Re: Estanblished Trade Unions & Left Politics, was Re: He does have a point

[paul phillips <phillipsp@xxxxxxx>]

I think it is perhaps a little dangerous to generalize from US
experience as it it were the standard of what goes on elsewhere.  Though
many Canadian unions have become established defenders of the status quo
(mostly Canadian branches of so-called 'international' --  i.e. US
dominated and controlled unions) many Canadian unions have been bulwarks
of the left.  In the past we can look to such unions as the west coast
fishermen,  woodworkers and longshoremen, at the EU, the MMSWU and, more
recently at the CAW which has supported the new socialist initiative.
Also, historically, the public sector unions in Canada have strongly
supported progressive causes -- for instance the postal workers who
pioneered maternity leave, etc. etc.

What I find on this list is that we have a membership that is
obsessively concerned with 'naval gazing', looking only at what goes on
on the US without much concern either with historical  analysis or with
comparative analysis.  I would suggest many would be well rewarded by
reading, and digesting, Geoff Hodgson's engaging book "How Economics
Forgot History" -- or how I might phrase it, how Economics forgot
institutions.

Paul Phillips,
Senior Scholar, Department of Economics,
University of Manitoba.

> Hypothesis: Trade Unions are actively left in their politics ONLY during
> their early stages, when the chief issue is establishing the right to
> exist. Once that right is established, they rapidly cease to be an
> element in left politics. At the present time, with only scattered
> exceptions, one will not, in the u.s., find social activists _and_ trade
> union leadership in the same social/political locations. In most
> instances of radical activists inside the trade-union movement you are
> more apt to meet those activists in organizations separate from the
> trade union itself.