'Rewarding Your Enemies, Punishing Your Friends': The Labour College Strike of 1983

Abstract

Introduction by Don Wells JOHN BULLBN'S HISTORY of the faculty strike he coordinated at the CLC's Labour College of Canada in 1983 is in part about a bewildering social stigma: the loathing many unionists have for academics. This odium is part of the reason why so much of the academic work on the labour movement has involved a one-sided solidarity. Fortunately, Bullen's work is not a history of such one-sidedness. In the end, it was the students-trade unionists from across Canada-who won the strike. They saw the strike for what it was-a strike for the right to organize-and they stood by what they knew was right Many were threatened by the CLC and by their union leaders, but to my knowledge, no student gave in to these pressures. This strike provides insights into another bewildering phenomenon: the sorry way unions often act as managers. One might think that those who have felt the injustice of management power would be more sensitive when exercizing such power themselves. Yet if management at the CLC is an example of bad management, it is far from alone in the labour movement A much different dynamic in collective bargaining should apply when union leaders bargain with unionists who work for them. Many union leaders, however, appear to adopt the same managerial stance that has for long, ironically perhaps in their own cases, created militant unionists. Too often, union leaders seem trapped in the same mentality that they themselves fought against when they first took part in labour struggles. The Labour