Marking 20 years
of bold journalism,
reader supported.
Views

Taking Stock as BC Fed Turns 50

Some views on labour's achievements, challenges.

Tom Sandborn 27 Nov 2006TheTyee.ca

Tom Sandborn is a regular contributor to The Tyee, with a focus on health care and labour issues.

image atom
Photo by Joshua Berson.

What does British Columbia's labour movement have to feel good about, and where does it go next?

Now seems a natural moment to pose the question to some people inside and outside the movement, given that the B.C. Federation of Labour, which may well be the province's largest democratically controlled organization, representing over half a million members, celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Over 1,400 delegates will attend the B.C. Fed's annual convention starting today and running through Dec. 1 in Vancouver. (Full disclosure: The Tyee receives a small share of its funding from the B.C. Federation of Labour.)

The delegates will hear speeches from Fed officers, First Nations and student leaders, Carole James and Jack Layton from the NDP and representatives of the B.C. Persons with Aids Society and the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of B.C. They will consider a sheaf of resolutions proposed by members that runs over 80 pages and includes a move to guarantee representation on the federation's ruling body for those who speak for visible minorities, aboriginals, people with disabilities, gay/lesbian/bisexual and transgendered persons and young workers, and another that would change the current practice of holding a convention every year to a cycle of one federation gathering every two years. They will also debate resolutions that would call on the B.C. Fed to oppose the war in Iraq and call for withdrawal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan and a more proactive role from Canada in promoting peace in the Middle East.

Sinclair: 'Accomplished a lot'

"I've been looking at the minutes from our first convention in 1956, when the Trades and Labour Congress and the Canadian Congress of Labour united to form the B.C. Fed," president Jim Sinclair told The Tyee, "and what they show is that we're still trying today to achieve the same basic goals that were important for working people back then -- a decent pay cheque, safe work, good public education for kids, pension plans and public health care.

"Two things are striking. One, more than half the resolutions then were on issues that were society wide, things like welfare rates, nationalizing B.C. Electric, public insurance, affordable housing and bargaining rights for public workers. These were all issues that went far beyond the interests of our existing membership and spoke to big issues of social justice.

"The other thing that strikes me as I look at the minutes is how often we have achieved what we set out to do, as we did with public sector bargaining rights, hydro and public insurance. Sometimes we pass resolutions at these conventions and you think, 'We'll never get this.' But the only crime is to give up. We've accomplished a lot in the last decades, and working people need unions as much today as ever, with corporate power so dominant on a world scale and Gordon Campbell and his cronies in Victoria."

Climate change, homelessness on agenda

While some issues are the same as in 1956, Sinclair said, some things have changed. In 1956, a little over half of working people in the province belonged to unions. Today, only a third do, and the changes brought into provincial labour law by the current government have made organizing new workers more difficult. Numbers of newly organized workers have fallen under the new Liberal legislation from around 10,000 annually (the average in the 1990s) to around 2,500 most years this century (with the exception of 2005, when the new member count was up to about 4,500.)

"We have to get back even more to organizing, and we'll be talking about that at the convention," Sinclair said. "We need to address issues of globalization and climate change, log exports and workforce changes, minimum wage and welfare improvements, working alone and other safety issues. We're also meeting with groups in the Downtown Eastside, and we'll be taking action in the next few months on low wages and homelessness. We are a wealthy province. The kind of poverty you see down there is a black mark on all of us."

Sims: 'We are privileged'

Jinny Sims, president of the B.C. Teachers Federation, agrees with Sinclair about the need for more organizing and about the abiding commitment of the province's labour movement to social justice issues that go far beyond the contract demands of members.

"From its inception," she told The Tyee, "the union movement has been about justice for everyone. The movement was formed to take on employers who weren't treating workers well, but we're not just about job site issues. We must never stop fighting policies that create inequities, attacks on public health, education and the social safety net."

Sims said she got involved in union work as a newly arrived immigrant in Nanaimo, teaching in the public schools just before the BCTF was a union affiliated with the Fed.

"It's the injustices that got me involved. In our first contract discussions," she said, "it struck me that all the language about parental leave benefited men, not women. We worked on that and got a proper maternity leave top-up that year."

Sims emphasized the need for ongoing activism by the B.C. Fed, saying that workers are often told they are "too political" when they stand up for their rights.

"As union members, we are privileged," she said. "We need to address the needs of those who are not in unions, or who cannot work. We must demand that government address social issues. Working people have incredible strength and passion. When we work together we can build a better world, and that's what the B.C. Fed is all about."

Mair: Time for new tactics

Many observers outside the labour movement agree. Rafe Mair, talk show host, Tyee columnist and former Socred cabinet minister, told The Tyee:

"I had an epiphany when I got into politics. I had looked on labour as just what caused strikes, but I had an opportunity to learn. I saw that the B.C. Fed has improved wages and living standards in B.C. The Fed has kept us focused on issues of worker safety. When I ran in 1975," Mair said with obvious pride in his voice, "three unions supported me."

Mair said he thinks the B.C. Fed is facing big challenges in the future, including globalization and job transfer.

"The Fed has to concentrate," Mair said, "on new slogans and tactics, not the victories, defeats and rhetoric of the past. You can't just keep singing 'The Ballad of Joe Hill.'"

Persky, Klein: 'Protection'

Another longtime observer of the labour scene and frequent media commentator, Stan Persky, local author and Capilano College instructor, also had some positive things to say on the occasion of the Fed's anniversary.

"It's incredible what they've accomplished," he said. "For all the criticisms that can be made of organized labour, the Fed provides protection for members from arbitrary treatment by employers. There's a real dignity question here, and unions support the dignity of workers. There are some interesting and instructive differences between B.C. and the United States when you look at levels of unionization. I credit a different national ideology in Canada. No one accuses you of being a terrorist or an evil reptile for being in a union here."

Seth Klein, executive director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, a progressive think-tank, credits the B.C. Fed with dramatic improvements in working conditions, minimum wage, employment standards and many other areas for the province's workers, both within and outside its membership.

"The Fed has a great track record, establishing a floor of minimum standards beneath which no one in the province can be forced. They've done great work on health and safety issues, and on protecting public health care," he said. "The Fed has also played an important role in funding broader social movements and advocates. The CCPA itself came into being because trade unions recognized the imperative for a progressive think-tank."

Davies: 'Beyond business unionism'

Libby Davies, MP for Vancouver East and NDP labour critic, also applauds the role the B.C. Fed has played as an ally in social justice and anti-poverty struggles over the years.

"The B.C. Fed has always understood the need to go beyond business unionism. They have always had a good relationship with community groups and struggles. The Fed has always been there for the important fights, and they provide important funding for local advocacy groups. They recognize, and this is very important, that they need not only to protect their members but also to stand up for all workers. The Fed and all unions have made tremendous advances, but right-wing governments like Gordon Campbell's Liberals will always try to roll them back and undermine unions. Look what the Liberals did to the employment standards act here in B.C."

Officers and members of unions and labour councils that belong to the Fed also saw the occasion of the upcoming convention and anniversary as an opportunity to criticize the current provincial government and to identify the challenges the Fed and organized labour in general face in the new century.

Heyman: Campbell years 'the worst'

"The Campbell years have been the worst years for workers," said George Heyman, president of the B.C. Government Employees Union. "I don't even want to imagine what conditions would be like in this province without the existence of the Fed and our unions. The Fed has made a huge difference in working peoples' lives. It's been an organized voice for workers' interests on social issues, wages, training, working conditions and poverty. In the last 20 years, the Fed has had an increasing focus on social issues beyond wages. We fight for the rights of the powerless and the voiceless."

Bill Saunders, president of the Vancouver and District Labour Council and a member of the B.C. Fed's executive council, predicts a better future through the efforts of the federation.

"The power of the Fed," he told The Tyee, "comes from us all giving up our narrow interests and accepting broader interests. We're all about making allies. In the future, to get out of our silos even more and reach across boundaries."

Wong: 'Colour blind' experience

Gary Wong, 2nd Vice President of Local 1-2171 of IWA/Steelworkers, told The Tyee about looking at old documents from mills where workers were paid different rates depending on their race. Wong, of Chinese extraction, said that unionization had put an end to that kind of structural racism.

"My experience in the labour movement has been colour blind," he said. "The movement has welcomed groups considered on the edge of society as full participants. In the future, our biggest problems will be political. We need a government in tune with working people."

Wong thinks the prospects for defeating the Campbell Liberals in the next election are good.

"If you told me we'd come within a hair's breadth of forming government last time, I'd have said you were dreaming. But we did."

'Can never back off'

Wayne Peppard, executive director of the B.C. and Yukon Territory Building and Construction Trades Council, agrees with Wong that the B.C. Fed has an important political role to play in electing people to government who will better serve workers' interests, and he credits the Fed with often succeeding in that task in the past.

"One of the Fed's great achievements," he told The Tyee, "has been to pull together the movement around issues, to lobby and be recognized as spokespeople for all working people. When the Fed does good work and speaks for labour, we all benefit. The Fed has been particularly effective in influencing local and provincial governments. It has created a stronger and more effective presence in government.

"But the Gordon Campbell government has thrown us back so far, and done so much damage. Even if we elect politicians we support, we'll still have to work hard to influence what they do. You have to work as hard with a government you worked to elect as one you opposed. We can never back off."

Gunaratna: 'We still have sweatshops'

Vas Gunaratna knows a lot about not backing off. The tireless organizer for Unite Here, a union organizing mainly immigrant workers in the garment and fabric industries, says the B.C. Fed has unfinished business in his sector.

"We still have sweatshops in Vancouver and we're working under a shitty labour code," Gunaratna told The Tyee. "The Fed has done a reasonably good job getting information out to workers on labour standards, but we need to do a lot more translation. Most of the information the Fed makes available is in English, and many of the workers we're organizing don't read English.

"We'd also like to see the Fed do more on ethical purchasing and more ESL training for immigrants. It's important, too, to open up the process and make it easier for immigrant workers to run for office. But all of this is better now than it was 30 years ago."

Kelliher: 'Card can make the difference'

Sister Elizabeth Kelliher agrees with Gunaratna's call for more work to open unions up to immigrants. Kelliher is a Franciscan nun who works feeding the homeless in the Downtown Eastside and sits as president of the Downtown Eastside Residents Association. Kelliher, now in her mid-eighties, has a long history of working with labour groups on peace and social justice issues both here and in the U.S. She says the B.C. Fed has been an important ally in many efforts to reduce misery in her neighbourhood, and spoke warmly of the participation of B.C. Fed officers in a recent forum on labour standards she attended.

"One of the men who eats with us has been working as a roofer: hard, dirty work for only eight dollars an hour. He works without gloves and comes back to us with his hands cut up and covered with tar. Union roofers do a lot better. A union card can make the difference between misery and a good life. I hope the union movement here will keep trying to open doors for immigrant and other poor workers so they can reap those benefits.

"I have been very impressed recently by the work the Fed has been doing to protest the way the B.C. government excludes Mexican farm workers brought in under federal programs from medical coverage."

Ongoing fight

Ed Lavalle, veteran labour studies academic and founder of Capilano College's labour studies program, strikes a similar note in commenting on the upcoming Fed anniversary:

"In reflecting on the 50th anniversary of the BCFL, my mind turns to what path it might take for the next half century. My hope for the next few decades is that the labour movement will increasingly take part in and lead a movement for social solidarity," Lavalle wrote in an e-mail.

Jim Sinclair and the other officers of the B.C. Fed will be hearing lots of advice during the weeklong Fed convention about how the organization should proceed in its second half century. He'll also be remembering the advice he received many years ago from labour pioneer Homer Stevens:

"Always remember this," Stevens said. "We never got anything we didn't fight for, and we never kept anything we didn't fight to protect."

Related Tyee stories:

 [Tyee]

  • Share:

Facts matter. Get The Tyee's in-depth journalism delivered to your inbox for free

Tyee Commenting Guidelines

Comments that violate guidelines risk being deleted, and violations may result in a temporary or permanent user ban. Maintain the spirit of good conversation to stay in the discussion.
*Please note The Tyee is not a forum for spreading misinformation about COVID-19, denying its existence or minimizing its risk to public health.

Do:

  • Be thoughtful about how your words may affect the communities you are addressing. Language matters
  • Challenge arguments, not commenters
  • Flag trolls and guideline violations
  • Treat all with respect and curiosity, learn from differences of opinion
  • Verify facts, debunk rumours, point out logical fallacies
  • Add context and background
  • Note typos and reporting blind spots
  • Stay on topic

Do not:

  • Use sexist, classist, racist, homophobic or transphobic language
  • Ridicule, misgender, bully, threaten, name call, troll or wish harm on others
  • Personally attack authors or contributors
  • Spread misinformation or perpetuate conspiracies
  • Libel, defame or publish falsehoods
  • Attempt to guess other commenters’ real-life identities
  • Post links without providing context

LATEST STORIES

The Barometer

Do You Think Trudeau Will Survive the Next Election?

Take this week's poll