Defying Expectations: The Case of UFCW Local 401

Defying Expectations: The Case of UFCW Local 401 is a book about success. In it, Edmonton’s Jason Foster, an associate professor of human resources and labour relations at Athabasca University and former director of policy analysis at the Alberta Federation of Labour, investigates a union that has had “remarkable success organizing a group of workers that North American unions often struggle to reach: immigrants, women and youth.” The result is a deeply interesting look at how unions and their members can work together to create much-needed change.

The labour movement practice of calling one another “sister” or“brother” clashes with a growing consciousness about the perils of classifying people into a strict gender binary, and many union activists are demanding change. 

“We’re erased in many facets of our lives, and so to not be erased and be visible in the labour movement is important,” says Charlie Huntley, a Halifax-based union organizer.

The common greeting of “sister” or “brother” happens in various contexts: delegates are often referred to as “the brother at the microphone,” union leaders often address each other as “sister,” followed by their name, and speeches usually start with “sisters and brothers” as a broad greeting.

These terms are necessarily exclusive. As more union activists are asserting trans and non-binary identities, many union activists are reflecting on the use of “sisters” and “brothers” and, more importantly, what might replace these terms.

To begin to imagine what could replace calling one another “sister” or “brother,” it’s important to start with why these terms are used at all. These greetings are intended for workers to instantly bond with one another based on their relationship to the bosses. If you don’t know a person’s name and you’re walking on a picket line together, calling them “sister” is a warm gesture. Warmer, at least, then saying “oh, hey.”

But the gender binary doesn’t capture everyone. And these old notions of symbolic solidarity probably didn’t even emerge from the need of a nameless, familiar honorific to separate the workers from the bosses.

The use of brother as a moniker was normal in fraternal societies, popular more than a century ago. Many of these groups were exclusive to men and members would refer to each other as brother. York University professor and labour historian Craig Heron says that this deeply informed how early craft-unions operated. “Brother” was to signify that workers were part of a brotherhood, a nod to the importance of solidarity among the union’s ranks. And many brotherhoods remain to this day, like the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW).

Lindsay Kearns is an electrician and proud to be affiliated with a union, but feels erased by the lack of acknowledgement that women work in the trades.

“When all the textbooks and worksheets and exams and teachers at the trade school use only male examples to illustrate their points, the fact that I was being called a ‘brother’ in the union (and a ‘journeyman’ once fully qualified) fit in with how people like me are considered an mostly invisible side-note in the industry at large,” she writes.

But rather than pushing harder to include “sisters,” Kearns prefers to be called worker, or better, fellow worker.

There’s no doubt that the terms “brother” and “sister” are exclusive. Trans, non-binary, and gender-fluid members who are fighting for visibility, rights, and space are erased and marginalized when a meeting chairperson has no way to acknowledge them at a microphone, or worse, misgenders them. The trouble is, there are few options that could be subbed in for these words and maintain the same reference to a familial network. This means that labour activists need to consider upending the use of these terms entirely.

At the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour’s (SFL) convention in October, a motion was passed that encouraged members to “expand their range of options when referring to each other apart from ‘sister’ and ‘brother.’” The motion was served by CUPE Local 4828, the union representing the staff at the SFL and includes a list of alternative monikers: “fellow worker, unionist, comrade, sibling, or by simply using another worker’s name.”

For Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) members, “fellow worker” is the default. Fellow worker is useful not just because it’s gender neutral, but it’s also more obvious and a better reflection of workers’ relationships with one another.

Many labour activists have called for “sisters and brothers” to be replaced with “comrade,” a word with a radical history that is also gender neutral. But, there are some problems with the term: socialists who use “comrade” to refer to fellow socialists or radicals aren’t likely to feel comfortable referring to a fellow worker as a comrade, especially if that worker is an outward supporter of the Conservative Party, for example.

Huntley isn’t sure that “comrades” should replace “sisters and brothers” in all situations, but is clear that there must be a change: “When I hear a labour crowd addressed as ‘sisters and brothers’ I shudder, feel unwelcome, and erased. When someone addresses a group with ‘sisters, brothers, and non-binary siblings’ or ‘sisters, brothers and comrades’ I feel included and a little proud, because I know that someone took the time to work that out… They had a hard or awkward conversation and they learned a thing about trans people.”

I was struck not by what was there, but what was missing: Of the 50 ideas, there wasn’t one that dealt specifically with work.

Neoliberalism has atomized our struggles. While many activists use intersectional analyses to help cross barriers or silos, intersectionality as practice remains on the fringes of progressive organizing. On the mainstream left, we struggle to make connections to broader issues, broader experiences and, critically, to link our boldest ideas to the vessel necessary to create fundamental change: our labour.

Work is fundamental to our lives. We work to survive. Our value under capitalism is measured by our work. Regardless of whether we count down the days until our next break, our next job interview, or our next project, work remains the most important location in the lives of most people.

Surely, social change requires work, labour, workers, and the labour movement.

But for the Left, work is often isolated from broader social struggle. Rather than seeing our work sites and our labour as necessary components for social change, we see work separately; as a location in and of itself that is exclusive from other struggles. Often, we relegate labour struggle to union activists who are paid.

This ignores the fact that work is critical to delivering social change. Of the 50 ideas that This featured, you’d be hard pressed to find a single idea that didn’t require the world of labour to either deliver the desired change or change itself in some way to implement the bold vision.

For example: to confront climate change, we must imagine the role of workers in the transition to an oil-free economy: how would energy workers, those in the skilled trades, public sector workers, and retail workers engage in this struggle from their workplace?

If we want a national child-care system, we must talk about work: both working parents and the childcare workers required to deliver a new system.

If we want community food centres, we must talk about how workers could be engaged in designing, delivering, and resourcing such a program.

If we want radical health care reform, we must place patients alongside nurses, doctors, cafeteria workers, social workers, secretaries, archivists, maintenance staff, and everyone else who makes the health care system operate to achieve our radical reforms.        

If we want to enact the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, we must include workplaces as a site of reconciliation, both to deliver on the commission’s recommendations but to also reach Canadians where they spend most of their waking lives.

There is no new internet without tech workers, there are no alternative food systems without farmers and grocers, there are no new Canadian films without actors and crew, there is no support for artists without funding artists to do their work and paying people to promote and help them out. 

And, within our workplaces, there is no shortage of things we need to fight to improve. We need better pay. We need (better) workplace protections. We need (better) pensions. We need (better) jobs.

Canadians spend an average of 36.6 hours every week at work. When we imagine the biggest and boldest ideas for the future, if they don’t explicitly consider how working people could or should be involved, we relegate our social change to those of us with the privilege of jobs that let us fight for social change for pay, or those of us who have the money and time to volunteer.

This is extremely isolating. If our best ideas for the future of Canada can’t loop in workers in an intersectional way that respects the other identities they hold, our campaigns will have no future.

There are radical ways in which we can change our workplaces, but there are also important and mundane ones too. From the fight for a $15 minimum wage, to protecting survivors of domestic assault from losing their jobs, from building workers’ power through coops or traditional labour movement structures, to the possibilities that emerge when we consider using strikes as a tactic to force governments to keep their promises to Indigenous people and their communities, we must not forget the powerful role that work plays in all of our lives.

This Magazine's May/June 2012 cover story

The meat counter at the Cambie Street Whole Foods in Vancouver is thirty feet long, filled with choice cuts of beef, lamb, chicken, pork, and at least 20 different kinds of sausages. Two clerks, dressed in white smocks, black aprons, and Whole Foods caps, hustle around behind the counter, making sure everything looks just right. One of them wraps up an antibiotic-free chicken breast; the other offers instructions on how to grill a $33/pound cut of tenderloin to a young, attentive shopper.

Philip Dunlop used to be one of these workers. From October 2009 to April 2010, he spent forty hours a week slicing meat, making sausages, and serving customers, all in workplace conditions he found increasingly depressing. The sturdy, dark-haired 30-year old recites the list: lack of respect, uneven  wages, uncertain pay bumps, short staffing, inability to rectify grievances, low job security—it goes on and on. He lodged complaints about these issues to store managers in letter after letter. Each time he did, the managers spoke to him, placated him, assured him things would change. Only they didn’t. Dunlop felt more and more like he was being handled—that he had no real voice in his workplace. After less than two months of working at what Dunlop calls “The Meat Pit,” he started thinking about unionizing the store.

Labour in the retail sector is notoriously difficult to organize. The position of retail clerk is now the most common job in the country, at over 1.8 million workers. Yet, the field remains one of the least unionized. In Canada, nearly 30 percent of all workers are union members; less than 11 percent of workers in the retail sector are unionized. Membership is particularly low among young workers. Just under 15 percent of those aged 15-24 are union members, half the rate of workers in any other age bracket. Even worse, labour organizers are grappling with a concerted effort among companies to change corporate culture—an insidious new way to convince workers that labour and management are playing for the same team. With such stacked odds, the future of unions in retail looks increasingly grim.

Dunlop lives in an old white house in the affluent Point Grey neighbourhood in Vancouver. It’s one of the few run-down homes. He shares the space with six roommates, all of whom are students or recent graduates like Dunlop, who has a Master’s degree in history. It’s a February afternoon and Dunlop is making everyone sandwiches with clearance deli meat. He’s dressed in old cargo pants and a much-too-large black sweater with rips along the seams, supporting his claim that he gets all of his clothes second-hand. The toonie-sized red sale sticker is conspicuous as he pulls slices of salami from the package. This is what he could afford to buy on his $11/hour wage at Whole Foods and it’s the kind of meat he still buys now that he’s unemployed and living off a combination of EI and meagre savings.

Dunlop was finishing up his Master’s degree when he landed the job at Whole Foods in late 2009. His thesis was an exploration of the Sino-American influence on the Cambodian genocide. There wasn’t much of a market for that slice of knowledge; he wound up working as a meat clerk instead. Dunlop had also studied labour history in school and had developed a sense of class consciousness. When he arrived at Whole Foods, he both was surprised and dismayed with working conditions.

Dunlop was impelled to act. He tried to build relationships with his coworkers and strengthen bonds with informal gatherings outside of the store. In conversations with his fellow employees, Dunlop suggested the possibility of alternative dynamics between labour and management. He outlined a place where workers weren’t obliged to accept everything they were told without question. He was in small ways trying to break the illusion that labour and management are always playing for the same team. Months later in his kitchen, Dunlop recounts the obstacles and feelings of impossibility in between bites of the salami sandwich he’s filled out with mustard, mayonnaise, tomato and a slice of Kraft singles cheese.

In January, Dunlop began to look for allies in an organizing drive. He started with his coworkers in the Meat Pit, but soon branched out into other departments, striking up conversations with grocery clerks, workers at the specialty foods counter, and a few cashiers. All of the workers he approached were under 30. The longest any of them had been at Whole Foods was a year and a half. As Dunlop flitted about the store, he sought to get a sense of workers’ attitudes toward their jobs and workplace conditions, as well as their feelings about organized labour. He was discouraged by the response. “Far from having an opinion,” he says, “some didn’t know what a union was.”

Canada’s early trade unions were established in the second half of the19th century in response to the spread of industrial capitalism. As production accelerated in the early 20th century, so did labour activity. Escalating tensions between wealthy employers and workers facing high unemployment and inflation led to the Winnipeg General Strike in 1919, the largest general strike in Canadian labour history. In the 1930s, the Depression helped boost union appeal and by the end of World War II, workers were organized enough and militant enough to demand better wages, hours, and conditions. Strike activity surged. Unions continued to fight for rights and to gain strength, with union density (the proportion of unionized workers in the workforce) peaking in the 1980s. Since then, however, union activity has been on the decline.

Unfortunately, it’s easy to see how some workers, and particularly young workers, have become less aware of unions and the role they played in shaping the 20th century. Unions aren’t in the media as much as they once were—and labour news isn’t exactly a hot topic on social media. There is the sense that unions are a thing of the past, unnecessary now that Canada has labour laws and minimum wages. Corporations have capitalized on this sentiment, suggesting that unionized workplaces are inefficient and outdated, and that unions just get in the way of healthy, fluid relationships between workers and management.

Just as discouraging, the Conservative government is now encroaching on workers’ hard-won right to strike. In June 2011, the Harper government enacted back-to-work legislation after postal workers went on a rotating strike and were subsequently locked out of work by Canada Post. The Canadian Postal Workers Union is challenging the legality of this legislation. In March 2012, similar legislation was used to prevent Air Canada workers from striking. Without the right to strike—or even to present a legitimate threat of strike action—unions lose one of their key bargaining chips.

“The influence of unions has slowly been diminishing,” says Andy Neufeld, director of communications and education at United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1518, which, along with UFCW local 247, represents most of the unionized supermarket workers in B.C. (As the largest retail union in Canada, UFCW would have been the most likely union for Dunlop and his coworkers to join.) Flagging awareness is exacerbated in the retail sector by the huge number of young workers with no previous union experience, he says. About 65 percent of workers in his local are under the age of 30. Many have little or no previous experience with unions.

Neufeld makes an extra effort to capture the enthusiasm of these workers, many of whom are disinclined to pay union dues and don’t see the benefit of membership—proven wage premiums, increased job security, better benefits, and a chance to have a stronger voice in the workplace. Neufeld says the union is trying to get this message out there, but is sending information into a glutted market. “We’re competing for people’s attention,” he adds, “just like everybody else.”

Young workers also have a high turnover rate (the turnover rate in Canada’s retail sector is 25 percent), making it difficult to keep a strong, stable core of workers in place long enough to push an organizing drive through to success. Dunlop has firsthand experience with this phenomenon: During the course of his rabble rousing, half a dozen potential allies quit or were fired. Neufeld says high turnover is the number one cause for stagnating unionization rates in retail. It’s no happy accident, either. “Employers can rely on this churn in the base of the workforce,” Neufeld says.

In fact, at Whole Foods many of those interested in the idea of collective bargaining were afraid of reprisal to the point of inaction. Even Dunlop worried his union talk would find its way to management before he was ready—lest he prematurely land in hot water. As Dunlop puts it: “Nobody likes to stick their neck out.”

Kyle Attwaters and Jillian Brooks were fellow meat clerks at the Whole Foods in Vancouver. (Brooks was employed from April 2009 to October 2009; Attwaters from January 2010 to May 2010.) Both are in their mid-twenties and both say they would have signed union cards despite their fear of being fired at a time when unemployment was high. When asked how they perceived the store’s attitude toward unions, their responses are unqualified.  “It was very frowned upon,” Attwaters says. “They told us that right off the bat.” Brooks is more frank: “The mention of unionizing would piss so many people off.”

Attwaters says that when he first started at Whole Foods, he had to watch an introductory video with a segment on unions. Although the video didn’t expressly forbid workers from unionizing or engaging in organizing activity, he says message was clear that workers didn’t need a union—Whole Foods’ employment system worked fine without one. That system, it turns out, is to dictate the terms of employment and working conditions, leaving workers to accept them or find another job. Neufeld explains that employers are able to exploit their daily interaction with workers to influence opinion: “They’re able to convince employees that they’re better off without unions,” he says. “Employees are very quick to pick up on those cues.”

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey has been infamously outspoken in his contempt for unions. He once told a reporter in the ’80s: “The union is like having herpes. It doesn’t kill you, but it’s unpleasant and inconvenient and stops a lot of people from  becoming your lover.” This strong anti-union sentiment is woven into the ethos of his 300-plus stores. (As of press time, Whole Foods had seven stores across British Columbia and Ontario, six in the UK, with the rest in the States.) Like many corporate retail stores, Whole Foods carries its fight against unions—and its own boosterism for the company—right down to the language workers are required to use. Whole Foods doesn’t have employees or workers or clerks; it has “team members.” And, despite clear distinctions in authority, there are no bosses or managers, only “team leaders.”

In December, for instance, Dunlop submitted a long list of grievances to store team leaders. Among his complaints was unpaid overtime. At closing time, he’d observed workers clocking out and then returning to finish tidying up the area, readying it for the next day. Dunlop participated in this process once, on his first day. But when he realized nobody was getting paid for this extra work, he raised the matter with his superiors. Dunlop says that in the resulting conference between himself and an assistant store team leader, the team leader insisted on stressing the distinction in terminology—namely, Dunlop’s use of the word manager—before addressing any of his actual complaints.

Such workplace jargon exists to influence the way employees perceive their relationship to the store—and it works. The idea is to create a feeling of allegiance to the company and not to fellow workers. “It was extremely difficult to convince people that workers and management have mutually antagonistic interests,” says Dunlop.

In a list of things to expect during an organizing drive, the UFCW cites the “We’re a family, we’re a team” line as a likely scare tactic employed by companies. In some cases, as at Whole Foods, this team approach is undertaken pre-emptively to stop workers from even considering an organizing initiative, as it might be seen as playing for the other side. But capitalism by nature pits labour and management against each other. Management is interested in minimizing costs, which means keeping wages low; labour is interested in maximizing wages. These fundamental differences in interest make it impossible to be part of the same team.

Once obtained union certification is a challenge to maintain. Wal-Mart shut down its Jonquière, six months Quebec store in 2005 after workers voted to unionize (and failed to reach a collective agreement). More recently, in 2011, Target expanded into Canada, buying out over a hundred Zellers stores, including a handful of unionized locations. It refuses to honour any union contracts and is planning to fire all current Zellers employees. Instead, Target welcomes employees to reapply for non-union positions, foregoing any accumulated wage increases or benefits they may have earned over years of work. Whole Foods biggest push to unionize a store was in Madison, Wisconsin in the early 2000s. Although workers voted for union certification, contract negotiations were drawn out for years and the union effort eventually ran out of worker support—especially after Mackey showed up at the store to hand out pamphlets titled “Beyond Unions.” When Madison decertified in 2004, Mackey went on a nine-month “Beyond Unions” tour of his stores.

If unions are to stay relevant, they have to adapt. In some ways, they seem to be trying. The UFCW now requires every one of its locals to devote 10 percent of resources to organizing initiatives, leading to some positive results. Earlier this year, a Future Shop in Montreal gained union certification. And in late 2011, an H&M store in Mississauga became the first in Canada to unionize, prompting organizing activities in many other locations. Notably, the campaign used social media to keep young workers interested in the drive. The UFCW has also launched a campaign to fight the anti-union Target takeover of Zellers. The “Target for Fairness” campaign raises awareness of Target’s plans for Zellers workers and awareness billboards have been erected in cities across the country.

More innovation is still key. Unions need to be more creative in their organizing approaches, says University of Manitoba labour studies professor David Camfield. One of the best ways for unions to increase appeal, he adds, is to engage in significant action—something they’ve been doing less and less. This may mean more strike action, more political action, or even stronger responses to concession demands by employers. “It’s not a question of sticking with the tried and true,” Camfield says. “There’s a lot of room for experimentation.”

Part of this experimentation has to include greater democracy within unions, allowing for an increase in both worker participation and worker control. Enduring change must come from the bottom up. Currently, most unions are controlled by a small number of officials, who dictate how the organization will run. “Unions need to become more worker-driven, worker-run,” says Camfield, “and that will only happen when workers themselves make it happen.”

Unfortunately, current economic conditions aren’t exactly encouraging workers to engage in union activity. Camfield says that higher unemployment and low job security have contributed to an environment in which workers are encouraged to compete amongst themselves. Such a situation is disastrous for the idea of solidarity, but it’s terrific for employers, who constantly promote it, even with initiatives as seemingly harmless as Employee of the Month awards. In the difficulties and discouragements, though, Camfield also sees opportunities for workers to find commonalities with each other, to identify and work with each other rather than submit to competition. “There are all sorts of ways,” he says, “in which people could see that collective action would be a much better way to solve our problems than by being pitted against each other.”

Recent activism have proven the power of solidarity and collective action. The Occupy movement, the Arab Spring, the student protests in Quebec have all brought huge masses of people together to resonating effect. Camfield says that these examples of effective collective action outside of the workplace can serve as inspiration; they could have the potential to feed into the workplace by influencing the way workers think about what they can achieve and how they can achieve it.

Had Dunlop stayed at Whole Foods longer, he might have been able to do more—of course, that’s largely the point. Dunlop was fired after six months. He says he arrived to work one day in April, was allowed to work for one hour, then told to go home. He adds a store manager alleged he’d uttered a threat of physical harm against his immediate supervisor, a claim Dunlop disputes. Whole Foods has faced previous allegations of firing pro-union employees on trumped-up charges. During the campaign in Madison, two of the workers involved in the organizing activity were reportedly fired for dubious reasons. One of them made a latte the wrong way and gave this defective beverage to her co-worker instead of throwing it out. Both were let go for their parts in this breach of store policy.

Dunlop filed a claim with the labour board in November 2010 for having been fired without cause or notice. He says although Whole Foods maintained that they had sufficient grounds for dismissal, they decided to settle the matter without litigation. Dunlop was paid the week’s worth of wages to which workers are entitled when fired without notice. He is now using his knowledge of labour law to help former coworkers challenge the power of the corporation. He has written a letter to the store managers offering his experience free of charge to anyone who’s been fired from Whole Foods. It’s a small, but cheeky contribution that helps him feel like he and his fellow workers haven’t been pushed to resignation.

As Dunlop sits in his kitchen, finishing his budget salami sandwich, he says he’s not surprised by his lack of success—he feels the deck was stacked against him. He doesn’t regret the effort, though. “We have to try to stand together,” he says. “If we don’t at least try, where are we?”

February 4 anti-Mubarak protest in Alexandria, Egypt. Creative Commons photo by Al Jazeera English

In Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, even Italy, citizens are rising up, risking their lives to protest their corrupt governments. Egyptians, in a historical event, have proven they can be successful in overthrowing years of dictatorial leadership. Canadians were mostly cheering along (though our government wasn’t), but’s hard to put ourselves in their place—Canada, flawed though it is, is simply not Egypt. Corruption here is less pervasive; the military less present in our everyday lives; we have a functional political opposition. But since freedom, democracy, and human rights are on everyone’s mind right now, perhaps it’s time for a little self-evaluation session.

The uprisings in the Middle East should prompt Canadians to take a closer look at the state of our own politics. For just one recent example, see the recent KAIROS “not” scandal and assess how democratic our government’s behaviour truly is. Murray Dobbin on Rabble stopped just short of comparing Steven Harper to ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, and called Harper’s Conservative cabinet a squad of “hit men.”

But would Canadians ever reach the point where we just couldn’t take it anymore? Could we rebel in  Egypt-like protests? Would our rants to friends or angry blog comments ever manifest as rebellion in the street?

Stereotypically, Canadians are polite and retiring; unconfrontational if you’re being nice about it, apathetic if you’re not. But there’s data to prove that we really don’t like things to get politically messy. Besides our dismal-and-getting-worse voter turnout rate, A 2000 General Social Survey by Statistics Canada found that only 9 percent of Canadians (age 15 and up) had participated in a public debate that year (things like calling radio talkback shows or writing letters to the editor). Half of those individuals researched information on political issues, and 10 percent volunteered for a political party. We also seem naturally more inclined to express our opinions with a group that we know will share or agree with our own opinions.

Historically, if Canadians take the time to understand a politcal issue, then get mad about it, we will find a way to express it. Like the time time the Conservative government decided prorogue parliament; a 63 day break while 36 government bills lay untouched. While plenty of us apparently didn’t know what the heck that meant, 200,000 Canadians got angry, logged onto Facebook and joined a group called Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament. Many attended actual rallies across the country.

If you were in Toronto in the summer of 2010, you witnessed Canadians in a more traditional form of protest during the G20 conference. Over 300 people were arrested and the images of Toronto streets seemed almost unrecognizable, as if it were a different country altogether.

The erosion of Western democracy seems to be everywhere you turn lately. Paul Krugman identified the union-busting tactics of Wisconsin governor Scott Walker as just the latest example of a hemisphere-wide push by anti-democratic forces: “What Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to do is to make Wisconsin — and eventually, America — less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy,” Krugman wrote.

Dobbin’s Rabble column sounds the same alarm for Canada: He calls Minister of International Cooperation Bev Oda’s corrections of the CIDA report “political thuggery worthy of a dictatorship.”  This seems to be just one example of our democracy moving backwards while citizens of Italy, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen are actively involved in taking back control of their respective countries.

Solidarity forever. Or until the litterbox is full. Illustration by David Donald.

It’s hard enough to be a socially progressive, left-leaning, anti-globalization, conscientious sort in this world, but to be a socially progressive, left-leaning, anti-globalization, conscientious sort and be mildly inconvenienced? It’s too much to bear.

As I write this, Toronto is several weeks’ deep into a civic workers’ strike. The issues on both sides are complex, and neither side, the city nor the union, have behaved with grace or consideration. Swimming pools are closed, city-run daycares are closed, you can’t get a permit of any sort, and nobody is picking up the trash. As someone who hates to swim, has no children, and would need to own a home before I could consider renovating it, the strike means only one thing to me—how long can I get away with not cleaning my cat Poutine’s litterbox? How many little mountains of clumped clay does Poutine have to stumble over before I officially become an animal abuser?

Like most apathetic Torontonians, I figure ignoring the garbage problem is the best solution (actually, sneaking out in the middle of the night and cramming the cat crap into an overflowing street bin is the best solution — illegal, yes, but what are they going to do, get Poutine’s DNA from a turd?). And, like most no-way-would-I-do-that-job Torontonians, I am not unsympathetic toward the “garbage guys” union—at least not until their needs collide with mine.

Like most events in our publicity-mad era, the stalemate between the city and outside workers is really a battle over good versus less-good PR. The clever people signing the cheques at Toronto City Hall well know that the public employees’ union can’t muster the same sentimental attachment to waste management as their brother unions can to policing or firefighting. Firefighters have cute dogs, for god’s sake! And cops are sexy. Garbage guys have no adorable mascots and wear baggy uniforms that are about as sexy as wet tarps.

Nobody grows up wanting to be a garbage collector. No heroic texts sing of triumphs in trash removal, and there are no long-running television dramas examining the soul-destruction endured by people who empty recycling bins. No one has ever run into a burning building to save bundles of old newspapers. Thus, the city can hold out as long as it likes, because there is no glamour in rubbish.

I will admit to having impure thoughts about my local litter wranglers of late, and I am not talking about wondering what’s under their oilcloths. The first week into the strike, I caught myself thinking such unprogressive, uncharitable thoughts as, “I have never been in a union of any kind, so I wouldn’t know a banked sick day from a snow day,” or, “I went to school for six years, and I still make less than my local scullery lout, the guy who always chucks my empty green bin in the middle of the sidewalk, blocking pedestrians, seniors in walkers, large dogs, and children on trikes.” Shame, you dapple my rainbow.

In week two, I began to question my previously automatic support of unionized labour. Specifically, why do people behave like it’s 1932 whenever they go on strike? As if the diverse world of work today — wherein few people share the same mix of labour, pay, and benefits agreements — can be reduced, when it’s metaphorically convenient for both parties, to “bosses versus workers.” I’ve been my own boss my entire adult life. Who do I get to sing antiquated folk chants to? Where do I file a grievance when my house smells like the dumpster behind the Humane Society?

Now in week three, I don’t care anymore who’s right or who’s a greedy, overprivileged layabout (although I would dearly love to see my local councillor, a do-nothing in the sunniest of times, heaving bags of fetid refuse into the maw of a maggot-encrusted truck, preferably while being pecked by seagulls). I just want to breathe deeply again.

I’m tired of taping aloe-scented antiseptic wipes across the bridge of my nose when I run past the cat’s “go (and go, and go) zone,” through the increasingly dense, bluish mist surrounding the feline rest stop. I’m fed up with feeling surrounded by my own bad habits, by pizza boxes and sour wine bottles, fly-specked candy wrappers and spore-spawning coffee grounds. I’m sick of the dust, the entombing dust, and the raw, sweaty, eye-watering acidity in the air, the farty tang of it all.

If I wanted to wallow in filth, I’d pick up trash for a living.

CUPE workers on strike in Toronto. Image source: Lorenda Reddekopp/CBC

[Disclosure: CUPE is a This Magazine advertiser]

Toronto is now about half a day into a municipal workers’ strike, and the usual braying chorus has sprung up on radio, television, and the op-ed pages, alternately condemning or defending the strike action. Generally, there are three viewpoints expressed:

1. This is inconvenient, but overall I support the union’s strike;
2. Unions (all unions) are “extortionists” that are “holding us hostage”;
3. I don’t really care who’s to blame—what am I going to do with my garbage?

Already the sentiment that seemed to be gaining media traction this morning was “In this Post-Global-Recession World, shouldn’t CUPE just suck it up and accept that the benefits they negotiated are no longer viable, and they should just give them up now so we can all get on with our lives?” It’s one of those arguments that’s appealing to centrist media, because they get to slap the “Irrelevant!” sticker on the union, without being anti-union per se. It’s just that this strike crosses, you know, some arbitrary threshold of acceptability, and look, all these easily agitated people who like to call talk radio shows are worked up about it! Well, sorry, that’s not how it works. It’s not CUPE’s job to roll over and die every time management has a cashflow problem. The union exists to preserve existing benefits, negotiate for new ones, and stand up for their members’ job rights. That’s their job—they’re not running for Miss Congeniality.

And, despite their grumbling, many Canadians believe that collective bargaining and the right to strike are not negotiable based on the convenience or inconvenience of this particular strike, or the next one. The benefits of the union movement—even for those who don’t belong to one—outweigh the occasional frustrations.

I linked to this essay, “In Search of Solidarity” by Christopher Hayes on Twitter last week, but it’s stuck with me over the weekend and seemed particularly apt today. It’s worth reading in full, but here’s a great excerpt, related to the New York transit strike in 2005. Keep this in mind in the next few days.

Among liberals–people who loathe Bush, oppose the war, favor national healthcare—there’s an ambivalence about the strikers’ demands: Who gets to retire at 55 with a half-salary pension? The New York Times editorial page calls the strike “unnecessary,” the union’s account of negotiations “ridiculous,” and bellows that [the union] “should not have the ability to hold the city hostage.”

But despite the near-unanimous condemnation by the city’s mandarins and negative round-the-clock coverage, New Yorkers, astonishingly, support the strikers.

I get an inkling of this when I walk past an MTA bus depot in East Harlem on the strike’s second day. Instead of a riotous mob shouting insults, cars honk approval as they zip past the picketers.

Polls commissioned by local news outlets bear this out, though you’d hardly know it from the coverage. One, commissioned by a local ABC affiliate and conducted by Survey USA on the first day of the strike, asked the question: “In the transit strike…whose side are you on?” Fifty-two percent of respondents said the union. Forty percent said the MTA. A poll from local radio station WWRL found that 71 percent of respondents blamed the MTA for the strike and 14 percent blamed the union. A poll by local cable channel NY1 found a majority of New Yorkers thought the union’s demands “fair.”

The real story of the strike is not the epic hassle it created. It is the fact that despite universal condemnation from opinion makers, millions of New Yorkers were in solidarity with the strikers.

“In Search of Solidarity” by Christopher Hayes [originally appeared in In These Times] [image source]

In August, the retail behemoth beat back the UFCW’s campaign to unionize the Wal-Mart in Thompson, Manitoba.

So why did so many minimum-wage slaves with zero benefits and job security vote against the union? Michael Forman of the UFCW’s national office points to a number of key factors. First, partway through the drive, a rumour spread that if workers unionized, Wal-Mart would close the store. In Thompson, a town of just 15,000, the loss of a big employer like Wal-Mart would be devastating. Given Wal-Mart’s record, the fears are justified. After the meat department of one U.S. store unionized, Wal-Mart shut it down (though it has since been forced to re-open it).

Forman also said that the vote was held in the store under the watchful eye of Wal-Mart security cameras. That might explain why 27 employees didn’t show up to cast their ballots. That, and the fact that UFCW had its strongest support from the younger Wal-Marters÷many of whom were away on holiday because the vote was held two days after the local community college’s graduation.

Robert Ziegler of Local 789 says he has no evidence workers were intimidated, which has been blamed for the failure of previous attempts to unionize Wal-Mart stores. Charges are pending against Wal-Mart in Quebec, and a B.C. court recently upheld UFCW complaints that the company had harassed workers during the drive.

Still, Ziegler dismisses the 54-61 loss as a temporary set-back. Now that workers know how strong support is for the union, he says, they won’t be afraid to vote for it. Under Manitoba labour law, the union must wait six months to re-apply for certification. He also says that Local 789 is pushing ahead with its campaign. A number of Manitoba Wal-Marts are close to certification. Ziegler says another location may announce a union vote before Thompson’s waiting period is over.

Julie Crysler is a recovering editor of This Magazine. Her current gig is at CBC Radio.