Members for Democracy Archive

When Business Unions Become Business Services
The great deception of the community of workers

IWA-Canada President Dave Haggard and Canadian Labour Congress President Ken Georgetti should know that respect is something that is earned and not bought or bestowed or bargained in some shady back room. Unfortunately, both honchos seem blissfully ignorant of this fact of life and their ignorance is going to bite them, and all the other labour fakers at the CLC, on their asses any day now. Within Canada's mainstream labour movement, the labour fakery is getting awfully transparent as labour-management partnering is changing business unions into business services.

In his October 23, 2003 letter to the CLC's Georgetti, Haggard stated that his union was prepared to abide by impartial umpire Victor Pathe's decision and refrain from signing more partnership agreements with employers in the health care sector - for the time being anyway.

Yet IWA Local 1-3567 had a job fair just this week on November 13th & November 14th at the Executive House Hotel in Victoria, BC. According to an ad in a local newspaper, Local 1-3567's "health care placement services" are "seeking on behalf of an established and distinguished health care employer, associates for employment".

The awkwardly worded recruiting ad lists a variety of jobs that the distinguished health care employer has available and touts the competitive wages, benefits and opportunities for advancement which await those who possess "excellent teamwork and communication skills, a passion for customer service and a can-do attitude."

Hmm...for which distinguished health care employer is the IWA playing Human Resources Department? Could it be the Compass Group or Aramark Canada? Surely it could not be for Renfrew Lodge where IWA-Canada recently agreed to withdraw its application for certification after failing to get its way at the BC LRB. Or is the IWA recruiting workers for one of its corporate partners and union members for itself at the same time - as it did at an earlier job fair?

"...an arrangement made between the IWA and U.S.-based Aramark that provides IWA representatives access to job applicants at company job fairs. Aramark has a $100 million contract with the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority for housekeeping.

Under the pact, applicants for housekeeping positions attending a company job fair on September 24 and 25 were directed to an on site IWA representative to sign a union card and then to another room where they were required to sign a document agreeing to the terms of a contract which they were not permitted to remove from the room.

The contract in question is a "partnership agreement" signed on July 17, 2003 by IWA local 1-3567 president Sonny Ghag and an Aramark representative nearly two weeks before the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority announced that Aramark had been awarded the housekeeping contract.

And what competitive wages, benefits and opportunities for advancement is the IWA talking about? Surely not the ones in its pathetic partnership agreement with Aramark.

Isn't it sweet? It's bad enough that the IWA have taken advantage of legislation that promotes the contracting out of decent jobs, it's even worse that they're doing the recruiting for their employer partners and pedaling their shabby backroom deals to a captive audience that's desparately seeking work. Every time we think we've seen the bottom of the barrel of biz union behaviour, there's always a surprise.

What is even more surprising than the IWA's recruiting/organizing drive, is the fact that other Canadian unions continue to hold their noses and look demurely away as union-management partnering plummets new depths.

Back at the Canadian Labour Club, Brother Ken Georgetti sits with his thumb up his bum and his mind in neutral. He's told Brother Dave to play by the CLC's constitution but in a pointy letter Brother Dave as much as told him to shove his constitution where his thumb is. And what choice does Georgetti have but to do just that? If he takes any steps to outlaw sweetheart contracts and labour-management copulating in backrooms, he'll face the wrath of Brother Dave and a bunch of other backroom gigolos who are big players at the CLC.

Of course, Georgetti could show some leadership and take a stand for working people. He could tell the CLC's backroom dealers that the party's over and that they'd better make a commitment to their members or hit the road. He could do that, but we don't think he has it in him. We don't call him Bro_Ken for nothing.

Bro_Ken can't take the heat from the swine who lead some of the CLC's affiliated unions and he can't take the heat from CUPE members who are livid about the IWA's actions. How can anyone expect him to take a stand in public arm-in-arm with working people?

The leader of the swine of Canadian organized labour may be thinking that he's just keeping the lid on yet another "internal dispute", but his tolerance of union leaders' backroom antics is costing him and the CLC a lot more than the price of Vic Pathe's umpiring services: It's costing the CLC the respect of working people from one end of this country to the other.

Working people are not stupid. You can't serve them up a pile of poop expecting that they'll ignore the smell and thank you for your thoughtfulness. It's the thought that counts and both Georgetti and Haggard's thoughts are pretty easy to read: It's about the money honey! Every good biz unionist needs more members. How he goes about getting them is his business.

Brothers Haggard and Georgetti don't like to be dissed this way. Well Bro's, respect is something neither of you have because neither of you have earned it. Neither of you have been an inspiration to workers unionized or otherwise and neither of you deserves respect. What you both deserve is to be booted out of anything associated with organized labour.

Don't think it can't happen either, self-serving Bro's. A troubling question is about to rear it's ugly head: When is a union no longer a union?

When we look at the behaviour of some of cream-of-the-crap of the biz unions - their secret deals, their eagerness to take a stand for profit, their lust for partnering with corporate leaders, their complete disregard for the interests of thousands of dues-paying members - we don't see associations of employees. We don't even see business unions. We see business services.

When does a union cross the line between "association of employees" and "business services firm"? What should be done when the line is crossed? Surely an organization that is more business services firm than union should lose its status as a union. To allow it to hold itself out as a union, would be a deception on the public. It's time our legislators took note. Forcing people to "belong" to organizations that exploit them, deprive them of their legal rights and set them up for further exploitation is not representation. Partnership agreements are not collective agreements. Treating business services as unions is unconscionable in a democratic society. As union members wake up to the distinction between a union and a business service, the issue will land on our political leaders' doorsteps before long.

Job Fair Fun
Unionists across the country should keep an eye open for similar IWA-sponsored recruitment fairs. Make note of the dates and create a media frenzy for the IWA and their distinguished employer partners that neither will soon forget.

Set up an information picket about sweetheart contracts, talk to people visiting the job fair, make a video diary, take pictures, maybe even apply for a job and see what you're told about the great wages, benefits and opportunities that await you.

If you're a union member, ask you union's leaders to participate. If they're opposed to sweetheart deals and the deception of working people encourage them show their opposition publicly. What an exciting development it would be if leaders of CLC-affiliated unions participated in a public protest against sweetheart deals at an IWA job fair. Will any dare? It might help us sort out the real unions from the business services hiding behind the CLC label.

You know, it used to be at one time that this kind of labour-management coziness was kept under wraps. Sweetheart unions would go to lengths to at least give the impression that they weren't in the sack with the bosses. That didn't make their selling out of their members any more excusable but what I find very disturbing is that more and more these days sweetheart relationships between business and unions are coming out into the open and gaining the tacit acceptance of the mainstream labour movement!

When I look at the recruiting ad that the IWA is running for the "distinguished employer", it's the most I can do to keep myself from retching. Not only is this union doing cozy deals and signing awful contracts but it's now performing a personnel function for this company. Can it get any worse?! Probably it can and more than likely it will but I'm just aghast at how blatant they are about this.

Those who may be thinking that the IWA recruiting efforts are something like the old union hiring hall of days gone by, forget it. The hiring hall was used in industries where all major employers were unionized and the union was making sure that employment opportunities were made available to its members first. The IWA/distinguished employer job fair bears no likeness to that at all. What that's all about is the union getting new members signed up while providing a service to the employer - one that has historically been handled by managerial staff or recruiting firms.

If there is anything good about this warped form of "organizing" is that it provides a good example of the kind of activity that helps us draw a line between "union" and "business service" and that it brings into sharp relief the role that the biz unions have carved out for themselves in the modern workplace: They control the workers. They keep them in line. They keep their wages and benefits down (within boundaries set by the employer). They keep them from seeking out real representation and from realizing their power.

To this end, the biz unions are serving the same purpose as the human resources consulting firms and the union busting firms. The compliant, servile workforce that "anti union" employers like Wal-mart and McDonalds try to achieve through corporate propaganda, company sing-songs and free hamburgers, other employers achieve by bringing in a business services firm that calls itself a union. It's a good practical alternative and, on a certain level, it makes good business sense too. No need to spend millions on employee-of-the-week programs, company picnics, free burgers and other fun and games. Bring in your favourite business services firm/union and you can tell all your miserable staffers that they've got it good - they've got a union, after all!

What a disgrace.

I've talked to some of the workers who shut down one local mill. What's interesting is that many of their HEU wives were just laid off and have been financially forced to take part-time positions under IWA's sweet partner agreement.

I think respect is the last thing haggard should be worried about when he gets back.