Just what is going on with Canada's labour movement leadership?

The last few weeks have seen a series of what are seemingly truly perplexing moves and actions by some of the country's most important labour leaders.

Among these are:

• The Toronto & York Region District Labour Council inviting the Liberal federal Labour Minister to march in a place of pride and prominence at Toronto's Labour Day Parade.
• The CLC inviting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to speak at their Young Workers Summit just days after his Finance Minister said that young workers need to get used to the 'reality' of precarious work. CLC leader Hassan Yussuff and the CLC both then made statements belittling young workers who protested this talk and Q&A at the summit. 
• It was revealed that UNIFOR leader Jerry Dias gave a $300 donation to Kellie Leitch's campaign for the leadership of the Conservative Party for "personal reasons" despite not just her terrible views regarding labour and union rights but also the fact that her campaign is centred around racist dog-whistle style policies relating to immigration and being 'Canadian'
• It was revealed that OPSEU hired a 'union avoidance' lawyer whose slogan was “At Vella Labour Law we fight unions hard. We fight to win.” to combat the union representing its own internal workers! 

Each and every one of these actions are awful and reprehensible in their own right, though the final one -- coming especially as it does from the union led by the pseudo-sanctimonious Warren 'Smokey' Thomas whose highlights include an outrageous attack on left-wing "white wine swilling elitists" during the 2014 provincial election and a de facto endorsement of Tim Hudak over Kathleen Wynne for Premier -- takes hypocrisy to a new level. 

Hopefully Smokey was cracking a good old-fashioned crappy Bud as his union called a management lawyer to try to attack its own workers who are now taking legal action over allegations of:

“bullying,” “intimidation,” “retaliation,” “threats,” “surveillance,” unjustified suspensions, firings, disciplinary actions and investigations intended to harass members, after 12 staff were suspended and four terminated in the wake of contract negotiations last summer.

I think Smokey's days of lecturing anyone about anything related to worker's rights or 'elitism' can be officially said to be at an end.

What connects all of these incidents and leaders, however, is an obvious detachment from the principles they allege to support -- such as living wages or a serious restructuring of the economy --and their actual actions.

There is nothing new about this. It becomes apparent in almost all elections on every level.

That same Toronto & York District Labour Council who invited the Liberal minister, for example, released a meaningless municipal political platform in Toronto in 2014 that was not worth the paper it was printed on as they went on to endorse a series of candidates who were often liberals and none of whom actually seriously committed to the platform in anyway.

In fact, everyone of the candidates they endorsed who subsequently got elected voted for right-wing Mayor John Tory's first budget! 

One of their endorsements for council, Shelley Carroll, is now getting ready to run for the profoundly corrupt and anti-labour Liberal government in Ontario. John Cartwright, the council's leader, is very comfortable with a liberal political agenda and has proven this time and again, regardless of what other campaigns and policies he and the council purport to support.

The juxtaposition of alleged principle with craven practice really does seem to both flow from a desire to preserve personal positions of power while putting the very narrow interests of specific and already existing union members ahead of the broader agenda for workers and those living in poverty that Canadian labour claims to advocate for.

It is a contradiction that -- along with the often vicious infighting among all of these leaders -- is coming into sharp focus and that deeply undermines the overall struggle for a real worker's rights agenda and politics.

See also: The CLC and the Liberals - Pandering to power

See also: 42-2: John Tory, Toronto City Council and the austerity consensus

The CLC and the Liberals - Pandering to power

In what is one of several "let them eat cake" moments made by members of the governing Liberal caucus lately, this past Saturday Finance Minister Bill Morneau threw young Canadian workers under the proverbial bus when he said that they should get used to the 'reality' of precarious employment. 

At a meeting with Ontario Liberals he said the "job churn" was here to stay, that the next generation of Canadians should expect shittier pension benefits and that recognizing all of this will "soften that blow".

This is a rather astounding acknowledgement by Morneau that his government is part of a seeming generational willingness by those who had more secure jobs and better pensions to, due to their political decisions, shut the door to these things for young people, basically screwing their own kids out of the kind of future that they themselves took for granted.

Setting aside for the moment that this 'reality' exists only due the unwillingness of our governments (this one included) to take on the corporations and to enact legislation and take real steps to fight precarious employment and to preserve pensions -- reality, you know, is created by us, Bill, it does not just 'happen' -- it is clear that Morneau is no friend to young workers.

And yet, in the wake of these comments, the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) actually continued with plans to invite Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to address their Young Workers Summit in Ottawa a few days later.

Seriously.

Predictably, and entirely justly, Trudeau got something of a rough ride from many of the summit delegates. According to the CBC:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faced off with a room of angry protesters today who were venting their frustrations over everything from pipelines to the failed federal payroll system.
Some of the participants turned their backs on Trudeau in protest during the "armchair discussion" event at the Canadian Labour Congress National Young Workers Summit in Ottawa.
"Honour your promises!" hollered some in the crowd, as event moderators tried to keep the peace.
"We don't have dialogue with liars!"
"Shame! Shame!"

In a moment of surreal elitism and condescension,  Trudeau proceeded to say that the protest "reflects poorly" on the delegates!

This is pretty rich given his Finance Minister's comments on the weekend. They reflected rather poorly on his government.

While his response was predictable, what is far harder to understand is the response to the protest made by the CLC itself in a statement they released later that day.

The statement acknowledges the protests but goes on to say of the delegates that "the majority applauded his willingness to take questions from the room." This is a rather snide jab at those who wanted to confront Trudeau's completely lackluster performance as PM when it comes to both youth and workers, and it implies that they did, indeed, reflect poorly on the others who 'applauded' Trudeau.

In fact, at the summit itself CLC president  Hassan Yussuff told the protesters that the labour movement is a "respectful movement" and called for "constructive dialogue".

It seems speaking truth to power when the direct opportunity arises is not as welcome as it once was in the CLC and this wing of the labour movement!

The CLC statement goes on to say:

Delegates pressed the prime minister about a statement by Finance Minister Bill Morneau asserting that young workers have to get used to the “job churn” – meaning a future without lifelong, stable careers.
“Moving from job to job to job creates a lot of instability and insecurity,” said Amy Huziak, the CLC’s national representative for young workers.
“What can we do together to ensure that young workers have decent jobs instead?” she asked the prime minister.

In the statement Yussuff answers on Trudeau's behalf by saying:

“Prime Minister Trudeau promised legislative support for workers stuck in precarious jobs and we intend to hold him to that commitment,” said CLC president Hassan Yussuff. “He’s already worked with labour to strengthen the Canada Pension Plan, and we look forward to doing the same for labour laws across the country.”

An interesting quote generally given that Morneau on Saturday had specifically said the changes to the CPP were "a recognition that people aren't going to have the same pension benefits" they did before.

All of this comes in the wake of the decision by Toronto's Labour Council to allow Trudeau's Labour Minister to march in Toronto's Labour Day parade.

So what are these labour leaders up to?

The reality seems to be that Yussuff and others think that they can wrest enough concessions for their existing membership to make collaboration with this government worthwhile despite the fact that doing so sidelines the workplace and economic issues confronting youth, workers not in unions, those fighting for higher minimum wages (Trudeau opposes the $15 Now movement), those living in poverty and many others for whom the Liberal government has really just been more of the same.

With a ludicrous rewriting of the history of the struggle to secure the basic rights of workers by the labour movement -- often in the face of vicious state violence -- to claim the movement is now "respectful" of representatives of what is and always has been an avowedly capitalist Bay St. party what Yussuff seems to be really seeking is to make the CLC and labour respectable to this Liberal government.

Protests and anger at a labour union summit by young workers towards a PM who has delivered them essentially nothing just won't do!

Sadly, it would appear that the Liberal government is not alone in its willingness to shut the door on the generation of workers coming next.