Shirley Carr : The Women Who Kept Canada’s Labor Unions Strong and Viable

Shirley Carr, who has just left her post as the only women in the world to head a major labor federation of unions, is admired, even adored, by many Canadians--and feared by her political opponents.

She has been a major factor in helping Canadian unions become a powerful economic and political force in that country where 35% of the work force is represented by unions, compared to only 16% in the United States.

An eloquent, impassioned speaker, Carr worked 12 or more hours a day, six or seven days a week, as president of the Canadian Labor Congress. She decided not to seek reelection at the recent CLC convention, but is considering running for Parliament, as leader of the labor-backed New Democratic Party that recently won power in the four most populous provinces.

She helped Canadian unions maintain their strength and win progressive legislation even as U.S. unions declined in strength and have failed in reaching most of their legislative goals.

A one-time social worker, Carr, 63, spent much of her early years dealing with problems of poverty in rural areas of Canada. Her compassion for workers--she is the daughter of a coal miner--means, as one friend put it, “Shirley often wears her heart on her sleeve, but her fists are clenched.”

She went to the top of what is primarily a man’s world by making sure she was both seen and heard. Her sharp-tongued remarks didn’t hurt, either, like the time she taunted the conservative Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney by comparing him with a former conservative British Prime Minister: “Mulroney is just a Margaret Thatcher in jockey shorts.”

Carr’s first move to the presidency of the CLC came in 1974, when she was elected executive vice president. She became president in 1986. Carr stopped her formal education after high school, but has honorary doctorates from several universities and some admirers think she may even become prime minister of Canada if the New Democratic Party wins a majority in Parliament.

Question: You call yourself a Democratic Socialist. What does that mean to you?

Answer: We oppose totalitarianism and believe completely in democracy. But our guiding assumption is that a democratic government can and should secure full employment, a comprehensive social safety net for all and a recognition of basic labor rights.

Q: Are you achieving those goals?

A: We were headed in that direction, but all that, of course, has changed significantly. Neo-conservatives like Reagan and Bush, and our Prime Minister Mulroney argue that full employment, the welfare state and strong unions undermine growth and competitiveness. Privatization, deregulation and promotion of a so-called market economy and free trade became the order of the day when they took power.

Q: However, aren’t many other governments heading in that same direction?

A: When I look around the world, I find that the most successful economies are not those most fervently committed to the so-called free market . . . but rather those which remain committed to full employment, social justice and worker rights. The Social Democratic countries of Northern Europe have demonstrated that it is indeed possible to reconcile the goals of economic efficiency and social equality.

Q: Our Congress is divided over the proposed U.S.-Mexico Free Trade Agreement. We already have one with Canada. How is that going and how do you feel about expanding it to include Mexico?

A: It would be tragic. The U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement certainly has fully confirmed our fears that free trade with a country that has lower social standards such as medical care and lower wages leads to a large job loss in our country. . . . We also have major concerns about the pressure that it has put on the Canadian work force for concessions at the bargaining table which would erode our own social standards and wages if we accepted them.

Q: Do you have any specific figures about job losses?

A: So far, we have lost about 325,000 jobs since the agreement was passed in 1989 . . . and the massive majority of those are lost forever . . . . We only have 26 million people in Canada compared to 250 million in the United States. So what is happening is that Canada is becoming a branch plant economy for the multinationals and our government now is finding out that what they have done to the country as a whole with the agreement is not what even they expected.

Q: But have the jobs you lost in Canada come to the United States as a result of the free-trade agreement?

A: Yes, the majority have gone into United States where wages are often lower than in Canada, and then many of those jobs into the maquiladora plants along the U.S.-Mexican border on the Mexican side where wages are a small fraction of our own and pollution controls almost non-existent. We’ve monitored the losses of jobs to the U.S. and Mexico from the very first day of the free trade agreement and we know our job losses are real. Unemployment now is over 10% in Canada.

Q: How does your answer square with the fact that General Motors is going to close a plant in Van Nuys and move production from there to Canada?

A: A few jobs come to Canada because of special conditions in companies like General Motors, but we lose far more than we gain. There’s absolutely no question about that . . . . Because our prime minister and the government of Canada have not protected the interests of Canadian workers in the Canada-U.S. negotiations, we certainly don’t trust them to negotiate another free trade pact that would extend to Mexico and then further into the southern hemisphere.

Q: Unions in the United States represent about 16% of the work force, down from about 34% a few decades ago. Canadian unions represent about 35% of the work force. What accounts for the vast difference, and are your unions, too, declining?

A: Even though we’re losing jobs, we’re still organizing new members. We have done a tremendous amount of union education all across the country . . . . Our largest unions are in the public sector. Most of our federal government employees are organized and we just completed a nationwide strike about two months ago. Every single provincial government employee is a member of a union that is also in the Canadian Labor Congress. And locally, we’ve organized just about every municipality in the country. We maintain our membership by education, political action, by walking picket lines and by going to jail if necessary to defend our collective agreements.

Q: So, are Canadian unions more successful because they are more militant than those in the United States?

A: No offense to my dear friends and colleagues in your country, but we’re so outspoken, we go on massive nationwide campaigns, and we have not given in to the employers. We have not allowed them to break down the collective bargaining process and I think we’re tougher, so, yes, that has helped us. But our political work has also helped.

Q: How?

A: Labor legislation in Canada is progressive compared to the United States. Our laws help, not hurt, union efforts to organize. We have . . . legislation protecting the right to strike. Workers on strike cannot be permanently replaced, as they can be in the United States . . . and we are now in the process of trying to get anti-scab legislation in Ontario like the law in Quebec, where a worker isn’t allowed to cross a picket line.

Q: Have you lost anything under the conservative leadership of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney?

A: Yes, for instance, the Bush Administration has been getting our government to mess around with our unemployment insurance. Our government has lowered our jobless benefits almost down to the level of the United States as far as having to wait longer to become eligible for benefits, and the length of time benefits are available. That has been a travesty of our original program.

Q: How have your unions won so much such pro-union legislation?

A: The Canadian Labor Congress is a political arm of the New Democratic Party that now represents a majority of Canadians in the provinces. And we make no bones about that. We campaign for the NDP and do what we can to make sure we get as many NDP candidates elected as possible. We don’t fiddle around with politicians who claim they’re going to do all those things for workers and end up voting for things that will only harm them and do away with their jobs. We played a major, major role in the political battle to get our Social Security network.

Q: What other laws have the NDP and the Canadian Labor Congress helped push through Parliament?

A:. We have pretty tough health and safety laws in the workplace, and we have laws mandating pay equity and equal pay for equal work to protect women and minorities.

Q: Will the New Democratic Party be strong enough to win control of Parliament in the next election and name the prime minister?

A: That is very possible, but if we are not the majority, we certainly will be the official opposition party, replacing the Liberal Party that now holds that position and put us in a position to win the next national election.

Q: What percent of Canadian union members are women and do you credit them largely for your election as the head of the Canadian Labor Congress. ?

A: No, I can’t credit just women for that because in 1974, when I was first elected to a position in the labor congress, it didn’t have the majority of women. Now around 52% are women. Women are joining unions faster than men. The Women’s Movement in Canada is tremendously strong.

Q: But doesn’t that help explain how you could be the only woman in the world to head a major national labor federation of unions?

A: I don’t want to offend any of my sister unionists, but at conventions the majority are still men. I must add that we have four full-time top office people at the Canadian Labor Congress, and two of us are women. I was elected to a high office in labor before the women started to become that strong. Also, around the world there’s been some tremendous breakthroughs for women . . . . But we could not have done it alone. My male colleagues were there, too, but my female colleagues were pushing ‘em along!