Strategy and Tactics: Eleven Lessons for CUPE 3902 from the 08/09 York Strike

March 6, 2015

Noaman G. Ali

As we go out on strike, all CUPE 3902 members should become attuned to the problems of strategy. Strategy refers to a broad, overall plan for winning our goals in the strike, and tactics refer to different actions we may pursue at different moments to achieve the strategy. There are many possible trajectories and outcomes in a strike, and our bosses in the Administration have various contingencies planned. If we intend to win, we should be similarly prepared. I pose the beginnings of a strategy at the end of this document.

I draw from my experience as an Executive Member (Chief Steward, Unit 3) of CUPE 3903 during the York University strike of 2008/09 to highlight the opportunities and constraints CUPE 3902 will likely encounter.[1] Although we were legislated back to work after 85-days, the strike resulted in considerable gains for CUPE 3903 workers and some tactics merit emulation, but our mistakes are very important to learn from—mistakes that can guide our strike efforts so that our union is truly stronger when we return to work.

Understanding “strength” in bargaining

Lesson #1: Bargaining is an extremely political process; negotiation proceedings (and settlements) are primarily contingent on the leverage or constraints either party has outside of the bargaining room. The strongest party determines what is deemed “reasonable” during a strike.

Bargaining is sometimes characterized as a highly specialized affair taking place in a room, at a table, between an employer’s negotiators and a union’s bargaining team. But the saying, “the longer the picket line, the shorter the strike,” gives lie to a narrow characterization. If workers demonstrate a high level of commitment and engagement, bosses know they won’t accept a substandard deal. However, bargaining strength can ebb and flow over the course of a strike depending on many factors—including factors that union members produce. Our decisions about how and when to advance, escalate, retreat, or shift tactics must be informed by honest assessment of how we can best demonstrate our collective strength. Picket lines are one tactic among many.

Strikes in public sector unions, like ours, inevitably inconvenience many people. As a result, bosses can leverage shoddy media coverage and public dissatisfaction not only upon the union, but also on politicians. However, we can mitigate the damage if we anticipate and outmanoeuvre the threat. The employer will be “bargaining through the media”—look up the links between past presidents of the University of Toronto and current board of directors of Torstar Corporation. We have to win the battle of public opinion, although we have to be clear that this is not the same thing as winning the battle of better media and social media coverage—a point I will elaborate below (Lesson #11).

Lessons from the 2008/09 York University strike

Lesson #2: Aim for a short strike, and prepare for a long one. We can’t predict the extent of the Administration’s intransigence, but we can anticipate the need to sustain union member morale and tactical creativity for the strike’s duration.

I remember our Chief Negotiator in 2008/09 confidently commenting before we went on strike that we would be on the lines for two weeks, “max.” We ended up striking a full ten weeks longer, for 85 days.

Lesson #3: Picket lines are a tactical option, not a strategic or moral necessity. Thereafter, we should plan to diversify and escalate our tactics according to a strategy aimed at simultaneously a) influencing public opinion, b) mounting pressure on the Administration, and c) building members’ morale.

At the beginning of the 2008/09 strike, some union members who had been on strike with the CBC pointed out that shutting down the campus wasn’t as important as informing the public about our issues. Many of us romanticized shutting down the campus, which was foolish for two reasons: the Administration locked everyone out and closed the campus, and York’s two campuses are so self-absorbed and remote that people only learned we were on strike through media or word-of-mouth anyway.

After over a month of picketing, during a December bargaining lull, it became clear we would have to do something new. Picketing was valuable insofar as it brought people together, created camaraderie, and generally consolidated collective sentiment and practices, but it was not enough to put pressure upon the employer after the initial days of the strike. As a result, the lull gave the Administration the upper hand—they just had to sit back and wait us out.

Soon after, during a Strike Committee meeting (the Stewards Council became the Strike Committee, tasked with the logistics of picket lines and the strike in general), a veteran unionist proposed that we “diversify and escalate” our tactics. The committee decided to propose a Week of Action, intended to take the strike off campus and into the city. We recognized that we serve tens of thousands of students, their parents, relatives and communities, all of whom live in and around this city. Influencing public opinion was important—not by relying upon one or two media spokespersons or the goodwill of CUPE Ontario or CUPE National, we had to do it ourself.

This proposal received resounding endorsement from the General Membership (GM meetings were held weekly throughout the strike). Each day of the Week of Action had a particular focus, and we asked stewards and organizers from each picket line to organize actions:

Many members of York University’s Board of Directors are also corporate executives, so we picketed outside their corporate offices, taking the struggle for our livelihoods directly to Bay Street.
We did a snake march through campus—imagine hundreds of strikers walking through the campus, disrupting Administration meetings and high profile events. After the snake march we went to the President’s home to carol him—we should know that the University of Toronto President’s home in Rosedale is university property.
The Flying Squad led a sit-in at the lobby of the upper administrative offices, which lasted until the strike ended over a month later. The sit-in brought considerable attention.
We conducted mass rallies at the satellite campus to boost member morale.

These actions not only revived media interest in the strike but broadened the ways in which the media and public understood the issues at stake, which placed pressure upon the employer to come back to the bargaining table while raising member morale. Although it emerged quite late, this increased pressure did compel the Administration to contact the mediator to set dates for bargaining.

Lesson #4: Don’t underestimate the importance of union democracy. General Membership Meetings should be held regularly during a strike, not just to inform members but also to solicit their feedback. The Strike Committee/Picket Captains Council and Executive/Bargaining Team should also meet weekly, and especially before GMMs, and bring decisions and strategic options to the GMM.

Devising creative tactics requires a constant flow of dialogue and discussion. The best ideas and proposals emerged during the many tense, raucous and critical debates we fostered throughout the strike. All CUPE 3903 meetings of all committees are open to all members and are consistently advertised through a union-wide information listserve. We considered debate so essential that we would close picket lines early and count attendance at the weekly General Membership Meetings as picket duty. (Notably, if I recall correctly, CUPE National refused to give us strike money for those meetings.)

Having a membership that is engaged and actively involved in making decisions is essential to sustained mobilization and organization. Morale can easily be shaken by even minor unforeseen manoeuvres on the part of the employer. Frequent and detailed deliberation with the entire membership can help prevent such shakes, and can also be a mechanism of building unity, even in instances of disagreement. As I note below, this is not unequivocal.

The Executive and Bargaining Team often found themselves in tension, with the Executive seeking to push for greater input from the GMM and the Bargaining Team seeking less. Tensions also arose regularly in Strike Committee meetings when we failed to disentangle logistical questions from political/mobilization questions. We learned quickly that these tensions were easier to navigate when more people were taking part in these discussions—more voices generated greater insight; that is to say, when veteran members or members from the lines who were not Executive Members or Bargaining Team members could attend open meetings and contribute their input, it sometimes helped see past entrenched positions and what appeared to be impasses.

Lesson #5: Don’t fetishize the form of the General Assembly as a mechanism of deliberative democracy, it can often be the opposite. Picket lines should be spaces where striking members actively get to know each other and seek to build consensus upon the issues, or identify where the sharp lines of debate exist; and picket captains should be tasked as being delegates who represent their lines at the GMM. A flow of information and opinions from lines to the union leadership at all times is crucial.

Posing the question of union democracy in a positive way does not mean that it was all unequivocally positive and beneficial. On the contrary, because of the format of General Membership Meetings, many members felt alienated from union debates and discussions. Bargaining is not, as such, rocket science, but a contract has many moving parts and there are many political questions about what is, or what is not possible in a strike context. As these debates were situated in broader disputes in the union, it could be very difficult to follow what was going on as different sides took different positions, and importantly, why they were taking different positions. Unfortunately, debates (particularly online) were also often wrapped up in a lot of vitriol that made it hard, even repulsive, to try and figure out what substantive issues were at hand.

The GMM was hardly the best venue to learn about, contribute to and decide upon debates. Here, several hundred people fill an assembly hall, and are provided with an agenda and supplementary documents on the spot. They are expected to voice their opinions as individuals at the microphones and vote as individuals. Many times, a motion would be put forward that could only be accepted or rejected, preventing the opportunity for nuanced discussion and elaboration. At most, members consult and collaborate with a few people sitting around them informally as other discussions are going on.

In retrospect, I would propose having picket lines be the space where questions about the strike are debated and discussed in a nuanced way, with motions and proposals coming to picket lines with adequate time for discussion before being brought to a GMM. Picket lines should be spaces where striking members actively get to know each other and seek to build consensus upon the issues, or identify where the sharp lines of debate exist; and picket captains should be tasked as being delegates who represent their lines at the GMM. This proposal would see the Executive and Bargaining Team having to prepare systematically for GMMs, but its pay off might be greater. Moreover, different sides in the union could formally visit such picket line deliberation meetings to explain their points of view. Alternatively, or in addition, GMMs could integrate breakout sessions for focused discussion and debate before reconvening plenaries.

Lesson #6: Don’t overshoot when provoking the employer back to the bargaining table. The more serious we are about a demand, the less willing we should be about moving on it. Involve the members in these decisions—this is the only way to guarantee they’ll feel invested enough to undertake outreach and action when the Administration is intransigent.

By directly asking the membership for their guidance in the early days of the strike, the Bargaining Team was able to devise a mechanism to get the employer to the table: lower some of our demands while holding firm on others. In general, the demands we moved on, the employer ignored. The demands we did not move on, the employer addressed.

Lesson #7: We shouldn’t fetishize secrecy. The power we have is our numbers, and members are always more invested when they know what’s informing their bargaining team’s decisions.

To ensure that members were informed of and generally in support of collective decisions, we had to accept the risk of abandoning secrecy. Some people believe that a union’s bargaining strategy should always be kept secret. After all, the employer’s strategy is a secret. However, the employer doesn’t rely on a mobilized membership; they have money, the police, the state, and the media on their side. All we have is our members, and the support our members can garner.

Lesson #8: Prepare for the likelihood of a forced ratification vote. Members must be contacted directly to come out and vote no.

In 2000/01, an intransigent employer eventually attempted to force a ratification vote, thinking that union members were tired of striking (and they probably were). A forced ratification vote allows the employer to bypass a union’s bargaining team—the vote goes straight to the membership without recommendation from the bargaining team. The logic is that the rank-and-file membership is more reasonable than supposedly militant union representatives—although our last union meeting might have demonstrated the opposite. After losing the vote, the employer had no more cards to play and returned to the negotiating table and conceded a good contract.

In January 2009, the York Administration once again forced a ratification vote. We mobilized members to vote “no,” forming groups of volunteers who engaged in directly contacting members via phone, mail, and door-to-door home visits. We believed that if we could defeat the ratification vote, we would be in a situation similar to that of 2000/01. That is, we thought we would have the upper hand and thereby win the strike. “Beat the rat, win the strike!”

As a result of our mobilizing, nearly 70% of the membership came out to vote, and 63% of them voted to reject the offer. In the 2000/01 strike, only two of the three units rejected the deal, but this time around all three units rejected the deal. It was a remarkable victory, and it seemed that the Administration had lost a decisive battle.

Lesson #9: From the outset, build pressure on the government and develop a strategy to counter back to work legislation. The government isn’t neutral. Back-to-work legislation undermines workers’ most significant leverage in the bargaining process: withdrawal of labour. It benefits employers. Initially, 3903 imagined we were organizing solely against our employer and we mistakenly limited ourselves to campus- and university-based targets.

As is well known, however, the employer did not cave. Instead, the Liberal government stepped in and legislated us back to work a week after we defeated the ratification vote. Even the government-appointed mediators agreed that the Administration’s intransigence had been prolonging the strike, but the government’s path of least resistance was forcing us back to work, not pressuring the Administration. There were two days of bargaining in this final week, during which we lowered our demands considerably. But the Administration didn’t move an inch. Despite winning the forced ratification vote, we had no leverage, because we had no plan for how to put pressure on the employer after winning the ratification vote.

Lesson #10: CUPE National can be a great resource, but they are not always correct. We have to be strategic in our relationship to CUPE National, we have to pick and choose their help and advice. At all points, we have to look to our own selves, our membership for guidance and direction.

We had no effective strategy for responding to back-to-work legislation. CUPE National representatives are often present and actively intervening in bargaining, advising on parameters and direction. When engaging with them, we should keep in mind that at times there may be important divergences about objectives, strategy and tactics. In the week before we were sent back to work, CUPE National representatives didn’t respond to invitations to help us develop a fight back. We figured they thought there wasn’t much to be done so late in the game. But we soon learned that CUPE National actually wanted us to avoid back-to-work legislation by accepting binding arbitration.

Binding arbitration is a process wherein both parties enter negotiations that are mediated by a private arbitrator (not a government arbitrator) who can ultimately impose a solution. If this arbitrator cannot facilitate a negotiated agreement, he will impose a settlement based on submissions from either side. We didn’t want binding arbitration; we wanted a negotiated settlement. So in the lead-up to back-to-work legislation we told CUPE National, the Administration, the government’s and its appointed super-mediator that they could all—in no uncertain terms—shove it. Then we were forced into binding arbitration.

Lesson #11: Win the battle of public opinion, not by depending upon corporate media or ephemeral social media (although these are important), but by reaching out to people directly in face-to-face conversations—starting with our own students on campus through different teach-in tactics. Keep it consistent and tie it into a broader strategy of diversification and escalation of tactics. In other words, interpret the injunction that the “longer the picket line, the shorter the strike,” as literally as possible.

Our idea of picketing has to be broader than walking in circles outside buildings and entrances—and we have to generate pressure by consistently winning over public opinion. By public opinion I am not merely referring to getting positive articles in the media, or getting many retweets and likes on Facebook. Mainstream media and social media are important, to be sure, but they are not necessarily decisive. They are effects of something deeper. That is actually where our greatest strength and greatest potential lies. We would be remiss if we ignored the fact that as TAs we attempt to process complex ideas and relate them to ordinary people in relatively simple terms on a daily basis.

We can, and must, go out to the people where they are at and bring them onto our side, and ask them to do a little something for us. Picket duty has to mean training ourselves to speak on major talking points, and then having teams of TAs go out and have conversations with students, who are our most immediate link to the rest of the public. Unlike York University, where the campus is closed, our students are right there on campus because the University of Toronto is not closed:

We know where students congregate, at Robarts, at Sidney Smith, at Gernstein, in other libraries and student spaces. We can go talk to them in groups of two.
We can e-mail our students and tell them that, while we won’t discuss course material, we invite them to come speak to us about the strike in small groups.
We can and should continue to hold town halls for students.

This is the time-honoured tactic of teach-ins.

If, and as the strike extends, we can also extend our public outreach, going directly to parents and just people in general, at subway stations and bus stops, at their doors and in their communities, and bringing them onto our side. This can be attached to symbolic actions, like e-mailing the MPP and University administration on the spot (we can now do that using smartphones), and can extend to concrete actions like coming out to rallies or actions that we can organize in people’s neighbourhoods.

These outreach sessions can be tied into the diversification and escalation of other tactics—rallies, snake marches, sit-ins and teach-ins held across the city, from Scarborough to Mississauga. Our goal must be to reach people directly, and if we consistently do things that keeps the media’s eye on us, and invites social media as well, then all the better. But it has to start with us reaching out to our students.

None of these ten lessons guarantee any victory, but they can ensure that we lose in a better way.

If I would propose a strategy, it would involve:

starting out with picket lines for a week to structure them in a way to get people to know one another and begin to identify each others’ motivations for being on strike and ideas about it; and importantly, to begin making collective decisions about how they are striking and what tactics their own picket line should follow.
moving on after conducting training and roleplaying in picket line groups to conduct intensive outreach amongst the students, by engaging in face-to-face conversations with students where they hang out, and holding teach-ins and town halls on campus.
moving on to a diversity of actions that specifically target the Administration; by targeting big-name invited guest lecturers, alumni events, Administration meetings and Administration office space.
moving on even further to a diversity of actions that specifically target the government, such as the Ministry of Labour offices, the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities, and other such locations, as well as the Administration’s corporate sponsors on Bay Street.
reaching out beyond the campus and government/corporate targets to the general public, again through face-to-face conversations and actions across the City.

[1] Many, if not all, of the lessons and insights in here came out of discussion with and reading the works of many people. Some key names include Xavier Lafrance, Punam Khosla, Datejie Green, Ryan Toews, Alex Levant, Sarah Hornstein, Amrit Heer and Lana Rabkin. This article has benefited immensely from incisive and perceptive editing by Clare O’Connor in 2012, and by Luke Melchiorre in 2015. For all of that, I cannot take unique credit for its insights—or for its errors.