (CAW)
Source: Workplace Information Division at the Labour Program, Employment and Social Development Canada, Government of Canada 2019. Over the course of its two decades in power, the Third Way McGuinty Liberals oversaw a decline in strikes from the CAW from an average of 15 strikes a year, to a little over 6 strikes a year. For CUPE, the decline came during the transition from the Harris years to the first
McGuinty government, dropping by a half from an average of 10.5 strikes a year during the
Harris years, to 5.6 strikes a year in the pre-crisis period, to 4.6 strikes per year in the post-crisis period (Figure 13).
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Figure 13: Average strikes per year by time-period, union, and government in Ontario408
Years Government CAW CUPE CEP USW OPSEU ETFO OSSTF UFCW 1994- Harris/Eves 2003 16.7 10.5 6.1 17.3 3.1 0.8 2.5 6.3 2004- McGuinty 2008 (pre-crisis) 15.2 5.6 4.0 9.1 4.8 0.6 0.8 2.6 2009- McGuinty 2013 (post-crisis) 6.2 4.6 2.8 6.4 1.6 0.2409 0 1.2 Source: Workplace Information Division at the Labour Program, Employment and Social Development Canada, Government of Canada 2019. This discovery poses certain questions around the types of strategic interventions deployed by the union’s central bodies. Despite the CAW’s tendency towards integration, incorporation, and political pragmatism, they had a membership that went on strike more often than any other union in the province. Between 2004 and 2013, CAW locals accounted for 107 out of 630 strikes (17%) in Ontario (Figure 14). Interestingly, the bulk of these strikes (76) came in the pre-crisis years, as the CAW moved to further secure its “investment advantage” in the post-crisis years as structural conditions deteriorated. Meanwhile CUPE, who took a strong oppositional position to the McGuinty Liberals from the beginning of the first term, only accounted for 51 (6.3%) of provincial strikes. While there are a host of other important structural, organizational, and agentic factors that would play a role in explaining these trends, it is important to note that there were contradictory relationships between the central union’s ideological-symbolic positions and predominant organizational-institutional interventions on the one hand, and outbreaks of local militancy on the other.
408 CEP - Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada; USW - United Steelworkers of America; OPSEU – Ontario Public Service Employees Union; ETFO – Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario; OSSTF – Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation; UFCW - United Food and Commercial Workers. 409 ETFO staged rolling strikes throughout 2012 though they bargain centrally.
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Figure 14: Ontario Strikes, 2004-2013 – Top 10
Union Strikes % of total Provincial Total 630 CAW 107 (76 Pre-crisis) 16.9% USW 85 13.5% CUPE 51 (28 pre-crisis) 6.3% CEP (Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada) 40 6.3% OPSEU (Ontario Public Service Employees Union) 32 5.1% Teamsters Canada 28 4.4% International Union of Operating Engineers 22 3.5% UNITE HERE CANADA 19 3.0% LIUNA (Laborers' International Union of North America) 18 2.9% SEIU (Service Employees International Union) 14 2.2% 410 Source: Workplace Information Division at the Labour Program, Employment and Social Development Canada, Government of Canada 2019. Within CUPE, of the 23 strikes undertaken in the post-crisis period, 11 came from the municipal sector, while a further 5 came from the university sector. Even when CUPE locals were willing and able to take on more militant forms of action to defend their working conditions, they often came up against either back-to-work legislation or otherwise suffered from issues related to a fragmented and underdeveloped WoP in which “the public interest” was wielded against them by employers and the media. The earliest, and most consequential setbacks occurred across two rounds of bargaining between the City of Toronto and municipal workers in CUPE 79 and CUPE
416. These rounds of bargaining represented a confrontation between City officials pushing for austerity measures against the largest union local (Local 79 alone with an estimated membership upwards of 24,000 members) in the country. These negotiations were instrumental in setting the tone for post-crisis public sector industrial relations.
410 Note: Because ETFO bargain centrally, rotating strikes in 2012 include all school boards and various units for a count of 75. While a province wide strike has implications for widespread disruptiveness, the purpose of this chart is to capture the frequency of strikes.
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Carlo Fanelli (2014) has discussed how the unions’ lack of internal organization in the
2009 strike – defined by “top-down” bargaining, the failure to book off full-time organizers until right before the strike started, and insufficient communication between leadership and membership – led to resentment and ineffective internal organizing. Fanelli goes on to explain that while economic gains were realized in the 2009 strike, it was a hollow victory as issues of internal capacity were exposed and insufficient external organizing in the community set the stage for CUPE 416 being portrayed as sectionalist (“the gravy train”), paving the way for the rise of Rob Fords’ conservative mayoral success and the imposition of the Toronto Service
Review.411 In the event that Locals could undertake a highly disruptive (CUPE Local 2, TTC strike, Bill 66, 2008) or sustained strike (CUPE local 3904, York University, Bill 145, 2009), they were legislated back to work by the province. These attacks on collective bargaining, while condemned by CUPE and the labour movement more broadly, were never met with escalating strategies and tactics.
Out of the 51 strikes undertaken by CAW locals in the post-crisis period, 27 were in manufacturing. In addition to strikes, between 2008 and 2010 there were eight plant occupations or blockades led by CAW locals: Ledco Ltd. (Local 1524), Bauer Industries (Local 1524),
Plastech (Local 1769), GM Oshawa (Local 222) SKD automotive (Local 1285), Aradco/Aramco
(Local 195), M&I Air Systems (Local 252), and Daymond Aluminum (Local 127). In each scenario, the occupation or blockade was undertaken by rank-and-file members in response to closure announcements and often regarding severance settlements.412 At a central organizational level, the CAWs efforts were often limited to resigned expressions of solidarity and the
411 Fanelli, C. (2014). Toronto civic workers bargaining without a base: The significance of 2012. Studies in Social Justice, 8(2). 412 “Chronology of CAW responses to plant closures, 1980-2009.” Personal research document of Stephanie Ross
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negotiating of severance agreements, thus signalling acceptance of capital’s right to eviscerate communities by withholding and withdrawing capital accumulated on the back of that community. Often, the full value of the severance was not even paid out. In the final case at
Daymond Aluminum (CAW 127), a press release from the CAW communications department referred to the blockade as a “picket line outside the plant”, despite Local 127 President Aaron
Neaves stating that “nothing will be allowed in or out of the plant until workers are guaranteed their owed severance and back pay.”413 This type of language is a minor detail, but a telling one that signals the CAW’s more general approach of downplaying spontaneous militancy rather than encouraging its development, proliferation, and coordination.
Ultimately, a failure of CAW and labour movement leverage against mobile capital became apparent during the bitter Caterpillar (CAT) owned Electro-Motive Diesel (EMD) locomotive lockout and closure in 2012 as the CAW transitioned into a very symbolically important War of Maneuver in the post-crisis period. Ross and Russell (2018) have discussed how, despite widespread community and public support, the beginnings of a secondary boycott campaign, temporary CAW solidarity blockades on strategic railway lines, and the organized and militant approach during a lockout, the largely isolated (even if well organized) tactics of one local could not prevent asset stripping and closure against a multi-national firm dedicated to selling products to other capitalists.414
413 CAW (Dec 5, 2009). “Workers Picket to Fight for Severance Act”, CAW Archives. Retrieved from: http://caw.unifor.org/en/8116.htm. 414 Ross, S., & Russell, J. (2018). " Caterpillar Hates Unions More Than It Loves Profits": The Electro-Motive Closure and the Dilemmas of Union Strategy. Labour/Le Travail, 53-85. EMD/Caterpillar sought a “50 per cent wage cut; elimination of the defined benefit pension plan, retiree benefits, and cost-of-living allowance; and a panoply of cuts to other benefits” even on their way to amassing $4.9 billion in profits; the highest profits ever in their 86-year history.
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Ross and Russell point out the strategic dilemmas that emerged during this struggle related to the “scale, scope and targets” of tactics. For scale and scope, the CAW was hesitant on scaling up disruptive economic actions to multiple geographic sites or to expand the scope of actions (occupations, blockades, sympathy strikes) as they felt they might lose public sympathy.
The CAW’s stance on not appearing to be too militant “prevented it from exploring whether the community would have participated in a more active campaign of disruption to preserve local high-wage jobs,” as Ken Lewenza and the NEB continued rely on the highly unlikely scenario of government intervention.415 Former CAW Education Department staffer Herman Rosenfield commented that there was little intention of politicizing the lockout and that the perspective was
“local” and “short-term.”416 However, in discussing “what was possible,” neither Rosenfeld nor
Ross and Russell fully engage with the actions (or inactions) of the wider Ontario labour movement. This is likely because there is little to comment on from the wider labour movement aside from the traditional gestures of solidarity (public condemnations and rallies) undertaken by unions outside of the CAW. A mass movement of widespread economic disruption against factory closures never emerged within or outside of the CAW. While this “local” and “short term” approach was directly related to a specific conflict, it were nonetheless reflective of the preparedness (reflective of the WoP) of the union (and wider labour movement) to engage a powerful opponent and an unsympathetic state in any sort of decisive conflicts.
Conclusion
CUPE and the CAW both understood that to win consent for their post-crisis struggles, they had to mobilize support beyond the point of production. However, in “going beyond” the point of
415 Ibid, p. 81 416 Rosenfeld, H. (Apr 10, 2012). “The Electro-Motive Lockout and Non-Occupation”, The Bullet: Socialist Project. Retrieved from: https://socialistproject.ca/2012/04/b615/.
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production, there seemed to be a strong focus on electoralism, social dialogue, or mobilizing
“community support,” without mass, inclusive, and collective power from memberships that could be coordinated into sustained and strategic forms of direct action. Many locals who would barely be defined as “functioning locals” (i.e. being able to service their members effectively) were expected to be able to 1) mobilize rank and file member to take on a greater fight around, primarily, sectoral issues and 2) to simultaneously create deep and meaningful alliances with those outside the union. These undertaking were supposed to be taken up by members who were facing increasingly precarious work, rising unemployment, the ongoing retrenchment of de- commodifying public services, and decreasing purchasing power to pay for increasingly commodified areas of social life. To the first element (mobilizing the rank and file), neither union had sufficiently engaged in the kind of deep, long-term internal organizing that would have been required to fight an intensified state and capital offensive across all the sectors they represented. In the absence of sufficient structural power relative to mobile capital at the point of production, the CAW sought deeper integration and incorporation with the capital-state nexus while simultaneously pursuing a partial reintegration into the Ontario labour movement. CUPE attempted to work with coalition partners to disorganize consent for the Liberals and reorganize it, more often than not, around an ineffective electoral vehicle in the NDP.
In many ways, the strategic interventions in the pre-crisis period set the stage for how unions responded as the crisis hit. There were strong similarities in predominant interventions between the pre- and post-crisis periods as the two unions seemed to be somewhat “locked in,” or subject to a “path dependency,” of using familiar and established strategic interventions.
CUPE’s continued oppositional position to the Liberals was matched with a continuation of political partisanship, pushes towards coordinated and centralized bargaining, efforts at coalition
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building, and tactical deployments that centered around social agitation. While there was perhaps a realization that the union suffered from issues of member engagement and recognized that they would need to (re)build capacity, they remained firmly planted in a sector-specific mobilizational model of internal organizing.
For the CAW, there was a less straightforward, but still present consistency in their predominant interventions. Perhaps the greatest area of change was in the CAW’s closer coordination with the Ontario labour movement. The CAW’s reaffiliation to the OFL, continued work with the OHC, their growing criticisms of austerity policy as the crisis deepened, and joint- union initiatives to pressure governments to “buy Canadian” represented an attempt at labour movement coordination that had been largely absent in the first phase. Additionally, the CAW’s continued focus on organizing in traditional and non-traditional sectors, ultimately culminated in their merger with the CEP.
The CAW felt during this time that mass strikes and increased militancy were not an option due primarily to capital’s ability to relocate production or withhold investment. Where the pre-crisis phase had seen a general electoral realignment and closer incorporation with the
Liberals, the post-crisis years saw the CAW use this relationship to leverage their position at “the political bargaining table.” The central levels of CAW turned to strategies of corporatism and social dialogue that would allow them to be integrated, incorporated and (at best) mildly shielded from the destruction of the unionized manufacturing sector. Their loose alliance with the Ontario
Liberals and their increasingly corporatist relationship with the Big 3 auto giants therefore closed off many options for counter-hegemony. Instead of building alternative ideologies and organizational-institutional capacities to challenge the “competitiveness” agenda, the CAW opted for an approach that brought them in as subaltern partners in the hegemonic bloc. In
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exchange, the Ontario Liberals offered small but significant strategic concessions and capital continued to make small, but ever decreasing investments. While the CAW’s ideological- symbolic articulations in the post-crisis era changed to a more oppositional-negotiated position relating to deepening austerity, the internal and external organizing aspects changed little. CAW external organizing directions since the pre-crisis phase have centered on neocorporatism, social dialogue, electoralism (strategic voting), and organizing new members (with mergers playing a massive role), while taking a negotiated-dominant position to corporate subsidies, a Third Way regulatory approach, and “competitiveness.”
The brief but deep legitimacy crisis caused by the onset of the crisis and economic recession opened the possibility for, if not a new economic system to be forged, at least new social compromises to be created. However, the possibilities for labour to extract concessions and win real structural reforms against neoliberalism during this period were largely determined by its ability to 1) win consent with a broad enough coalition to realistically challenge the agenda of neoliberalism; and 2) to engage in widespread, popular, and disruptive collective actions should their demands for structural reforms and concessions not be met. With neither a historical bloc formed nor the organizational coherence to engage in effective forms of direct action during the onset and evolution of the crisis, CUPE, the CAW, and the labour movement more generally, had to fight a series of defensive battles, with little likelihood of structural change on the horizon.
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Chapter 6: Conclusion
If the neoliberal project is placed within the larger history of the capitalist mode of production, it is often thought of as a relatively new, unstable, and extreme form of capitalism. This is only the case when comparing it with its immediate post-War Keynesian predecessor. History has unfolded in such a way that the case can now be made that neoliberalism has lasted longer than the Keynesian period. If we pin the beginning of the neoliberal project as its victory in British parliament under Margaret Thatcher in 1979 (and not the 1973 coup of Augusto Pinochet), then, as of 2020, neoliberalism can be said to have been ascendant or dominant for the last 41 years. If we take the years from 1945 to 1979 as the Keynesian period, this represents a span of only 34 years. Finally, if we take Polanyi’s rough estimation of the emergence of capitalism in 1834, representing a span of 186 years, then the Keynesian period only represents about 18% of capitalism’s history.417 In other words, the relatively progressive, stable form of capitalism that emerged in the mid-20th century is an aberration.
Neoliberalism, as an ideology, emerged in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and through its organic intellectuals (those of Mont Pelerin, the Chicago School, the American Enterprise
Institute, the Cato Institute) waged a slow but sure war of position against Keynesian hegemony for over 30 years. While the neoliberals embraced an elite-led version of the war of position that never aimed to command a numerical majority, they were nonetheless successful in welding together “a range of social agents, reaching from bankers and professionals through small employers to skilled workers, that represented a historic bloc in this sense.”418 In doing so, they
417 Polanyi, K., & MacIver, R. M. (1944). The great transformation (Vol. 2, p. 145). Boston: Beacon press. 418 Anderson, P. (2016). The heirs of Gramsci. New Left Review, (100), 71-97.
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set the terrain upon which they became the leading bloc during, and in the aftermath of the
Keynesian crises of the 1970s and into the 2020s.
The Left has unreservedly failed to imitate the successes and strategies of the neoliberals, despite the global financial crisis in 2008 presenting one of the greatest opportunities. When the crisis happened, the forces on the Left were too fragmented and too disorganized to present a unified counter-hegemonic alternative before the neoliberal forces could regroup, re-establish their fortified trenches, and re-claim dominance, albeit with the hegemonic balance tilting further towards coercion. By and large, the Left’s failures have come not from developing realistic policy and program alternatives, but from failing to supplant neoliberal culture and tenets such as
"rugged individualism," social Darwinism, citizens-as-consumers, and the “rationality” of the market. As Stuart Hall has theorized, cultures are effectively changed “not by changing [minds] but by changing [practices].”419 To create a new working-class culture requires changing how class is lived.
In this sense, Third Way neoliberalism must be credited. While it has developed unevenly across and within countries, Third Way neoliberalism has been able in many cases to reassert itself and to offer the most “realistic” political economic “alternative” to neoliberal orthodoxy available through formal political channels. Under the Third Way, how class is lived is marginally adjusted from the orthodox approach as accommodations, concessions, and measures of containment are made to prevent neoliberal culture fraying beyond a certain point. On the level of bourgeois electoral politics, and in the North Atlantic Anglosphere in particular, Third
Way neoliberals and their institutions have spent a great deal of time and energy attempting to
419 Hall, S. (2005). New Labour's double-shuffle. The Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 27(4), 319-335.
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reconsolidate power and undermine progressive alternatives. The U.S. Democrats’ consolidation around neoliberal wings of the party in Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden, the undermining of
Corbynism by the Blairites in the British Labour Party, and the electoral successes of Trudeau Jr. in 2015 and 2019 all signal that Third Way politics and economics have continued to be the
“alternative” to an increasingly radical right in formal politics. This also raises questions as to whether bourgeois electoral politics hold counter-hegemonic potential, and to what extent it will be necessary to build alternative systems of governance outside of the neoliberal state.
As neoliberalism has become increasingly discredited and popular commentary seems to suggest a “polarization” of politics, it is important to not lose sight of the “flexible middle,” especially if it is successful in coopting non-aligned elements and re-establishing an unstable equilibrium. This flexible middle has made radical change difficult as many who have traditionally been on the Left – organized labour included – have found it difficult to escape the tensions of incorporation-integration and resistance.
Third Way Neoliberalism, Unions, and the Global Financial Crisis in Ontario
The CAW, CUPE, and the Third Way
This work has traced and analyzed the interplay of a specific part of class struggle during a specific historical conjuncture: that of organized labour contending with the state in the period preceding and following a deep political economic crisis. Specifically, this work has dealt with how leading union organizations interacted with a sub-sovereign neoliberal state and a party seeking to govern consensually. To accomplish this, both the governing party and a leading union from both the public- and the private-sector have been studied to assess their predominant strategic interventions.
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The Third Way McGuinty Liberals represented a governing regime that aimed to impose neoliberalism consensually. Able to win three consecutive elections under McGuinty, and one with a new party leader in Kathleen Wynne, the Ontario Liberals were able to consolidate neoliberalism over a period of 15 years. The Liberals were able to do so with historically low levels of union militancy, low voter turnout, and were even able to integrate and incorporate key parts of the labour movement into their project. During the period studied here (2003-2013 under
Premier Dalton McGuinty), the governance strategy of the Liberals was largely successful in preventing an organized and coherent labour movement and was able to avert counter-hegemonic alternatives from becoming central political questions which could have challenged the ideological dominance of neoliberalism. They were, in other words, able to craft a “common sense” that was able to neutralize fragmented and dispersed calls for a reversal of neoliberal ideology and policy.
In practice, this involved the Liberals manufacturing consent (disaffected or otherwise) for austerity and competitiveness policies which were presented as a “natural” course of action, as being universally beneficial, and as being the only viable option based on the conjuncture.
Austerity policy was driven by fiscal consolidation, privatization, and public sector restructuring
Competitiveness policy was geared towards creating a favourable business climate through human capital development, lowering business costs, and increasing capital mobility. While austerity and competitiveness have been separated for conceptual clarity, in practice they were closely intertwined.
In the pre-crisis years (2003-2008), the McGuinty Liberals main policy interventions related to austerity revolved around balancing budgets, expanding public-private partnerships
(P3s) as a form of “soft” privatization, and increasing the role of the Auditor General’s office to
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advocate and provide technocratic legitimations for expenditure restraint. Similarly, competitiveness policies were based on human capital development in the form of increasing education and healthcare spending, using state subsidies and tax credits strategically to encourage capital investments, a passive form of internal devaluation for labour intensive sectors, and a focus on increasing capital mobility both in terms in inward FDI and outward merchandize trade. As the crisis emerged and deepened, this social investment approach and
“soft” forms of neoliberal policy took on a much more orthodox character. Austerity policy turned to tax cuts, short-term stimulus, corporate bailouts, expenditure freezes, and back-to-work legislation in both the period preceding and following the Drummond Commission. On the competitiveness policy pillar, bailouts were exchanged for labour concessions, corporations received massive tax cuts, regulatory initiatives were relaxed, human capital spending was privatized through passing the spending burden to the service user, and stimulus measures were used largely to improve capital mobility.
As discussed in Chapter 3, these policy interventions were accompanied by ideological articulations that aimed to legitimize and rationalize policy decisions. Austerity was presented as a policy pillar that would enhance competitiveness (a natural course of action), as a
“responsible” policy agenda that would benefit all current and future Ontarians (universally beneficial), and as the only viable option to deal with a (manufactured) crisis in public finances.
Similarly, competitiveness was presented as a program of “modernization” (natural), as a policy path that would lead to a high-wage, high-skill economy (universally beneficial), and that any current or future failings to become and remain competitive would lead to economic decline and disaster (the only viable option).
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As this work has found, the leading private- and public-sector unions in Ontario, the
CAW and CUPE respectively, were largely unable to lead the organization of a counter- hegemonic bloc capable of challenging the Third Way Liberals policy planks and legitimations.
While it is not realistic to expect a single union organization to single-handedly undermine and replace neoliberalism, it is reasonable to assume that based on the heightened conflict of interest between capital and labour under neoliberalism, that labour would attempt to present a program that could challenge its dominance. This part of the class struggle – labour versus a capitalist state-party nexus seeking to govern consensually – was of particular relevance to Gramsci. This work has utilized Gramsci’s concept of a war(s) of position (WoP) to assess how each union carried out their organizational, ideological, and cultural work in attempts to tilt the balance of forces in their favour against Third Way neoliberalism and how they attempted to build the capacity to push forward their own political projects.
In many ways these political projects were guided by tensions between sectoral interests and building a wider working-class movement. While both unions pursued some social unionist practices and interventions based on notions of “community,” these interventions often came into tension with the direct interest of members and the allocation of resources to deal with those direct interests. More often than not, both the CAW and CUPE defined and made their strategic interventions based on the challenge areas most relevant to their memberships. For CUPE, this largely meant contesting austerity and public sector restructuring while failing to make significant organizational-institutional interventions against neoliberal threats like capital mobility and the competitiveness side of the neoliberal agenda. For the CAW, while there were currents within the union that took oppositional positions to austerity, these were largely crowded out by the deep crises in other sub-sectors of the union related to competitiveness. As a
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result of decisions made around the most appropriate way to deal with problems related to the competitiveness agenda (incorporation and integration), these oppositional positions to austerity were partially relegated to the needs of other sectors. This raises questions then around not only inter-union sectionalism, but intra-union sectionalism, and the importance and structure of union democracy. In the case of the CAW, this meant that the crisis in the manufacturing sector often took predominance over less immediate sectoral issues in other parts of the union. For CUPE, issues and challenge areas were often relegated to sector-specific responses developed by the sectoral coordinating committee. As will be discussed below, future counter-hegemonic approaches will have to articulate and organize around systemic alternatives that can overcome sectionalist tendencies.
Even in their own sectionalist battles during the period in question, the CAW and CUPE offered differing strategic approaches in their WoP to contest neoliberalism with varying organizational-institutional interventions and ideological-symbolic interventions. CUPE had a higher level of consistency in their predominant strategic interventions than the CAW and is in many ways the more straightforward case. Despite deepening austerity (CUPE’s primary challenge area) in the post-crisis period, CUPE’s predominant organizational-institutional interventions remained as political partisanship with the NDP, efforts to establish coordinated and centralized bargaining structures, building coalitions with labour and community allies, and a program of social agitation. These interventions had, in the pre-crisis phase, perhaps been enough to slow the roll-out of neoliberal consolidation in the province, though they were largely unsuccessful in reversing the larger neoliberal policy trends, especially in the post-crisis period.
At an overarching level, CUPE’s strategic interventions were based on disorganizing consent around the McGuinty Liberals and reorganizing consent around the NDP and social democratic
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policies. While social agitation was often used, the tactics tended to be routinized, non- disruptive, and non-escalating, resulting in limited effectiveness. CUPE consistently took an oppositional ideological position to the McGuinty Liberals, critiquing their failure to reverse
Harris-Eves policy directions, for “attacking” public services through budget shortfalls, privatizations, and restructurings, and for undermining communities through insufficient public investments. Despite many of CUPE’s positions eventually becoming popularly held (though polarized) beliefs in the aftermath of the GFC and around the time of the Drummond
Commission, their overreliance on electing an NDP government, insufficient coalition building, the uneven and ineffectual nature of coordinated bargaining, and issues of mass membership engagement and capacity all combined to limit the effectiveness of their WoP.
The CAW, by comparison, had a more flexible approach to their strategic interventions.
In the pre-crisis period, the CAW consolidated their move towards electoral realignment and strategic voting, placed issue-based campaigns and Union in Politics Committees (UPCs) as central organizational-institutional interventions, and prioritized organizing new members during a period of mass membership loss. In reference to the Third Way Liberals and their governance, the CAW took a negotiated-oppositional position in the pre-crisis years. Aside from offering qualified electoral support (strategic voting to beat Conservative MPPs), the union as an organization became increasingly integrated into the Liberal’s competitiveness agenda, where key CAW sectors were given “strategic investments.” This required CAW leaders and staff to take an incorporated position with the Third Way Liberals in order to maintain their seat at the
“political bargaining table.” While there was dissent from members about the pragmatic relationship with the Liberals, and from certain subsectors of the membership (such as health
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In the post-crisis years, the CAW’s predominant interventions shifted as old interventions took new forms or were displaced. The electoral realignment and strategic voting that had been present in the pre-crisis phase shifted towards a deeper incorporative approach as the union turned increasingly to utilizing corporatism and social dialogue to advance their political agenda.
Interestingly, this closer relationship with the Liberals was also accompanied by greater coordination with the Ontario labour movement and the OFL’s social agitation efforts against the
Liberal’s austerity policies. These contradictory positions – taking the dominant position based on the Liberal’s competitiveness agenda on one hand, and an oppositional position based on the
Liberal’s austerity agenda on the other – were especially exacerbated in the leadup and aftermath of the Drummond Commission. Despite this contradiction never being fully resolved, it was the corporatist approach that predominated. Additionally, the CAW also highlighted the need to
“build strong locals” in the post-crisis period, moving beyond solely using the UPCs and attempting to build membership and local capacities that had atrophied during a period of prolonged crisis. These internal organizing efforts were matched by external organizing efforts that, as in the pre-crisis phase, aimed to offset membership loss in traditional manufacturing sectors. These organizing efforts ultimately led to a merger with the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers (CEP) in 2013 to create Canada’s largest private sector union with over
300,000 members.
The strategic interventions and ideological position of both CUPE and the CAW in the pre-crisis period had an impact on “what was possible” during the emergence and deepening crisis brought on by the GFC in 2008. Gramsci’s theories of hegemony expose the error in
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presuming that economic crises will automatically lead to progressive solutions. Rather, it is a question of organization, the balance of class forces, and the ideological ruptures and alternatives
(if any) that come to dominate those spaces. Crises represent historical ruptures that can break down the legitimacy of both the regime of accumulation and the mode of regulation. However, as Gramsci recognized, crises are not just moments of destruction (of capital, of legitimacy, of political capacities) but also of reconstruction (of those same factors). Whichever forces are more adequately prepared to fill the void left by a crisis will be the ones who determine what reconstruction will look like.
CUPE and the CAW in many ways failed to successfully challenge the cultural legitimations of their most immediate political economic threats (austerity and competitiveness, respectively), nor were they able to disrupt the wider socio-cultural elements that underpin neoliberal hegemony such as "rugged individualism," social Darwinism, citizens-as-consumers, the
“rationality” of the market, and so on. Additionally, their predominant strategic interventions were not conducive to being part of an effort to organize their own members and allies into a new historical bloc.
Strategic Similarities
The strategic differences that manifested in Ontario between the CAW and CUPE were a result of a host of complex factors, both material and ideological. Of central importance in this work, were factors related to the union’s institutional sector (private vs. public), the industrial sectors and subsectors they represented, and the Third Way Liberals’ orientations towards those sectors.
Additionally, factors such as union identity and self-perceptions, agentic factors of the union leaderships, staffs and memberships, perceptions of the role of the state, and the ways in which predominant challenge areas were problematized and the solutions offered all combined with
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structures of internal union politics to prioritize some strategic interventions over others. While there were noticeable and consistent differences between the two union’s strategies, there were also some important consistencies.
The first similarity revolved around conceptions of politics and approaches to the state.
Both the CAW and CUPE sought to use the electoral system and parliamentary politics to advance their interests. While the CAW consistently articulated the need for a working-class politics that did not tie unions to specific political parties, their embracing of “anyone but
Conservative” (ABC) strategic voting and increasingly corporatist relationship with the
McGuinty Liberals signalled little independence at the central union levels. The relationship between the CAW and the Liberals led to the union toeing the line on critiques of competitiveness policy (taking a dominant-negotiated position), the McGuinty Liberals integrating key CAW sectors, and an incorporated leadership into decision-making forums at the
“political bargaining table.” As discussed earlier, this essentially foreclosed on many options of disrupting the Liberals neoliberal project, and only opened possibilities for eking out negotiated concessions that did not challenge relations of power in any significant way.
CUPE is a less straightforward case in this respect, but in many ways arrives in a similar place to the CAW. Despite the ONDP drifting towards the centre and providing no real alternative to neoliberal governance during the period in question, CUPE’s predominant interventions (partisanship, coalition building, and social agitation) were largely pursued for the purposes or reorganizing consent around the party or around social democratic policies. It was not, for example, the wider systemic problem of neoliberal capitalism and neoliberal governance that were the targets of the WoP, but more narrowly the Liberal and the Conservative parties, with the NDP becoming the vehicle to correct the systemic problems. While coalition building
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and social agitation could have been used for the purposes of, for example, encouraging democratic innovations, democratizing the state, or in other ways to challenge the increasingly centralized power of the neoliberal state, they were instead used primarily in the realm of parliamentary-adjacent politics. Centralized bargaining, the sole intervention based primarily in extra-parliamentary strategy remained underdeveloped.
While both unions took highly different approaches to electoral-parliamentary politics, the similarity lies in their orientation to the state. For both unions, their political actions remained focused on electoral politics and relationships with non-radical parties, rather than finding ways to directly contest state power. In analogous terms, the unions focused which “team” was
“winning the game,” rather than the “rules of the game” itself. For example, the problem lay not in the absence of popular input for things such as participatory budgeting, but in which party governed and released the budget. This remained the case even in the post-crisis period with there being a pronounced absence of a party articulating sufficient alternatives to neoliberal hegemony, as was the case in many European countries (i.e. Greece’s Syriza, Spain’s Podemos,
Portugal’s Left Bloc, La France insoumise, Denmark’s Red-Green Alliance). In the absence of a party promoting radical alternatives, and with underdeveloped alternative visions themselves, both the CAW and CUPE took pragmatic approaches to the state and party politics.
It is perhaps for these reasons that, until late into the Liberals’ time in power, both unions failed to articulate any systematic critiques and alternatives to the Third Way. While both unions critiqued policy choices and presented alternatives to those choices, they largely failed to develop and articulate an alternative political economic vision that would adequately contend with the challenges brought by contemporary capitalism. When these alternatives did emerge, they presented what were mainly Keynesian-style solutions which Della Porta and Portos (2020)
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have categorized as “Polanyi-like countermovements” involving efforts to restore old protections and relations. Both CUPE and the CAW sought what could aptly be described as a return to the class compromise and security provided by the Fordist mode of regulation and the Keynesian welfare state.
However, the shift back towards the Keynesian-Fordist regime ignores the previous regimes reliance on 1) "full employment" based on the breadwinner-homemaker model; 2) imperialist and neo-colonial expansion; and 3) economic growth premised on consumer demand and the ever-increasing consumption of natural resources. Therefore, for a Polanyi-like countermovement to be anti-systemic it would have to articulate solutions that contended with 1) employment, gender equality, and paid time off, 2) an internationalist, anti-imperial framework that it cooperative; and 3) a full transition to sustainable ecology and consumption (perhaps even
“degrowth”). Even if these criteria are met. There is no guarantee the old macroeconomic contradictions of the Keynesian system would be resolved. Furthermore, these criteria are hardly compatible with capitalist expansion, even if placed under an old mode of regulation and an expansionary welfare state.
These considerations are neatly summarized by Upchurch et al. (2015) who state that in the face of neoliberalism, there are three opportunities that trade unions can pursue. First, unions can appeal to business competitiveness. Second, unions can lobby the party of labour to return to traditional social democracy. Lastly, unions can present counter-hegemonic alternatives and move towards social movement unionism.420 While the CAW straddled the first and second options, CUPE remained firmly planted in the second.
420 Upchurch, M., Taylor, G. and Mathers, A. (2009). The Crisis of Social Democratic Trade Unionism in Western Europe: The Search for Alternatives. Surrey: Ashgate. P. 15.
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This returns the analysis to questions surrounding “who is winning the game,” rather than the “rules of the game” itself. For example, instead of focusing on raising corporate tax rates to levels in the early 1990s, organizing around the democratization of finance – both public and private. Instead of focusing on favourable free-trade content requirements, organizing around the re-localization of production and democratic community planning.421 These two pillars, the democratization of finance and the re-localization of production with democratic planning, are mutually reinforcing visions that simultaneously break down barriers put up by sectionalism, address issues related to austerity and competitiveness, and provide the ideological capacity to imagine interventions that have the potential to address some of the deepest failures of neoliberalism, and capitalism more generally. The counter-hegemonic visions and organizational interventions provided by the democratization of finance and the re-localization of production may be two areas around which the Left can organize the new historical bloc.
For unions to be able to successfully organize a new historic bloc around counter- hegemonic alternatives, there is a growing sentiment that there will need to be a return to methods of deep organizing reminiscent of the practices of the CIO and IWW. This is the final similarity which emerged toward the tail-end of the period in question as both the CAW and
CUPE acknowledged the low levels of member engagement and their organizational inabilities to transition to an effective, large-scale WoM that could have the potential to disrupt and create openings for systemic change. In Gramsci’s famous phrase, “indifference is the deadweight of history,” and must be overcome for a counter-hegemonic project to even get off the ground.
Years of neoliberal assault on organized labour, and unions movement away from the deep organizing practices that were historically present in labour movements has created an inertial
421 Wright, E. O. (2015). Understanding class. Verso Books.
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force so great that only concerted and concentrated efforts at reversing this trend will lead to a reversal of labours’ fortunes.
Recent Strategic Directions: Wynne, Ford, and Beyond
In the aftermath of the period studied, CUPE and the CAW contended with another 5 years of
Third Way neoliberalism under the Kathleen Wynne Ontario Liberals, and are now in a period of facing a more orthodox neoliberal government under the Doug Ford Conservatives. Under
Kathleen Wynne, the austerity and competitiveness policy pillars continued, though her leadership was able to recapture some of the “flexible-centre” that had been lost by the Liberal’s orthodox neoliberal turn under McGuinty during the depths of the crisis. By the time McGuinty, and then Dwight Duncan left their positions, Ontario had the lowest per-capita public spending of all the provinces, and the size of the public sector as a percentage of provincial GDP had been reduced to the same size as during Harris’ time in office.422 Following the Liberal’s securing a majority in the 2014 election, the Wynne government moved quickly to consolidate their neoliberal agenda including severe spending restraint, program reductions, privatizing public utilities, and implementing public sector wage restraint.
Conversely, competitiveness policy partially returned to a social investment approach under Wynne. The emphasis placed on human capital development (even if not always matched with public funding) and the focus on infrastructure development continued from the pre-crisis years to the Wynne years with relatively high consistency. However, it was the approach to lowering business costs which takes on alternating forms between Third Way and orthodox neoliberal approaches. In the pre-crisis years, the social investment approach predominated and
422 Evans, B. and Fanelli, C. (2018). Ontario in an Age of Austerity: Common Sense Reloaded In Evans, B. and Fanelli C. (Eds.). The Public Sector in an Age of Austerity: Perspectives from Canada’s Provinces and Territories. p. 146.
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investments to reduce unit labour costs for employers were rolled out through the state absorbing or subsidizing indirect costs. In the post-crisis years, more orthodox neoliberal approaches predominated including large tax cuts, direct wage suppression in a key industry, expanded use of restrictive labour legislation, and re-regulatory environmental and labour measures that would favour capital. Finally, under the direction of the Wynne Liberals, the competitiveness approach blended elements of both previous phases and took on a hybrid form between orthodox and
Third Way approaches.
For both CUPE and Unifor, there has been a reasonable amount of consistency regarding their predominant strategic interventions in Ontario from the post-crisis period to the present. For
CUPE, there has been a consistency in their approaches of partisan electoralism, coalition building, community frames, and coordinated-centralized bargaining. For CUPE Ontario, the annual Action Plans, debated and ratified each year at convention, have increasingly included calls for a deep organizing model and have frequently included calls for escalating militant actions, up to and including a general strike.423 However, despite these key interventions starting to become more prominent, deep organizing and increased militancy have yet to displace the other leading strategies that have remained from the post-crisis period.
Similarly, Unifor has continued its focus on “building strong locals” and increasing membership participation in union life alongside neocorporatism, strategic voting, social dialogue (primarily with the Federal Liberals under Justin Trudeau), and a focus on organizing for certification in traditional and non-traditional sectors (including raiding already-organized workers). Similarly, to the pre-crisis phase, Unifor’s coordination with the broader labour
423 CUPE Ontario (2017). “CUPE Ontario 2016 Report Card”, CUPE Ontario Archives. Retrieved from: https://cupe.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Report-Card-Final-2016-2017.pdf.
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movement has been minimal since its split with the CLC and OFL in 2018, brought on by accusations of raiding in the aftermath of the UNITE-HERE Local 75 crisis.
The organizational-institutional and ideological-symbolic interventions of both unions retain key consistencies and differences during the Wynne period and are an area of future research related to this work. The period is of particular interest in many ways because of the ways in which the Liberals collapsed in the 2018 election after 15 years in power, only to allow a return to the Harris-style Conservatives. While the actions and outcomes of the strategic interventions undertaken by the CAW and CUPE cannot be said to have lead to a complete victory and a reversal of neoliberalism in the province, under McGuinty or afterwards, that does not mean the unions did not win important victories throughout this time that slowed or halted certain parts of the neoliberal agenda. Rather, the actions and outcomes expose the limitations of particular sets of strategic interventions and open more questions as to how future interventions can surpass those limitations.
Future Directions
While this research provides a useful starting point for analysis on the intersection of hegemonic and counter-hegemonic strategies, it nonetheless suffers from limitations that provide an opening for future work. The first shortcoming of this research is its lack of engagement with questions of race and gender. Considerations of counter-hegemony and strategies of resistance to neoliberalism or capitalism that do not adequately contend with individual’s identities beyond the categories of “workers” or “union members” are theoretically underdeveloped.
Neoliberalism, and capitalism more generally, does not operate in a manner that is neutral to race and gender. The axes of oppression that operate alongside and interact with capitalist domination must be understood and contested in order to build a more just and equitable society. Many
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unions have begun taking on the work of addressing white supremacy, patriarchy, and other oppressive structures, but a more thoughtful and detailed analysis of how these interventions have specifically been carried out and the ideology that accompanies them is necessary to build worker power through “whole-worker” organizing (not just focusing on their status as
“workers”) and for the purposes of counter-hegemonic visions that go beyond economism.
Second, this work inadequately engages with internal union politics, and questions of union leadership and democracy. This research has focused overwhelmingly on the outcomes of decision-making at the central levels of union organizations, often obfuscating the internal union politics that precede those decisions. The relationship between membership and leadership and the forums and processes of deliberation and decision-making are vital for understanding processes of union renewal. Future work on the topic of counter-hegemonic strategies and other strategic interventions should include nuanced discussions on internal union politics. These discussions would be especially relevant for Unifor and CUPE. Since the mid 2010s, a radical flank of the Unifor membership has created the Unifor Solidarity Network, which bases its politics in rank-and-file democracy, working-class politics, and bargaining for solidarity. The
Unifor Solidarity Network’s website is complete with a “Rogues Gallery,” highlighting Unifor officials embracing Liberal politicians. Within CUPE Ontario, large segments of the activist membership have grown increasingly frustrated with the predominance of electoralism and social agitation over methods such as deep organizing and direct action. CUPE Ontario’s Action
Caucus and large segments of the activist membership from the university sector have attempted to pull CUPE in a more militant direction, often only to be countered by a larger and more centrist general membership and occasional interventions by the leadership. Elsewhere, turns to militancy driven by internal union politics in cases such as the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU)
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and the wider “Red for Ed” teachers’ movement provide lessons for how to break with what seem to be established path dependencies.
Third, the analysis of union strategies within the Canadian federal system is a significant limitation of this work and provides a promising area of future study. The overarching union approaches to the state and party politics present additional questions on the effectiveness of dismantling neoliberalism by having even a radical party “take government” at a provincial level while the federal government remains neoliberal in its orientations. For example, even if the
ONDP had been elected in Ontario during the period in question, as CUPE desired, how would the party have responded to challenges presented by the Harper Conservatives on federal tax rates, declining interprovincial transfers, or trade policy? While disrupting neoliberalism at a regional level may be possible, it comes into other challenges within a federalist system. Again, this raises questions around institutional targets and whether interventions are made to build power at regional, national, or internationalist levels. While this work has taken an extremely narrow conception of state governance by focusing primarily on one party, it would be advantageous for future work to take a more expansive approach to understandings of the state.
These questions in turn lead to considerations of how various organizations and interventions are coordinated and how they can be cohered into an effective counter-hegemonic project. This component of analysis is also largely absent from this work. That is, considerations of how individual unions (and other progressive organizations) can come together to challenge neoliberal dominance is still an open question. The relationships between unions, both bilateral relationships and coordinating efforts within houses of labour merit more attention. Questions surrounding what is needed to foster deep and meaningful action-oriented solidarity and ways of overcoming sectionalist tendencies are important to consider when discussing the formation of a
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counter-hegemonic bloc. The effectiveness of local labour councils and federations of labour provides a promising direction for future research.
Neoliberalism, Unions, and Counter-Hegemony
This work has examined the changing strategies of leading unions over time, allowing for a focus on the possibilities and limitations of those strategies for building union power and contesting neoliberalism. The period studied here has also been bridged by a deep and significant economic and political crisis and holds lessons for confronting future crises. During the time of writing, these lessons are especially relevant as the COVID-19 pandemic has caused societal disruptions of monumental proportions. Despite fraying substantially around the edges, neoliberalism continues as the dominant socio-cultural and political-economic paradigm and will undoubtedly interact with the COVID-19 crisis, which has exposed deep systemic flaws and holds the potential to radicalize new constituencies.
The unions studied in this work, and the labour movement more generally, have failed in large part to wage a coordinated war of position. One aspect of this failure has been the successes of Third Way neoliberalism in neutralizing and co-opting where necessary in its attempt to rule consensually. However, even outside of Third Way governance, the labour movement has been trapped in a series of defensive battles that has kept them from organizing into a new historic bloc while articulating an alternative ideological paradigm that could contest neoliberalism.
These defensive battles have certainly slowed the pace of neoliberal imposition but have not yet been able to reverse its policy directions or ideological dominance. As this work has shown, it is not a simple dichotomy between adapting to the new terrain of neoliberalism or organizing around radical alternatives. Tendencies can be more aptly described as falling along a continuum. Union’s predominant strategic interventions are better understood as falling towards
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one end of those poles: adaptation (including integration and incorporation) or resistance
(counter-hegemony).
For unions seeking projects of long-term renewal and the displacing of neoliberalism (or capitalism) with a more just and equitable socioeconomic system, tendencies toward incorporation and integration must be overcome and replaced with organizational-institutional interventions that prioritize deep organizing, strategic strikes, and mass institutional disruption, and ideological-symbolic interventions that create and reinforces dissatisfaction with neoliberalism, while simultaneously articulating counter-hegemonic alternatives.
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