The formation of trade unions represented a great victory for the workers: from isolated individuals, they joined together to become a powerful, organized force.
The capitalists did all they could to smash this movement, and many men and women laid down their lives in the battle to organize labour in Canada.
But the bourgeoisie soon came to realize that strong-arm tactics were not enough to stop the growth of the union movement. Keeping the stick handy, it set out to systematically corrupt the union leaders.
Thus, two trends appeared in the unions: the proletarian trend which seeks to make the unions into organizing centres of the working class, not simply for its immediate struggles, but also for the emancipation of the workers; and the bourgeois trend which puts forward the possibility of reforming capitalism and which assigns the unions the role of collaborator with the bosses for the “collective welfare” of society.
How did such a trend to support capitalism develop within the trade union movement? The answer can be found in the development of capitalism itself towards the end of the 19th century.
The end of the 19th century saw the main capitalist countries, including Canada, develop from capitalism into imperialism. Huge monopolies, like Canadian Pacific, came into being. Through ruthless exploitation of Canadian and immigrant workers, pillage of Native lands, and expansion into underdeveloped areas like the Caribbean, they made unprecedented superprofits.
Economically the bourgeoisie was now in a position to use a fragment of these superprofits to buy off a tiny stratum of workers. This was the origin of the labour aristocracy.
Lenin explained the link between imperialism and this stratum, mostly made up of some of the highly skilled workers and union bureaucrats.
Obviously, out of such enormous superprofits it is possible to bribe the labour leaders and the upper stratum of the labour aristocracy. And that is just what the capitalists of the “advanced” countries are doing: they are bribing them in a thousand different ways, direct and indirect, overt and covert. (Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism)
One of the ways most frequently used by the Canadian bourgeoisie was to promote certain labour leaders.
The case of Tom Moore, head of the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada, is a good example. In 1919, Moore withdrew the TLCC’s support for the Winnipeg General Strike. Some time later, he was appointed to the board of directors of the Canadian National Railways (CNR). It was Moore who said that “intelligent trade unionists are the mainstays of capitalism.”
Today, several top union leaders sit on a host of government committees, parliamentary commissions, and boards of directors of public institutions.
The bourgeoisie holds out the promise of participation in the running of the country by inviting them to economic summits, as in Quebec, or tripartite meetings (employers, government and unions) at the federal level. We saw this at work with the “23 committees” where CLC officials were involved in formulating propositions for the planning of major sectors of the economy.
Obviously, not all union heads or workers who hold union posts allow themselves to be corrupted by the gamut of measures used by the bourgeoisie. Many of them denounce and fight against the handful of bureaucrats who presently control the labour movement and betray its interests.
Lenin pointed out:
This stratum of workers-turned-bourgeois, or the labour aristocracy, who are quite phiiistine in their mode of life, in the size of their earnings and in their entire outlook, is the principal social prop of the bourgeoisie. For they are the real agents of the bourgeoisie in the working-class movement, the labour lieutenants of the capitalist class, real vehicles of reformism and chauvinism. In the civil war between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie they inevitably and in no small numbers, take the side of the bourgeoisie.” (idem)
Enjoying a $50,000 annual salary and all the benefits that come with their position, the top labour leaders see capitalism as a good thing. They have an objective interest in keeping it going and do their utmost to keep workers away from class struggle.
They claim it’s possible to get along with the bosses and talk them into being reasonable. Because they attach much importance to negotiation, they try to dissuade workers from relying on direct action and mutual support.
For example, when Trudeau brought in wage controls in 1975, the CLC appealed for calm, saying it was looking into legal means to force the removal of the law. Rank-and-file pressure finally forced them to call a general strike. And yet, not long after this, Joe Morris began a series of discussions with the government on tripartism. In the middle of a full-scale offensive by the bourgeoisie, he was ready to institutionalize class collaboration!
Politically, the labour aristocracy spreads reformism. They tell workers that capitalism has positive aspects and needs only a few improvements in order to produce an ideal society. Maligning the genuinely socialist countries, they hold up the example of countries such as Sweden, where class collaboration has reached its height.
To keep workers from taking political action as a class, revolutionary action especially, these bureaucrats actively back reformist parties like the NDP or the PQ. They encourage workers to drop struggles and put their faith in these bourgeois parties that claim to be pro-labour.
Within the labour movement, the union bureaucrats are constantly attacking militant workers, and of course communists. They stop at nothing to suppress them in order to bring unions into line with their own views.
In short, the labour aristocracy fulfills the task given it by the bourgeoisie: it weakens the workers’ movement.
Workers have never quietly submitted to the labour aristocracy’s control of their unions. Right from the start, the most militant fought to make the unions fighting tools that serve their class. This fighting trend asserted itself on several occasions.
However when it is not organized, the fight against the class collaborationist line can only score temporary victories. Isolated activists can rarely defeat a well-developed line which has the backing of the entire bourgeoisie. Only when this struggle is guided by a communist party can it drive back the bourgeois line and finally smash it.
Indeed the history of the labour movement reveals that the class-struggle current was at its strongest in the ’30s, when the Communist Party of Canada was very active. During those years the labour aristocracy had its least influence and was just about displaced from its position of leadership.
The year after it was founded in 1921, the CPC set up the Trade Union Education League, a union opposition body made up of militant workers in the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada. The TUEL did education among union activists in order to transform the TLCC into a class-struggle union federation. It also fought to make the TLCC organize the mass of unskilled workers rather than restricting itself to work among skilled tradesmen.
In 1930, at the same time as they were working within the existing unions, the communists set up a federation, the Workers’ Unity League, representing industrial unions. The WUL waged 90% of the strikes in 1934. As well, it was communists like Dick Steele who played a leading role in establishing the first big industrial unions of the CIO (Committee of Industrial Organizations) like the Steelworkers and United Auto Workers.
The class-struggle trend became very strong. Unfortunately, the CPC degenerated and the union movement fell back into the hands of the labour aristocracy. Despite this, workers have not given up their resistance to collaboration with the bosses.
Today, the communist movement in Canada is reawakening, and with this renaissance, a new impetus has been given to the development of the class-struggle line. Already, the benefits can be seen in certain sections of the union movement across Canada.