Canada's Leftists Pick Up Support

Usually calm, orderly and above all non-descript, Canadian politics have suddenly been thrust into a volatile pre-election period that promises to realign Canada's traditional political balance. Faced with increasingly severe economic and political challenges, Canadian labor is beginning to forge tighter cooperative links with its old political ally, the New Democratic Party (NDP), as it prepares to deal with the increasing polarization of Canadian politics. But despite the severity of Canada's problems, the labor-NDP alliance is itself weak and encumbered with many difficulties.

Canada's economic indicators underline the general worsening of the country's economic health. Unemployment now siphons off 8.2 per cent of the labor force, and this figure, bad as it is, conceals severe regional disparities and unknown numbers of the 'hidden unemployed.' Canadian inflation is running at 8.6 per cent, and the dramatic drop in value of the Canadian dollar on international money markets is expected to help sustain this high rate.

A series of disruptive political trends has added insult to the economic injuries. Quebec's separatist provincial government continues to gain support among the people of Quebec for a renegotiation of the federal system. On the federal electoral stage, the country has begun polarizing along linguistic lines.

Quebec is the last electoral stronghold of the ruling Liberal Party. In English Canada, the popularity of the Liberal government is eroding quickly and steadily, with most of the voters going over to the Progressive Conservative Party, and the rest to the New Democratic Party.

The New Democrats represent the largest left-leaning force in Canadian politics. Under their leadership, provincial governments have implemented social health and social auto insurance plans. NDP provincial governments have also demonstrated their willingness to increase social welfare spending, redistribute tax burdens and occasionally nationalize resource industries.

The NDP has never formed a national government. Usually winning between 16 and 22 per cent of the national popular vote, and never having won a single seat in Quebec, the NDP does not have a realistic chance of forming a government in the near future. About the most the NDP can realistically expect in Canada's upcoming election is to repeat its 1972 electoral performance and gain the strategic balance of power position in Parliament.

Against the general backdrop of depressing economic developments and political realignments, the New Democratic Party and the National Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) are intensifying their cooperative electoral efforts. The Congress is preparing to commit an unprecedented number of staff people and field organizers to the NDP for the 60 days prior to election day.

The CLC and the NDP have agreed on a platform that advocates Keynesian economic tactics coordinated by and rooted in longer-term industrial planning. Both organizations see industrial planning as essential if Canada is to protect its resources, diversify its economy and use its manpower effectively. But while industrial planning is one thing, an industrial plan is quite another. To date, no one has proposed anything resembling a comprehensive plan.

The inability to generate such a plan is one surface manifestation of labor's fundamental political weakness. Both the CLC and the NDP have become centralized, elite-dominated organizations that pursue change through state bureaucracies and parliamentary committees rather than through organized political pressure. Mired down in bureaucratic intricacies, both organizations have focused on narrow economic questions and have neglected the broader issue of political power.

The CLC's leadership's initiative toward tripartism--a system of business-labor-government consultation and decision-making? best illustrates the tendency towards centralized cooperative involvement in state bureaucracy. A national convention of the Congress struck down this initiative, but the incident demonstrates the conservative impact that CLC leaders attempt to exercise over their rank and file.

Leaders of both groups have concentrated on elite politics, but in failing to politicize their memberships, both organizations have underscored their own weaknesses. The lack of a strong political culture in Canada has to labor's relatively low political status, a state of affairs recently highlighted by the capitulation of Canadian postal workers to the federal government over the issue of the postal workers' right to strike.

Bogged down in negotiations with the federal government over a long-overdue contract, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers voted for a national strike to speed up stalled negotiations. After two days of the strike, the federal government passed back-to-work legislation with heavy penalities for disobedience. Arguing that a right that is removed when exercised is no right at all, the postal workers defied the law and fought to protect their right to strike.

Canadian labor split over the issue of supporting the postal workers' refusal to return to work. The National CLC refused to endorse the postal workers' position, while Quebec labor and a number of CLC affiliates strongly supported the strikers. The CLC refused to back the postal workers for "strategic reasons." According to Charles Bauer, CLC director of public relations, the CLC felt "at that time it was a suicidal decision to try to buck the federal government." Essentially, the CLC felt too weak to effectively rally around the beleaguered postal workers, and the national labor organization preferred not to risk its reputation in what was sure to be a defeat. Bauer commented that "to defy federal legislation takes a lot of organizational work--we didn't have the time in the one or two weeks."

To support or not to support the workers fighting for the right to strike is hardly a question of strategy, especially for a labor organization. The right to strike is a hard-won and crucial principle, and a decision to support workers protecting that right should be a principled decision. When the CLC resorts to strategic considerations to justify its position, it is safe to assume that it is covering up its weakness or has hidden motives for its decision.

In this case, both political impotence and the importance of unspoken principles appear to be the decisive factors. The fear of political failure seized the CLC and made the possibility the reality. Clearly unable to muster sufficient strength to force its way with the government, the CLC preferred to remain aloof and not dirty its hands. But behind this fear, Bauer's comments suggest that the CLC used the postal confrontation to discipline its own ranks, and to further centralize the labor movement under its direction.

Bauer complained that the postal union did not properly inform the CLC of the state of negotiations and the particular points under discussion. Bauer added that "labor solidarity is a two-way street" and argued that the postal union ought to have compromised its autonomy in negotiations in return for possible labor support on the right-to-strike question. But the general issue of the right-to-strike and the specifics of the contract discussions are clearly distinct and independent, and confusing them appears to be a mere pretense for the CLC to more directly interfere in the autonomous affairs of its affiliates.

Labor's general paralysis is a result of both ideological and organizational factors.

Organizationally, the labor movement is hampered by the fact that its membership consists mainly of working people with a low level of poltical awareness. Leadership cannot pursue policies that membership does not understand and towards which workers would not be sympathetic. But labor leaders have also not followed the most progressive possible strategy within the limits defined by organizational considerations. On the contrary, leadership's ideological preference for elite politics and reform through state bureaucracy has even further reduced labor's political power.

Labor can only increase its power by either loosening the organizational constraints keeping the leadership's sphere of potential actions from shifting to the left, or by the leaders themselves adopting a more leftist ideological orientation. Canada's worsening economy promises to provide fertile soil for the increased politicization of working people and the adoption of more militant postures to protect hard-pressed rights and gains. The extent to which the Canadian left can stimulate renewed political interest, and perhaps more importantly, the extent to which renewed political interest stimulates the Canadian left, will jointly determine the fate of progressive Canadian politics.

Bogged down in negotiations with the federal government over a long-overdue contract, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers voted for a national strike to speed up stalled negotiations. After two days of the strike, the federal government passed back-to-work legislation with heavy penalities for disobedience. Arguing that a right that is removed when exercised is no right at all, the postal workers defied the law and fought to protect their right to strike.

Canadian labor split over the issue of supporting the postal workers' refusal to return to work. The National CLC refused to endorse the postal workers' position, while Quebec labor and a number of CLC affiliates strongly supported the strikers. The CLC refused to back the postal workers for "strategic reasons." According to Charles Bauer, CLC director of public relations, the CLC felt "at that time it was a suicidal decision to try to buck the federal government." Essentially, the CLC felt too weak to effectively rally around the beleaguered postal workers, and the national labor organization preferred not to risk its reputation in what was sure to be a defeat. Bauer commented that "to defy federal legislation takes a lot of organizational work--we didn't have the time in the one or two weeks."

To support or not to support the workers fighting for the right to strike is hardly a question of strategy, especially for a labor organization. The right to strike is a hard-won and crucial principle, and a decision to support workers protecting that right should be a principled decision. When the CLC resorts to strategic considerations to justify its position, it is safe to assume that it is covering up its weakness or has hidden motives for its decision.

In this case, both political impotence and the importance of unspoken principles appear to be the decisive factors. The fear of political failure seized the CLC and made the possibility the reality. Clearly unable to muster sufficient strength to force its way with the government, the CLC preferred to remain aloof and not dirty its hands. But behind this fear, Bauer's comments suggest that the CLC used the postal confrontation to discipline its own ranks, and to further centralize the labor movement under its direction.

Bauer complained that the postal union did not properly inform the CLC of the state of negotiations and the particular points under discussion. Bauer added that "labor solidarity is a two-way street" and argued that the postal union ought to have compromised its autonomy in negotiations in return for possible labor support on the right-to-strike question. But the general issue of the right-to-strike and the specifics of the contract discussions are clearly distinct and independent, and confusing them appears to be a mere pretense for the CLC to more directly interfere in the autonomous affairs of its affiliates.

Labor's general paralysis is a result of both ideological and organizational factors.

Organizationally, the labor movement is hampered by the fact that its membership consists mainly of working people with a low level of poltical awareness. Leadership cannot pursue policies that membership does not understand and towards which workers would not be sympathetic. But labor leaders have also not followed the most progressive possible strategy within the limits defined by organizational considerations. On the contrary, leadership's ideological preference for elite politics and reform through state bureaucracy has even further reduced labor's political power.

Labor can only increase its power by either loosening the organizational constraints keeping the leadership's sphere of potential actions from shifting to the left, or by the leaders themselves adopting a more leftist ideological orientation. Canada's worsening economy promises to provide fertile soil for the increased politicization of working people and the adoption of more militant postures to protect hard-pressed rights and gains. The extent to which the Canadian left can stimulate renewed political interest, and perhaps more importantly, the extent to which renewed political interest stimulates the Canadian left, will jointly determine the fate of progressive Canadian politics.