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Unions lost out by not protesting Games: former labourer

The B.C. labour movement lost serious credibility by deciding not to protest the Olympics, a recently retired union member told the Tyee.

“It could have presented itself as the locus of opposition power to the government and the corporations – it decided not to do that,” said Gene McGuckin, a “life-long member” of the Communications Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada.

A recent essay by the Burnaby resident has been bouncing from one email box to the next. He describes the descent of B.C.’s trade union movement from “once fearsome” to “no-show elephant.”

“Where the hell is labour in the anti-Olympic protests in Vancouver?” McGuckin wrote.

During the 2010 Games bid process, organized labour held long debates about an official position, he said.

Union leaders and many rank and file decided to support the Games because of potential employment opportunities. The result was a vacuum where vociferous opposition should have been, he added.

“No overt union opposition to the bid seven years ago amounted, in practice, to tacit support for the easily predictable looting of the public treasury and related attacks on many British Columbians, including many union members,” McGuckin wrote.

He admitted his view is a radical one that isn’t necessarily shared by the majority of B.C. labourers.

He thinks the movement is losing relevance by adopting an increasingly “middle of the road” position on controversial issues. Organizing means more than simply trying to get the New Democratic Party elected, he said.

Communist Party of Canada member Kimball Cariou applauded Olympics protesters in a written reply to McGuckin’s essay. Their message could have been way stronger with union support, he wrote.

“The fact is that any people's movement needs the involvement of organized workers to break through from the level of grassroots resistance - which can mobilize large numbers and win some victories - to the possibility of achieving wider change,” Cariou wrote.

The B.C. Federation of Labour did not respond by posting time.

Geoff Dembicki reports for the Tyee.


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