Trade Union Rivalries in a Pluralist Environment: Some Data on the Quebec Situation

This paper tries to measure, during a period of reference, the extent of union rivalry in Québec which particularizes it from other Canadian juridictions on the ground of plural unionism. As a matter of fact, many central labor bodies dispute the workers' allegiance in many sectors of activity and thus, are placed in a competitive environment. This factual situation can be prejudicial to the unity of the Québec labor movement and leads in some circumstances to strategic alliances, and in few occasions, to the elaboration of no-raiding pacts. But these sporadic attempts designed in order to eliminate inter-unions competition, are not easy to apply and they reveal an important paradox: the major portion of salaried workers is not yet unionized. It is therefore questionable to consider the usefulness of activity devoted to poaching inside the labor movement.

In the theoretical context, some distinctions are made between cases relating to competition. Basically, attempts to organize simultaneously unorganized workers are contrasted with those concerned with raiding itself. In turn, one might conceive the raiding activity according to the expected result: 1) total change of allegiance; 2) splitting up the actual certification unit; 3) merger of many certification units. The main legal guidelines relating to these activities are also presented, particularly the sections devoted to the certification (section 22), to the revocation (section 41) and to the changes of affiliation when a collective agreement is in force (section 73). A summary of the legal implications of these three activities is presented in a synoptic format and a short discussion of related delays is also exposed. Finally, the theoretical frame-work is completed by a discussion of possible motives explaining these allegiance moves: one should take care in considering only one factor as determinant. The variety or real situations behind the information that has been collected necessitates elementary caution in the interpretation of the phenomenon.

As far as methodology is concerned, all decisions delivered in relation to petition for certification were examined on a 13 month basis, namely from June 15^th1978 to July 16^th1979, and they have been manually coded according to many variables like the size of the unit, the precise sector of economic activity, and the affiliations of units involved. These sources of reference present only a partial view of the phenomenon because the construction industry, submitted to a special labour law as well as activities pertaining toCanada Labour Code, were not taken into ac-count. In matter of distinctive affiliations, the following categories were retained: a) QFL (international unions); b) QFL (national unions); c) CNTU; d) Confederation of Democratic Unions (CSD); e) Centrale de l'Enseignement du Québec (CEQ); 0 Teamster; g) Independent unions, save the Teamsters.

The results show that the competition between labor organizations affects only a small part of the whole unionized labour force (2,14%), but this proportion expands to more than 40% when one considers during the same period of reference, the total number of workers concerned by petitions for certification that were filed during that period.

Two questions come to mind, what is the relative effectiveness of the activities conducted on this ground? And indirectly, how can we appreciate the usefulness of the resources invested by the competitive organizations? The data reveal that, in a proportion of 75%, the winnings outnumbered the failures, on the basis of the reported attempts. Most of this reality can be attributed to the quasi-public sectors (e.g.: hospital and welfare institutions in addition to the educational sector), but the incidence in terms of workers affected by the phenomenon is much more important in the private sector.

Who are the winning organizations and the targets that are more often selected in order to raid? When considering the balance between the gains and the losses, theCNTU comes first with a net number of 2,237 workers on a total number of 9,569, while the independent unions present a negative balance with a loss of 2,403. In linking the number of success to the total number of attempts, one can also discover that the rate of success exceeds 70% in all cases, leading to the conclusion that the involved organizations make realistic appraisals in their attempts. As for the targets which were more often selected, it appeared that the QFL (international unions), the CNTU and the independent unions take the first places, mainly regarding the activity of splitting up the certification units in the quasi-public sector.

In conclusion, the idea of a recent noraiding pact between the CNTU and the CEQ is briefly discussed.