Neoliberalism and working-class resistance in British Columbia: The hospital employees' union struggle, 2002-2004

Labour/ Le Travail

Volumn , Issue 57, 2006, Pages

  Camfield, David ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 50349097722     PISSN: 07003862     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (206)

1. On the Alberta examples mentioned, see Yonatan Reshef and Sandra Rastin, Unions in the Time of Revolution: Government Restructuring in Alberta and Ontario (Toronto 2003), 10-1, 156-61.
2. On the Saskatchewan nurses, see Larry Haiven, "Saskatchewan: Social Experimentation, Economic Development and the Test of Time," in Mark Thompson, Joseph B. Rose, and Anthony E. Smith, eds., Beyond the National Divide: Regional Dimensions of Industrial Relations (Montreal and Kingston 2003), 188-9,
3. and Saskatchewan Union of Nurses, "The Strike of 1999," 〈http://www.sun-nurses.sk.ca/about_history/1999_strike.html〉.
4. On CUPW, see Bryan D. Palmer, Working-Class Experience: Rethinking the History of Canadian Labour (Toronto 1992), 345,
5. and Leo Panitch and Donald Swartz, From Consent to Coercion: The Assault on Trade Union Freedoms (Aurora 2003), 167-8.
6. The York University strike of 2001 is assessed in Clarice Kuhling, "How CUPE 3903 Struck and Won," Just Labour: A Canadian Journal of Work and Society, 1 (2002), 77-85, 〈http://www.yorku.ca/julabour/volume1/ jl_kuhling.pdf〉.
7. Many instances of public sector union quiescence and muted opposition in the face of neoliberalism in the 1990s are visible in Gene Swimmer, ed., Public Sector Labour Relations in an Era of Restraint and Restructuring (Don Mills 2001).
8. Two noteworthy studies of public sector strikes are Jerry P. White, Hospital Strike: Women, Unions and Public Sector Conflict (Toronto 1990)
9. and David Rapaport, No Justice, No Peace: The 1996 OPSEU Strike Against the Harris Government in Ontario (Montreal and Kingston 1999) .
10. As part of my research, I conducted and recorded confidential semi-structured interviews with six key informants in the Hospital Employees Union [HEU] and the Canadian Union of Public Employees [CUPE]. All references to interviewees and correspondents in the footnotes are anonymous, identified by union affiliation and a letter-number code, with members holding union office (whether as stewards, local officials, or officials above the local level) given the suffix O, other members M, and staff S.
11. Peter Warrian, Hard Bargain: Transforming Public Sector Labour-Management Relations (Toronto 1996), 11.
12. Brendan Nolan, "Conclusion: Themes and Future Directions for Public Sector Reform," in Brendan C. Nolan, ed., Public Sector Reform: An International Perspective (Basingstoke and New York 2001), 185.
13. Warrian, Hard Bargain, 27.
14. See OECD, Governance in Transition: Public Management Reforms in OECD Countries (Paris 1995);
15. OECD, Public Management Reform and Economic and Social Development (Paris 1998);
16. OECD, Government of the Future (Paris 2000).
17. John Shields and B. Mitchell Evans, Shrinking the State: Globalization and Public Administration "Reform" (Halifax 1998);
18. Bob Jessop, "Post-Fordism and the State," in Ash Amin, ed., Post-Fordism: A Reader (Oxford and Cambridge, MA 1994), 251-79;
19. Stephen McBride and John Shields, Dismantling a Nation: The Transition to Corporate Rule in Canada (Halifax 1997);
20. Gary Teeple, Globalization and the Decline of Social Reform: Into the Twenty-First Century (Toronto 2000).
21. Relevant here are Gérard Duménil and Dominique Lévy, Capital Resurgent: Roots of the Neoliberal Revolution (Cambridge, MA, and London 2004)
22. and, on Canada, Murray E.G. Smith, "Political Economy and the Canadian Working Class: Marxism or Nationalist Reformism?," Labour/Le Travail, 46 (2000), 343-68.
23. The highly compressed argument that follows draws on Peter Burnham, "Capital, Crisis and the International State System," in Werner Bonefeld and John Holloway, eds., Global Capital, National State (New York 1995), 92-115;
24. John Holloway, "Global Capital and the National State," in Bonefeld and Holloway, eds., Global Capital, National State and the Politics of Money, 116-40;
25. Werner Bonefeld, The Recomposition of the British State During the 1980s (Aldershot 1993);
26. Simon Clarke, Keynesianism, Monetarism and the Crisis of the State (Aldershot 1988);
27. Burnham, "The Politics of Economic Management in the 1990s," New Political Economy, 4 (1999), 37-54.
28. Burnham, "Capital, Crisis and the International State System," 103.
29. Alan Sears, "The 'Lean' State and Capitalist Restructuring: Towards a Theoretical Account," Studies in Political Economy, 59 (1999), 91-114.
30. Sears uses this theory to analyse the restructuring of public education in his Retooling the Mind Factory: Education in a Lean State (Toronto 2003).
31. On lean production and related aspects of contemporary work reorganization and economic restructuring, see Kim Moody, Workers in a Lean World: Unions in the International Economy (London and New York 1997), 41 -113.
32. Tony Smith, Technology and Capital in the Age of Lean Production: A Marxian Critique of the "New Economy" (Albany 2000);
33. Isa Bakker, ed., Rethinking Restructuring: Gender and Change in Canada (Toronto 1996);
34. Leah F. Vosko, Temporary Work: The Gendered Rise of a Precarious Employment Relationship (Toronto 2000);
35. Jamie Peck, Work-Place: The Social Regulation of Labor Markets (New York and London 1996). On state activity as the political administration of civil society,
36. see Mark Neocleous, Administering Civil Society: Towards a Theory of State Power (London and New York 1996).
37. Pat Armstrong and Hugh Armstrong, Wasting Away: The Undermining of Canadian Health Care (Don Mills 2003), 56-94;
38. The Report of the Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada (The Romanow Commission): A Summary and Assessment ([Ottawa] 2002);
39. Sylvia Fuller, Colleen Fuller, and Marcy Cohen, Health Care Restructuring in BC (Vancouver 2003).
40. "Bill 29 strips rights, paves way for closures, cuts and privatization," Backgrounders, 3 (March 2002), 〈http://www.heu.org/ cgi-bin/pi.cgi?t:../pubs/past_article3_7.html+published_dates_list.FILE:/ backgrounders/published_dates_list+published_dates_list.RECORD: 10002+publications_list.FILE:admin/database/publications_list+publications_list. RECORD!display:10003〉 (13 July 2004);
41. 2001-2004 Health Services and Support Facilities Collective Agreement between Association of Unions and Health Employers Association of British Columbia;
42. Mark Thompson and Brian Bemmels, "British Columbia: The Parties Match the Mountains," in Thompson, Rose, and Smith, eds., Beyond the National Divide, 108;
43. "Gordon Campbell Interview: Moving to the Middle," Guardian 18 (November-December 2000), 〈http://www.heu.org/cgi-bin/pi.cgi?t:../pubs/ past_article3_4.html+published_dates_list.FILE:/guardian/ published_dates_list+published_dates_list.RECORD:10013+publications_list.FILE: admin/database/publications_list+publications_list.RECORD!display:10001〉 (13 July 2004).
44. Similar workers in a few facilities belonged to the BC Government and Service Employees Union [BCGEU]. Many professional employees are represented by the Health Sciences Association of BC [HSA]. Registered Nurses belong to the BC Nurses Union [BCNU]. Some skilled tradespeople in health care are members of craft unions.
45. Statistics drawn from McIntyre and Mustel Research Ltd., HEU Member Profile Survey: Draft (Vancouver 2002).
46. Patricia G. Webb, The Heart of Health Care: The Story of the Hospital Employees' Union (Vancouver 1994), 66-74;
47. Marjorie Griffin Cohen and Marcy Cohen, A Return to Wage Discrimination: Pay Equity Losses Through the Privatization of Health Care (Vancouver 2004), 8-9, 25-6;
48. HEU Constitution and Bylaws (2002), 1.
49. Working-class women's labour activism in the 1970s is surveyed in Meg Luxton, "Feminism as a Class Act: Working-Class Feminism and the Women's Movement in Canada," Labour/Le Travail, 48 (2001), 63-88.
50. Webb, The Heart of Health Care, 13, 42, 32, 52, 59, 60, 86-8, 74, 91.
51. HEU educational material included the IWW's "How to Sack Your Boss: A Workers' Guide to Direct Action"
52. and [Joey Hartmann], "Some Examples of Direct Action in BC and HEU History" (n.d.). On postwar BC labour,
53. see Thompson and Bemmels, "British Columbia" and Bryan D. Palmer, Solidarity: The Rise and Fall of an Opposition in British Columbia (Vancouver 1987).
54. Richard Hyman, The Political Economy of Industrial Relations: Theory and Practice in a Cold Climate (London 1989), 246. For a clear conceptualization of the labour officialdom as a distinct social layer,
55. see Robert Brenner, "The Paradox of Social Democracy: The American Case," in Mike Davis, Fred Pfeil, and Michael Sprinker, eds., The Year Left: An American Socialist Yearbook (London and New York 1985), 43-6.
56. On post-war industrial legality and the character of the post-war labour movement, see Judy Fudge and Eric Tucker, Labour Before the Law: The Regulation of Workers' Collective Action in Canada, 1900-1948 (Don Mills 2001), 302-15;
57. Anne Forrest, "Securing the Male Breadwinner: A Feminist Interpretation of PC 1003," in Cy Gonick, Paul Phillips, and Jesse Vorst, eds., Labour Gains, Labour Pains: 50 Years of PC 1003 (Winnipeg and Halifax 1995), 139-62;
58. Palmer, Working-Class Experience, 340-416;
59. Palmer, "System Failure: The Break-Down of the Post-War Settlement and the Politics of Labour in our Time" (Text of a speech delivered 7 May 2004 to the Alberta Federation of Labour membership forum) 〈http://www. canadiandimension.mb.ca/extra/d0609bp.htm〉 (13 July 2004);
60. Panitch and Swartz, From Consent to Coercion;
61. David Camfield, "Class, Politics and Social Change: The Remaking of the Working Class in 1940s Canada," PhD thesis, York University, 2002, 307-28.
62. On HEU's Secretary-Business Manager, whose appointment must be ratified at each HEU convention, see Webb, The Heart of Health Care, 40-2, 81, 24.
63. Because a significant minority of HEU members are part-time employees, the actual number of workers who lose their jobs is greater than the number of FTEs cut, by approximately 50 per cent.
64. Interview with HEU 0-3;
65. Draft Briefing Material for Minister of Health Services, 16 February 2002;
66. "Women and Workers of Colour Hit Hardest By Sellout" [Interview with Gretchen Dulmage], New Socialist, 47 (May-June 2004), 27-8.
67. Interview with HEU S-1; Interview with HEU S-2.
68. Interview with HEU O-1.
69. Interview with HEU S-2.
70. Interview with HEU S-1.
71. Donna Harrison, "BC's Protracted Class War," Canadian Dimension, 36 (July-August 2002), 12-3;
72. Kimball Cariou, "BC's Fightback," Canadian Dimension, 36 (March-April 2002), 8-9.
73. In his pamphlet Labour, the NDP... and Our Communities (Victoria 2003), Victoria activist Jim Herring pointedly describes the large demonstrations in Victoria (23 February) and Vancouver (25 May) as "characterized mainly by... controlled, non-participation ... and a slavish obedience to the demands of police and municipal authorities." (9-10)
74. Lori Culbert, "Union Chiefs Arrested at Blockade: Fraser Valley Hospital Workers Block Trucks Taking Laundry to Calgary," Vancouver Sun, 23 November 2002, 〈http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/index. html〉 (25 November 2002).
75. Interview with HEU S-1.
76. Interview with HEU S-1.
77. Interview with HEU S-2.
78. "Key Elements in the Framework Agreement Union Members Will Vote on Between April 28 and May 15," Backgrounders, 4 (April 2003), 〈http://www.heu.org/cgi-bin/pi.cgi?t:../pubs/past_article3_10. html+published_articles_list.FILE:/backgrounders/4-1/ published_articles_list+published_articles_list.RECORD!Display: 10000+published_dates_list.FILE:/backgrounders/ published_dates_list+published__dates_list.RECORD:10006+publications_list.FILE: admin/database/publications_list+publications_list.RECORD:10003〉 (13 July 2004).
79. Interview with HEU S-1.
80. Interview with HEU O-1.
81. Judith Lavoie, "Health Unions Reject Rollbacks," Times Columnist (Victoria), 17 May 2003, Al;
82. Interview with HEU S-1;
83. Interview with HEU S-2;
84. Interview with HEU O-3;
85. Interview with HEU O-1.
86. Interview with HEU O-3.
87. Interview with HEU S-1.
88. Cohen and Cohen, A Return to Wage Discrimination, 14, 23;
89. Gary Steeves, Affidavit, 2 May 2002; Transcript of telephone conversation recorded 1 May 2002 between Jaynie Clark, Coordinator, Advocacy, BCGEU and Luciano Anjos, Management Consultant; Transcript of telephone conversation recorded 1 May 2002 between Gary Steeves, Director, Organizing and Field Services, BCGEU and Spencer Green, Regional Operations Director, Sodexho.
90. Cohen and Cohen, A Return to Wage Discrimination, 15-9.
91. Herring, Labour, the NDP ... and Our Communities, 10.
92. Pressure from members on the CUPE leadership led to CUPE pushing the CLC to appoint an umpire, who found that IWA 1-3567's actions did indeed violate the CLC constitution. However, the local ignored a CLC executive council directive to sign no more voluntary recognition deals. Initial sanctions to the IWA were applied in March 2004. Beginning in May 2004, rulings by the BC Labour Relations Board began to remove IWA certifications on the grounds that the "partnership agreements" had not been properly ratified and that a majority of workers had not freely chosen to be represented by the IWA, clearing the way for HEU efforts to organize workers hired by the contractors. The first ruling was B173/2004, 20 May 2004, Aramark Canada Facility Services Ltd. and Hospital Employees' Union and Industrial Wood and Allied Workers of Canada [IWA Canada], CLC, Local Union, Local No. 1-3567.
93. The number of HEU members (full-time, part-time, and casual employees) who had lost their jobs through contracting-out in acute care and long-term care was estimated in early August 2004 as 7,917. E-mail from HEU S-3 to author, 9 August 2004.
94. Interview with HEU O-3;
95. Bob Wilson, "British Columbia Hospital Workers Stage Wildcat Strike Over Impending Job Losses," Labor Notes, 301 (April 2004), 6.
96. [HEU] Provincial Executive Bulletin 130 (Meetings of 22-25 February and 4 March 2004), 1-2.
97. [HEU] Provincial Executive Bulletin 131 (Meeting of 27 March 2004), 1.
98. Interview with HEU S-1.
99. Quotations from one interview, whose code I am omitting to protect the identity of the interviewee.
100. Herring, Labour, the NDP ... and Our Communities, reports that BCFL President Jim Sinclair's presentation to the January 2003 meeting of the All Islands Coalition in Nanaimo "amazed some activists with its utter disregard for the effects the cuts are having on people and infuriated many with the condescending, categorical imperative that was its main theme: there is no other option than waiting it out until we can re-elect the NDP" (9) and that Sinclair recommended that a planned day of action instead became "a 'celebration' of having survived two years of Liberal rule," (9) to the dismay of coalition members.
101. Will Offley, "BC Ferries: The Workers' Watershed Struggle," New Socialist, 45 (January-February 2004), 29-31.
102. As the Globe and Mail reported, the presidents of the BCFL and BCGEU "helped moderate the militant ferry workers' stand,"
103. Rod Mickleburgh, "BC Ferries Return to Service," Globe and Mail, 13 December 2003, A7.
104. Interview with CUPE O-1;
105. CUPE BC Workplan (September 2003);
106. CUPE Community Action Day Draft Speaking Notes (22 March 2004). One CUPE activist described CUPE-BC's day of action plan as "throwing a bone to the militant elements in CUPE" who had been demanding a general strike for two years (Interview with CUPE M-1).
107. [HEU] Provincial Executive Bulletin 132, 1-2.
108. Interview with HEU S-1.
109. Interview with HEU S-2.
110. Interview with HEU O-3.
111. Interview with HEU S-1;
112. Interview with HEU S-2;
113. Interview with HEU O-1;
114. Interview with HEU O-3;
115. [HEU] Provincial Executive Bulletin 133, 1.
116. Bill 37 -2004, Health Sector (Facilities Subsector) Collective Agreement Act;
117. [HEU] Provincial Executive Bulletin 134, 1;
118. "Government Proclaims Back to Work Law," CBC British Columbia, 29 April 2004, 〈http://vancouver.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename= bc_law20040429〉 (29 April 2004);
119. Interview with HEU S-2.
120. Interview with HEU O-1.
121. Interview with HEU O-3.
122. [HEU] Provincial Executive Bulletin 134, 2.
123. Interview with HEU O-3.
124. Interview with CUPE M-1.
125. "Hydro Walkout in Support of Hospital Workers," CBC British Columbia, 29 April 2004, 〈http://vancouver.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View? filename=bc_hydro20040429〉 (29 April 2004);
126. Doug Ward, "Strike Chaos Across BC," Vancouver Sun, 30 April 2004, A1.
127. Interview with CUPE O-1.
128. Interview with CUPE M-1.
129. Interview with HEU S-1.
130. Interview with CUPE O-1;
131. Interview with HEU O-3;
132. Fred Muzin, Speech to CUPE Ontario Divisional Convention, 29 May 2004 (tape recording);
133. "Protest Walkouts Spread," CBC British Columbia, 30 April 2004, 〈http://vancouver.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename= bc_protest20040430〉 (1 May 2004);
134. "Nurses Walk Out in Several Communities," CBC British Columbia, 30 April 2004, 〈http://vancouver.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename= bc_protest20040430〉 (1 May 2004);
135. Norman Gidney, "Labour Crisis Deepens," Times Columnist (Victoria), 1 May 2004, Al.
136. Willliam Boei and Jeff Lee, "HEU Defies Board, Continues Strike With New Public Service Allies," Vancouver Sun, 1 May 2004, A1; E-mail from anonymous [a CUPE BC official or staffer],
137. "Re: Friday Protest Action updated 10:00AM," 30 April 2004;
138. Palmer, Solidarity, 65-8. The BC Labour Relations Board officially declared the HEU strike illegal on Friday morning.
139. Daniel Bensaïd, Marx for Our Times: Adventures and Misadventures of a Critique (London and New York 2002), 88.
140. Bensaïd, "Leaps! Leaps! Leaps!," International Socialism, 95 (2002), 〈http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj95/bensaid. htm〉.
141. "Compromise Possible, Says Campbell," CBC British Columbia, 30 April 2004, 〈http://vancouver.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename= bc_campbell20040430〉 (6 May 2004);
142. "Campbell Appeals for Calm," Globe and Mail, 30 April 2004, 〈http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040430.wbcstri30/ BNPrint/Front〉 (1 May 2004);
143. "Health-care Strikes Could Be Banned," CBC British Columbia, 30 April 2004, 〈http://vancouver.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename= bc_hansen20040430〉 (1 May 2004);
144. "Union Leaders, Minister Meet Behind Closed Doors," CBC British Columbia, 30 April 2004, 〈http://vancouver.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View? filename=bc_bruce20040430〉 (1 May 2004).
145. "James Calls on Premier to Recall the Legislature to Resolve Crisis," BC NDP Newswire, 30 April 2004.
146. As this NDP statement reports, NDP MLAs had attempted to amend (not block) Bill 37. James's tone was echoed by CLC President Ken Georgetti: "Would you invest your money in a place like this, a place where the government's word doesn't mean anything for very long?," "Brutal Attack on Workers Sets Disturbing Precedent," Canadian Labour Congress Communique, 30 April 2004.
147. Jim Beatty, "Union Document Reveals Plan for More Disruption," Vancouver Sun, 1 May 2004, Al;
148. E-mail from Harold Lavender to author, 1 May 2004;
149. "Chronology of Events Leading to May 2 Memorandum," HEU Newsletter, 5 May 2004;
150. Interview with HEU S-1.
151. Interview with CUPE M-1.
152. Interview with HEU S-2.
153. Michael McCullough, "BC May Avert Massive Labour Shutdown," Vancouver Sun, 3 May 2004, A1;
154. Memorandum of Agreement Between Government of British Columbia And Health Employers' Association of BC And BC Federation of Labour And Facilities Bargaining Association, 2 May 2004.
155. Interview with HEU O-3;
156. [HEU] Provincial Executive Bulletin 135, 1.
157. "NDP Welcomes Resolution of Crisis," News Detail, 2 May 2004, 〈http://nid-625.newsdetail.bc.ndp.ca/〉 (3 May 2004).
158. "An Explanation From One HEU Negotiator Dan Hingley," 〈http://www.generalstrikenews.ca/Articles/2004-MAY-12_AN_EXPLANATION_FROM_. stm〉 (25 May 2004).
159. E-mail from HEU O-4 to author;
160. Interview with HEU S-1.
161. Interview with HEU S-1.
162. Interview with HEU S-2.
163. Plouffe is quoted in "Some Hospital Workers Remain Defiant," CBC British Columbia, 3 May 2004, 〈http://vancouver.cbc.ca/regional/ servlet/View?filename=bc_heu20040503〉 (6 May 2004).
164. Interview with CUPE M-1;
165. Cindy E. Harnett, Doug Ward, and Frances Bula, "Health Workers Feel 'Sold Out' By Their Union Leaders," Vancouver Sun, 4 May 2004, Al;
166. Jack Knox, "Deal Leaves Picketers Angry, Fate of Mass Protest in Doubt," Times Columnist (Victoria), 3 May 2004, A1.
167. A photograph of Hibbs appeared on the front page of the Vancouver edition of the Globe and Mail, 4 May 2004.
168. Cynthia J. Cranford, Leah F. Vosko, and Nancy Zukewich, "The Gender of Precarious Employment in Canada" Relations industrielles/Industrial Relations, 58.3 (2003), 454-82.
169. David Camfield, "Assessing Resistance in Harris's Ontario, 1995-1999," in Mike Burke, Colin Mooers, and John Shields, eds., Restructuring and Resistance: Canadian Public Policy in an Age of Global Capitalism (Halifax 2000), 306-17.
170. I have outlined a theoretical approach to such research in my "Re-Orienting Class Analysis: Working Classes as Historical Formations," Science and Society, 68 (2004), 421-46.
171. Interview with HEU O-3.
172. Fred Muzin, "Wanted: A Culture of Protest," Guardian (Summer 2004), 6.
173. Allnutt is quoted in Mike Old and Patty Gibson, "Our Fight for Justice and Fairness Goes On," Guardian (Summer 2004), 9.
174. [Mike Barker], "The HEU Strike: What Did We Gain, Could More Have Been Won?" (Vancouver 2004), 3.
175. Geoff Bickerton, "Public Sector Struggles Continue," Canadian Dimension, 38 (May-June 2004), 7.
176. According to HEU S-1, in the aftermath of the strike top HEU leaders actively argued for this explanation within the union: "there's a lot of effort being made to sell people on what the right version of history is here."
177. Kimball Cariou, "What Happened in British Columbia?," Canadian Dimension, 38 (July-August 2004), 8-9;
178. "Despite May 2nd Setback, the Struggle Continues" (Statement by the Communist Party of Canada BC Provincial Executive Committee), 5 May 2004;
179. Interview with CUPE M-1.
180. Interview with CUPE O-1.
181. Interview with HEU O-1.
182. Interview with HEU S-1.
183. Interview with HEU S-1.
184. Quoted in "Women and Workers of Colour," 28.
185. Brenner, "The Paradox of Social Democracy," 44-51;
186. Mark Leier, Red Flags and Red Tape: The Making of a Labour Bureaucracy (Toronto 1995), 34. Leier does not claim that every official shares this view, but that this belief is a characteristic feature of the outlook common to this social layer. Brenner's analysis is formulated at a fairly general level; it is also necessary to study historically specific labour officialdoms in more detail. No major studies exist of the contemporary Canadian union officialdom, but
187. see Palmer, Working-Class Experience, 370-8;
188. Palmer, Solidarity, 25-6;
189. Palmer, "System Failure";
190. Panitch and Swartz, From Consent to Coercion, 148-53, 226-9. The statement of a newly formed grouping of BC left labour activists is also relevant here.
191. See "Solidarity Caucus Statement," 29 July 2004. An article written days after the end of the strike by a CEP activist contains an explanation of why top union officials acted as they did that is in some ways similar to mine:
192. Gene McGuckin, "Don't Mourn, Organize!," 〈http://www. generalstrikenews.ca〉 (28 May 2004).
193. One of the reviewers of this article, noting that "union leaders had little confidence in the strategic and tactical instincts" of militants who wished to escalate the strike, suggested that the judgement of leaders who opposed this perspective could be explained simply by their accumulated experience. There is no doubt that the past experience of the top leaders of BC's unions did inform the opposition of most of them to escalating solidarity action. However, the strategic and tactical lessons that people draw from experience are always shaped by their-social conditions and ideological outlooks, present and past. Thus in the case of BC's top labour leaders the distinctive conditions of existence of the full-time labour officialdom are very relevant to understanding the conclusions drawn from accumulated experience. In addition, it is worth noting that most union experience of recent decades would not have been of much help when it came to recognizing the possibilities latent in the political moment created by HEU's defiance and the growing impulse for action in solidarity with HEU at the end of April 2004. This conjuncture was unlike anything in the experience of BC labour in recent years, with the partial exception of the Solidarity movement of 1983.
194. Poll Shows Over 68 Percent of British Columbians Oppose Stripping of Health Care Contract," BCFL News Release, 5 May 2004.
195. Steve Hunt, "Speaking of Solidarity," Our Times, 23 (June-July 2004), 20.
196. Quoted in Bickerton, "Public Sector," 7.
197. McGuckin, "Don't Mourn, Organize!"
198. Quoted in David Camfield, "British Columbia Union Leaders Call Off Province-Wide Strike: Workers Unhappy with Settlement," Labor Notes, 303 (June 2004), 6.
199. Muzin, "Wanted," 6. This understanding of general strikes brings to mind one viewpoint in the early 20th-century debate among European Marxists about mass strikes. For a critique,
200. see Rosa Luxemburg, "The Mass Strike, the Political Party and the Trade Unions," in Mary-Alice Waters, ed., Rosa Luxemburg Speaks (New York 1970), 159-61.
201. "Solidarity Caucus Statement."
202. Interview with HEU O-3.
203. Interview with HEU S-1. My conclusion about HEU's struggle is similar to Palmer's conclusion about the Solidarity movement in BC in 1983: a different outcome would have required at least "serious organized opposition within the ranks that it [the top leadership] necessarily had to pay some attention to" (Solidarity, 89). Late 20th-century strikes on which rank-and-file activist organization had an impact include the US national telephone strike of 1970, the miners' strike of 1977-78 (on which see Kim Moody and Jim Woodward, Battle Line: The Coal Strike of '78 [Detroit 1978]), and the 1996 postal workers' struggle in the UK. My thanks to Sheila Cohen and Kim Moody for suggesting these historical examples.
204. Thus they are but two more additions to the long list of similar pieces of legislation chronicled in Panitch and Swartz, From Consent to Coercion.
205. This is consistent with the international experience that public sector unions have been at the forefront of resistance to neoliberalism, as Moody points out in Workers in a Lean World, 272-3.
206. This is suggested by such studies as Meg Luxton and June Corman, Getting By in Hard Times: Gendered Labour at Home and on the Job (Toronto 2001), but this research also shows that working-class women continue to face many barriers to participation and equality in paid work.