Canadian Auto Workers Research Articles

Negotiating job security and capital investments in response to deindustrialization: the case of Canada’s auto sector

ABSTRACT Job security has always been a paramount concern for the trade union movement. This article explores the ways that unions used collective bargaining to gain a measure of job security for their members in the face of deindustrialization as unionized factories in North America began to close in large numbers after the 1970s. These new measures included advance notice, severance pay, plant closing moratoria, restrictions placed on plant movements, transfer rights, and expanding the scope of collective ‘social’ bargaining to cover training and adjustment. In some sectors, such as automotive, collective bargaining has also been extended into areas normally left to management. The price was often high. Eventually some unions, notably the Canadian Auto Workers (established 1985; part of Unifor after 2013), prioritized winning new capital investments and product lines for unionized plants in their negotiations, though often at the cost of jobs, wage freezes or reductions, and other concessions. By focusing upon auto sector deindustrialization in Canada since the 1980s, we draw lessons from more recent union bargaining strategies, and how they constitute an important element of worker responses to industrial job loss and manufacturing closure.

The Struggle to Decommodify the Service Sector: The Canadian Auto Workers and the Casino Industry

Research objective: Through relatively higher unionization rates within the casino industry, casino employment provides a counterexample to the connection between low-skill service work and low wages. The existing literature, however, suggests that casino workers embrace a commodified vision of their labour. It is of interest to understand whether and how unions are successful in decommodifying both ideologically and materially, wage entitlements in this expanding industry as this is a main mechanism through which unions challenge income inequality. This article examines the Canadian Auto Workers’ (CAW) attempt to decommodify wages in the casino industry.Methodology: These findings are based on a case study of Casino Windsor, located in Windsor, Ontario—the automotive capital of Canada and the first city to host a resort casino outside of Atlantic City and Las Vegas. Ninety-one interviews were conducted with Windsor stakeholders (20), and automotive (43) and casino (28) workers. The local newspaper from 1994-2014 is also examined and descriptive statistics are utilized.Results: Casino workers initially did adopt a decommodified vision of wage entitlements; yet, due to political—the New Democratic Party of Ontario—and institutional—low sectoral union density—forces, casino workers during 2014-2015 interviews embrace aservice mindwhere wages are determined by a market-oriented human capital model.Conclusions: CAW union representatives and the casino membership now view the CAW’s attempt to bring anindustrial mindsetinto the casino as a mistake, naturalizing the link between decommodified wages in automotive manufacturing and the market-oriented wage entitlements of the service sector. This case study marks a critical lost opportunity by the CAW to decommodify wage entitlements in the casino industry and the broader service sector.

"Caterpillar Hates Unions More Than It Loves Profits": The Electro-Motive Closure and the Dilemmas of Union Strategy

The February 2012 closure of London, Ontario's Electro-Motive Diesel by the notoriously anti-union US multinational Caterpillar symbolizes the deep challenges faced by private sector unions in globalized industries. This closure was the final blow in Caterpillar's negotiations with Canadian Auto Workers Local 27. This article explores the implications of changes in corporate structure, investment, and labour-relations strategy in manufacturing that have reduced capital's dependence on production and increased corporate power over workers. Through a detailed case study based on extensive analysis of a range of sources, the authors argue that union strategy must be guided by a more differentiated understanding of corporate structure. While unions can effectively mobilize in response to attacks by anti-union employers, union strategy must first be rooted in a careful study of the employer's structure, strengths and weaknesses, and industry context. Second, unions must develop capacities to intervene at scales beyond the local employment relationship and community. Third, unions must consider more carefully the nature of the various forms of power they seek to deploy and how these forms of power can amplify each other. Even the most effective campaigns will fail to muster leverage over an employer or industry if they neglect developing these forms of knowledge and capacity.

Occupational health and safety in China

Page 8 Volume 22 Issue 4 2015 INTERNATIONAL union rights FOCUS ❐ LABOUR SITUATION IN CHINA Workers’ Rights The 2002 Work Safety Law provided for significant worker rights including the right to know about hazards and to suggest remedies, the right to inform against, criticise and accuse, the right to refuse unsafe work, to stop dangerous work and leave the workplace, the right of protection from discipline, the right to compensation, and the right to education and training. The Work Safety Law specifies that all labour contracts must clearly identify and cover work safety issues, including references to measures to prevent occupational hazards and details of any statutorily required insurance program relating to workplace injuries.Expanded requirements for worker education and training are in the amendments. This education and training must be conducted and logged (content, time, attendees and evaluation ) by the safety supervisor so government supervisors can evaluate compliance. Employers are required to ensure dispatched workers and interns receive education and training. Role of Trade Union Article 7 of the Work Safety Law stipulates the trade union’s role in safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of workers in work safety and in supervising work safety by making arrangements for employees to participate in the democratic management of and supervision over work safety in their workplace. Employers must solicit opinions from their trade unions in formulating or revising rules and systems related to work safety. Article 52 of the statute gives extensive rights to the union to participate in and have input into the design, construction and commissioning of safety facilities and construction projects. When unions discover life-threatening situations they have the right to put forward suggestions for remedies and the employer must respond in a timely manner. They have the right to demand employers set right their violations of work safety laws and regulations and infringements of workers’ rights. The union has the right to advise the employer to rectify dangerous situations, rectify orders or directions that violate safety rules or regulations or create risk and rectify hidden dangers that may lead to accidents. The employer must give a timely reply to the union’s advice. If workers’ lives are threatened, the union has the right to suggest organised evacuation of the workplace and the employer must deal with such situations immediately. The new amendments expand the union’s role to participate in accident investigations and to suggest the authorities investigate the people involved. The industrial revolution that took Europe centuries to develop, took only decades in China, but at what price? CATHY WALKER, retired Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Director, Canadian Auto Workers Union (now Unifor) C hina’s ‘economic miracle’, which began in 1979 with the ascension of Deng Xiaoping as head of the country, has been achieved with great cost to China’s workers. The industrial revolution that began in Britain with the Enclosure Acts forcing peasants to the cities to become the new industrial proletariat was at a snail’s pace by comparison. What took Europe centuries to develop, China took only decades. But what a terrible price to pay for the more than 250 million Chinese peasants who migrated to the cities in search of work after the end of the commune system in the countryside in 1980. We have all heard how many Chinese workers are killed at one time in coal mine explosions, factory fires and the like. The statistics mirror the early days of industrial development in Europe and North America. According to SAWS (State Administration of Work Safety), in 2013 there were more than 270,000 accidents in which 2,549 people died. SAWS also reports that the death rate for every million metric ton of coal produced in 2013 was 0.288, 10 times higher than the death rate in developed countries. The death rate from catastrophic incidents is dwarfed by deaths from occupational disease, especially from coal miners’ pneumoconiosis (black lung). According to China’s Ministry of Health, between 2005 and 2010 there were 750,000 cases of occupational disease. And occupational disease is notoriously underreported in China as it is in every country. New OHS Laws and Amendments It is therefore heartening to see that there...

“Nervous nellies and nay-sayers”: Social movements and Canada-United States free trade

Free trade is part of neo-liberal economics, which is centred on the free market principles of limited government regulation and private sector competition. Free trade focuses on the elimination of trade barriers and tariffs. In Canada, the movement toward free trade began in 1985 with the Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada, which encouraged free trade between the United States and Canada, and concluded with the 1988 federal election that sealed Canada’s fate within economic union with the United States. This article will combine a Neo-Marxist and Political Process Theory framework to address how during the period from 1985 to 1988, Canadian social movements adopted innovative tactics and mobilized against free trade to gain greater influence over trade policy.
 
 Keywords: free trade; social movements; Canada; United States; Auto Pact; United Steel Workers; Canadian Auto Workers, National Action Committee on the Status of Women; Council of Canadians; Macdonald Commission

Does fighting back still matter? The Canadian autoworkers, capitalist crisis and confrontation

This article examines the round of collective bargaining that took place between the Canadian Autoworkers (CAW), Canada’s largest private-sector union, and the ‘Big Three’ auto manufacturers (Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors) during the most recent crisis of capitalism (sometimes popularly referred to as the ‘Great Recession’). During this round of bargaining, the union made concessions in order to secure production; the article argues what while this may have represented a short-term success, in the long run the union has implicitly bought into the logics of neoliberalism, which will have disastrous consequences for both the union and the larger labour movement.

Coordinated Strategic Voting in the 2008 Federal Election

In the 2008 federal election there were many attempts to coordinate strategic voting. Rather than treating voting as an individual action, groups attempted to coordinate voters into defeating the incumbent Conservative government. This article focuses on the strategies of two of the groups in question: the Canadian Auto Workers campaign and Danny Williams' “Anything But Conservative” campaign. The article outlines what is required for a successful strategic voting campaign: a clearly articulated national outcome which overshadows local issues, the ability for voters to identify a strategic candidate, and sustained campaigning by the groups in question.

The business case: collaborating to help employees maintain their mental well-being.

There has been a change in the mindset of businesses in recent years. Companies are starting to realize that proactively helping their employees to maintain mental health is beneficial, both for their workers and their business. In this article, we present three different but complementary views - those of an advocate, an employer and a provider - on helping employees maintain mental, and physical, health. In the first section, Sari Sairanen outlines programs and services to manage stress and maintain mental health that have been developed by the Canadian Auto Workers' union and implemented in partnership with employers, wellness providers, service agencies and other community partners. The union focuses on raising awareness and providing education, as well as removing the stigma associated with mental illness. Deanna Matzanke, in her section, discusses the commitment of a company, Scotiabank, to create and maintain an inclusive and accessible workplace for all its employees. It has recently worked with providers to develop and implement integrated services dealing specifically with mental health illness and addiction, which aid not only its current employees but also possible future employees. Finally, Doug Smeall shares his observations as an insurer at Sun Life Financial, who has seen the rates of both short-term and long-term disabilities increase. He elaborates on the collaborative work between insurers and employers to help employees maintain their mental health, and to return to work sooner when issues do occur. Ultimately, this article argues that unions, employers and insurers can work together with partners and employees to promote and maintain employee health because, as Sairanen asserts, "preventing a problem in the first place is the best strategy."

Al Campbell and the Left: Building UAW/CAW Local 27

The role of the Left in unions, women’s activism, and the rise of industrial unions in the post-World War II decades have been the subject of valuable academic scrutiny. This article seeks to add to our understanding of these topics by looking at the role that one prominent activist—Al Campbell—played in building UAW/CAW Local 27 from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s. Campbell strongly advocated an independent Canadian autowork ers’ union, supported women’s activism, and was instrumental in helping expand a major composite local in the union. I argue in this article that, in order to understand the nature of the post-war Canadian labour movement, we need to devote greater attention to the role of devoted leftists in building local unions.

Changing the Climate: Ecoliberalism, Green New Dealism, and the Struggle over Green Jobs in Canada

Labor-environmentalism has been a strategic response of Canadian unions to the dual manufacturing and climate-change crisis. Important ideological work led organized labor in Canada to endorse the Kyoto Protocol. But the deepening manufacturing crisis of the 2000s tested the resolve of unions to challenge the “jobs-versus-the-environment” dichotomy and to support stringent greenhouse gas emissions reductions. I explain contrasting responses of the Canadian Auto Workers and the United Steelworkers. I critique the dominant discourse of ecological modernization championed by the state-capital alliance for being neoliberal, and evaluate the degree to which this is challenged by the USW’s call for a Green New Deal.

Canadian Autoworkers, the Climate Crisis, and the Contradictions of Social Unionism

This article explores the contradictions in the Canadian Auto Workers Union’s (CAW) approach to environmental issues, particularly climate change. Despite being one of the Canadian labor movement’s leading proponents of social unionism— understood as a union ethos committed to working-class interests beyond the workplace, and a strategic repertoire that involves community-union alliances— the CAW’s environmental activism demonstrates the contradictory way that social unionism can be understood and practiced by unions. Through a critical discourse analysis of CAW policy documents and leadership statements, we show the union has not reframed its bargaining demands to emphasize both economically and environmentally sustainable production. Instead, the CAW’s relatively uncritical defense of the North American auto industry and the jobs it provides, despite the clearly negative role such production plays in the climate crisis, its acceptance of the structures of automobility, and its emphasis on environmental issues that have little to do with the nature of their industry, indicates the way that social unionism can be an add-on rather than a fundamental reorientation of a union’s role and purpose. We argue that, for social unionist environmental activism to be effective, the CAW must incorporate social unionist goals and analyses into their bargaining priorities, and confront the contradictions between their members’ interests as autoworkers, on the one hand, and as workers and global citizens who require economically and environmentally sustainable livelihoods, on the other.

Industrial Voluntarism in Canada

The term “industrial voluntarism” has been used to describe the norm that dominated union organizing and, more broadly, union-management relations in Canada during most of the first half of the 20th century. In practical terms, the principle defines situations in which unions and employers initiate, develop, and enforce agreements without state assistance or compulsion. This paper investigates the history of voluntarism in Canada with attention to post-war legal accommodations and various manifestations of voluntarism related to union recognition. We show how aspects of the Framework of Fairness Agreement (FFA) negotiated between Magna International and the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) in 2007 is informed by industrial voluntarism. The FFA facilitates voluntary recognition of CAW locals at Magna plants in exchange for a no-strike promise and acceptance of many features of Magna’s existing human resource management system. Overall, the historical and contemporary evidence show that voluntarism continues to manifest in different forms in response to changing labour relations conditions.

Who Will Fight for Us? Union Designated Women’s Advocates in Auto Manufacturing Workplaces

Women’s employment in traditionally male manufacturing jobs is hindered by both formal and informal structures (Levine 2009). In light of recent recession-based changes in the Ontario economy, it is becoming more important for women to maintain well-paying manufacturing employment. Women face different challenges in the home and workplace than men. This paper investigates the Canadian Auto Workers’ (CAW) Union’s unique women’s advocacy program, as a promising mechanism to secure women’s safety at home and at work, while protecting their employment status. Drawing on ethnographic research with women auto workers and union women, our findings suggest that the CAW’s women’s advocacy program is innovative and beneficial in maintaining women’s employment as they attend to personal problems. This program can be extended throughout other locals and unions to assist women dealing with violence and other issues related to work-life experience.

Blue-Collar Aristocrats? General Motors Autoworkers and Oppositional Class Consciousness

Postwar social theorists (Goldthorpe, Lipset, Giddens, Hout, Brooks and Manza) have typically portrayed members of the Western industrial working-class as accommodative and suggest that an affluent proletariat has seen its oppositional working-class consciousness subverted and transformed by the ‘cash nexus’ into various forms of social integration. With reference to Mann's (1973) measures of class-consciousness I explore expressions of proletarian consciousness among organized workers at one of Canada's largest industrial union locals, the Canadian Auto Workers Local 222 of General Motors, Oshawa, Canada. Here I tested for the existence and degree of working-class imagery, proletarian identity and oppositional working-class consciousness using a survey questionnaire (N=102), in-depth interviews and participant observation. I found a shared view of class relations as primarily characterized by conflict, a clear working-class self-identification and measurable forms of oppositional working-class consciousness among this group. My findings confirm the hypothesis that Oshawa autoworkers' relative material advantage is insufficient to completely transform their proletarian consciousness. In this context I discuss the 1996 Oshawa plant occupation as an example of elevated oppositional class consciousness among Oshawa autoworkers.

“We Simply Have to Do that Stuff for our Survival”: Labour, Firm Innovation and Cluster Governance in the Canadian Automotive Parts Industry

AbstractBased on a case study of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) union in southern Ontario we argue for a critical reconstruction of both the labour geography and industrial cluster literature. The former stresses the active role of labour in the formation of economic landscapes, but has yet to explore labour's agency in production and how labour institutions shape technological change, firm innovation and industrial policy and strategy. Conversely, much of the industrial cluster and regional innovation systems literature is silent on the role of unions and industrial relations institutions in fostering innovation. We conclude with two main points. First, while some contend that positive union roles in innovation can only stem from partnerships with management and team working, we argue that innovation is more likely to emerge and worker interests are better protected when traditional collective bargaining structures and progressive employment legislation play a central role. Second, positive workplace and cluster level cooperation in the Canadian automotive parts industry are jeopardized by the broader and ongoing macro‐economic restructuring of OEM global production networks due to over‐capacity and intense cost‐cutting pressures reverberating down the supply chain.

Moody's Account of Social Movement Unionism: An Analysis

Social movement unionism is becoming the strategy/ideology that North American unions should adopt. The most influential account of social movement unionism is that by Kim Moody. However, there has been very few systematic analysis of his work. This article analyzes Moody's account of social movement unionism by examining three crucial aspects of his argument: the importance of union democracy, union alliances with social movements, and the role of the rank-and-file. Furthermore, by analysing the Canadian Auto Workers (a social movement union) I argue that a social movement union under Moody's account has had success in organizing proportionally more new members, and achieving a better collective bargaining agreement than business unions.

Union Democracy and Union Renewal

Unions in the current environment are facing renewed pressures to demonstrate internal democracy and accountability. In this context, the Public Review Board (PRB) of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) deserves attention. The PRB is a unique institution within the Canadian labour movement: a body outside the union which has the power to make final and binding decisions on issues raised by union members. This paper considers the contribution of the PRB as a support for democratic renewal. The evolution of the PRB, from its origin in 1950s America to its current Canadian embodiment, is described. The decisions of the PRB over its two-decade history in Canada are analyzed and assessed. While recognizing the lasting influence of the narrow, procedural vision charted by the PRB early in its history, the author concludes that the CAW’s PRB is an innovation that merits wider recognition.

Does “fighting back” make a difference? The case of the Canadian auto workers union

Union revitalization requires mutually reinforcing efforts in organizing, political action, and collective bargaining. We examine the experience of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW). In addition to membership growth, three bargaining outcomes are analyzed: (1) wage gains; (2) the ability to resist a trend towards longer duration collective agreements; and, (3) success in negotiating same-sex spousal recognition. In each of these areas the CAW has articulated a policy and then made gains in both absolute and relative terms. The CAW’s renewal strategy links these bargaining goals with social activism and membership growth through mergers and new organizing.

Participatory mapping of occupational hazards and disease among asbestos-exposed workers from a foundry and insulation complex in Canada.

A study of former asbestos-exposed foundry and insulation workers was carried out in Sarnia, Ontario, home to Canada's petrochemical industry, using participatory mapping to document past exposures and subsequent diseases. Before it closed, government inspectors had monitored the use of asbestos at the facility, documenting levels that were thousands of times above the current legal limit. The study was undertaken by the Occupational Health Clinics for Ontario Workers (OHCOW) and Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) to provide evidence for worker compensation claims. Using facilitated hazard mapping, former Holmes workers graphically reconstructed their workplaces and detailed their exposures. Using facilitated body mapping, workers recorded and displayed their health problems. The study uncovered a grim pattern of occupational diseases. Following the release of the results, coupled with clinically confirmed diagnoses and corroborating evidence of exposure, hundreds of former Holmes employees and their families received compensation for occupational diseases that had previously gone unrecognized.

Re-scaling collective bargaining: union responses to restructuring in the North American auto industry

Historically, political struggles to define the geographical scale at which labour relations and collective bargaining will be conducted have been of crucial significance to the labour movement. Today, workers and their unions face very difficult challenges. In many manufacturing industries changes in the organizational structure of production at different geographical scales have undermined the effectiveness of the organizing and collective bargaining strategies associated with traditional industrial unionism. This paper focuses on collective bargaining strategies developed by North American autoworkers’ unions to respond to the extensive restructuring of the automotive industry that took place during the 1990s. These strategies include innovations in the structure and content of collective bargaining and efforts to redefine the scale at which collective bargaining takes place. Following a brief discussion of the challenge posed by the integration of Mexico into a continent-wide production system, the analysis focuses on the strategies devised by the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) union during the 1996 and 1999 rounds of collective bargaining to address issues raised by outsourcing and modular manufacturing. With outsourcing, the automakers are not so much eliminating jobs as they are deciding who gets to do them, at what price, and under what working conditions. With modular manufacturing, the organizational boundaries between firms are blurring and the terms and conditions of work in one firm arguably are becoming dependent upon management decisions made in another firm. The CAW’s response has been to develop new collective bargaining strategies including the concepts of ‘work ownership’ and ‘satellite bargaining’ which involves redefining the traditional geographical extent of the bargaining unit. While the empirical focus is on the North American automobile industry, the general issues related to the re-scaling of production, and especially outsourcing and modular manufacturing, are common across a range of manufacturing industries.