The SEIU-CAW jurisdictional dispute (2000 AD)

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New Workers' Initiative
ZNet commentary by Judy Rebick, 31 January 2000. The CAW has set up A Task Force on Working Class Politics in the 21st Century. Here is the introduction to the paper that introduces the task force to union members.
SEIU leadership vote to leave U.S.-based Union and merge with CAW
SEIU press release, 20 February 2000. Elected representatives from SEIU locals across Ontario voted to disaffiliate from their U.S.-based SEIU International Union and merge with the 243,000-member CAW. The proposal was endorsed by a majority of SEIU locals in Ontario. We need to belong to a Canadian organization that can speak up for our members here in Canada, said Local 210 President Ken Brown. We're facing made-in-Canada problems, especially in health care, where so many of our members work.
Canadian members will decide their future, union says, in face of U.S. union intimidation
CAW press release, 11 March 2000. In a move to intimidate approximately 30,000 Canadian members of the Service Employees International Union, the U.S.-based International SEIU placed eight locals under trusteeship. But a vote of the Canadian members determining the issue will proceed, union representatives say.
Pickets stir union spat
By Roxanne Beaubien, London Free Press, 21 March 2000. About two dozen members of the Service Employees International Union who support a move to the Canadian Auto Workers, began picketing outside a London union office. The former union officers of eight Canadian-based SEIU locals were suspended for voting last month to break away from the U.S.-based international to join the CAW.
SEIU Canadian Autonomy Plan Approved by Pittsburgh Convention
SEIU press release, 23 May 2000. Delegates to the international convention of the Service Employees International Union gives unanimous approval to a plan that gives autonomy to the 85,000 member Canadian section of the union. The Canadian autonomy plan was in the works for 18 months. Previously, Quebec and the rest of Canada had been represented in two different Conferences of the union.
Hargrove threatens to leave labour congress over sanctions
CBC Newsworld, 27 June 2000. Buzz Hargrove says the CAW will break away from the Canadian Labour Congress and start its own governing body if sanctions are imposed against it. Two weeks ago, Canadian Labour Congress president Ken Georgetti warned the autoworkers union it had been found guilty of violating the CLC constitution by raiding some 5,000 workers from the Service Employees International Union.
CLC ready to impose sanctions on CAW
CBC Newsworld, 27 June 2000. OTTAWA—The labour movement is heading for major upheaval this week as Canada's central labour body has decided to go ahead with sanctions against the Canadian Auto Workers Union (CAW). Hargrove says he's unlikey to back off, for This is about a more open organization, this is about democracy versus protecting the club.
Labour's pains are no reason to give up the fight
By Buzz Hargrove, President of the Canadian Auto Workers union, The Globe and Mail, 30 June 2000. The decision of eight SEIU local unions in Ontario to disaffiliate from their U.S. union and join the Canadian Auto Workers, initially affecting 30,000 service workers, may ultimately spark a restructuring of the entire Canadian labour movement, with implications for every union member in the country. Appended are some comments on this letter.
Tough questions concerning the CLC sanctions against the CAW
Labor Notes, August 2000. This is a complex issue, and Labor Notes is trying to get a debate on it going. The Canadian Auto Workers' dispute with the Canadian Labour Congress over the 30,000 health care workers who want to leave SEIU and join the CAW raises some tough questions that go beyond the particulars of that situation. Responses to these questions will appear in future issues of Labor Notes.
Ontario NDP leader goes on offensive against CAW president Hargrove
CP, 21 December 2000. The ongoing feud between one of Canada's most powerful union figures, Buz Hargrave, and the ailing NDP political party that once drew its life force from organized labour, is raging again in Ontario. Hargrove was a longtime supporter of the NDP who in recent years has become one of its most vociferous critics.