"Does Larry Solway subscribe to some strange 'great man' theory of history?"

Response to Larry Solway from Buzz Hargrove

  The decision by the 30,000 SEIU members to leave the SEIU and join the CAW does not constitute a "raid" in any meaningful sense of that term. The CAW did not try to recruit these members. In fact, we resisted approaches by dissident SEIU leaders to join our union, encouraging them to try to find a resolve to their long-standing grievances internally. But after years of distant, at times dictatorial leadership from Washington, poor service, and a fundamental lack of control over their Canadian affairs, the leadership of eight SEIU locals in Ontario, supported by the overwhelming majority of their members, felt they had no choice but to leave.
  So the SEIU members - wanting not only a Canadian union, but also a militant union that would lead a real fight against the concessions and wage freezes they have endured for years-voted to join the CAW. This democratic expression has been made in several ways, including a unanimous vote in February by over 800 elected rank-and-file leaders from the eight locals involved, a near-unanimous vote by over 1 1,000 members in workplace ballots in March, and ongoing support for the CAW in government-sponsored workplace certification votes that averages over 96 percent.
  No-one can possibly claim that the desire for fundamental change, and the desire to join the CAW, is not shared by the overwhelming majority of the 30,000 members in question. Anyone who argues that these members should now be forced to stay with the SEIU is clearly advocating that unions should continue to treat their members as so many chess pieces. This is profoundly anti-democratic. Even the CLC's umpire acknowledged as much, when he wrote that the CLC process appears to him "undemocratic in circumstances like this case."
  Many CAW members know first-hand the difficulties of dealing with U.S, union officials. We formed an independent union 15 years ago precisely because U.S. union leaders refused to give up their control over our affairs. Since then, numerous other groups have joined the CAW, many after enduring decades of misrepresentation, poor service, or outright corruption and repression at the hands of U.S. unions.
  This explains why our decision to accept the 30,000 SEIU members was unanimously endorsed at a spirited meeting of our 700-strong CAW Council in April, even though delegates understood fully the potential implications of our decision, Larry Solway, like many other CAW critics, denigrates the reputation of this unmatched collection of rank-and-file labour activists when he says the whole dispute is a Buzz Hargrove ego trip. Is there not a single local leader in our whole union who would stand up in an open forum, where every delegate has the full right to speak and vote, and state that this is the wrong thing to be doing? Apparently they, too, are too invested in Buzz Hargrove's ego trip to see the writing on the wall,
  Does Larry subscribe to some strange "great man" theory of history? For him, apparently, without Buzz Hargrove's ego, there would be no conflict between unions in Canada, no disputes between the labour movement and the NDP (even when NDP governments trample over hard-won labour rights in their rush to be "good economic managers"), no problems at all for the left in Canada.
  I won't go into Larry's dredging up of the arguments about 1999 strategic voting in Ontario, because they're not especially relevant to the current dispute and mostly reflect his disappointment about his personal political misfortune. Suffice it to say no serious analysis of riding-by-riding returns has indicated that strategic voting in Ontario cost the NDP seats in that election, and most have argued that strategic voting held the potential to assist the NDP (by making their popular vote translate more "efficiently" into elected seats). But why should the NDP seriously re-examine its failure to mount an effective opposition against Harris and present itself as a genuine or credible voice of popular sentiments? It's far easier to blame the whole debacle on Buzz Hargrove's ego.
  Many people invested in the status quo clearly wish that I would just go away. Larry Solway seems to think that would single-handedly solve a lot of difficult issues facing the labour movement and the left in this country. Those of us who are fighting in the trenches to sustain and rebuild the progressive movement know we need new ideas, new strategies, new ways of doing things. It will always be a difficult and uncomfortable struggle to bring about this change, including the changes needed within our own movements. But otherwise we run a far greater risk of watching the slow slide into irrelevance of institutions - like labour centrals and political parties - which lose touch with their rank-and-file supporters and their fundamental principles.
  Despite our expulsion from the CLC, our union is as committed as ever to continue our full support for the struggles of working people and others committed to social justice. We will work with all unions, whether or not they are CLC affiliates. We also commit to continue working with our social coalition partners in support of the struggle of those without power and privilege, those without voice in unions or in the legislatures and parliament of Canada.
  These are challenging times for labour activists in Canada, to be sure. But progressives should not lose sight of the fact that there are opportunities as well as risks in the current moment. We have a chance to revitalize our movement, to reinvent the wheel, to find ways of structuring ourselves that are more modern, more, effective, and more democratic. But this won't happen if we shy away from hard decisions because we're worried about having an argument.

Buzz Hargrove
President, Canadian Auto Workers
www.caw.ca

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