Posted on 03 July 2012
By Diane Kalen-Sukra. I’m surprised it took so long for
Canada’s union bureaucracy to really feel the democratizing pressure of
the social media Wikileak internet age.
It finally happened in a big way this week – Quebec and Canada’s top
union brass had “internal” correspondence, in which they direct all of
Canada’s major unions to put the brakes on solidarity with Quebec
students (including the wide-spread social resistance to the
UN-condemned Quebec law criminalizing protest), leaked and posted by an
anonymous blogger.
So-So Not Solidarity
A quick summary of the leaked correspondence. On May 28 th, the leader
of the Quebec central labour body (FTQ), Michel Arsenault, issued a
letter
to the leader of Canada’s central labour body (CLC), Ken Georgetti in
an effort to put a stop to efforts by “labour leaders in English Canada”
who intend to “come and support the social conflict currently
prevailing in Quebec”.
It’s useful to remember that this solidarity-killing letter was
issued at the height of this longest and largest social protest in
Canadian history, the precise moment when hundreds of thousands of
Quebecois citizens were heading CLASSE’s (the dominant student
coalition) call to defy Law 78, imposed to break the popular movement by
essentially criminalizing protest as it severely restricts the
Charter-protected right to freedom of assembly. This was the time when
many of the province’s lawyers famously hit the streets in solidarity
with the people, aware of Law 78′s unconstitutionality and the danger it
poses to our democracy.
Arsenault reasoned that the “situation in Quebec is currently very
volatile” and expressed his continued intention to “ask for compliance”
to this very same law the social movement in Quebec, and heart of the
student strike (referred to by Arsenault as “radical wings”) were
defying. He writes that the “social strike” is not “THE strategy to be
promoted for the moment,” rather “the best approach is to facilitate a
settlement instead of fuelling the fires”.
In a peculiar final dump, Arsenault ends his letter blaming his
rejection of English Canada’s solidarity on the high tuition fees paid
by students outside of Quebec. He writes, “if students in other
provinces were paying less for their school tuitions, this would put
less pressure on ours”.
In bureaucratic-solidarity, the leader of the 3.3 million member weak
workers’ army in Canada, Ken Georgetti immediately forwards the letter
to all union affiliates across the country with a cherry on top. In his
cover letter,
Georgetti addressed head-on the “rumours” that some “national
affiliates plan to organize potential illegal actions in Quebec in
violation of Bill 78, to support the student protests.”
So any union engaging in natural solidarity activity with the
Quebecois are being made to sound like a ‘criminal element’ within the
labour movement, engaging in “potential illegal actions”, even though
the struggle aims to defy an anti-democratic law that if left
unchallenged, will be used to silence people, crush unions and break
protest across the country. And what hope will students in English
Canada have to end student debt slavery, if the Quebecois fail?
Georgetti reminds everyone of the “protocol” that exists between the
two labour bodies, the FTQ & CLC, in essence ensuring that the there
will be no solidarity-activity going on between Quebec and Canadian
unions and activists unless it is blessed and approved by this top union
brass. It is called “respect” for the “Federation’s jurisdiction”. He
ends by expressing his “hope that such rumours [of planned solidarity]
are simply rumours and not fact.”
There are those code-words of bureaucracy – not my “file”, out of my
“jurisdiction” — used to justify all manner of betrayal and cowardice.
These were the
same words used by the NDP
to justify their failure to take a position on the Quebec student
struggle, even though it was the Quebecois that in large part propelled
the party to its federal official Opposition status.
Even the PQ (the center-left Quebecois sovereignty party) announced yesterday that it is going to
stop wearing the “red square”
– the mark of support for the students – as it follows polls, hedges
its bets and gears up to take on the governing Liberals pummelled by its
attack on the students and basic democratic rights.
What ever happened to standing or falling for what is right, for what
you believe in? Who isn’t sick of “leaders” who will sell out their
mother, brother or sister if it will buy them votes? “Leaders” who
ignore the dire need for the power of a people’s movement to push
through deep political reform, in favour of simply getting elected?
Judging by the frustrated “where are the union members?” comments of
many on-the-ground Casserole Nights in Canada organizers, who are
coordinating solidarity actions across the country, and the silence
regarding solidarity with the Quebecois students on English Canada union
websites, it seems the FTQ/CLC letters had their intended chilling
effect.
The leader of the Ontario Teachers Federation (OSSTF) Ken Coran,
seemingly eager not to be identified as one of those rumoured English
unions “planing to organize potential illegal actions”, issued a
letter
to its local leadership, with the CLC & FTQ letters attached,
“recommending that there be no official support or donation made to the
Quebec student unions.” Cold as ice.
Member Blowback
The online and social media response yesterday was quick and damning.
Many expressed shock and dismay at the anti-democratic arrogance of the
union brass combined with the sense of betrayal inherent in the call to
stand-down, when the Quebec students were calling for increased
solidarity and support. The question “which side are you on?” is being
repeatedly asked of the parties involved.
Fuel was added to the fire when the CLC, through a communications
staffer, issued a response defending their “protocol”, calling for the
blog posting with the “private correspondence” to be removed and
accusing it’s author of “potentially libelous” comments regarding CLC
President Ken Georgetti.
Having spent time as a communications scribe for the labour movement,
I tried to have sympathy for the communications “brother”, who was
being personally reprimanded in online commentary. But you’ve got to
draw the line somewhere, even if it means breaking the golden-handcuffs,
and that line is being drawn by courageous people everywhere [
See: CUPE Ontario June 21st statement reaffirming their support of and solidarity with the Quebecois students]. Justice requires it, the times demand it.
It begins by defining who “the team” is. In a member-driven
organization, it’s the membership. And each and every person paid by the
workers to represent them has an obligation first to act and speak on
their behalf. Without humble servitude and committed loyalty to the
membership, the relationship between union staffers and union members is
purely parasitic. One lives literally, off the other.
How many union members know that behind the face of a handful of
public union leaders there are thousands of staffers, lawyers,
researchers, and in some offices enough communications people to rival
our largest news stations?
It is through these staffers, and the control of union funds over
locals, consultants, social justice groups, think tanks, legal firms and
alternative media outlets, that the union bureaucracies wield their
control over the workers’ movement. Orders are issued — “isolate that
fighter”, “kill that campaign”, “purge that victory” — and everyone
blindly follows, or else…
It is in this way that fighters are turned into vegetables, or worse,
career-driven wheel spinners, and people of passion and conscience are
broken into shadows of themselves. If they stick around and stop
fighting, they lose their soul and resort to passing their days
reminding members how busy they are (marching backwards), counting air
miles from their latest junket and using social media to glorify their
privileged lifestyle (compliments of members’ dues) rather than use it
as a powerful medium to educate, empower and organize.
Rather than feel the pain of their members — the eroding wages, lack
of dignity at work, and loss of all security — such union bureaucrats
cling ever more tightly to their positions, their privileges and perks.
Any challenge to the status quo, is a threat to this parasitic
existence, even if it means turning a blind eye to gross injustice.
Controlling union staffers was more difficult in the days when most
were recruited from the ranks, specially selected because of the way in
which they had distinguished themselves as competent fighters with
perseverance, integrity and their ability to persuade people to stand up
for justice. But today, like all organizations in decline, our union
bureaucracies shamelessly champion blind-allegiance over principled
leadership, nepotism over merit, and power over justice, even if it
comes with gross incompetence and does a disservice to the membership.
The pitfalls of bureaucracy plague the history of the workers’
movement and must be confronted. Most extreme is the example of Stalin.
When he was preparing the grounds to expel and and kill the dozens of
revolutionary leaders (his “threats”) who had actually brought down the
monarchy, led the Bolsheviks to power and were loved by the people, he
first flooded by the thousands the workers’ organizations, including key
positions of responsibility, with inexperienced and often opportunistic
people, who by the time they got over the nice feeling of having a
big-title, handsome paycheck and fancy outfit to boot, the dirty deeds
were done, history was rewritten, and the doomed course of a nation and
revolution was determined.
It’s no secret that today’s union bureaucracies are not sufficiently
transparent or democratic. With too few exceptions, Convention debates
are prescribed and anyone “out of line”, faces the cold isolation of the
monolithic bureaucratic back-turn. Staffers that are “out of line” have
their number-punched and a merciless hatchet-team is unleashed,
violating every conceivable union-principle, to mob them out of the
organization, out of their employment and against the will and best
interests of the membership. All sins are simply washed away with
reminders of the movement’s past accomplishments (like the 8 hour work
day, eroded beyond recognition today), and the unquestioned nobility of
our overall cause.
The CLC’s heavy-handed “how dare you question us?” response, in this
case, proves how unaccustomed the union brass are to being held to
account. They actually think that correspondence calling on unions
everywhere to potentially betray the Quebecois movement, what Chris
Hedges refers to as the “Northern light..the most important resistance
movement in the industrialized world”, can and should be considered
“private”. Where in the CLC Constitution does it say that the union is
to be organized as an aristocracy and not a democracy? Nowhere.
I’m with the anonymous blogger that the CLC communications staffer
tried to dismiss as a “self-appointed pundit who posts to blogs”: “Let’s
be clear, union leaders work for union members. They are not at the top
of a chain of command and if the leadership want to use the unions as a
tool to obstruct solidarity instead of facilitate it then the
leadership should be ignored or discarded. The CLASSE did this through
their mass assemblies and so can we.”
The time to
Occupy your union bureaucracy is now. Our collective future depends on it.
WE ARE ALL QUEBECOIS. Debt slaves of the world unite! (B.Y.O.P)
Diane Kalen-Sukra
Diane
Kalen-Sukra is a repeat survivor of internal union purges and is
currently waiting for member- reinforcements to ignite and occupy
Canada’s labour bureaucracy, of which she is a part. Over the past 20
years, she has coordinated and led countless successful community and
labour campaigns, most recently, the Water Watch Mission-Abbotsford
campaign which defeated the largest proposed water privatization scheme
in Canada’s water sector.
Join Diane on Facebook. Follow her @dianekalensukra
She is a labour and community issues columnist with The Real News Network, based in Washington, DC. Visit her blog page for the original article complete with links.
"Anyone can be a father, but it takes a real man to be a daddy."
