Canadian Labour Congress - Relationship With The Social Democratic Left

Relationship With The Social Democratic Left

In the aftermath of the Second World War, various political trends played out within the Canadian labour movement as political parties and their supporters rallied for leadership control of the emerging labour movement.

The Trades and Labour Congress of Canada (TLC) held a policy of non-partisan activity right up until the formation of the CLC. However, within the TLC, efforts were made by Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) labour activists to attain a policy of CCF support. A significant measure of this support was the 133-133 tie vote at the TLC's 1954 Ontario convention on the matter of CCF support.

With the Canadian Congress of Labour (CCL), the situation was more complex. As a child of the Great Depression and the international romance with revolution in the decades immediately after 1917, Communist Party of Canada labour activists had taken leadership positions in several key unions and locals of CCL-affiliated unions. Indeed, the Workers Unity League (WUL) was a group of Communist-led unions in the 1930s with considerable organizational success. With adoption of the position of a United Front against fascism after 1939, the WUL merged with the CCL.

And even with the CCL there were many local unions with Communist leadership. In particular the United Auto Workers locals in Windsor, Ontario were Communist-led. The orientation of the Windsor UAW locals deeply affected the legislative and parliamentary elections in the Windsor area. In the 1943 elections, the CCF had won all three Windsor-area seats. But in 1945 the UAW locals endorsed three UAW activists who ran as "UAW-Liberal-Labour" candidates with the support of the Labour Progressive Party (LLP). As a result the CCF lost all three Windsor seats. Taking advantage of a mis-step by the leadership of UAW Local 200 in trying to rally a national one-day strike in sympathy of Ford workers, in 1946 CCF activists within the local 195 and 200 overturned their leadership. In addition, the UAW International Board elections of 1947 gave stronger support to Walter Reuther, the CCF-supporting International President. Between these two trends, the Canadian UAW leadership changed directions. In the 1948 provincial elections, the United Auto Workers supported CCF candidates.

Similarly, the International Woodworkers of America (IWA) in British Columbia was also Communist-lead. When, in 1948, CCF supporters gained control of the IWA's New Westminster local, other BC-based (and Communist-led) locals of the IWA withdrew in an attempt to form an independent union. However, this effort failed when the union members did not endorse the change.

Efforts to dislodge Communists from the United Electrical (UE) and the Mine Mill union did not succeed and these unions were expelled from the Canadian Congress of Labour. Hence by 1950, the Canadian Congress of Labour had become a federation of unions which, to a greater of lesser extent, all supported the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation.

With the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada-Canadian Congress of Labour merger complete in 1956, a further step was taken. Although political discussion was downplayed during the merger talks, in 1958 the Canadian Labour Congress and Co-operative Commonwealth Federation set up a 20 person joint committee to discuss the foundation of a new political party. These talks resulted in the founding of the New Democratic Party in 1962. the NDP has, in its constitution, an organic relationship with the labour movement. Many local union organizations directly affiliated with the NDP, giving these local union bodies the right to participate in the Party's conventions and councils. NDP constitution also recognizes the CLC's District Labour Councils, organizations of local unions in a single city or town, as delegating bodies to the conventions of the provincial and federal New Democratic Party sections. Hence, by embedding labour organizations in its structure, the NDP went beyond being simply the party for labour and became of the party of labour.

Since the foundation of the NDP, and particularly since the 1980s, the labour movement's relationship within the social democratic left has changed in two specific and important ways. First, unions have increased their involvement with social coalition groups such as organizations advocating for women's economic rights, peace or other causes which have an avowedly non-partisan orientation. Second (and not unrelatedly), the relationship of some unions with the NDP became more tactical and seemed less to be a long-term alliance.

These two trends were apparent in the 1988 federal elections. At the outset of the election campaign, several unions had established partnerships with organizations such as the Council of Canadians in order to attempt to derail the Conservative government's Free Trade Agreement. These social coalition groups and the Liberal Party made opposition to the Free Trade Agreement the focus of their campaign efforts. While the NDP attained their best result in the party's history, some union leaders publicly criticized the NDP leadership immediately after the election for not being sufficiently focused on opposition to the Free Trade Agreement.

Since that election, the tactical nature of the relationship between some unions and the NDP has even further degraded to their point where the Canadian Auto Workers Union (CAW) has, since the late 1990s, supported the Liberal Party federally and in Ontario provincial elections. Nonetheless, other significant unions have remained steadfast in their support and involvement with the NDP as their top political priority, even while maintaining involvement in social coalitions. Given the size of the CAW with the Canadian labour movement, the CAW's support for the Liberals has caused significant problems for the CLC leadership in continuing to follow the Congress' policy of NDP support.

Since 1994, the CLC has been a member of the Halifax Initiative, a coalition of Canadian non-governmental organizations for public interest work and education on international financial institutions.