USW Canada: Remarks by Former National Director, Lawrence McBrearty

As you probably know by now, this will be my last Policy Conference as your National Director. It has been an honour for me to be able to serve our Union in all my different capacities for over 40 years, from Local Union President to National Director. I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your trust and your support.

I’m very pleased to see such a large number of delegates at this important conference and especially such a large number of first time delegates. When I look at our National Policy Conferences over the last 10 years as National Director, I see that we really have become ‘Everybody''s Union’.

Our union has, become an important force in almost every part of our society. We have grown from our proud traditions in the mining, steel and manufacturing sectors. Over the last decade, we have welcomed new members from different transportation sectors, from the security sector, from our education and financial institutions and from a wide range of service sectors. Equally important, our Union, today, reflects the rich multicultural character of our society.

And I want to take this opportunity at this conference to welcome some important guests that hopefully add a new chapter to the history of our Union.

As many of you know, the Industrial, Wood and Allied Workers representing over 50,000 members in Canada have recently decided to begin merger discussions with our Union. Our Union has long enjoyed a very positive working relationship with our friends in the IWA. We have always shared a common culture and tradition of working for progressive change for working people in our society. I’d like to welcome to our conference the President of the IWA, Brother Dave Haggard, and members of the IWA Executive Board.

Welcome Dave and we look forward to your comments later today.

I also want to welcome our sisters and brothers from the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees. We have with us today members of the organizing team who have worked very hard in our organizing campaign. We have recently filed applications to represent some 6,000 employees at CN and CP and we hope to welcome them into the Steelworkers Union in the very near future.

Last month, our Union''s International Executive Board approved and signed a historic International Strategic Alliance with PACE, the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy International Union. PACE represents over 175,000 members in North America of over 3,000 are in Canada. This alliance will strengthen both our unions in taking on the bargaining, organizing and legislative and political challenges in the coming years. Our Unions hope that this strategic alliance will be an important first step towards the further integration of our two Unions.Thank you all for coming to our National Policy Conference and we look forward to our future together.

This year’s policy conference comes at a critical time for our Union. It comes at a time when working men and women are being attacked by corporations and right wing politicians at the bargaining table, in the organizing field and in the legislative and political arena. But it also comes at a time where our union is determined more than ever to defend the rights of our members and to fight in solidarity with others for justice for respect and dignity for working families.

As our conference slogan says, "Our Union" is "Our Voice". And this conference is our opportunity to make sure our voice is clear and strong from coast to coast to coast.

This year’s policy conference is an opportunity for us to celebrate some of our recent victories. More important, it is an opportunity to look at the challenges we will face in the coming years.

In the last 10 years, I recommended and chaired three task forces on the structure and functioning of our Union. The most recent 2002 Task Force on the Special Character on the United Steelworkers as an International Union recommended three very important changes to our constitution that were adopted at our last National Policy Conference and our last International Convention. The first involves the role of the Canadian National Director, who is now an officer of the International Executive Board of our Union. The second change in our constitution establishes the National Director as the spokes person for the Union in Canada on national issues and on union issues applicable to more than one Canadian District. The third important change sets out the National Policy Conference as the Union''s forum in Canada to set priorities and policies for legislative and collective bargaining matters in Canada. This is an important new responsibility for this Policy Conference. It is our collective responsibility to now take this new role seriously.

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Before I outline what I believe will be some of the key challenges that we will be facing in the coming years, I want to briefly mention some of our recent victories. Since our last National Policy Conference in Montreal in 2002, we have made significant gains at the bargaining table, in the organizing field and in the legislative and political arena.

These victories are important in themselves. However, they also show what we can do when we speak with a strong, determined and one united voice as a union.

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At the bargaining table, we have faced employers who want to take away our job security, our pensions and our benefits. Our answer to them has been a loud and clear "No" and we have bargained contracts that have improved the quality of life of our members and of working families.

There are too many examples to mention individually. In large locals and in smaller locals, we have fought back employer attempts to cut back our wages and to take away our pensions and benefits. In sectors like mining, steel, manufacturing, security, education, transportation and services, we have signed agreements that have improved our members'' wages and benefits and strengthened our working conditions and our rights at the work place.

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In organizing, we have faced growing numbers of anti-union employers and governments who have said to us "unions are a thing of the past". Our answer to them has been to continue to organize thousands of unorganized workers in a wide range of sectors across Canada.At its recent mid-term conference on organizing, the Canadian Labour Congress did a study on organizing in Canada over the last 10 years. Our union led the list in eight of the ten years and was in the top three unions in every year.

And the last two years since our last National Policy Conference are no exception. On the screens, you will see all the new units that have become proud new Steelworker locals over the last two years.In total, 137 new bargaining units representing 11,357 members have joined our Union since our last National Policy Conference in 2002.

Can the newly organized members from these locals please stand up so we can all welcome you to Everybody''s Union, the Steelworkers.

*****In the legislative and political arena, we have faced governments whose first priority is to look after the interests of the bankers and investors. And our answer to them has been "working people must be your number one priority". And, we have taken every action possible to make sure this happens….no matter how long it takes.And sometimes it does take a long time. But our commitment and our effort pay off for our members, their families and their communities. There is no better example of this than the recent changes to the Criminal Code that honoured the memory of workers killed in the Westray disaster over 10 years ago.

Year after year, our Union said it won’t give up the fight. We kept on faxing MP’s from our homes and from our local union offices. We kept on sending our local union activists to lobby on Parliament Hill. We made our presence felt in our communities and in provincial legislatures.We promised that we would never stop. We didn’t and we won.

On behalf of all our union, can I ask everyone that was involved with the Westray Campaign to please stand up so we can show them our appreciation.The recent changes to the Criminal code in Bill C-45 will go a long way to making sure that the corporate world gets the message. They will be held criminally responsible if they don’t act to avoid future Westray disasters. You will be hearing more in this conference about these amendments and the challenges that still lie ahead in this area for our union.

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Since our last National Policy conference, we also launched our very important campaign to defend our jobs in the steel industry.

The last two years have seen the worse crisis that our steel sector has faced in its history. Record levels of steel imports and continued dumping from offshore producers have put our members’ jobs, pensions and benefits at risk.

The federal government has made the crisis worse by not taking any action against the dumping. It continues to use the World Trade Organization (WTO) as an excuse to avoid making the changes we need to our trade laws. And even worse, the government ignores all the measures that they can take within the WTO rules to help the steel industry and our members.

Three significant steel producers, Slater, IVACO and Stelco have filed for bankruptcy protection in the steel industry since last summer. Across other manufacturing industries, we have seen other similar cases.

The employers, for their part, have used this opportunity to try and take away our hard won defined benefit pension plans and our benefits.

Our union and our steel locals have responded loudly and clearly to both employers and governments through our Steelworkers National Steel Council and our Steel Industry Campaign.Our message to employers is "Hands off our Pension and Benefit Plans. Our members and our retirees are not paying for your bad management".

Our message to government is "We need action now to make sure we have a strong steel industry in the future".Over the last two years, our union has lobbied politicians at the federal, provincial and municipal levels. We have activated our members and our communities and have commitments from a wide range of politicians and community leaders.

Unfortunately, our campaign to date has not led to the legislative changes our steel sector needs. But if the Westray campaign has taught us one thing, it is that "its never over till we decide it is over".The Steelworkers will play an important role in making sure we have a ''Made in Canada'' alternative that ensures we have a strong steel industry that provides good jobs, pensions and benefits to our members.

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Another important campaign since our last National Policy Conference, has centered on the security industry in Canada. Workers in the security industry were never given the recognition that they deserved. They also never received on the job training they needed, and after the events of September 11^th , 2001 many tried to blame our members for not providing effective security.

But our union and our 25,000 members in the security industry responded quickly and effectively. We responded at the bargaining table, in organizing drives, in our communities in the media and in the political arena.

And we have made major gains in each of these areas. We have improved the wages, benefits and working conditions in the security industry. We have new training standards set in the federal jurisdiction. And we continue to organize new security guard and officers units, especially at our airports.

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Let me conclude my review of the last two years by saying one very important thing. All our victories are the result of one thing….. you. History has shown us that we can win when we all speak together as one united voice.All the successes that I have talked about are the result of your commitment and your determination. At our last National Policy Conference in Montreal in 2002, we set out an ambitious agenda. We also committed ourselves to putting that agenda into action step by step.

At the end of that conference, I made a commitment to you that we would come back to our next conference and we would look at how we had followed through on decisions we had made at that conference. In your conference kits, you will find a progress report on the policies passed at the 2002 National Policy Conference and also updated documents requested by the Task Force. You will see that we have followed through on the large majority of these policies, while there are still some areas where more work needs to get done.

I strongly believe that all of our successes over the last two years have been the result of our commitment to follow through on these policies and strategies.

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Let me now take a few minutes to look to the future.

If ever we needed commitment, determination and united action, it is now.

Every day, more employers are looking for different ways to weaken our Union. Our jobs, our wages, our benefits and our pensions are being threatened in each round of bargaining.

Every day, anti-union employers and governments are looking for new ways to make it more difficult for us to organize the unorganized in different sectors across Canada.

And every day, employers, governments and many in the media are looking at new ways to convince the ordinary citizen that the priority must be to defend the rights of large corporations and corporate investors at the expense of worker and human rights.

At this conference, we will need to debate and develop policies and strategies to take on this corporate dominated agenda. And we will need to come out of this conference with an even greater commitment, determination and united voice.

In addition to your important resolutions, our conference agenda gives us an opportunity to debate:

How we strengthen our economic security including our jobs, our pensions and our benefits;
How we improve our social services, especially our universal, public health care system;
How we defend our health and safety rights and protect our environment; and,
How we strengthen our clout at both the bargaining table and in the political arena to be able to deal with these challenges.

These are important challenges that face our members and our union at every level on a day to day basis.

In the last few weeks, our union did a survey of our membership. In this poll, we found that these issues were not only important to our union leadership and activists, but they also are the key issues in the lives of our members.

In your conference kits you will find a binder that provides background information on these issues and proposed action plans that we will be debating at this conference. At our display tables, just outside the conference hall, you will also find several updates on important equality issues that we passed at our past conferences. Please look at these documents and use them in your workplaces.

We will have plenty of opportunity to discuss these important issues in greater detail during the conference. However, let me touch briefly on each one of these areas.

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Earlier in my report, I talked about the crisis in our steel industry. The steel crisis is a very important crisis on its own. But it is part of a bigger crisis in our manufacturing sector.

As you will see from the background to the policy papers in your conference kit, our manufacturing sector has continued to shrink. This trend has been the result of corporate global strategies that shift production to countries that have low wages, no benefits, no social services, and that ignore labour rights and environmental protections.

Governments have helped speed up these corporate global strategies through trade deals like the FTA in the late 1980’s, NAFTA in the 1990’s and now with the proposed FTAA. What is common to all these agreements is the fact that they protect corporate and investor rights and ignore labour and human rights. These trade agreements are also part of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

And this "race to the bottom" is spreading quickly. Ten years ago, our industrial jobs were going to the Maquiladora region in Mexico. Now, they’re going from Mexico to China. And this virus is affecting not just our industrial sectors but it is having a major impact on the economic security of workers in the service sector as well.

What does this all mean for our union?

Yes, we have to continue to develop strategies in our steel sector.

Yes, we have to continue to develop strategies in our mining, manufacturing and service sectors.But we will also need to send a strong message to both industry and governments that the Steelworkers Union will be in their face at every turn if they continue to support this insane "race to the bottom".

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The "race to the bottom" has also had a major impact on our social services.

We have a proud tradition of community where we care for our fellow citizens. This tradition is strongest in our universal, public social programs such as Medicare, pensions, unemployment insurance and public education. Our healthcare system is the envy of most countries around the world.

The corporate globalization agenda has tried to attack all our important social services. Employers and governments continue to tell us "We can no longer afford these services", "The private sector can provide these services more efficiently", "These public services are not allowing us to compete internationally"….do you need me to go on?Well. We’ve heard all this before and I want to say one thing to those employers and to those governments "If you think the Steelworkers Union is going to stand still while you take away our social programs and especially our Medicare…..think again."

In the political arena, we will have to use all our experience and our resources to get this message across to every politician at every level.

However, we must also bring this issue to our bargaining tables. We need to let everyone of our employers know that, if they do not work with us to defend our universal public healthcare system, they will be the ones paying the costs in the future.

***The final issue that I briefly want to touch on is our health and safety and our environment.

Our Union has a strong and proud tradition of breaking new ground in the area of safety, health and the environment. We were the first union to win in bargaining the right to refuse unsafe work back in the 1970''s in the Iron Ore Mines. We were the first union to make sure that the role of our Safety and Health Committees included looking after issues that touched on the environment. And the recent amendments to Canada''s Criminal Code are yet another example of how the Steelworkers have set the Safety and Health agenda.

Later in this conference, we will be discussing several critical health and safety and environmental issues that represent our continued agenda in this important area. Specifically, we will be deciding on how we follow-up on the gains made with Bill C-45. And we will be looking at the role our union needs to play in making sure Canada lives up to its commitments to implement the Kyoto Accord on the environment.

Tomorrow, April 22^nd , is Earth Day. Let''s take this opportunity together to celebrate our past victories, but also to strengthen our determination to make the changes we will need in the future.

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In all of the issues that I have talked to you about, our policy alternatives will need to be creative. They will need to be innovative. And they will need to address the day to day concerns of our members.

Equally important, our policy alternatives will need to be accompanied by concrete actions that will help us put these policies in place. There has been a common theme to all the issues that I have talked to you about today….and that is action…both in the political arena and at the bargaining table.

In your conference binders, you will see a discussion paper on how we can improve our clout at the bargaining table and in the legislative and political arena. We need to have a very important discussion on these proposals.Little happens by chance. Nothing happens by wishful thinking. Our success over the last two years was the result of our actions in the political arena and at the bargaining table. And only common actions and one voice will ensure our successes in the coming years.

We will need to discuss how we can enhance our communication network with our local unions, activists, members and retirees. Here, you will see proposals to develop a local union e-mail system, a local union political action network and a SOAR electronic database.In the survey of our membership, we found that Steelworkers union, compared to other unions in Canada, has on average a much higher percent of members that will speak up in promoting the union at its

policies. In the same survey, we saw that a larger percentage of our members are proud of their union. But, we need to do even better. And, these initiatives can play an important role in strengthening our union''s voice.

On the subject of SOAR, our electronic database will allow us to better communicate with our retirees. But, here too, we need to do more. As you will see in one of the resolutions in this conference, each local will be asked to bargain employer contributions to support SOAR.

We will need to discuss how we can improve our legislative and political action. Here, you will see proposals to develop a Parliamentary Intern Program and to expand our current Steelworker Local Union Lobbyist Program.

We will also need to discuss ways that enable the Union to quickly and effectively use the resources at its disposal to achieve our bargaining goals. In this area, you will see proposals on how we can develop and use Steelworker National Industry Councils (such as our National Steel Council) and international alliances with other unions to increase our bargaining clout. You will also see proposals on how we can promote and expand existing union programs that support bargaining efforts such as the Steelworkers Trusteed Benefit Plan.We will have plenty of time to discuss these proposals over the next few days, so I don’t want to spend much time on them now. However, I do want to make two important points as background.

First, I want to stress the importance of looking at strategies at both the domestic and the international level. I don’t have to tell you about the impact of globalization on your workplaces and on your collective agreements.

Many of you have seen the benefits of our critical international alliances such as:

Our Rio Tinto international network that recently met with our Iron Ore local unions in Labrador;
Our Gerdau international network which has met several times last year;
Our International Aluminum Conference which was held in Montreal last year; and,
Our International Rubber Council which meets annually.

Many of you have also seen the direct benefits of exchanges and programs in a wide range of sectors in all parts of the world that have been coordinated by our Steelworkers Humanity Fund.

It will be critical in the coming years to continue to build and to strengthen these international alliances and to get all our local unions to negotiate participation in the Steelworkers Humanity Fund.It is through these important international alliances that we will send a strong message to those that want to use their global strategies to play one worker off against another. We will tell them "When you face the Steelworkers, you are facing a force around the globe".

The second issue that I want to highlight with you today is a domestic issue of paramount importance. As you all know, we will be facing a federal election campaign very soon.

I don’t need to tell you how important it is for our union and for working families to take full advantage of this important election to get our issues and our voice into the House of Commons in numbers never seen before.

With the recent changes to Canada’s Election Finances Act, our Union can no longer make financial donations to our political allies. As you will see in our policy discussion documents, we will need to develop new ways to stay politically active. To do this, we will need to develop a network of local union political action coordinators. This very important network will increase our lobbying strength. But it will also allow our union to:

Develop Steelworker issue campaigns; and,
Increase membership support for our political allies through ongoing membership drives, fundraising drives, candidate recruitment and identification and training of campaign workers.

With the federal election coming in the very near future, this must be a top priority for our Union. We all know what it means for our members and for working families to elect members of parliament that speak our language and defend our issues and our rights.

But we also have to be clear that we need to do a better job in the future. For many years, our policy conferences have passed resolutions supporting the New Democratic Party of Canada. In Quebec, our Union has also decided in the past to support Social Democrats candidates from the Parti Quebecois and the Bloc Quebecois, parties they had a role in forming.

However, in spite of our repeated resolutions, we have not been able to deliver the support of a large enough number of our members at the ballot box. This has to change. I challenge all of us in this room and in our locals to make sure that in this election we do everything in our power to convince each one of our members why they should be supporting candidates that speak for us.

On Saturday morning, you will be hearing from one of our important political allies, Jack Layton.

At that time, let us all tell Jack that we will be doing everything in our power in this election to elect a record number of members of parliament that will speak for working families from coast to coast to coast.

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As you can see, we have quite the job ahead of us the next few days. I look forward to a lively, active and constructive debate.

Our future is in our hands. Let’s make our voice a loud and clear one.

Again, thank you for all your support and enjoy the conference.