A last minute post from Labour Day. With Trump’s 50% tariffs added to many of Canada’s manufactured goods — from aluminum siding to finished plywood panels to track suits, I decided to see what “international unions” were doing to support Canadians – specifically their Canadian union members.
Many Canadians do not know that about 35% of trade union members in Canada are in US-based unions. It was once different; in the 1970s and earlier, US unions—often called “international unions”, represented more than 2/3 of Canadian union members. Today, because of a national struggle that peaked in the early 1980s – with the Canadian Autoworkers’ breakaway from its US union, there has been a big move to take back our unions. Because of it, and the growth of the public sector, the percentage of Canadians in US-based unions is now reversed. More than 65% of Canadian union members today are in Canadian unions, while 35% are in US unions. Nonetheless, we are still the only sovereign country in the world with this neo-colonial set up—so much for “international” unions.
So it was of interest to me to see how much solidarity we can expect from the US-based unions when it comes to Trump’s deleterious trade tariffs on Canada. US workers want more jobs for themselves, their friends and family; so do Canadian workers. Neither wants to lose jobs. We know that 42,000 Canadian jobs were lost in August alone, and experts tell us that the tariffs could mean 100,000 workers could lose their jobs in the next year.
US unions and Trump’s tariffs
Let’s look at US unions in Canada and what they have to say about Trump’s tariffs.
The 850,000-member Steelworkers (USW- United Steelworkers of America) union is based in Pittsburgh. The USW represents 225,000 Canadian members, mostly in our mines, smelters, metal fabrication, and aluminum plants — that is 26.4%, or a disproportion of its membership – more than doubling the usual “10% rule”. The 10% rule means that since Canada’s population is about 10% of the US’s, typically Canadian institutions and organizations are about 10% the size of those in the US. So in the case of USW, Canadian members count – to a degree. The USW’s Canadian director says that Trump shouldn’t force Canadian steel and aluminum jobs to move to the US to avoid tariffs. the USW’s National Director for Canada Marty Warren said,
“Let’s be clear, this isn’t relief – it’s blackmail and extortion.”
But what do the American members of the USW think of Canada and think of the tariffs? Recently a journalist at the Toronto Star travelled to the industrial heartland of Pennsylvania to talk to steelworker members in the US about Trump’s tariffs.
At the end of July, the USW wrote a letter to Jamieson Greer, the United States Trade Representative. The letter criticized the uncooperative attitude the US was taking with Canada. The letter urged better cooperation and respect rather than imposing more severe tariffs.
The journalist went down to Steelworkers union headquarters in Pittsburg to interview Steelworkers International president Roxanne Brown about why she did not support US tariffs on Canada. First was the fact that Canadians make up a significant part of the Steelworker membership. She said, “We’re an international union and we have each other’s backs.”
She also said that the North American industries had to remain integrated to prevent companies moving their plants to the developing world – in a race to the bottom for lower wages. Brown insisted,
“Our members in the U.S. have been equally supportive as our members in Canada.”
But when the journalist spoke to Steelworker members in US communities in which there are several steel plants in the dismal landscape of shuttered factories in the ‘rust belt’, workers were not so sure. None knew about their union’s letter to the US government. Very few expressed sympathy for Canada. But a significant number of USW members interviewed supported Trump and the tariffs. For example, Dave Matty, a 20-year employee at one steel plant commented,
“Those morons back the Democrats, but I knew Trump was going to be good for us. I would say probably 90 per cent of people in my mill here, we’re all Trumpers.”
Another member at the plant is the leader of a group called “Steelworkers for Trump”.
In one USW union office, on his door the local president had a poster of Trump at a rally with the word FIGHT stencilled on it.
Another big US union with more than 270,000 members across Canada is the United Food and Commercial Union, based in Washington, DC. The UFCW website for the entire union makes no mention of the tariffs and the harm it can do to the 23% of its entire membership in Canada. But UFCW Canada National President Barry Sawyer said,
“Workers cannot be an afterthought as Canada responds to changing trade relations. We need to make sure workers … are protected from the impacts of tariffs and retaliatory tariffs, while investing in good jobs and strengthening the industries and supply chains that keep our communities moving.”
But the UFCW’s international president, Milton Jones, had few words to fight the tariffs; the website for the entire membership has nothing at all Trump’s tariffs.
Just to end off, let’s look at the Teamsters’ union. François Laporte, President of Teamsters Canada, said,
“Canada has been dragged into a trade war it never wanted. Faced with that reality, the country has to put real measures in place to protect its workers and its economy. That’s why we welcome the counter-tariffs announced today. Ottawa is right to hit back, and Canadian workers expect their government to hold the line.”
But the International Teamsters’ site says nothing about the steep tariffs on Canadian goods transported by Teamsters Canada.
So much for international solidarity. The biggest US unions with members in Canada, don’t officially get their shirts in a knot over Trump’s tariffs against this country – and their potential effects on hundreds of thousands of jobs held by their Canadian union sisters and brothers..
Some solidarity. The tariff issue shows that it is time we end the whole phenomenon of US-based unions. At best they have a conflict of interest. At worst, they are agents of US imperialism.
Another ruined dinner party... 