Canadian Auto Workers Research Articles

Report from Morelia: Towards the Formation of “The Observatory of the Americas”

The “First Conference on Occupational and Environmental Health under the Framework of Integration of the Americas” was held on August 13-16, 2000 at the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolas de Hidalgo, Morelia, state of Michoacan, Mexico. The conference had two broad and related purposes. The first was to bring together representatives from academia, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), labor unions, as well as public policy-makers, from South, Central, and North America to exchange information and views about worker and community health in the region of the Americas. While not completely successful in this effort, as most of those attending were health and safety professionals, participants also included representatives from Mexican and U.S. community groups and environmental coalitions as well as others from the Canadian Auto Workers, Canada’s largest private sector labor union. The second purpose of the conference was to lay the foundation for the creation of a permanent and on-going “Observatory of the Americas.” The Observatory is envisioned as a network of professionals and activists in occupational and environmental health that would serve as a tool for international cooperation and solidarity among the different institutions and efforts taking place in the Americas

Free Trade: Risks and Rewards

Free Trade provides a historical framework for ongoing discussion of economic and environmental issues. While there is empirical evidence on trade flows - they increased dramatically in both directions - the debate on related issues continues. The impact of free trade on jobs and manufacturing productivity, the effectiveness of dispute settlement, the growth of foreign direct investment, the absence of adjustment programs, and the consequences for social programs are all issues for spirited discussion. Many of the leading actors in shaping both the FTA and NAFTA participated in the conference, including former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, former President George Bush, former U.S. Treasury Secretary and Secretary of State James Baker, former Canadian Trade Ministers John Crosbie and Michael Wilson, former U.S. Trade Ambassadors Clayton Yeutter and Carla Hills, as well as former Mexican Trade Minister Jaime Serra Puche. Other senior officials included Canada's Derek Burney and Simon Reisman. Donald S. Macdonald, chairman of the landmark Royal Commission that recommended the leap of faith of free trade, gave the keynote address. A Royal Bank of Canada impact study, Two Cheers for the FTA, provided a baseline for discussion by a panel of eminent economists from all three NAFTA countries, and strong defences of positions against free trade included presentations by Andrew Jackson of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), Jim Stanford of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW), and Gerald Larose of Quebec's Conseil des syndicats nationaux (CSN). Participants from the provinces included former Ontario Premier Bob Rae, while NAFTA and the environment were considered by a panel led by former Quebec Premier Pierre Marc Johnson and joined by Quebec Liberal Leader Jean Charest. Other participants included Jean Anderson, Laurent Beaudoin, Fernando Clavijo, Thomas d'Aquino, William Dymond, Francis Fox, Jonathan Fried, Michael Hart, Stanley Hartt, Richard Lipsey, Victor Lichtinger, John McCallum, Peter McPherson, Jacques Menard, William Merkin, Simon Potter, Charles E. Roh, David Schorr, Charles Sirois, Guy Stanley, Yvonne Stinson, Peter Watson, William Watson, L.R. Wilson, and Paul Wonnacott. Free Trade: Risks and Rewards is an important reminder of why the issue was so passionately debated at the time and why it remains important.

The Perverse Realities of “Paper” in a Money-Driven Economy

Just think. If Jim Stanford's Paper Boom, weighing in at a hefty 473 pages, sells out and gets reprinted a few times it might spark a mini-boom in the depressed stocks of papermakers! I hope it does, sell out that is. The book deserves a wide audience on the Left far beyond academia. I don't embrace his entire analysis of the speculative bull market in stocks and bonds that has transformed the North American economy in the eighties and nineties to the detriment of working families and the poor.As Stanford realizes, his main arguments will be extremely controversial on the Left, and I, for one, will take issue with some of them below. But they are debatable in the best sense-they focus on the core issues, grapple with the evidence, encourage us to think anew, and jettison some ideological baggage in the process. An economist with the Canadian Auto Workers, Jim Stanford writes in an engaging, jargon-free style that academic Leftists (such as this reviewer) should strive to emulate. He has put together an empirically based, up-to-date overview of the relationship between the paper and the real Canadian economy from a free-thinking iconoclastic perspective. Who else on the Left poohpoohs leftist demagogy on bank profits, or argues that the profits of productive firms need to be higher to give working people a better shot at prosperity? The book is chock-full of tables and graphs, mostly constructed by the author himself from widely accessible StatsCan sources, plus illustrative boxes and sidebars that display a wry humour and are often as illuminating as the main text itself. All this makes Stanford's multi-layered view of the economy accessible to readers who have never taken an under-

Documenting the Asbestos Story in Sarnia

An occupational health and safety clinic in Windsor, Ontario, expressed its concerns about the health of former workers at a foundry and insulation plant in Sarnia to the Canadian Auto Workers union early in 1998. The workers suffered cancer, respiratory and hearing problems, and heart disease. An investigation of their workplace exposures ensued. Researchers obtained government documents that showed the history of ineffectual regulation at Sarnia and some of the highest levels of asbestos--hundreds of times over the legal limits--ever recorded in Canadian workplaces.

Industrials for the Social Services

Dandng in the Minefields I was realizing today that it’s fifteen years since I did St. George / The Dragon at a Canadian Labour Congress Educational at the Canadian Auto Workers school in Port Elgin. That show irrevocably altered the theatre work I created.

The Canadian Auto Workers

Review of The Canadian Auto Workers: The Birth and Transformation of a Union by Sam Gindin.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Defining the Fault Lines: New Divisions in the Working Class

In case we needed further reminder, increased workers insecurity brings with it no automatic collective response. Using the case of Australian and Canadian autoworkers, the author traces how the tendencies towards social division amongst workers are re-articulated through the introduction of new managerial strategies, particularly lean production and Human Resource Management. But it also emphasises that these tendencies can be countered by a trade union strategy which stresses the importance of an agenda which recognises the importance of women and the potential for alliances with other groups.

“Still in Training?” Labor Unions and the Restructuring of Canadian Labor Market Policy

The goal of this paper is to link the development of union training initiatives and their relationship to state labor market policy to an emerging literature on trade unions in industrial geography. In particular, I examine labor’s involvement in state policy in Canada and consider the impact it has had on the direction of these initiatives at the federal, provincial, and sectoral levels, with particular reference to the Canadian Labor Force Development Board (CLFDB), the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board (OTAB), and sectoral training initiatives by the Canadian Auto Workers and the United Steel Workers of America. Researchers in geography and industrial relations have linked post-Fordism to an enhancement of local union strategies and have suggested that one possible configuration of skill development under an emerging Schumpeterian Workfare State would include labor as an important stakeholder—especially at the regional level in a high-skill/high-wage virtuous circle of development. However, in Canada labor has been organized historically on a largely local level and has been relatively weak in the formulation of state policy, nationally and provincially. If anything, labor has sought to overcome the legacy of localism. Although unions differ in central-local relations, overall they have fought for effective national, provincial, and sectoral representation in these initiatives. Labor has been able to achieve some input into this process, but the success or failure of these programs reflects more on national, provincial, and sectoral institutions, in particular the structure of capital, than on local factors or strategies by labor.

Unity and Diversity: Challenges to an Expanding Canadian Autoworkers' Union*

Afin d'enrayer la chute du nombre de leurs adhérents, les syndicats élargissent leur base en procédant à des réorganisations et en fusionnant avec d'autres syndicats. Prenant comme exemple le syndicat des Travailleurs canadiens de l'automobile (TCA), cet article montre que, pour tirer parti de leur base élargie, les syndicats doivent soutenir les demandes diverses et opposées de leurs membres tout en créant une unité interne. Au fur et à mesure que les syndicats recrutent des membres dans de nouveaux groupes de travailleurs, ces défis sont de plus en plus difficiles à relever. L'identité collective et la structure organisationnelle des syndicats sont des facteurs décisifs lorsqu'il s'agit de déterminer les critères d'intégration des nouveaux membres. L'article conclut que le TCA s'est engagé dans une restructuration organisationnelle et culturelle hâtive et hasardeuse, qui, à l'avenir, pourrait l'empêcher de mobiliser le soutien de ses membres en vue d'atteindre ses objectifs.In response to declining memberships, trade unions are expanding their membership base by organizing the unorganized and by merging with existing unions. Through an examination of the Canadian Autoworkers' Union, this paper argues that to reap the benefits of greater size, unions must be able to represent the diverse and competing claims of their expanding membership while at the same time being capable of building internal unity. These tasks become more difficult as unions seek membership among new groups of workers. The paper argues that unions' collective identity and organizational structure are critical factors in determining how new union members are brought into a new union. The paper concludes that the CAW has embarked on a rapid and uneven course of organizational and cultural change, the result of which could be future problems for the CAW in mobilizing collective support for its goals.

When Push Comes to Shove: Competitiveness, Job Insecurity and Labour- Management Cooperation in Canada

This article questions the widespread view that the Canadian and US labour movements are diverging with respect to their strategic orientations (militant vs cooperativist) towards labour-management relations. Focusing on the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW), the leading example of militant, social unionism in Canada, the article analyses the CAW's movement away from a more militant, rejectionist orientation in the 1980s towards a more complex, cooperativist orientation to labour-management relations at the local level in the 1990s. The CAW's changing orientation may exemplify broader workplace-centred cooperativist trends in Canada that are similar to those in the US. Union strategies in both countries are strongly conditioned by growing job insecurity and other competitiveness constraints in the context of highly decentralized union structures. In the case of the CAW, such cooperation with management reflects a more defensive unionism that is distinguished from a competitive unionism embracing 'high trust' managerial and 'progressive competitive' social democratic agendas. However, both kinds of unionism are considered to be inadequate, disorganized, microeconomic responses to increasing macroeconomic coercion.

The Canadian Auto Workers: The Birth and Transformation of a Union

The Canadian Auto Workers: The Birth and Transformation of a Union

Gindin, Sam, Canadian Auto Workers: The Birth and Transformation of a Union

Gindin, Sam, Canadian Auto Workers: The Birth and Transformation of a Union. Un article de la revue Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations (Volume 51, numéro 3, 1996, p. 443-617) diffusée par la plateforme Érudit.

Canadian Labour's Response to Work Reorganization

This paper documents and evaluates Canadian labour's response to work reorganization, focusing on the recent agendas of the Canadian Auto Workers, the Steelworkers and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union. The paper argues that while the three unions differ in their precise goals, approaches and strategies towards workplace changes, reflecting their distinct history and culture and the nature of employers and industry they deal with, the broad philosophical orientation and the scope and nature of their agenda are very similar. Common features include: (1) the recognition of the need to develop an independent agenda; (2) a culture of resistance and change within an adversarial framework; (3) insistence on negotiated change; (4) emphasis on major improvements in work environment; (5) expanded opportunities for and joint control of training; (6) a meaningful employee/union voice in strategic and shop-floor decision-making; and (7) involvement in work reorganization as a part of the broader social and economic change agenda and a programme of legislative and political action to extend labour's influence.

The Break-up of an International Labour Union: Uneven Development in the North American Auto Industry and the Schism in the UAW

In 1985, after being represented by the United Automobile Workers union (UAW) for almost half a century, Canadian autoworkers split from the International Union to form their own independent union, the CAW. To date, most interpretations have attributed the split to political, cultural, and ideological differences between the US and Canadian sections of the union. Through an analysis of restructuring and collective bargaining in the North American automobile industry, it is argued in this paper that the split in the UAW was rooted in the tensions that arose over the different, and increasingly incompatible, bargaining agendas and strategies adopted by the Canadian and US sections of the union during the 1980s. The analysis shows that these differences in strategy resulted primarily from the geographically uneven effects of the significant restructuring which was taking place in the North American automobile industry during this period.

The Internal Dynamics of Union Power: Explaining Canadian Auto workers’ Militancy in the 1980s

In 1980, Canada, like most other Western industrialized nations, entered a period of economic decline. The North American auto industry was particularly hard hit. Faced with growing international competition from Japan and Europe, and falling consumer demand due to the recession, it was caught in a compound crisis.