Membership, organizing the key to strong union:
Real crisis is in organized labour's own dwindling ranks

This week's non-story is the supposed crisis in the relationship between labour and the NDP.

It's a crisis that was highlighted last week when outgoing NDP leader Alexa McDonough took a few parting shots at her longtime critic, CAW leader Buzz Hargrove.

It's a crisis that will receive still more airtime at this week's convention of the Canadian Labour Congress in Vancouver. The convention has scheduled a debate over the future of "labour's political activism," a.k.a. its relationship with the NDP. And it's a crisis that means exactly nothing in the context of today's labour movement. If labour was ever capable of delivering the vote -- and it's an open question -- that capacity has been diminished.

The real crisis is in labour's own dwindling ranks. Or perhaps it's three intersecting crises: A crisis of membership, a crisis of organizing and a crisis of vision.

The crisis of membership is a function of our changing economy. The labour movement's greatest successes came in securing the economic welfare of the prototypical industrial worker: White, male, fully employed, and often skilled. It's a profile that describes a smaller and smaller proportion of the workforce.

Today's workforce includes far more women, immigrants, and people of colour. These workers are also increasingly likely to be engaged in part-time, casual, or contract work, or to be trapped in low-skill, low-wage jobs.

The erosion of the public sector is another force for union decline. And for unions experienced in organizing industrial workers, the service economy poses particular challenges.

The crisis of organizing lies in labour's urgent need to adapt its recruitment tactics to these new trends. Adaptation is possible - as the work of a few cutting-edge unions demonstrates.

UNITE, which has historically represented workers in female-dominated industries, has made inroads into the retail sector -- which is notoriously hard to organize. Organizer Alexandra Dagg credits UNITE's innovative tactics, like using shareholder meetings to embarrass employers who have poor labour records.

Andrew Mackenzie is the national organizer for the Service Employees International Union. He has been organizing home-care workers, where "it's not like everyone's under one roof. When we find them, they're lucky if they know three or four co-workers. But when we do find them, they're usually very receptive."

Organizing home care, retail, or temporary workers will be the bulk of labour's future recruitment. But can the labour movement effect this kind of shift in its organizing paradigm? According to Mackenzie, "too many unions look at it and decide it's too much work."

The crisis of vision lies in labour's continued preoccupation with political efficacy while it neglects the far more urgent challenge of organizational effectiveness. Political action is an understandable and necessary preoccupation for the labour movement. But it begs for an equally vigorous debate over the nuts and bolts future of union membership and organizing.