Workers Weep while Labour Leaders Dither in Denial
"As I sat behind the wicket waiting for a EI worker I broke down and cried realizing I was really unemployed, that jobs were scarce, and good paying union jobs even more rare. Who will hire a middle aged single woman with three small children that has no real skills, no education or certificates I asked myself? I was on my own without a job to depend on for food, shelter and security. The thoughts were very real and very frightening."
This came to us from a BC health services worker, a member of the Hospital Employees Union. She's one of thousands of people thrown out of work new legislation introduced last year in British Columbia called the Heath and Social Service Delivery Improvement Act. The deceptively named law allows health sector employers to shred collective agreements, lay off union members and contract out their work to the lowest private sector bidder.
This is an excerpt from the "purpose" clause of a contract signed by the IWA-Canada and a large foodservices company that picked up a lot of health services contracts as thousands long service workers were picking up their pink slips. Apart from landing numerous new accounts from employers looking to outsource health services, it also "outsourced" itself a union partner - IWA-Canada.
ARAMARK and the Union are committed to working together to deliver high quality "non-clinical services" as defined by the Heath and Social Service Delivery Improvement Act to the citizens of British Columbia and to the creation of employment opportunities for Union members in British Columbia.
ARAMARK Canada Facilities Services Ltd. and the Union accept and understand that the expansion and security of employment for IWA members as ARAMARK employees is dependent upon the competitiveness and profitability of ARAMARK for which the union and ARAMARK accept joint responsibility.
ARAMARK and the Union are committed to work continually and creatively to enhance and expand our partnership.
The sweetheart of a contract is a shadow of the agreement that was in place before. It's so management-friendly that it makes a lot of other sweetheart contracts look respectable by comparison. It's an awful piece of work - so management friendly that it's not even called a collective agreement - it's called a "Partnership Agreement".
IWA went on to do similar deals with multi-national health service corporation Compass Group. The differences between the wages and benefits signed off by IWA and those that were previously in place when HEU represented workers in the establishments are staggering. A good comparison can be found on this site.
"Guilty as charged" - that's the verdict delivered behind closed doors by a special "independent umpire" appointed by the Canadian Labour Congress to inquire into an allegations that IWA's sweet deals are contrary to the CLC's constitution.
"This is generally a positive finding in which Brother Georgetti clearly supports the moral basis to our complaint and concerns," says Chris Allnutt, an HEU representative. "It's critical that the trade union movement stick together in opposition to the Campbell Liberals agenda of contract breaking privatization... There's real solidarity in our movement and we'll use that solidarity to fight Campbell's corporate agenda".
Positive finding or positive farce? We think it's the latter. The CLC is notoriously soft of sweetheart deals. It's tolerated sweetheart deals on the part of its affiliates for ages and it probably always will. While workers weep in the unemployment line, CLC leader Ken Georgetti dithers around and mainstream labour true believers, like Allnutt, cheer naively from the sidelines.
It's hard to believe that this can happen but it's happening. It was the Canadian Union of Public Employees, the CLC's largest affiliate, filed a complaint alleging that the IWA violated Article IV of the CLC's constitution when it entered into the sweetheart deal. Article IV is a wordy clause that could be read as a prohibition against sweetheart deals:
Each affiliate shall respect the established work relationship of every other affiliate. For purposes of this Article an "established work relationship" shall be deemed to exist as to any work of a kind which the members of an organization have customarily performed at a particular plant, office, institution or work site, whether their employer is the plant operator, a contractor, or other employer. No affiliate shall by agreement or collusion with any employer or by the exercise of economic pressure, seek to obtain work for its members as to which an established work relationship exists with any other affiliate, except with the consent of such affiliate. Cases involving merger or reorganization of plants or companies under circumstances which eliminate the separate entities of previous bargaining units, will be referred directly to the President.
CUPE initially struck out. CLC President, Ken Georgetti, ruled that the IWA's conduct did not breach the constitution. When CUPE persisted, Canadian labour relations "guru" Victor Pathe was brought in to play impartial umpire.
Pathe is mainstream labour leaders' "go to" guy. He's a former Retail Clerks Union rep who went on to become Ontario Deputy Minister of Labour back in the 1980's. Now retired, he's a one-man, gold-plated labour movement clean up crew. The labour relations "guru" is brought in by CLC leaders when impressive decisions must be made on nerve-wracking issues.
After three days of hearings in August of this year, Pathe ruled that the IWA was in breach of the CLC's constitution.
MFD has obtained a copy of Pathe's ruling. It's a hollow victory if it's a victory at all: Sure, the IWA has been found "in violation of..." but what's the CLC going to do about it? Having found the union guilty, Pathe passes no sentence, imposes no penalty and makes no recommendations to the CLC on what should happen next. In a letter to IWA President Dave Haggard, Pathe asks Haggard to advise him by October 2nd of what measures he intends to take to "come into compliance with the CLC Constitution".
We smell a sham. The fact that Haggard would be left to determine the remedy for his union's transgressions is troubling in itself. But even more troubling is the fact that, there's nothing Haggard can do to remedy his transgressions and there isn't much the CLC can do about that even if it felt inclined to - which it won't.
Call us cynical, but we doubt that the grand Pooh-Bahs at the CLC would have lost a moment's sleep over the whole messy IWA deal if they'd had their 'druthers. When first confronted about the sweetheart deal by a number of unions, CLC President Georgetti muttered weakly that the CLC constitution didn't address sweetheart deals like the one the IWA cooked up. He urged the IWA to "rethink" their involvement in health services and to get on the BC Federation of Labour's anti-privatization bandwagon. He even wagged his finger at HEU members for criticizing the sweetheart deal in a brochure they were circulating. The members' materials "constituted a public attack on the IWA-Canada." Bro_Ken said sanctimoniously. When confronted with a formal complaint by the CLC's largest affiliate, CUPE, he weighed in on the side of the sweethearts.
The publicity the deal received in the alternative media (thanks in large measure to outraged HEU members) put Georgetti in a really awkward spot.
The whole situation was getting way to much attention. When the CUPE heavies wouldn't leave well enough alone, the CLC had to do something, anything - and quickly. They needed a respectable "out" and got it with Pathe's decision, which allows Bro_Ken and his CLC groupies to go on record as saying, "we did something" without actually saying that they, as leaders of the CLC, think sweetheart deals are or are not a violation of the constitution.
The Pathe decision, with its air of "judiciousness", provides something for everyone at the Canadian Labour Club. Those opposed to sweetheart deals can take it to mean, "Bad IWA guys. You just can't do that kind of shit". Those who see sweetheart deals as a necessary, if somewhat embarrassing, part of the union business can read it as: "Bad IWA guys. You just can't do that kind of shit in public. What were you guys thinking anyway?" And those who do sweetheart deals and don't see anything wrong with that can say, "Oh well. It was Pathe's decision not Ken Georgetti's. We disagree with it but hell, at least it wasn't one of our sweetheart deals so we'll keep quiet."
Those who believe the decision is some kind of victory against sweetheart deals will be disappointed.
If the CLC was really serious it would have said to the IWA: "You guys are in violation of the CLC constitution. Clean up your act now or you're expelled." The CLC certainly did not tell the IWA anything even close to that. All the CLC did was ask the IWA what kind of a remedy it would propose.
The fact is that there really isn't much that the IWA can do to remedy the violation of the CLC's constitution - nothing meaningful anyway. The IWA has a signed collective agreement with the employer. It's a binding agreement. The Union can't get out of it, can't renegotiate it (not unless the employer was willing, and it has no reason to do that). It can't turn its bargaining rights over to another union and even if it could, the new union would be bound by the current collective agreement until its expiry date. It can't strike legally until the agreement expires. It's locked into the deal for six years and there's nothing it can do about it and neither can the CLC.
The IWA's Haggard can - and probably will - respond to Pathe's request with some lukewarm comfort language like, "We will continue to use our best efforts to negotiate improvements to wages, benefits and working conditions for our members in this difficult economic climate blah-blah, blah-blah, blah-blah." That ought to be sufficient for Bro_Ken who can then say, "IWA-Canada is committed to continue using its best efforts to... " If that's not good enough for anyone in the Club, Bro_Ken will chastise them for being divisive and urge them to get on a bandwagon.
A few years will pass and by then the whole messy business will be forgotten. When contract renewal time comes around, the IWA will say: "Hey folks we tried very hard to bargain a better deal for you all but the company would not budge on the union's demands. You all know the members did not want to strike so what other options did we have but to sign a deal? We will continue to use our best efforts... "
What the Pathe ruling does is buy the IWA and the CLC unlimited time to dick around and do nothing all the while giving the impression that something concrete is being done. This is the CLC's only real option. If it isn't content with whatever weasel words the IWA President puts on paper, it's left with only one real alternative: Boot the IWA out of the CLC and that - you can bet - will never happen.
If the IWA gets booted for doing a sweetheart deal, it will be open to Dave Haggard to finger every sweetheart deal that's been done by a CLC-affiliated union going back further than any of us can remember. And what an impressive line up that would be! A lot of Canadian labour luminaries would be running around with their pants down. The CLC just can't have that and it won't.
Remember that awful "purpose" clause that's in the IWA sweetheart contract? Well here's something that looks pretty much the same:
The parties to this Agreement pledge to work towards the greatest possible degree of consultation and cooperation believing that the following concepts provide a fundamental framework for improved labour-management relations:
- the industrial enterprise is an economically characterized work community of capital investors and workers under the leadership of a management;
- the economic character springs from a continuous striving toward efficient use of resources, energy and environment, and in the adequate development of research, production and marketing'
- the enterprise requires authority relationships under a strong central leadership or management;
- a strong management does not discourage cooperation but stimulates it, recognizing that while management without labour can do nothing, labour without management cannot survive.
This is from a Collective Agreement between Turner Distribution Systems Ltd, and UFCW, Local 777, 1998-2004. Local 777 is arguably the mother-of-all-sweetheart deals. The UFCW didn't just sign a sweetheart contract, it set up an entire special local to take care of it's stinky deal at the request of an employer. The stinky deal set off a race for the bottom in the Canadian grocery industry - the effects of which are still being felt by workers all over the map. We wonder what Ken Georgetti must think about that? Probably nothing much. He has never said a word about it and he never will if he can get away with it. That would anger the mighty United Food and Commercial Workers Union who are pretty big wheels at the CLC.
The Pathe ruling is just another CLC show trial intended to perpetrate the myth of the great self-governing house of labour where thousands of comfortable trade unionists delude themselves daily with that and other fantasies. Unfortunately, many thousands of workers don't have the luxury of delusion and denial. They're the "collateral damage" of their leaders' misguided, self-interested elitist march to oblivion.
MFD's still unanswered letter to CLC President Ken Georgetti.