6 | Revisiting the Business/Social Union Divide

One of the most enduring notions about unions in North America is the division between business unions and social unions. These categories serve to organize our insights into union behaviour and structure, which is why they remain powerful concepts. However, they risk oversimplifying the internal life of unions and overlooking other dimensions of union behaviour.

Much has changed for unions in the past thirty years. The onslaught of neoliberalism, globalization, and deindustrialization has dramatically reshaped the world in which unions operate. While the concepts of “business union” and “social union” have existed since the emergence of industrial unionism, their meanings became entrenched by the postwar Wagner model of labour relations and the Cold War. A key question is whether such conceptualizations are relevant today.

UFCW Local 401 is a useful case for examining the question of whether the long-standing notion of these two types of union accurately depicts forms of union behaviour today. UFCW International has an entrenched reputation as a classic business union, with its top-down structures, resistance to activist mobilization, and reluctance to engage in radical politics (Moody 2007, 114–20). The same is true, to a lesser extent, of UFCW Canada. As we have seen, the outward appearance of Local 401 is similarly linked to business unionism—in particular, its structures and leadership style. Yet when one examines more closely what Local 401 actually does, the picture begins to blur. The local’s aggressive tactics against employers, frequent strike action, willingness to engage in a variety of political and broader social causes, and embrace of underrepresented workers belie the portrait of a stodgy, conservative business union. Compared to similar UFCW locals in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, Local 401 appears to be more militant and welcoming of diversity. Making sense of Local 401 in terms of categorizing unions requires a more careful examination of features not readily visible to the outside observer and may demand a rethinking of traditional categories.

In this final chapter, I examine the social/business union divide through an exploration of how it is understood within Local 401 and how it manifests itself in actual union action. I adopt an integrated approach, taking into account structure, process, and outcomes, as well as the intentions and internal frames that drive the local’s actions. In this way, the dynamics between the practicalities of Local 401’s experience and the theory of union forms are revealed, which in turn leads us to new reflections on the nature of the unionism duality.

THE THEORY OF BUSINESS AND SOCIAL UNIONISM

Despite the ubiquity of the business and social categories, much of the literature on the topic assumes that these terms are straightforward and well understood. There is, however, some confusion about the exact meaning of the terms, not only because many other words are used to refer to these two broad concepts but also because scholars and practitioners use the terms in multiple ways. While most researchers today acknowledge that the business/social categorization is a spectrum rather than a dichotomy, our common usage of the terms continues to imply the latter.

Business Unionism

Business unionism interprets the union role narrowly. The task of the union is to address the immediate workplace needs of its members. Business unions eschew a broader political agenda and tend to perceive workers as having “a common community of interest with capital” (Moody 2007, 164). Internally, business unions are more likely to have a top-down, leader-driven structure with limited avenues for member participation (Schenk 2003, 246).

In much of the unionism literature, business unionism—sometimes called economistic unionism, the service model, or bread-and-butter unionism—is underdefined. It often receives only a couple of short sentences (or even bullet points) before the author moves on to juxtapose it to social unionism (see, for instance, Schenk 2004, 188–89; Kumar 1993, 210). Christopher Schenk (2003, 246), for example, offers eight brief descriptors of business unionism: a tendency for union leaders to solve problems for members; a reliance on formal grievance procedures; a passive membership; a reliance on experts and technical specialists; closed channels of communication; centralized and top-heavy structures; a growing dependence upon the employer; and external and internal organizing as distinct activities.

Because they lack a vibrant internal democracy, business unions are heavily shaped by their leaders, a dynamic dubbed “popular bossdom” by H. A. Turner (1962, 291). In such unions, “the relations which actually exist between the membership and the key officials will depend very much on the latter’s style of leadership . . . so that two unions of essentially the same real governmental type may present very different characters to the outside worlds” (291), as well as internally. One of the challenges of this leadership-dependent dynamic is the inherent difficulty in identifying consistent features of business unionism.

Implicit in much of the discussion of business unionism is the assumption that it is the mainstream, expected form of unionism today, reflecting the formalization that has occurred since World War II (Camfield 2011, 69–73; Robinson 2000, 127; Voss and Sherman 2003, 51–52). While this assumption contains an element of truth, its linkages to earlier eras of union history should not be neglected. So-called business unions have existed since the early days of unionism (see, for example, Hoxie 1923, 45), suggesting that business unionism is tightly linked to the nature of unionism’s relationship with capitalism rather than just being a creature of the postwar Wagner model (Hyman 1975, 185–203). Business unions attempt to work within the existing system. They may still be in conflict with the employer, but they are choosing to “play the hand they are dealt.”

Social Unionism

The literature defining social unionism is more fully developed. There is widespread agreement that social unionism takes a broader outlook on the role of the union, one that is more explicitly political and sees workers as citizens with a diversity of identities and interests extending beyond the workplace (Schenk 2003, 247; Kumar and Murray 2006, 81–84; Baines 2010, 489–90). There is also broad consensus that social unions engage, to a greater or lesser extent, in more democratic, activist internal processes and structures (Ross 2007, 27–28). Different forms of social unionism have been identified based upon on how unions manifest the broad goals of social unionism and their motivations for adopting those goals.

In what some call the “organizing model” of social unionism, unions adopt an inclusive, activist orientation with the goal of increasing union vitality and facilitating the organizing of new members (Schenk 2003, 247). While it is strongly focused on membership, this model prioritizes the interests of the institution over the goals of social justice. In contrast, “social movement unionism” has a more democratizing goal (Ross 2007, 27)—mobilizing members to build the union as part of a broader political movement. Another subcategory of social unionism is “community unionism,” which seeks to disconnect unionization from the rigid legal framework constructed since World War II (Black 2005). Community unions espouse organizing across worksites and among the unemployed, impoverished, and marginalized, and they are concerned with broader economic and social issues. They “bridge the home-workplace divide” and “take a holistic approach to the lives of working people” (Black 2005, 26). This form of social unionism is rarely, if ever, found in the contemporary Canadian labour movement (Baines 2010, 490).

There is little agreement among researchers about how common social unionism is in North America. Some argue that it is frequently found in Canada and that most Canadian unions display some social union characteristics (Ross 2007, 17; Kumar and Murray 2006, 83). These authors point to specific unions, such as the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) and the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW, now Unifor), as examples of unions practicing a broader political agenda (see, for instance, Gindin 1995, 197–254). Others, such as David Camfield (2011), adopt a more pessimistic outlook, positing a thesis of “the decay of unions as working-class movement organizations” (67) and arguing that all unions in Canada today are business unions (84–88). Jeff Shantz (2009) argues that social unionism is limited by structural barriers embedded within Canada’s decentralized legal regime for collective bargaining.

One of the challenges in isolating the features of social unionism is that outward behaviours can emerge from a range of motivations. As Stephanie Ross (2007, 26) notes, the “key to recognizing, and understanding, social unionism is therefore not the use of a particular tactic but rather the relationship between that tactic and the underlying goal it is meant to serve.” This observation suggests that while, at their core, business and social unions may be fundamentally different, their various possible manifestations make the act of identifying the range of characteristics separating them rather fraught.

COMPARING UFCW LOCAL 401 TO THEORY

The intriguing structures, processes, and actions of Local 401 make for an interesting storyline, as we saw in part 1. But what does this narrative teach us about classifying unions? How well do the practical realities of Local 401 fit the conceptualizations of business and social unionism?

In her overview of business and social unionisms in theory and practice, Stephanie Ross (2012) introduces a novel approach to classifying unions. She begins from a recognition that categorizing unions on the business/social continuum is more complex than first imagined. Her earlier work found evidence of internal contradictions, such as practices that did not align with a union’s stance on environmental sustainability (Hrynyshyn and Ross 2011) and actions by a so-called social union that potentially undermined “ongoing solidarity and mobilization” of the working class (Ross 2011, 114). Ross used these observed contradictions to draw out the nuances in our understanding of unionisms, arguing that business and social union actions are more similar than we might expect. Positing business and social unionisms as dichotomous types, she says, “ignores the fact that, for most unions, these are two related faces of union activity, often in tension with each other but sometimes mutually reinforcing” (Ross 2012, 43). She argues that the dualist framing overstates linkages and constructs false barriers. For example, she suggests that the link between external social union action and internal participatory democracy is overstated and that so-called narrow union functions such as collective bargaining can be a site for achieving broader gains for the working class. In short, Ross raises the possibility that both unionism as dichotomy and unionism as continuum may be inaccurate and oversimplified.

Ross (2012) proposes that union practices be analyzed on three dimensions: collective action frames, strategic repertoire, and internal organizational practices. Collective action frames are the sets of narratives and identities that provide purpose for union activity and define how the union sees workers and their interests. They can be seen as products of the process of narrative construction and as part of the logic that narratives create. A strategic repertoire is the series of tactics and strategies chosen by a union to enact its claimed purpose. Internal organizational practices are the dynamics enacted within the union and the use of power within the structures. While Ross gives some degree of primacy to collective action frames in organizing the union’s identity, she argues that the three dimensions interact to shape, limit, and enact one another. In other words, the elements combine to create a logic that structures union action. Ross argues that certain combinations of elements sometimes occur to form our conceptions of business and social unionism; however, “the three elements are not rigidly attached” (34) and a great deal of contingency exists in union action. Ross acknowledges that the elements can be contradictory and that collective action frames are not always consistent. The dynamic created among the dimensions allows for contradiction and uneven patterns of behaviour that may not fit within existing social/business conceptions.

Ross’s analysis remains in the conceptual realm. She provides a useful analytical tool, but to date, she has not attempted to apply the approach to a real world situation. In this chapter, I aim to operationalize Ross’s conceptualization by examining how Local 401 exhibits each of her three elements.

Internal Organizational Practices

Earlier chapters examined the formal structures and informal decision-making processes of Local 401, revealing a local operating with an openly top-down internal process. While the local’s loose, informal dynamic makes the leadership appear approachable and accountable, there is little doubt that the local is run by the small cadre of leaders. The changes to the local in the past twenty years were determined and navigated by those leaders with little input from members. Furthermore, their long tenure and the lack of any visible dissent within the local gives the leadership team a high degree of security. Elections appear to be fairly nominal and the oversight by the executive board seems more theoretical than actual.

This top-down structure with secure, long-serving leaders is considered a common and defining feature of business unionism. In this regard, Local 401 fits neatly into that conceptual basket. It inherited a traditional business union structure from the international union, and the local leaders have utilized that structure to secure their authority within the local.

Other aspects of business union internal practices are not so easily applied to Local 401. One of the dimensions in which social and business unions supposedly differ is in their level of rank-and-file activism and the degree to which the union encourages member empowerment and engagement. Local 401 cannot be considered an activist local. It has long relied heavily upon paid staff for handling the work of servicing and negotiating. Until recently, shop stewards in grocery stores did not even file grievances, instead handing that responsibility off to the staff representative.

In the past decade, however, there has been a concerted effort to shift away from that model, and the local has invested a great deal of energy in expanding its activist pool, training activists, creating more opportunities for activism, and giving more responsibility to workplace stewards. As in any effort to engage workers in union life, the results have been uneven and imperfect. It should also be noted that the nature of the new activism is workplace focused, aimed at improving ground-level activism on shop floors rather than encouraging greater member input into the direction of the local itself.

The nature of Local 401’s activist culture complicates the picture. Clearly, it is not a picture of a classic social union, since the scope of activism is narrow and tightly controlled. The local emphasizes unity and common goals within the organization, which is also a marker of a business union. Yet, in a Canadian twenty-first-century context, Local 401 could be considered among the more “active” union locals in the country. It is building an activist base in the many hundreds. It has not been afraid to mobilize its members through strikes and other direct action to further union goals. Furthermore, it appears to encourage members to take leadership roles on picket lines and in their workplaces, and it draws upon members who have leadership standing in their cultural and geographic communities to engage in union affairs. The local’s approach to activism may be an example of internal processes in flux.

Another element of Local 401’s internal practices, one that is harder to categorize, is its approach to finances. Moody (1988, 193–219) demonstrated that business unionism leads to prioritizing the health and stability of the local over other goals, leading to a degree of financial conservatism and a tendency to intertwine the interests of the union with those of the employer. This tendency is not evident in Local 401. The leaders emphasize their willingness to risk the financial stability of the local to fight for their members. Looking back on the Safeway strike, McLaren recollected, “I remember even back in ’97, Doug says, if we have to, we will sell the office buildings, we will sell everything we got in order to get it done.” O’Halloran talked about the money the local spends to wage campaigns and fight legal battles: “We spent probably a couple million dollars preparing for the Superstore strike. And as a matter of fact before, three weeks before the strike, maybe a month, we spent a million dollars. We ran a full page ad in every major newspaper, which cost $450,000.” While much of this talk can be interpreted as bravado, there is no question that Local 401 “puts its money where its mouth is.” The multiyear effort to organize Lakeside cost millions. The leaders are willing to take on first-contract labour disputes with units rejected by other unions. Their behaviour suggests a leadership more focused on winning battles for their members than ensuring the long-term financial health of the union, which has more in common with social unionism than business unionism.

Furthermore, the local’s leaders are clear that the local’s interests conflict with the interests of the employer. The local is, for example, highly antagonistic in its bargaining approaches and quick to criticize all aspects of the employer’s operations. Unlike Samuel Gompers, John Lewis, and other famous business unionists (Skurzynski 2008), the Local 401 leaders do not preach the virtues of capitalism; instead, they are quite clear that capitalism is the problem, and they openly pass that analysis on to their members.

In summary, though built upon a base of business union structure, Local 401 demonstrates some inclination toward social union approaches in its internal union life, making it hard to discern where it is most appropriately slotted. In its internal operations, clear signs of both forms of unionism can be found.

Strategic Repertoire

Ross’s second dimension of union practice is the range and choices of a union’s strategic repertoire—the series of tactics and actions it adopts. Business unions restrict themselves to the traditional strategies of formalized collective bargaining and its corollaries, while social unions adopt a wider variety of actions to further their goals. UFCW’s range of tactics can be difficult to categorize.

Social unions, being active in broad political campaigns and issues, use a wide range of strategies for advancing their members’ interests, including rallies and involvement in community coalitions and issue campaigns. In this regard, Local 401 can be considered moderately active. Its primary political vehicle, like that of many unions in Canada, is the provincial NDP. The local’s support has consisted mostly of financial donations and staff time to work campaigns. In recent years, it has expanded the pool of people booked off for campaigns to include shop stewards and other activists. The president has taken a strong informal leadership role in the party, playing something of a “kingmaker” in key party decisions. The local has taken a strong partisan stand internally, making the NDP a central topic of any gathering of members.

Other political engagement has consisted mostly of financial and some volunteer support for various left-wing political causes, including antiprivatization initiatives, progressive research, LGBTQ solidarity, and migrant worker advocacy. However, the local has become more visible in these organizations in the past decade, and some of its more recent connections extend beyond the usual realm of union-friendly left-wing causes (such as migrant workers). In recent years, the local has also taken a leadership role in the Alberta Federation of Labour and in local labour councils, increasing its level of cooperation with other unions in the province.

While this is not an insubstantial list of political activities, it is bounded in significant ways. Most of the local’s support is demonstrated either through financial or in-kind donations or through symbolic gestures (entering a float in gay pride parades, for example). On the one hand, these are the kinds of action that are easily approved and controlled by the local leadership and do not require significant membership mobilization. On the other hand, the leaders’ overt and dogged efforts to promote the NDP among the local’s membership speak to an attempt to engage the members more directly in politics.

Of course, support for the NDP in recent decades is not necessarily a signal of social unionism. Many of the more conservative unions in the country are NDP loyalists, while more politically militant unions have distanced themselves from the traditional party of labour (Evans 2012). The relationship between partisan support and forms of unionism is not easy to discern and will not be resolved here.1 However, within an Alberta context, active partisan support for the provincial NDP, which during most of the two-decade period of study was a small party with only a handful of seats, can be interpreted as a politically aggressive act, since more conservative unions opted to support the larger Liberal party (or the governing Conservatives) or to remain steadfastly nonpartisan. While the status of the NDP changed drastically and unexpectedly in 2015, when it won a majority government, Local 401’s connection with the party long predates that turn of events.

Interestingly, the leadership’s pitch for the NDP is couched in class terms. McLaren specified that when talking to members, “we always say the NDP is for the working person.” O’Halloran put it more bluntly: “So do you want to join a party that is screwing the average workers on any given day or do you belong to a party that is fighting for the rights of those workers?” In education classes and conferences, the leadership incorporates economics and politics. For example, at the Superstore shop stewards conference, a talk about the role of the shop steward focused mostly on the nature of capitalism and corporations and on working class–based resistance as embodied in the shop steward. How effective these tactics are and how deeply they penetrate into the membership are open questions. Furthermore, since there is no attempt to discuss alternatives to capitalism, the goal appears to be raising awareness of conflicting interests under capitalism rather than beginning a discussion of socialism. Yet the language is not that of traditional business unionism and appears to have more in common with social unionism.

Local 401 is known mostly for its organizing and labour dispute activities, a realm in which it has, without question, been innovative, aggressive, and creative, drawing in larger social issues and unabashedly targeting corporate power. It has also adapted strategies to reach out to racialized workers, young workers, and other groups normally underrepresented by unions. Activities of this nature fall into a grey zone in the unionism literature. Local 401 is narrowly focused on the bargaining relationship, aiming to achieve a “good” contract for members. However, the local’s practice of broadening the framing of the dispute to public health, corporate greed, and social justice and its adaptation of new strategies that acknowledge differing identities of workers suggest social union tactics that many business unions may not attempt. In particular, the local’s ads and external communications (such as leaflets) demonstrate a self-conscious strategy of linking narrow workplace issues such as health and safety to broader social issues like public health. Local 401 has also recently adopted some of the tactics of social movements, such as the flash mob and balloon release in an Edmonton Superstore prior to the 2013 strike. In a way, the local incorporates into the workplace frontier of conflict a more broadly political agenda, a possibility acknowledged by Ross in her theorizing. In this way, the line between business union actions and social union tactics becomes blurred.

Diversity and Unionisms

One of the most significant reasons for categorizing Local 401 as a social union is its embrace and encouragement of diversity within the local. As discussed in previous chapters, some of Local 401’s diversity is a product of shifting employment patterns and some is due to organizing choices made by the leadership. Regardless of how it came to be, the union has had to tackle head on the question of how to represent a diverse membership and how to encourage activism within a range of groups. Many of the initiatives implemented arose out of the necessities of organizing drives rather than from proactive planning.

The outcomes of those organizing drives are a clear indication that many of the local’s initiatives were successful in drawing in member groups normally underrepresented in union membership and activism. But how effective has the local been in involving and integrating such diversity into the life of the union? Here the picture is more mixed. At union events such as conferences and general membership meetings, diversity is evident: women, racialized workers, and young workers are heavily represented. However, no formal steps are taken to ensure that these workers feel welcome, understand the local’s decision making process, and/or feel respected and at ease. The tacit assumption made by the local’s operations is that all those in attendance come equipped with more or less the same knowledge base and comfort with the local’s internal culture. This lack of accommodation is part of a more generalized laissez-faire approach to formal meetings and events in the local and hints that the union has not fully come to terms with the realities of equitably integrating marginalized workers into the union.

Although both youth and women’s committees have existed for some time, how far they function to create meaningful participation is debatable. As one member pointed out, in his area, the youth committee has largely become inactive, almost to the point of extinction, and hence no longer serves as a source of new ideas. “A couple of people have said they are willing to stay,” he commented, “and hopefully we can work on, you know, getting a solid idea out there. (member, 10). In contrast, the women’s committee “has grown, almost doubled from what it was” (member, 5), and yet members interviewed could not point to significant initiatives or achievements. Neither committee appears to have a significant influence on the specific policies or practices in the local that affect their respective groups.

In 2013, in an effort to increase grassroots participation, the local introduced a Community Action Network (CAN) Committee to create links to various ethnic and cultural groups. Since the committee is still in its early stages, however, it is too soon to be able to judge its potential effectiveness. The local has also developed a “cultural comfort course” (staff, 9) designed to teach members about how to navigate a culturally diverse workplace and union local. One young activist described it as “a course for old snarky white guys who don’t know how to let women into their warehouse and new Canadians into their warehouse. Basically, what the course does [is] teach you how to deal with a more diverse workforce” (member, 16).

The local claims to do a good job of ensuring representation on bargaining and other shop floor committees. An example is the bargaining committee described by O’Halloran during the Lakeside strike: “We have twenty-two people on the committee. I would say probably half are female, and at least half are of ethnic origin. So it’s a very multicultural committee, and it’s one of the best committees that I had ever seen” (ALHI interview, 2005). The local has also made efforts in recent years to select shop stewards who better reflect the membership. As one member explained, the union has been trying “to become much more culturally inclusive in the way we are getting our shop stewards, so they have the ability to talk to members in their own . . . language or cultural group or whatever it happens to be” (member, 3).

Aside from these initiatives, the local’s approach to promoting activism among a range of groups has been informal and passive. Its approach is to appeal to members based on the value of the union and what it provides for members rather than to accommodate cultural, age, and gender identities. As one staffer put it,

It is through collective bargaining that we are able to relate. Because people are able to see the concrete nature of what that is and when you are talking about outreaching to young workers and new Canadians and temporary foreign workers, the nuts and bolts of what we do as a union is we negotiate and we service members. If you have got good contracts, it allows you to outreach to those people a lot easier. (staff, 24)

The local’s initiatives around diversity recognize the need for broader representation but ensure that existing power structures stay intact.

Overall, it is difficult to evaluate Local 401’s efforts in creating a diverse union local. Its organizing and representation strategies have been, at times, quite effective. Translation, integration of community leaders, and the embrace of diversity have been hallmarks of the local’s attempts to do the work of being a union. However, in terms of creating an internal union environment that reflects the composition of the membership, efforts and outcomes have been mixed. The local has been more successful at reflecting diversity at the shop level than at the higher levels of the local itself. To a degree, this bounded success is attributable to the local’s relatively weak internal democracy; there are simply few opportunities for a wide range of members to engage in decision making within the local.

There is a desire by the leadership of UFCW Local 401 to be an inclusive, respectful union. There is also a desire to be seen as an inclusive, respectful union, and this latter desire may provide the local with significant motivation to act on issues of diversity.

Collective Action Frame

Stephanie Ross (2012) anchors her analysis of unionism in how a union frames its role and the nature of its members’ interests. Once again, Local 401 does not neatly fit into either categorization. The first key observation is that most of the local’s energy is spent on organizing and bargaining efforts, the crux of institutionalized unionization under the Wagner model. It can be argued that Local 401’s efforts are inward-focused, aimed at improving the lot of its members either by improving their contract or earning certification. The local does not exhibit a similar degree of structured commitment to political causes by engaging its members in political campaigns or advocating for social change.

Although one could point to that inward orientation and argue that Local 401 is a version of a militant business union, such a focus would overlook key aspects of the local’s activities. Its education agenda is infused with economic and political analysis. Its communications—both external and internal—are designed to link members’ motivations, issues, and concerns to broader trends and institutions. The local’s leaders use the language of class, referring to the members as “workers” and “working people.” These are all traits of a union that adopts a wider action frame.

According to O’Halloran, a union leader’s job extends beyond matters of bargaining and arbitration, for the simple reason that the material circumstances of workers’ lives are ultimately shaped by social and political forces:

Every political decision that is made affects our lives, whether it be who controls water, who controls air, who sets the laws, who, from labour’s perspective, decides OH&S—those decisions are all made by some government body. . . . So you go back to why you are involved in the union and the job that you do as a union. It is because you are trying to protect the rights of people, basically protect their health. (O’Halloran)

The idea that unions exist to defend the broader interests of their members, not merely to represent them in the workplace, is characteristic of social unionism.

A complex, somewhat paradoxical image thus emerges. While Local 401 appears to accept a broader, more class-based, political role for itself, it engages in that role with more inwardly focused strategies and actions. However, as Ross (2012) points out, the link between frame and strategic repertoire is not always linear. When we analyze Local 401’s actions, their outcomes, and the motivations behind them, a complex dynamic becomes evident. To fully make sense of what Local 401 does, and to integrate it into theory, we might need to rethink the link between inward-focused action and an outward-focused frame. The apparent contradiction may be resolved by asking whether the aims of social unionism can be achieved via business-unionesque repertoires. Can collective bargaining lead to a form of social unionism?

Local 401’s Self-Framing

A core element of a collective action frame is understanding why a union does the things it does and how those involved perceive their union. Most often, researchers need to surmise the frame through observable actions and implied meanings. The case study of UFCW Local 401 affords us a rare opportunity to supplement those observations with the self-articulated perspectives of the local’s members and leaders themselves. All study participants were asked what they thought the role of a union should be and whether they considered Local 401 to be more of a business or social union. Their answers provide valuable insight in understanding how Local 401 fits into our notions of unionism.

Members’ responses reflect an apparent awareness of the local’s complex patterns. A few interviewees labelled Local 401 as a business union and suggested that the local was doing what the members wanted—focusing on workplace issues. A larger number opted for the social union label. However, the largest portion of member respondents either said the local was both a business and a social union or argued that it didn’t fit either concept very well, as the following comments illustrate:

I would call us a social business union [laughs]. We are very, very good at representing our members. We are very focused on representing our members, but at the same time, we also see the broader implications outside—what’s going on that can affect our membership, be it good or bad. (member, 6)

I see the business side of it more, but you know what, I could see them being a very social union, I can see that. (member, 23)

These responses suggest that at least some members are conscious that the actions and structures of Local 401 defy the traditional categories. While their perceptions may have remained somewhat general, their instinctive reaction was to reach for something more nuanced.

We see a similar reluctance to choose between business or social union in the leaders and staff. Some of their responses were somewhat defensive: “[We are not] a business union because we don’t do anything that’s fucking logical business wise,” declared O’Halloran. There was also a tendency to hold onto both concepts, as shown by Secretary-Treasurer McLaren’s response:

We go the extra mile for members. We are not just filing grievances for the sake of filing grievances. We are out there in the communities. We are in the political scene. . . . It is all about the members. It is not about how much money we have in the bank. Yes, we’ve got to be fiscally responsible, obviously, but we’re not gonna stop doing something for social reasons and purpose because of money.

Some interviewees acknowledged the local’s evolution over time, showing an awareness that at one time, it was a business union, but it has changed:

I think we are not the same union we were twenty years ago. We are not the same union that signed the original Superstore deal in 1984. That was the business union that went in there. If we were the same union we would have signed the No Frills deal. So, we are still a pragmatic, nuts and bolts, that traditional business sense union. I think key activists and key people within the local have started to shift, started to change that. (staff, 24)

I think we were business but we are evolving into social. I don’t think we are there yet, totally. We’re getting there, but I think we could do more politically. We need to do more politically because . . . they [unions] are dying out. (member, 4)

The third member of the leadership team, Tom Hesse, offered an extended critique of the notions of business and social unionism, challenging the distinction between them. “There is no such a thing as, on an ipso facto basis, a more socially conscious union and a more business-like union,” he said, arguing that these notions “are just constructs, these are just terms that people just throw around in different circumstances to serve different interests. I think they are highly artificial, highly contrived.” He then proceeded to offer a lengthy and complete definition of the two terms, suggesting he was not dismissing them as completely invalid. He linked business unionism with adopting a business frame, “acquiring market share, acquiring dues, providing a narrow service,” and with a “cost-benefit analysis.” He also acknowledged the narrower, “bread and butter” approach of business unions, their reluctance to be involved in politics, and their lack of militancy through actions such as strikes. In contrast, social unions are “less interested in money”; they are less about acquiring dues and more concerned about doing “the right thing” and acting on principle and “morality.” He implied that social unions are also more political and more militant.

The essence of Hesse’s argument is twofold. First, the reality is more complex and fluid than rigid categorization allows for. “I think unions are about surviving,” he said, “and what I might do on a Tuesday might be different than on a Wednesday. My members’ interests should be in play. And I need to be flexible and so I think it is circumstance driven.” He explained that any union can display both social and business union traits, depending upon what is needed at that particular time to advance the interests of its members. Second, he argued that the terms are used less as markers of union forms and more as leverage in conflicts and competition between unions. He used the UFCW/CAW conflicts over fisheries in the 1980s as an example:

We had a big raid, big back and forth war with them [CAW] in Newfoundland over this. . . . Of course they held themselves out as a social justice union and us as a business union. And so they tried to frame the debate in those terms. But you can’t help but notice as well that they were under financial pressures in their industry, the auto industry is struggling. There is a sort of pressure, they have a shrinking membership. There is no doubt they have an interest in expanding their membership in order to survive as an organization.

Hesse questioned the authenticity of the terms in that context, arguing that they are often used more as weapons than as accurate descriptors. “Maybe there is a legitimate debate about where you sit on the spectrum,” he conceded, “who we ought and not ought to be. But in tough times, there have been times where it raises issues of the bona fides of the labels and how they are being used.”

Hesse’s provocative challenge to traditional conceptions may be, to a degree, a bit of sophistry, and it is certainly convenient for him to undermine the premise upon which criticisms of UFCW are built. However, he raises an important and underacknowledged point: the terms business union and social union can be used for particular political and strategic purposes and may become rhetorical devices as much as accurate descriptors of union behaviour. While it may be difficult to disentangle Hesse’s argument from his self-interest, that does not invalidate his point. Local 401 does display a remarkable mixture of strategies, structures, and actions, making the local difficult to categorize. It raise the interesting possibility that maybe the problem is with the categories rather than the actions of Local 401.

BLURRED LINES

Applying Ross’s three dimensions to UFCW Local 401 reveals a complex picture not easily fitting traditional notions of union forms. On all three dimensions, Local 401 demonstrates features of both forms. The subjective views of the local’s activists and leaders confirm that they internalize this apparently contradictory picture. The experience of Local 401 is complex, multilayered, and in flux. However, it only appears contradictory if we rigidly apply the traditional business/social categorization to the findings. To develop a coherent understanding of Local 401 in action, we need to rethink our conceptions of union forms.

First, we need to jettison our notion of unions as static organizations defined by formal structures and institutionalized rules of behaviour. But this doesn’t mean devolving them into aggregations of human action, without form or constancy. Antonio Gramsci (2005) was partly correct: unions are constantly in the process of being constructed, shaped by both internal and external forces. But Gramsci does not sufficiently acknowledge the limits to the extent of their change. Unions are caught in a particular relationship with capitalism that is not of their own making. While the specific manifestations of capitalism change, and have been changing dramatically in the past few decades, the nature of its relationship to unions remains constant, meaning that certain elements of unions and what they do is static. Nor can we completely ignore that unions are composed of formal structures and rules, which can be quite stable and enduring. Change happens, but it occurs within a logical framework, both at a micro (union) and a macro (capitalism) level. It can be argued that unions are in a constant state of bounded creation. They are not inert, but they continue to be informed by their past.

The case of UFCW Local 401 shows us that unions are made at the intersection between structure and action. The leadership of Local 401 made decisions in real time based upon real events with practical outcomes. However, those decisions were informed by past actions and frames and were constrained by both externally and internally imposed limits to action (labour laws, the degree of membership mobilization, and so on). The range of possible action is also bounded by the local’s structures. To be more specific, the local’s top-down structure facilitates certain actions but makes others more difficult. Its centralized model made it easier for the local to alter organizing strategies or launch aggressive ad campaigns but inhibited any efforts to create meaningful engagement opportunities around membership diversity or political action. The local does not disengage from its history, even as it moves forward into the future. The reforming initiatives of the leadership changed Local 401, but they did not create an entirely new union. That which came before, and persists, colours the nature of the change. The end result is a union local that exhibits multiple characteristics, in part because it still is (and always will be) in flux and in part because the future always links back to the past.

A second way of looking at unions differently involves questioning the legitimacy of the entire business/social divide. Whether these types are viewed as a dichotomy or a continuum, the patterns found in Local 401 are not easily explained in these terms. A more fruitful way to understand the mixed results is to remember that social unionism and business unionism “are two related faces of union activity, often in tension with each other but sometimes mutually reinforcing” (Ross 2012, 43). All unions possess elements of both because both are inherent in the work they are required to perform. It may be that this dual nature of the union role is simply laid barer in UFCW Local 401 than in other locals. Or it may be that we need to ask different questions to reveal the inner complexity of union activity.

Local 401 was chosen as the site for this case study because it appeared to display contradictory tendencies. It is now apparent that the tendencies are internally coherent and reflect the local’s specific context. The contradiction disappears when we relax our notion of opposing unionisms. The concepts of “business union” and “social union” are more fluid than they appear, and the possibility of existing in both spaces simultaneously is real. The difference between this conception of unions and the traditional business/social divide is similar to that between Newtonian physics and quantum physics. We are required, like the quantum physicist, to accept the possibility that a particle, in this case a union, can exist in multiple points in space simultaneously. Indeed, that is the only way a union can exist—by embracing multiple elements of the union role.

The third rethinking arising as a consequence of this case study is that we need to separate more carefully how we theorize about unionisms and how we actually use the terms. Much of union theory acknowledges that unions can exhibit characteristics of both union forms, but rarely do researchers and practitioners absorb the consequences of that acknowledgement, and so tend to fall comfortably back into traditional categories. Thus, the notion of “two types” of union persists and the complexities get lost, with two consequences. First, the terms sometimes become weapons for pigeon-holing unions. In this regard, Tom Hesse may have a point when he calls them “contrived.” In practice, the terms are used as much to obfuscate as to illuminate. They become labels of virtuosity or vileness rather than accurate descriptors of what is happening. Second, sidelining complexity diminishes the vividness of union life. When applying the concepts roughly rather than precisely, unions become two-dimensional entities. The interesting stuff lies in the tension between the two mandates of unions. It is in the union’s response to that tension where the insights are found. Blithely applying the labels causes us to look in the wrong places for the essence of unionism. But it would be a mistake to jettison the terms entirely, for they do offer a useful starting point for understanding the choices that unions must make.

Stephanie Ross’s three dimensions of unionism prove to be very helpful in unpacking the complexity found in the Local 401 case study. Instead of trying to wedge the local into one category or another—as is the common tendency among labour practitioners and, to a lesser extent, scholars—the case of Local 401 suggests to us that there is room to consider other possibilities.

We still have much to learn about how the theories of union behaviour and the on-the-ground actions of unions interact. The case of Local 401 reminds us that the realities of union life are dizzyingly, wonderfully complex and messy. Yet if we look more closely at those realities, our theorization will be greatly enriched by the experience.