Below is a letter to Sam Gindin from Bob White, which was distributed at the CAW Retired Staff Conference this year (May 20-23).

Following it is Sam’s reply.

SAM:.

RE: THE BULLET MAY 6, 2008

I decided to respond to the above article because I am so disappointed and angry with the diatribe contained in your piece entitled THE CAW & PANIC BARGAINING’’ EARLY OPENING AT THE BIG THREE. This is a disgusting piece of commentary, starting off with the suggestion that the leadership, including Buzz and the elected local union leaders, had an air of panic about them.

That’s a hell of an accusation considering the fact that commencing with Buzz, all the leadership have been elected by their local union except Buzz, who is elected by a convention of local union delegates. They know first hand what is going on in the Auto industry and the current and future impact it has on our members and their families. Their goal was an attempt to negotiate the best possible collective agreement in the most critical period in the history of our union when thousands of our members are losing their jobs.

You, of course Sam, were never elected to any position in our union. One of our locals was kind enough to arrange a membership for you. In addition our union donated one million dollars to establish the Sam Gindin Chair at Ryerson University. You are employed at York University and had an opportunity to receive public funding for international travel to analyse other countries economies etc. None of that however compares to a being the leader of CAW in such difficult times as exist now.

Sam, never have you had to face what thousands of our members and their families are facing today: loss of jobs, loss of homes, increased family stress and a very uncertain future

What is your solution to the crises we face.

You do an academic analysis comparing at times, the current situation to what we faced in 1982. I agree that we can learn from our history but that was 26 years ago and there is absolutely no similarity to what is taking place today.

In 1982 we were in a recession, however, we had an Auto Pact requiring investments and production based on sales of cars and trucks. The Asian manufacturers’ sales and production here were minuscule then compared to the situation today. In that period General Motors employed thousands more of our members than the total number currently employed by Ford, Chrysler and GM together.

Your article contained a number of WHAT IF’S.

One suggested that if the CAW mobilized our members for a fight in September against the two-tier system that this would spark or reinforce a resistance to two tiers in the USA and that the possibility of such a rebellion in the U. S. against their union leadership as much as against the companies is not as far fetched as it may appear.

Later you write that a high profile struggle against the two tier wage system in Canada could have a major impact on the U. S. defeating the two-tier system on both sides of the border.

You sometimes attend meetings with some of the activists in the US. They know and you and I know, the chance of that kind of action by large numbers of US workers is not going to happen.

Another of your WHAT IF’S suggests that the CAW strike only key facilities and leave the rest operating. Another absolute ridiculous idea given the integration of the various workplaces.

The more I read what you wrote in The BULLET and other musings you have done, the more I am convinced that there is enormous differences between the two L’s : Lectures and Leaders.

The content of the BULLET is about you lecturing by writing with lots of rhetoric and what ifs without having to justify any results. The other L is about leadership. I am absolutely convinced that given the reality of the Auto Industry today all the bargaining teams lead by Buzz and the very competent team around him served our members and their families well in reaching these agreements in the most difficult period in the history of CAW.

Sam I noticed how quick, and very excited you were, to refer to the Oakville plant production workers vote. Maybe you should have waited for all of the results of our members votes before you go so excited.

Chrysler 87 per cent.

General Motors 84 per cent.

Ford 67 per cent.

The results show once again, the vast majority of our members, have a good sense of the reality they are facing and trust there union and our leadership.

Sam your analysis is incorrect. Once again you are away off the mark and out of touch with the leadership and membership of the CAW.

Bob White

Dear Bob,

I’ve received many responses from CAW members to what I’ve been writing. A few disagreed and we had a constructive exchange on the issues; by far most of them welcomed someone expressing what they were thinking. What was so different about the letters I got from Chernicki, Ken Sr and Frank Mc, was that they raised no issues whatsoever, but only challenged my right to speak out publically – doing so was ‘disloyal’ and loyalty is apparently the most important (if not the only) virtue. Though you do raise a few specific issues, you basically do much the same thing. You put it in terms of my credibility to speak up, given that I’m not a ‘leader’ with no ‘responsibilities’, but am only an outside academic (a ‘lecturer’).

I wonder if you felt the same way in regards to what I wrote about the UAW leadership accepting and selling the devastating two-tier system? After all, Gettlefinger was an elected leader with complex responsibilities and I see no reason to believe that he cared any less for his members and their families than Buzz did. Was this kind of criticism ‘different’ (OK) because here I was on the same side as you and Buzz?

I also remember the statements the UAW put out when Victor Reuther began ‘interfering’ in the direction of the union. They aggressively emphasized that he had never led negotiations nor faced the responsibilities this implied, and therefore had no business being critical. Yet Victor was repeatedly brought to Canada as a hero to criticize what the UAW leaders were doing to a once-great working class institution. I’m no Victor, but your position does seem a tad inconsistent.

You assert that inspiring the Americans by our example is not a serious possibility – an example of academic speculation and ‘what-ifs’. Well, I’d agree that it’s a long shot. But so was the possibility of Canadian autoworkers successfully defying the largest companies in the world and their own parent union in the most internationally-integrated sector anywhere - and doing so not in good times but just as neoliberalism and deeper continental integration were emerging. As I recall, there were a lot of ‘what-ifs’ floating around in our internal discussions at the time.

The point is that the labour movement is slowly dying and this includes the CAW. If we want to reverse this, we need more ‘what-if’s’ and more debate not less.

(Spare me the argument that the NEB or the CAW Council is a place where this happens to any degree that matches what we confront; any honest discussion with staff and delegates would confirm the frustrations).

As for the argument that ‘times have changed’, this was always thrown at workers when they tried to buck the tide. Of course times have changed; the question is whether the union’s response maintains its values, principles, and above all independent voice and structures, or whether - even if reluctantly – it is more or less accommodating to the new environment.

What I see is the latter. It’s reflected in the union essentially echoing the companies on competitiveness and getting closer to ‘their’ companies as they move away from ties to the rest of the labour movement. It’s evident in the silence on executive salary increases as the same execs demand worker concessions, and in the defence of corporate subsidies even when the promised jobs don’t come. It’s plain in Jacket-gate and the president of the union campaigning for both Belinda and McGuinty and doing so without any democratic mandate. And it’s there in the Magna deal, including the perverse declaration, at the original press conference, that the deal represented a ‘unionism for the 21st century’.

(The CAW as visionary was hardly helped when the NEB agreed to hand out truck-loads of money to the CCWU, a phony union set up by individuals well-know for their corruption).

The symbolic cap to this reorientation of the union may very well occur at the Collective Bargaining Conference itself. Normally about challenging the elite and mobilizing the members, it risks – with the traditional focus on Big Three Bargaining out of the way - being overshadowed by a mid-conference gala dinner in which Canada’s economic and political elite come together to contribute to a charity and pay tribute to Buzz on his coming retirement.

I expect there will be little discussion of the shame of a wealthy society providing a measure of adequate housing only through charity, and even less discussion of the role of many of those present in causing or reinforcing the current suffering of not just the poor but workers more generally.

You end by pointing to my excitement at Oakville’s vote and gloat about the high sub-sequent votes at GM and Chrysler. Well, I was excited about the Oakville vote because it was a sign of hope, of workers’ standing up to what ‘s been done to them.

On the other hand, the strong votes at GM and Chrysler highlighted the lowering of expectations and the pervasive fear amongst the members – a fear which the union has not just reflected, but in some cases reinforced. Leaving aside the cynical scheduling of votes a day after the secondary leadership was called in and in the midst of the first summer four-day weekend, and setting aside a process in which the union asks to open bargaining before the Bargaining Conference that allegedly discusses direction and sets priorities can take place, exactly what it is in that vote that vindicates the leadership? Amongst other things, workers gave up some of their paid time-off including, in Oshawa, the loss of relief time when the pace of work is accelerating.

Oshawa also approved other companies coming into the complex and working beside CAW members but under inferior and likely non-union agreements – two-tier by stealth. Sure, I can understand why the members may have accepted this and even felt relief given the options they faced, but why would we celebrate it?

Finally, Bob, I was as much an academic when I worked so closely with you, as I am today - though in terms of learning, it was you who were often the teacher. Today, I spend more time with students, virtually all of whom come from the working class, and probably interact more with rank-and-file workers in Canada and the US than I did before. I write and criticize because I care about the working class, not because its comfortable questioning friends, and certainly not because I have nothing else to do.

Like others, I’m struggling with what the labour movement and the left can do and I hope what I write makes some contribution to that.

Others will decide if it does or not. Meanwhile, I’ll continue writing and criticizing - and accepting criticism.

Sam Gindin

May 23, 2008