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Pressure Group Demands and the Struggle for Organizational Status: The Case of Organized Labour in Canada

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

David Kwavnick
David Kwavnick
Affiliation:
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon
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Dans l'étude du comportement des groupes d'intérêts, il est courant d'analyser les processus par lesquels les demandes de ces groupes atteignent ceux qui détiennent le pouvoir de décision politique; on tient aussi compte de la formulation de ces demandes et de leur influence sur les actions gouvernementales. Cette perspective d'approche se fonde implicitement sur le postulat suivant: pour tel groupe donné, les demandes les plus importantes expriment les besoins et les aspirations des membres de ce groupe. En d'autres termes, plus telle demande répond essentiellement aux besoins du « membership » d'un groupe, plus on suppose qu'elle constitue une variable importante de l'analyse du comportement de ce groupe d'intérêt.

La présente étude se propose d'examiner si, dans le cas des groupes considérables et bureaucratisés, les pressions qu'ils exercent, en réponse aux besoins de leurs membres, ne sont pas subordonnées aux demandes que font leurs dirigeants relativement à leur organisation. Du moins, aux yeux de ces derniers, les demandes de reconnaissance organisationnelle sont-elles les plus importantes qu'ils tentent d'imposer au gouvernement. Le manque d'unité de la structure du travail organisé au Canada, de même que la compétition active entre les différentes centrales syndicales, nous ont permis de vérifier cette hypothèse.

Les résultats de cette analyse sont les suivants: (1) toute forme de reconnaissance susceptible d'être accordée par le gouvernement suscite une vive compétition entre les centrales établies; (2) celles-ci cherchent à susciter, pour elles-mêmes, de nouvelles occasions où elles seront reconnues par le gouvernement; (3) les plus amères disputes éclatent entre ces groupes et le gouvernement lorsque ce dernier leur refuse la reconnaissance à laquelle, aux yeux de leurs dirigeants, ces groupes auraient droit. Par exemple, le gouvernement Diefenbaker ayant posé un tel geste vis-à-vis du Congrès du travail du Canada, leurs relations se gâtèrent au point d'être décrites, par les dirigeants du CTC, comme « les plus mauvaises qui se puissent trouver entre une centrale nationale et un gouvernement, parmi les nations occidentales hautement industrialisées ».

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , March 1970 , pp. 56 - 72
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1970

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References

1 Although numerous examples could be cited to demonstrate this point, one example will suffice. Eckstein, Harry, in his Pressure Group Politics: The Case of the British Medical Association (London, 1960)Google Scholar, sees the task of the student of pressure groups as being to answer three questions (p. 15) which concern the “form,” “intensity,” “scope,” and “effectiveness” of pressure group activity. From his explanation of the meaning of these factors it is evident that the demands made in pursuit of the ostensible goals of the pressure group, that is, the demands made in pursuit of the objectives of the group's membership, are at the centre of his attention. Second, there is his division of groups into “interest groups” and “attitude groups.” This division is based upon the implicit assumption that the aspects of pressure group activity most worthy of study are those which deal with the pursuit of the “interests” and “attitudes” of the group membership. In fact, his entire theoretical framework is based on this assumption. Finally, there is Eckstein's own definition of pressure group politics as the “promotion of interests and values, that is, the attempt to realize aspirations through governmental decision making” (p. 26). From the context, it is evident that the “interests” and “values” with which he is concerned are those which underly the ostensible aims of the pressure group; at any rate, there is no indication that the struggle for organizational status is an integral part ot pressure group politics.

2 (New York, 5th ed., 1964).

3 Ibid., 36.

4 Political Influence (New York, 1965), 308.

5 Ibid., 264.

6 See Simon, Herbert A., Administrator Behavior (New York, 1965), esp. 117 and 209.Google Scholar

7 The Group Basis of Politics (Ithaca, 1952), 29.

8 Canadian Labour Congress files (CLC), Percy Bengough, President, Trades and Labor Congress of Canada, and A. R. Mosher, President, Canadian Congress of Labour, to Milton Gregg, Minister of Labour, March 25, 1954.

9 CLC, Gregg to Bengough and Mosher, May 4, 1954.

10 CLC, Gregg to Mosher, July 5, 1951.

11 Memorandum submitted by the Confederation of National Trade Unions to the federal cabinet, Feb. 16, 1966, p. 30–1. Stress in the original.

12 Ibid., 31.

13 Canadian Labour Congress, Report of the Executive Council to the Third Constitutional Convention of the Canadian Labour Congress (Ottawa, 1960), 2.Google Scholar

14 Canadian Labour Congress, Memorandum to the government of Canada, March 10, 1965, p. 13. (The annual memoranda submitted to the government of Canada will henceforth be cited as Memorandum.)

15 Memorandum, Jan. 1957, p. 14; Memorandum, Jan. 1959, p. 33; Memorandum, Jan. 1960, p. 34; Memorandum, March 1962, p. 25.

16 Memorandum, March 1965, p. 22.

17 Memorandum, Oct. 1957, p. 17.

18 Ibid., p. 33.

19 Memorandum, March 1962, p. 33; Memorandum, Dec. 1963, p. 30; Memorandum, March 1965, p. 35; Memorandum, Feb. 1966, p. 49.

20 Memorandum, Jan. 1957, p. 25.

21 Memorandum, Jan. 1957, p. 26; Memorandum, Oct. 1957, p. 25; Memorandum, Jan. 1959, p. 32; Memorandum, Jan. 1960, p. 42; Memorandum, March 1962, p. 33; Memorandum, Dec. 1963, p. 30; Memorandum, March 1965, p. 35; Memorandum, Feb. 1966, p. 49; Memorandum, Feb. 1967, p. 42.

22 Memorandum, Jan. 1957, p. 21.

23 Memorandum, Oct. 1957, p. 34.

24 Report of the Executive Council to the Second Constitutional Convention of the Canadian Labour Congress (Ottawa, 1958), 69.

25 Memorandum, Jan. 1960, p. 36.

26 Memorandum, Oct. 1957, p. 12.

27 Memorandum, Feb. 1966, p. 56.

28 Except in the very rare case where a permanent representative advisory board enjoys a high degree of prestige, as in the case of the Economic Council of Canada, the likelihood that its pronouncements will have any appreciable effect upon government policy is virtually non-existent. The Canadian Labour Congress has from time to time taken government to task for appointing representative advisory boards and then ignoring their recommendations. In her study of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, Helen Jones Dawson found that: “There is a very mixed reaction on the question of the effectiveness of advisory boards. There is a tendency for Ministers to view advisory boards as a good way of getting farmers’ reactions to proposed policies. Very few Ministers think that Federation representation is an effective means of influencing the ultimate form of policies. The Deputy Ministers and other senior administrative officials think that the most useful function of the advisory committee is that it allows the department to explain policies and the reasoning behind them to the representatives of the special interest groups. They share the Ministers’ doubts about the probability of influencing policy.” “An Interest Group: The Canadian Federation of Agriculture,” Canadian Public Administration, III (1960), 146–7.

29 CLC, Claude Jodoin, President, Canadian Labour Congress, to Unemployment Insurance Commissioner A. F. MacArthur, May 1, 1963.

30 CLC Press Release, May 1, 1959.

31 CLC, Michael Starr, Minister of Labour, to Jodoin, March 18, 1959.

32 CLC, Jodoin to Starr, March 26, 1959.

33 CLC, Starr to Jodoin, April 28, 1959.

34 CLC, Jodoin to MacArthur, April 29, 1959. The role of the CLC in the establishment of the New Democratic party was generally considered to have been one of the major considerations behind the government's policy of bypassing the Congress. Columnist Charles Lynch, in an article entitled “Bitter Row Has Roots in Politics” said of the MacArthur appointment that “it indicates the government's intention to treat CLC leaders as officials of an opposition political party. The technique will be to bypass the CLC hierarchy…” Ottawa Citizen, May 2, 1959.

35 CLC, Jodoin to John Diefenbaker, Prime Minister, June 24, 1959.

36 Ibid.

37 CLC Press Release, July 17, 1959.

38 CLC, Jodoin to Starr, July 10, 1959.

39 CLC Press Release, July 17, 1959.

40 CLC, Jodoin to MacArthur, March 2, 1960.

41 CLC, MacArthur to Jodoin, March 24, 1960.

42 Memorandum, March 1962, p. 42, 43, and 48.

43 Report of the Executive Council to the Fifth Constitutional Convention of the Canadian Labour Congress (Ottawa, 1964), 2.

44 For specific instances of the manner in which the American trade union centres, and through them American union leaders, “crowded” the Canadian trade union centres, see Forsey, Eugene A., “History of the Labour Movement in Canada,” in The Canada Year Book, 1957–58 (Ottawa, 1958), 795–802Google Scholar, and also his “The Movement Towards Labour Unity in Canada: History and Implications,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, XXIV (1958), 70–83.