Rightward journey of the CAW

I started reading the "rabble news" item about [url=http://www.rabble.ca/everyones_a_critic.shtml?x=71440]The rightward journey of the CAW (in six steps)[/url] by Lynn Williams, former International President of the United Steelworkers with some interest, because Williams himself is not particularly noted for his leftist credentials. (Among other things, he was one of the most vocal advocates for the expulsion of the Waffle from the NDP). It didn't take long for me to do a double-take:

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Buzz Hargrove was raised in the movement in the traditions of Walter Reuther and Dennis McDermott, [b]leaders who understood the importance of building a free and democratic labour movement, at home and abroad, whatever struggle that required.[/b]

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Walter Reuther?

Williams is seeking to establish that Hargrove has departed from the free and democratic ideals of the labour movement, which is undoubtedly true. But to characterize this as somehow out of keeping with the likes of McDermott and Reuther is bizarre. It also tells us something about where Williams himself is coming from. Hargrove is in fact acting entirely in keeping with the traditions of the labour bureaucracy, as epitomized by McDermott, Reuther, and Williams himself.

Labour historian Art Preis wrote an [url=http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/preis/1950/11/reuther.htm]e... article[/url] about Walter Reuther in 1950, in which one reads as follows:

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With the union reins firmly in his hands, Reuther has unfolded his real program for the union. Its essential features are centralizing of power and curbing of internal democracy; crippling of militancy; collaborating with the corporations in imposing long-term contracts; restricting real wage gains while boosting speed-up and man-hour output. The auto workers are being put on a “war footing.”

Reuther has ruthlessly pursued his drive to extirpate opposition. At the 1949 convention, his executive board secured powers to bring to trial and expel local union members. A campaign of local trials and expulsions has been instituted, since the start of the Korean war, against those accused of not supporting the war. Reuther has endorsed contracts permitting company managements to fire alleged “subversives.”

“Company security” clauses – the right of managements to “discipline” participants in so-called “unauthorized” strikes – have been incorporated, in one form or another, in all major contracts. The shop-steward method of settling grievances has been supplanted by the “impartial umpire,” who on all important issues rules in favor of the company.

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Sounds a lot like Hargrove to me.

And Hargrove and McDermott are cut from the same cloth:

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Perhaps no other event in the history of the Canadian Autoworkers (CAW) has evoked more of a reaction than the spectacle in December [2005] of CAW National President Buzz Hargrove gleefully giving then Prime Minister Paul Martin a CAW jacket to wear while Martin was campaigning for re-election. New Democratic Party (NDP) members and supporters were infuriated. The Liberals were ecstatic. [b]The Left outside of the NDP cringed seeing vindication of their worst opinions of Hargrove and his political history going back to the days of Dennis McDermott’s bitter fights against the left in the Canadian UAW.[/b] - [url=http://www.labournet.net/world/0605/caw1.html]Source[/url]

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The latter article goes on to explain how the Hargrovian rightward movement was the culmination of a process that had been going on the CAW for years.

Lynn Williams's article is an exercise in hypocrisy - a belated attempt to distance himself from a process that he played no small part in.