Why Union?

An opinion on CLAC by a history professor at Athabasca University

Sent: To: Darrell LaBoucan

Subject: Finkle VS. Heinen

Thank you for presenting your perspective, Mr. Heinen. I have no misperceptions about CLAC. I simply disagree with everything that you say below. The strike is a legitimate weapon of power, the right to withhold one's labour. Flooding the labour market does reduce labour costs. There are illegitimate companies, e.g. those which are controlled by the Mafia, and those which sell harmful products such as tobacco and weapons of mass destruction. Do you consider the advertising companies that exist to funnel taxpayers' dollars into the hands of political parties legitimate? There are certainly illegitimate unions, e.g. the Teamsters in the Hoffa period, and the SIU which was imposed by the Canadian government on dockworkers in the effort to destroy the CSU. I think that CLAC is illegitimate as well because it attacks the Rand formula, 'which is the main protector of trade unionism in Canada and the major reason why union densities are so much larger here than in the U.S.

I find CLAC's claims of being "value-based" to be a vaccuous effort to forestall real debate about how labour should organize in a system in which the powers of employers and employees are greatly unequal. The CLC unions, whatever their other merits or demerits, start with the correct assumption that negotiations are indeed about power.

While I appreciate that CLAC now recognizes strategically that emphasizing Christianity over other religions makes little sense in a multi-cultural society, I emphasize that this appears only to be strategic. I don't see any real differences in the modus operandi of CLAC now compared to how it operated in the early 70s when its literature was full of Calvinist nonsense. Legitimate unions are supposed to look after the material interests of workers; as soon as they become interested in workers' eternal souls, they are something other than unions. That's the role of the churches, and the two roles should be separated. I always liked the line of a fisherman in Naples who explained how he could both attend Mass every day and vote for the Communist Party in every election. " The Roman Catholic Church fights for my eternal soul, and the Communist Party fights for the price of fish."

Alvin Finkel, Professor, History

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