the movement towards labour unity in canada: history and implications

The Movement towards Labour Unity in Canada: History and ImplicationsAuthor(s): Eugene ForseySource: The Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science / Revue canadienned'Economique et de Science politique, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Feb., 1958), pp. 70-83Published by: Wiley on behalf of Canadian Economics AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/139116 .

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THE MOVEMENT TOWARDS LABOUR UNITY IN CANADA: HISTORY AND IMPLICATIONS*

EUGENE FORSEY Ottawa

ONE of the marching songs of the labour movement on this continent is

"Solidarity Forever!" But in Canada, its exhortation has sometimes been more honoured in the breach than in the observance. At intervals over the last half-

century and more, Canadian trade unionism has been "by schisms rent asunder, by heresies distrest." In 1902, the Trades and Labor Congress of Canada (T.L.C.) threw out the Knights of Labor and national unions which were "dual" to international unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor

(A.F.L.). The twenty-three expelled organizations promptly formed the National Trades and Labour Congress. In 1908, this became the Canadian Federation of Labour, a name which has kept cropping up in Canadian labour history ever since. In 1919, just after the Winnipeg strike, and partly as a result of it, a considerable number of western unionists left the T.L.C. to form the One Big Union (O.B.U.). Between 1901 and 1921, small local Roman Catholic unions

sprang up in the province of Quebec, and in 1921 these formed the Canadian and Catholic Confederation of Labour (C.C.C.L.). In 1927, the Canadian Federation of Labour and other national unions formed the All-Canadian

Congress of Labour (A.C.C.L.). In 1936, some of the officers of the A.C.C.L. seceded to form the present Canadian Federation of Labour, which is no longer even mentioned in the Department of Labour's annual Report on Labour

Organization in Canada (and has not been since the 1950-1 edition), and which the orthodox union movement never considered a genuine labour

organization at all. (About ten years ago, a secession from the Canadian Federation of Labour formed the National Council of Canadian Labour, which -in spite of its grandiose title, and the faint air of respectability imparted to it by inclusion in the Department of Labour's report, which gives it 42 locals and 5,640 members-is also beyond the pale of orthodox unionism.) In 1939, the executive of the T.L.C. suspended the Canadian unions affiliated with the

Congress of Industrial Organizations (C.I.O.) in the United States. These unions formed a Canadian C.I.O. Committee.1

The "big four" railway running trades unions (the Locomotive Engineers, the Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen, the Railroad Trainmen, and the

Conductors) were unaffiliated with any central organization, either in Canada or the United States, though they co-operated with each other and with a

couple of T.L.C. unions on the railways (the Order of Railroad Telegraphers and the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees) in the Dominion

Joint Legislative Committee of the Railway Transportation Brotherhoods.2

*This paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association in Ottawa, June 13, 1957.

1Canada, Dept. of Labour, Report on Labour Organization in Canada, various years, passim. 2Ibid.

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Vol. XXIV, no. 1, Feb., 1958



Labour Unity in Canada

Late in 1939 came the first steps towards unity. The A.C.C.L. and the Canadian C.I.O. Committee, both based on the industrial, as against the craft, principle, agreed to unite in the Canadian Congress of Labour (C.C.L.), which was duly set up in September, 1940. This was a remarkable achievement, for, though both bodies believed in industrial unionism, the A.C.C.L. had not only been a purely Canadian body, but had consistently and fiercely attacked international unionism; while the Canadian C.I.O. Committee, of course, was made up wholly of Canadian branches of international unions. The merger of the two was made possible only by the C.I.O.'s agreement that the Canadian sections of its international unions should have full autonomy, and that the new Congress also should be fully autonomous.3 None the less, there were many who prophesied that it could not last; that its life, if not "solitary, poor, nasty," and "brutish," would certainly be "short."

At the end of 1940, therefore, there were three central organizations: the T.L.C., the C.C.L., and the C.C.C.L.4 Both the T.L.C. and the C.C.L. looked upon the C.C.C.L. as little better than a group of "company unions"; and the T.L.C., venerable and respectable, and considerably larger than the other two put together, hardly deigned to acknowledge the existence of the parvenu C.C.L. The railway running trades remained aristocratically aloof from all three.

The C.C.L., however, not only survived: it grew, and grew faster than the T.L.C. At its very first convention, it instructed its incoming executive to explore, with the T.L.C., the possibility of bringing about "a complete con- solidation of Canadian Labour." By the end of 1941 it felt strong enough to approach both Philip Murray, President of the C.I.O., and Tom Moore, President of the T.L.C., suggesting an international joint council of the A.F.L., C.I.O., T.L.C., and C.C.L. to promote the war effort, and a joint legislative programme. The T.L.C. rejected the proposals. Mr. Moore was also invited to address the 1942 C.C.L. convention, but before the T.L.C. executive board could reach any decision, he took seriously ill. The C.C.L. convention none the less passed a resolution instructing its incoming executive to approach the T.L.C. and C.C.C.L. with a view to joint action.5 The T.L.C. 1942 convention also passed a resolution instructing its incoming executive "to do all in its power to bring about unity."6

In 1943, the C.C.L. convention "welcomed the joint action of the Presidents of both Congresses on issues of major importance" and instructed the incoming executive "to continue their efforts to bring about unity of action."7 The T.L.C. contented itself with a resolution calling for the establishment of a Canadian Wartime Labour Board, with equal representation from the T.L.C., the C.C.L., and the railway running trades, "to co-ordinate Canadian labour's wartime activities and to avoid poaching and internecine warfare of one union against another, and further to press upon the Government and the organized em- ployers the common demands of all labour unions."8

3C.C.L. Convention Proceedings (1940), 13, 22. 4Report on Labour Organization in Canada (1940), 20-5, 27-9. 5C.C.L. Convention Proceedings (1940), 28-9 (1942), 22-3, 46. 6T.L.C. Convention Proceedings (1942), 240. 7C.C.L. Convention Proceedings (1943), 42. sLabour Gazette (1943), 1437.

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Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science

In 1944, the C.C.L. convention sent a telegram of greetings to the T.L.C. convention,9 and the latter instructed its incoming executive "to give most serious study to the possibility of achieving one trade union centre in Canada with proper safeguards for all unions with respect to jurisdictional rights."10

Because of wartime transportation difficulties, neither Congress held a convention in 1945. In 1946, the C.C.L. convention passed a resolution proposing "immediate" establishment of "a National Federation of Trade Unions under the collective leadership of the Congresses."" The T.L.C. Convention called for "united action on behalf of all organized workers in Canada."12 District 50 of the United Mine Workers (at that time affiliated with the A.F.L. in the United States and the C.C.L. in Canada) formally asked the executives of both congresses to meet and work out a plan of unity. The President of the T.L.C., Mr. Bengough, declined, in a sharply worded letter. This year also saw the election of Mr. Gerard Picard as President of the C.C.C.L., a signifi- cant change in the direction of that organization.13

In 1947, the C.C.L. convention called for "organic unity" with the T.L.C. and instructed the incoming executive to "persist in their efforts to create one large progressive labour organization in Canada" and "to publicly name a standing committee" which would "be available at any time" to enter into

negotiations with the T.L.C.14 The T.L.C. convention's resolution recited that the T.L.C. had tried to "create" unity of action; that during the past year these efforts had not resulted in "amicable unity," while on its National Labour Code Programme the T.L.C. had been "bitterly opposed by other Trade Union bodies," with resulting "discord" in its own ranks; and concluded that, "while . . . unity of action in one body is of paramount importance, . . . our objectives of unified action must be held in abeyance until a clear concise policy of unity has been worked out between the Executive of this Congress and other Trade Union bodies." Provincial organizations and affiliated unions were to stay their hands till such "unified policy" had "been accomplished."15 Meanwhile, District 50 had tried again, this time with the blessing of the President of the A.F.L., William Green, who declared flatly that he thought the two Canadian congresses ought to merge. But again nothing happened, perhaps partly because in the meantime the T.L.C. and the A.F.L. had got embroiled because of the former's refusal to expel the Machinists, Mr. Bengough's own union, which had left the A.F.L.

In 1948, the two congresses and the railway running trades joined in petitioning the Dominion Government to disallow the Prince Edward Island Trade Union Act of that year.16 The C.C.L. convention passed a resolution instructing its executive committee to "continue to seek the co-operation of the Trades and Labour Congress" for "joint action on all national matters" and "progress in the attainment of a strong and unified labour movement."'7 The T.L.C. simply repeated its resolution of 1947.18

9C.C.L. Convention Proceedings (1944), 63. 10T.L.C. Convention Proceedings (1944), 164-7. "C.C.L. Convention Proceedings (1946), 101. 12Labour Gazette (1946), 1382. 13Ibid., 1389. 14Ibid. (1947), 1584. 15T.L.C. Convention Proceedings (1947, French version), 242. 16Labour Gazette (1948), 695-6. I71bid., 1862. 18T.L.C. Convention Proceedings (1948), 341-2.

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In 1949, the C.C.L. convention passed a resolution favouring "unification of all bona fide labour organizations." Mr. Conroy, the C.C.L.'s chief executive officer, said that he thought there had been a similar resolution at every C.C.L. convention, and that they had all been passed unanimously; that the executive had tried to get unity, and had failed, but that it must try again.19 The T.L.C. convention passed a resolution to "continue its efforts to unite all the bona-fide groups of organized labour."20 In Quebec, the government's proposed provincial labour code caused such alarm among all sections of the union movement that the provincial organizations of the T.L.C. and the C.C.L. joined with the C.C.C.L. in forming a "Joint Conference of Organized Labour of the Province of Quebec," which was to be a permanent body. This Conference demanded withdrawal of the bill, and the government complied, "for the session only."21 The Joint Conference strongly supported the C.C.C.L.'s strike at Asbestos,22 but petered out after a few years.

The year 1950 saw marked progress towards unity. In August, the presidents of the two congresses issued two joint statements, one supporting the United Nations' stand on Korea,23 the other supporting the non-operating railway unions of both congresses in their national strike.24 On August 29, the T.L.C., the C.C.L., the C.C.C.L., and the railway running trades issued a joint statement against compulsory arbitration.25 The C.C.L. convention passed a resolution calling for "the early establishment of a joint national consultative and

co-operative council which will provide an opportunity for all bona fide trade union groups in Canada to formulate common policies."26 The T.L.C. convention commended the executive for the several joint statements, and said it believed "that approval and endorsation by this Convention will inspire them to similar joint action in the future."27 Early in December, the two congresses, the C.C.C.L., and the railway running trades met, and decided on a joint campaign for the retention of rent control and the reimposition of price control.28 The presidents of the two congresses also sent a joint letter to the Prime Minister on amendment of the British North America Act.29

On February 20, 1951, the four organizations presented a joint brief on price control to the Dominion Government, and on the same day set up a consultative committee, consisting of the president or chairman of each Con- gress, of the C.C.C.L., and of the Dominion Joint Legislative Committee of the Railway Transportation Brotherhoods.30 The two congresses and their provincial federations and local councils engaged in a vigorous joint campaign on this subject.

By the end of the year, however, the whole scene had changed. The T.L.C. had withdrawn from the consultative committee. The executive council did not even report on the question of unity, probably hoping to avoid recrimina- tions; but the Committee on Officers' Reports felt obliged to make a recom-

19C.C.L. Convention Proceedings (1949), 71-2. 20T.L.C. Convention Proceedings (1949), 393. 2'Labour Gazette (1949), 247. 22Pierre Elliott Trudeau et al., La Grdve de l'amiante (Montreal, 1956), 349-50. 23Labour Gazette (1950), 1625. 24C.C.L. Convention Proceedings (1950), 35. 25Labour Gazette (1950), 1647. 26C.C.L. Convention Proceedings (1950), 89-90. 27Labour Gazette (1950), 1807. 28Labour Gazette (1951), 10. 29Ibid. (1950), 1991-2. 30C.C.L. Convention Proceedings (1951), 28-9.

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mendation. It said, first, that there had been little or no improvement in the relations either of the congresses themselves or of their provincial and local

organizations and local unions; second, that, while the other organizations had

gained considerable prestige by their association with the T.L.C., the T.L.C. had gained little; and, third, that little could be gained from the presentation of joint briefs with an organization which was affiliated with a particular political party. (This last was a-slightly inaccurate-reference to the fact that the C.C.L. had, in 1943, endorsed the C.C.F. as "the political arm of Labour," and had repeatedly reaffirmed that endorsation.) The Committee recommended that the T.L.C. adhere to the policy in force before the 1950 convention. A number of delegates spoke, both for and against the recommendation, and one moved that it be referred back. This motion was defeated, and the Committee's recommendation was adopted without a recorded vote. Later, Mr. Bengough, the President, made a statement that everyone was in favour of full unity, but that the convention was about equally divided on the particular question which had been discussed; he urged the delegates to leave the matter in the hands of the incoming executive.31 The C.C.L. convention

passed a resolution instructing its incoming executive to persist in efforts for full co-operation and organic unity.32

In 1952, a federal local union of the T.L.C. presented to the T.L.C. convention a resolution instructing the incoming executive to approach the C.C.L. and the C.C.C.L. to set up a joint labour council to co-ordinate the activities of the three organizations. The Resolutions Committee recommended non- concurrence. This provoked considerable discussion, in the course of which Mr. Bengough revealed that his dissatisfaction with the former consultative committee arose from the action of the C.C.L. in trying to persuade the Government to give it the nomination of the workers' delegate to the Inter- national Labour Organization in alternate years, and trying to have the Government let the consultative committee decide the nomination. He spoke also of jurisdictional difficulties. Four delegates supported the Committee's recommendation and six opposed it, but it was carried without a recorded vote.33 The C.C.L. convention reaffirmed its position of the previous year.34

In 1953, both congresses initiated new approaches to unity. The C.C.L. convention urged provincial federations and local councils to "establish joint meetings" with their opposite numbers in the T.L.C. and C.C.C.L. and with the running trades to "work out co-operative activities."35 The T.L.C. convention passed a resolution urging all its affiliated unions to refrain from raiding and to concentrate on organizing the unorganized, "as the first step towards closer relations and eventual organic unity between the national central bodies," and "encouraging" the incoming executive to "explore further steps . . towards this end."36

On December 7, 1953, the T.L.C. wrote the C.C.L. that it had appointed a committee, consisting of its President, two vice-presidents, and its Secretary-

31T.L.C. Convention Proceedings (1951), 265-75, 368. 32C.C.L. Convention Proceedings (1951), 938-4. 33Labour Gazette (1952), 1185; T.L.C. Convention Proceedings (1952), 387-98. 34C.C.L. Convention Proceedings (1952), 20-1. 35Ibid. (1953), 36-7. 36T.L.C. Convention Proceedings (1953), 355-60

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Treasurer to implement the 1953 convention resolution, and that this committee would be pleased to meet with a similar C.C.L. committee. The C.C.L., on December 9, responded by appointing a similar committee.7 These two became the Unity Committee which ultimately drew up the terms of the

merger between the two congresses. The first results of the Unity Committee's work were, however, much more

modest: a joint submission to the Dominion Government on unemployment, February 11, 1954, and a no-raiding agreement, reached in February, approved by the T.L.C. convention in August and the C.C.L. convention in September, and signed on November 18. Binding initially only on the directly chartered unions of each Congress (some 70,000 of the total of 957,000 members), it

"urged" the affiliated national and international unions to become parties to it, and provided for their adhesion, which, in most cases, followed. It not

only forbade raiding: it set up machinery for dealing with alleged violations. This, in the words of the joint statement announcing it, "removed a serious barrier to ultimate organic unity."38 As long as unions of the two congresses were trying to steal each others' members and each others' certifications, and as long as the trade union movement had no means of dealing with such actions itself instead of leaving them to be fought out before labour relations boards, the chances even of firm and lasting co-operation, let alone organic unity, between the central organizations were small.

On March 9, 1955, the Unity Committee reached agreement on a "statement of principles" to "govern the merger of the two Congresses." Exactly two months later, the complete merger agreement was announced. On June 1, the TL.C. convention unanimously approved the agreement, and on October 12, the C.C.L. convention did the same.39

A joint T.L.C.-C.C.L. convention, the founding convention of the new Canadian Labour Congress, met in Toronto on April 23, 1956. It ratified, with some minor changes, the constitution drafted by the Unity Committee, and the new Congress was formally launched. The convention also empowered the

incoming executive to accept affiliation of the One Big Union, and to work out terms of affiliation of the C.C.C.L. with the C.L.C.40

The O.B.U. affiliated with the C.L.C. on January 15, 1957, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen on February 7, the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen on September 1. The present position, therefore, is that the C.L.C. has in its affiliated and chartered unions just about 80 per cent of the total trade union membership in Canada. Outside it are the C.C.C.L., with about 7T per cent; the two big Communist-dominated unions (the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, and the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers), with about 4 per cent; the United Mine Workers of America (expelled from the C.C.L. shortly before the merger, for non-payment of dues), with about 2 per cent; the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and the Order of Railway Conductors and Brakemen, with less than one per cent; various "independent"

37C.C.L. Convention Proceedings (1954), R33-4. 38Ibid. (1954), 79-84; T.L.C. Convention Proceedings (1954), 77-83; Labour Gazette

(1954), 217, 1246-8, 1395, 1674. 39C.C.L. Convention Proceedings (1955), 78; T.L.C. Convention Proceedings (1955),

307; Labour Gazette (1955), 1264. 40C.L.C. Convention Proceedings (1956), 94-7.

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telephone employees' organizations, with about 2 per cent; the Operating Engi- neers, with less than one per cent; and assorted odds and ends.

Merger of the two congresses did not, of course, mean automatic merger of their provincial federations and local councils. The merger agreement provided that these were to merge "as soon as practicable, but in any event within two

years." This looked like a large order. There were dual federations in seven

provinces, and dual councils in about thirty-seven places, large and small, all across the country. As it turned out, both provincial federations and local councils carried through their mergers far faster than anyone had believed

possible; indeed, in some cases, they proceeded with such zeal and celerity that they had to be restrained from announcing local mergers before the two congresses merged! The sixteen provincial federations are now down to nine, and dual councils exist in only four places.

It might have been supposed that the merger of the two congress staffs would present difficulties. It did not. It took place without so much as a ruffle of difficulty. All the staffs of both congresses were kept on (with, of course, some reshuffling of duties and territories); and the Congress also took on the former A.F.L.-C.I.O. staffs in Canada, as part of the

arrangement for the total disappearance of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. (though not of its trade departments) from Canada. Judging from my own experience, the new Congress has so much more work to do that its difficulty has not been at all to find jobs for all the employees it inherited from its predecessors but to keep the staff from breaking under the load. Again judging from my own experience, relationships between former T.L.C. staff and former C.C.L. staff have been just as harmonious as relationships within each group before the merger. I do not mean that we never have differences. But when we do, they are no sharper than they were among ourselves before April, 1956, and we have never, to the best of my recollection, divided along lines of who belonged to which old Congress.

So much for the bare outline of the history. On the face of it, it is a rather odd history. Clearly, throughout the whole period from the T.L.C.'s expulsion of the C.I.O. unions in 1939 to the merger agreement of 1955, there was a strong desire for unity in both congresses. Why did it take so long to produce any appreciable results? And why, when unity began to come, did it come so quickly?

The difference of principle, craft versus industrial unionism, of course played a part. But it was not decisive, or even, I venture to suggest, very important. The T.L.C. had industrial unions. The C.C.L. had craft unions. The new Congress has both, and they seem to get along reasonably well. By itself, this hurdle should have been no harder to leap in 1939 than in 1955.

Jurisdictional differences played a part. But, again, they were not decisive. When the hour struck, it proved possible to negotiate a no-raiding agreement, and, later, a constitution which brought all the unions into the new Congress with their jurisdictions intact, leaving the problems of conflict of jurisdiction to be solved within the united Congress by using the machinery it provided. The arrangement that solved the jurisdictional problem in 1955 could just as well have solved it in 1939.

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Personalities played a part. But personalities always play a part. They played a part in the rows within each Congress as well as the rows between the congresses; and many of those who fought each other bitterly from opposite sides of the T.L.C.-C.C.L. barricades sat happily side by side in the merger convention, and now work happily together in the C.L.C. I do not think the evidence supplies the slightest ground for saying that personal ambitions or jealousies had any important effect in delaying unity.

Divergent policies played a part, notably divergent policies on political action. This was, I think, a more serious factor, at any rate for a time. The C.C.L., as already noted, had, in 1943, endorsed the C.C.F. as "the political arm of Labour," and had stuck to that policy through thick and thin, mainly thin. The T.L.C. had stuck firmly to the Gompers tradition of non-partisan- ship. There were people in each Congress who disliked their own organization's policy, and preferred the other's. But there never was any serious chance of getting the T.L.C. to endorse the C.C.F., or the C.C.L. to stop endorsing it. The C.C.L. was inclined to plume itself on its greater political "realism": the Gompers policy of rewarding labour's friends and punishing labour's enemies individually makes sense in a presidential-congressional democracy, where individual senators and congressmen vote as they please, and so have individual "records"; it makes no sense at all in a parliamentary democracy where individual senators don't count, and where M.P.'s, necessarily, "vote just as their leaders tell 'em to," so that only parties have records. The T.L.C., on the other hand, was equally inclined to plume itself on its political "realism": whatever the logic of the C.C.L. position, the fact that it just did not work, except by fits and starts; the election results showed that when C.C.L. members got angry enough about some particular legislative or administrative grievance, they voted C.C.F., but that as soon as the Government remedied that grievance, or even partly remedied it, they sank restfully back into the Liberal or Con- servative parties. As long as the C.C.L. thought that its policy was going to produce spectacular results in short order, and as long as the T.L.C. thought that a merger meant swallowing endorsation of the C.C.F., the rival policies on political action were undoubtedly an obstacle to unity. But as it gradually became plain that a C.C.F. government for Canada, or even for Ontario or British Columbia, was a very distant prospect, and that meanwhile both congresses, and the people they represented, were suffering from the division which enabled governments to play one off against the other, compromise became possible, and a compromise was worked out. Other things being equal, that compromise could have been worked out earlier. But other things were very far from equal.

What other things? What really held up unity so long? What allowed it to come so fast when it did come? I think there can be no question that it was the situation in the United States.

The T.L.C. had been very reluctant to throw out the C.I.O. unions. The A.F.L. threw them out in 1936, but the T.L.C. kept them in in 1936, 1937, and 1938.41 But after the Committee for Industrial Organization became, in 1938, the Congress of Industrial Organizations, thus setting the seal upon the

41T.L.C. Convention Proceedings (1939), 150-3.

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fact that it was an organization "dual" to the A.F.L., and its unions "dual" to A.F.L. unions, the T.L.C. found itself in a box. Its own constitution forbade affiliation of any union whose jurisdiction conflicted with that of a union

already affiliated; and several A.F.L. unions told it that if it kept the C.I.O. unions, they themselves would have to leave.42 Faced with the prospect of

losing the 21,000 or so Canadian members of C.I.O. unions, or perhaps 150,000 Canadian members of A.F.L. unions, it had really no choice. To keep the C.I.O. unions would have meant virtual extinction. And as long as the A.F.L. unions felt that way, the T.L.C. was in the same box.43 Not until the A.F.L. was prepared to make honest women of the C.I.O. unions could the T.L.C. take any decisive steps towards unity in Canada. Once the A.F.L. had taken that step, the T.L.C. could move as fast as it liked; and it proceeded to do so.

On November 25, 1952, the A.F.L. executive council "decided to re-activate the committee which had been appointed to meet with the C.I.O. to discuss

organic unity." On April 7, 1953, this committee met with a similar C.I.O. committee. On June 17 it "developed" (that pompous and hideously over- worked synonym for "drafted" or "worked out") a no-raiding agreement practically identical with the later agreement between the T.L.C. and the C.C.L.44 This was ratified by the A.F.L. convention on September 25, 1953.45 The Canadian no-raiding agreement followed.

On February 9, 1955, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. Unity Committee reached a "merger agreement," and on November 30 an "implementation agreement."46 The Cana- dian agreement, covering both principles and implementation, appeared, as

already noted, on March 9 and May 9, 1955. The A.F.L. and C.I.O. merged in December, 1955. The T.L.C. and C.C.L. merged in April, 1956.

The split in Canada in 1939 was a by-product of the split in the United States. But the reunion in Canada in 1956 was not simply a by-product of the reunion in the United States. Without the reunion in the United States, it could not have taken place, or at any rate not when it did. But the Canadian

merger was far from being a mere carbon copy of the American. There were some very marked differences.

First, the name: the Americans nearly came to grief over this, and finally could manage nothing better than the cumbrous "American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations"; the T.L.C. and C.C.L. had no difficulty agreeing on a single name, "Canadian Labour Congress," which had the double advantage of recalling the name and history of the C.C.L., and of being a former name of the T.L.C. itself. "What's in a name?" In this in- stance, I think, a good deal. The single name in Canada symbolizes the more

thorough unity which I believe we have achieved here.

42Ibid. 43Note the collapse of the American United Labor Policy Committee in the fall of

1951: Monthly Labor Review (U.S. Dept. of Labor, Sept., 1951), iii. 44A.F.L. Convention Proceedings (1953), 82-9. 45Ibid., 634-5. 46Resolution on Achievement of Labor Unity (no date; apparently presented to the

final A.F.L. and C. I. 0. conventions, 1955).

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Second, the per capita dues: in the United States, the A.F.L. succeeded in keeping them to 4 cents per member; in Canada, the T.L.C. and C.C.L. com- promised at 7 cents, 3 cents above the old T.L.C. dues, and 3 cents below the old C.C.L. dues. This, again, may seem a small point; but in a geographically vast, and thinly peopled, country like ours, it may make the difference between an effective central organization and an ineffective one. Actually, there is not the smallest doubt that the C.L.C. would find itself completely unable to do its job on 4 cents per member. The 7 cents is proving little enough.

Third, the presence in the A.F.L.-C.I.O., and the absence from the C.L.C., of an industrial union department: the A.F.L.-C.I.O. constitution not only provides for this Department but endows it with certain net assets of the C.I.O. plus any amount required to bring them up to $1,238,536.47

Fourth, the officers: the A.F.L.-C.I.O. has two executive officers-a president and a secretary-treasurer, both drawn initially from the A.F.L.; the C.L.C. has three executive officers-a president, an executive vice-president, and a secretary-treasurer, the first two drawn initially from the T.L.C., and the third from the C.C.L.48

Fifth, a whole series of provisions for the government of the new organizations.

In the United States, the two executive officers plus six vice-presidents (initially, three from the A.F.L., three from the C.I.O.) constitute the executive committee, which is not executive at all but purely advisory to the executive officers. In Canada, the three executive officers constitute the executive committee, which is a real executive. In the United States, the executive council, governing body of the organization between the biennial conventions, consists of the executive committee plus twenty-one other vice- presidents (initially, fourteen from the A.F.L., seven from the C.I.O.). In Canada, the executive council consists of the executive committee plus thirteen vice-presidents (initially, seven from the T.L.C., six from the C.C.L.). In the United States, therefore, the council has nineteen members from the A.F.L. and ten from the C.I.O. In the United States, the constitution does not specify regional representation. In Canada, it does: two vice-presidents from British Columbia, two from the Prairies, four from Ontario, three from Quebec, two from the Atlantic provinces. In the United States, the general board, which meets in the years when there is no convention, consists of the council plus the chief officer of every affiliated union, plus the head of each of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. trade and industrial departments; and this board "decides all policy questions referred to it by the Executive Officers or the Executive Council." In Canada, the general board, meeting also in the off years, consists of the council plus "a designated representative" of every affiliated union or organizing committee; and the board decides nothing: it "functions in an advisory and consultative capacity" (and at its first meeting found it could not even pass resolutions). In the United States, the constitution

47Ibid., p. 8, s. 4, and p. 34, s. 2. 48Canadian Merger Agreement, p. 3, s. 2 (g); Resolution on Achievement of Labor

Unity, p. 18, art. V (1).

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specifies that the first director of organization shall come from the C.I.O. In Canada, the constitution does not specify where any director shall come from.49

I think it is evident that the differences between the two mergers are important, if not decisive, and that ours is the "more perfect union" of the two

predecessor organizations, probably because the C.C.L. was more nearly equal to the T.L.C. in power than the C.I.O. was to the A.F.L. That the two Canadian movements have really merged more completely than the two American is borne out by the greater ease and speed with which the Canadian

provincial and local organizations have merged. In the United States, some of the most important state and local organizations still have not merged, and it has taken immense effort from the centre to move even as far as they have.

What are the implications of all this? One, I think, is clear; the rest are

largely guess-work. The one clear implication is the complete autonomy of the new C.L.C.

The old C.C.L. was completely autonomous. Its constitution said so, plainly. It was not obliged to take in Canadian branches of any C.I.O. union; it refused several. It was not obliged to keep Canadian branches of any C.I.O. union it did take in; it threw out Mine, Mill some time before the C.I.O. did, and for different reasons. It was not obliged to throw out any union that left the C.I.O.; the Mine Workers went out of the C.I.O., into the A.F.L., and out of the A.F.L. again, but stayed with the C.C.L. all through these changes and chances. So for some time, the chief executive officer of the C.C.L. was a member of an A.F.L. union; and for almost fifteen years, while the Mine Workers and the C.I.O. were at daggers drawn in the United States, the Canadian districts of the Mine Workers not only worked happily with the C.C.L. but played a leading part in it.

The autonomy of the T.L.C. was, formally, less complete. It had, as we have seen, a clause in its constitution which linked it to the A.F.L.; and it had been

obliged to throw out the Canadian branches of C.I.O. unions. Besides, the A.F.L. had Canadian locals and a Canadian staff, who were not part of the T.L.C. or connected with it in any way; and the first collective agreement at Kitimat was made by A.F.L. organizations: the T.L.C. had no say at all.

Thirty-odd years ago, indeed, when I was a student at McGill, I was told, in the course on "Labour Problems," that the T.L.C. was just a Canadian

legislative committee of the A.F.L. But in recent years, this had certainly ceased to be true. When the A.F.L., in 1946, tried to get the T.L.C. to throw out the Machinists (who were temporarily out of the A.F.L.), Mr. Bengough, a Machinist himself, refused, and the T.L.C. backed him up enthusiastically.50 Mr. Bengough also put the T.L.C. on the map by creating a series of departments, and appointing an organizing staff; and the T.L.C. became steadily more and more assertive of its rights as an autonomous Canadian central organization.

49Canadian Merger Agreement, p. 8 s. 2 (e), (f), (i), (j) and (m). Resolution on Achievement of Labor Unity, pp. 6-7, s. 3 (b), (c), (e), (f), and (g); p. 21, art. VIII (1) and (2); p. 23, art. IX and art. X (1); and p. 24, art. XI (2).

50Labour Gazette (1946), 1881.

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So, by the time the merger agreement was drawn up, both congresses were ,determined that the new congress should be fully independent, with no strings of any kind; the very first of the fifteen "principles" of the merger agreement said so, unequivocally;51 and with the appearance of the C.L.C., the A.F.L. unions and staff in Canada disappeared. The A.F.L. locals became C.L.C. locals, and the A.F.L. staff were absorbed by the C.L.C.

The overwhelming majority of Canadian unionists belong to international unions, with headquarters in the United States. That is how it has been, is now, and will be as far ahead as I can see. But the C.L.C. runs its own affairs, and often (notably on political action and on foreign policy) follows a completely different line from the A.F.L.-C.I.O. The Canadian branches of international unions also run their own affairs, with one qualification: that strikes usually require the consent of the international office, which must foot the bill, and naturally cannot undertake to issue blank cheques to its Canadian locals. Practically all the rest of the chatter about "American control" is eyewash, spouting from pure ignorance.52

I said the other "implications" of the merger were guess-work. I should perhaps make one more exception. Some people are afraid the C.L.C., especially if the C.C.C.L. joins, will become a "labour monopoly." It won't, because it can't. The Congress does not bargain. It has a few directly chartered locals which do, but they have only a handful of members, and the Congress cannot "order" even these to demand anything, let alone strike to get it. The Congress, in fact, cannot "order" anybody to do anything. The people who do the demanding and bargaining, and the striking (if there is any), are the locals of the affiliated national and international unions; and those unions are as fiercely jealous of their autonomy as Mr. Duplessis of his. A merger of two competing unions in a particular craft or industry could, if it had enough members-a very big if in most cases in Canada-exert a very powerful influence on the price of labour in that craft or industry; but that was just as true before the merger of the two congresses as it is now; and mergers between competing unions are harder than between competing congresses. They have certainly been made easier by the merger between the congresses, but it will be a very long time before unions in most crafts or industries in Canada will be in a position to dictate the price of their members' services.

Anyone who really thinks a single Canadian Labour Congress means a labour monopoly should ask himself whether a single Canadian Manu- facturers' Association means a manufacturing monopoly, or a single Canadian Chamber of Commerce, a business monopoly, or a single Canadian Retail Merchants' Association, a retail trade monopoly. All these are federations for certain limited purposes. So is the C.L.C. The typical middle-class notions of the powers of any central labour organization in this country are pure fantasy.

Another "implication" which some people see, and shudder at, is the Congress' immense political power, especially if the C.C.C.L. comes in.

51Canadian Merger Agreement, p. 2, s. 1 (a). 52See the Joint T.L.C.-C.C.L. Brief to the Gordon Commission, 30-5.

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The C.L.C. is already the largest secular organization in the country. If the C.C.C.L. comes in it will have 1,150,000 members. That could mean

perhaps two million votes out of nine million or so. Two million voters

swaying like reeds in the wind at the breath of Mr. Jodoin sounds pretty formidable. But Mr. Jodoin hasn't the necessary breath, and the reeds wouldn't sway if he had. They aren't reeds: they are free men and women.

In the first place, again, the Congress has no power to "order" anyone to do anything: strike, vote, or anything else. All it can do is, as Bagehot said of Queen Victoria, "encourage, advise and warn."

Second, it has, as yet, not even any clear, definite advice to offer. It has, indeed, a "platform of principles," which is a combination of the (surprisingly similar) platforms of the two old congresses.53 But its present policy on

political education and action is a dextrous compromise which, in effect, leaves every union, every provincial federation, every local council, to gang its ain gait politically, or not to gang at all.54 Some affiliated unions endorse the C.C.F.; most do not; some are forbidden, by their own constitutions, even to discuss politics. Two provincial federations, and a few local councils, endorse the C.C.F.; most do not.

Third, even if the Congress does ultimately decide on a definite line of

political action-backing one party, regularly, or swinging from party to party, as specific issues may seem to dictate-and even if all, or most, of the unions follow that line (which experience suggests they will not), it does not follow that the union members will pay any attention whatever. They might; but

they might go on voting as Quebecers or Maritimers, French Canadians or English Canadians, Roman Catholics or Protestants, Liberals or Conservatives, or just plain individuals, rather than as trade unionists. Ethnic or sectional or sectarian or family loyalties might prove far more powerful than economic interests, real or imputed.

I don't know where the C.L.C. will end up politically. I doubt if anyone does. It might take some time to end up anywhere. I certainly know of no reason for believing that wherever or whenever it ends up politically it will necessarily carry the "labour vote" with it. M.P.'s of any political party must, under our system of government, "vote just as their leaders tell 'em to." Trade unionists don't have to, and they don't do it. Whether even a majority of them ever will, in this country, remains to be seen. I am certain a lot of them never will; and I doubt if the majority will, in the near future, back any particular party unless goaded to it by direct and sustained attacks by other parties. A bad enough government could drive practically the whole labour vote into one camp; but any government that did "would be at once insane and vicious."

Some may say that the Congress can't deliver the vote, but it can deliver its colossal funds to the party of its choice. So far, there is no party of its choice. But if there were, it could deliver no "colossal funds" because it has no colossal funds. Seven cents per member per month, on 1,150,000 members, adds up to rather less than $1,000,000 a year. That has to finance the activities of a considerable staff, strung out across a huge territory. It leaves a very small margin, if any, for anything but essentials, as anyone who looks at our

53C.L.C. Convention Proceedings (1956), 103-4. 54Ibid., 49.

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published accounts can see. And getting an increase in per capita dues from the unions is like pulling teeth.

I am not saying that the merger will have no political effect. I think it will. Governments can no longer play "divide and conquer" quite so easily. Labour can presumably present its case more effectively than before. It can presumably mobilize more support for it. Governments will presumably pay more attention. What I am saying is that the political roof isn't going to fall in just because there is now one congress instead of two. The labour vote is there, and it is important. But so it was two years ago. The essential political factors remain very much what they were.

There is just one other "implication" I want to say something about. It is one that most trade unionists are saying a great deal about: the organization of the unorganized. About two-thirds of Canadian workers are still outside the unions. The wage-earners in the big enterprises and the big places are pretty well in; the salaried workers, and the wage-earners in small enterprises and small places, are not. They are going to be much harder to get in. The merger of the two congresses is going to make it easier than it was because the two will not be wasting time, money, and energy reorganizing the organized: stealing each other's members. But the merger does not solve the problem, not by a long shot. The C.L.C. itself has only a relatively few organizers, and very limited funds. Most of the job will have to be done, as before, by the affiliated unions. The Congress can, again, "encourage, advise and warn"; it can help to co-ordinate the unions' efforts. It can make special appeals for funds to help particular drives. But the mere creation of one congress out of two is no magic wand which will waft two million unorganized workers into the unions overnight, or overyear.

There are, no doubt, other implications of the movement towards labour unity in Canada. But I think those are the main ones. I have been perhaps indiscreetly frank about them. I may have seemed to be giving aid and comfort to the enemy by insisting on the limitations on the powers of any central organization in this country. But the limitations are there, for good or ill. We may as well recognize them, and look at the situation soberly and realistically, instead of being exhilarated, or scared, out of our wits, by what is certainly an important and exciting evolution, but very far from a revolution. If any employer thinks I have assured him the C.L.C. really means nothing and can do nothing, he is in for some rude shocks. If any union member thinks I have preached with insufficient zeal, I can only say I was not asked to preach and did not try to. I was asked to expound, and I have tried to. That is my answer also to the scholars, who may think I have preached, and with "horrid enthu- siasm." Perhaps I have merely succeeded in showing myself an academic among trade unionists and a trade unionist among academics. If so, I pray that the fault may be imputed to me, and not to the Congress, whose servant I am.

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the movement towards labour unity in canada: history and implications

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