It’s one thing when unionized workers decide they want to leave their current union and join another, but labour leaders tend to get a little hot under the collar when that other union starts helping them along. Within the labour movement, where everyone is “brother” or “sister” and solidarity is next to godliness, these things are not taken lightly.
Some of B.C.’s 9,000 licensed practical nurses (LPNs) have long talked about switching out of the Hospital Employees’ Union and into the B.C. Nurses’ Union. But when the Nurses’ Union began assisting them – signing up interested LPNs as “associate members” as part of an effort to promote their organization – the outcry was swift and vicious. There’s an ugly word in the labour lexicon for expanding one’s membership at the cost of another union: it’s called raiding.
The Canadian Labour Congress and many affiliated unions wrote letters condemning the Nurses’ Union’s tactics. Jim Sinclair, president of the B.C. Federation of Labour, contributed his own stern reprimand, writing that the Nurses’ Union’s action “plays directly into the hands of the B.C. government. This division hurts not only our movement, but ultimately patients.” The Nurses’ Union is now suspended from all councils and services organized by the provincial and national labour groups.
Despite the backlash, Nurses’ Union president Debra McPherson is steadfast in the decision to welcome the dissenting LPNs. If enough are willing to join them, the Nurses’ Union will officially sign up workers who wish to defect and present the signatures to the Labour Relations Board of B.C., which can call for a vote to change their union representation. At the root of this fight, McPherson says, are the democratic rights of workers: “The fundamental principle of the freedom to be represented by a union should be supported by the freedom to choose the union you want to represent you.”
Jim Sinclair, interestingly, also talks about democracy when he condemns the Nurses’ Union, arguing that disgruntled workers should resolve their issues within their current union’s democratic processes without jeopardizing the unity of the labour movement. He says there are internal rules in place if workers want to change their union, although he admits, “We don’t make it easy.”
What pains him about this fight, he says, is that unions are fighting among themselves for members as the proportion of unionized workers in B.C. steadily declines. Between 1997 and 2007, the percentage of B.C. workers belonging to a union dropped from 36.6 per cent to 32.1 per cent. The labour movement should be focusing its energies on representing the unorganized, Sinclair says, not on infighting.
So how does one characterize this schism? Is the demand for union solidarity trampling the individual worker’s right to dissent? Or is the Nurses’ Union selfishly growing its own ranks at the expense of the greater labour movement? Well, it depends on your perspective, suggests Mark Leier, director of SFU’s centre for labour studies: “It’s like any other thing: your union raid is my democratic unionism.”
The fact that there’s friction within unions should come as no surprise, Leier says; they are no different than other large, complex organizations in that they constantly evolve through conflicts and resolution. Raids are one of those conflicts, and it’s the task of the major labour bodies to try to restore unity when these things arise – although it’s not always easy. “Solidarity is not a simple, natural occurrence,” Leier says. “It’s something you have to work at.”
McPherson says she does not foresee this tiff causing any serious harm to the wider labour movement or threatening the joint causes mainstream unions support. “This has happened in the past with other unions,” she says. “At the end of the day, the labour movement always comes together and finds a way to find peace.”
