The fallen working class hero
Just last month, Buzz Hargrove was the talk of the workers' movement.
His Canadian Auto Workers had negotiated hefty concessions from the Big Three automakers in Canada, including wages in the vicinity of 13.5 percent over three years, increases in pensions and increases in benefits.
An anti-union billboard in downtown Toronto has, for several weeks, featured a disgusting attack on Hargrove.
In the wake of the Big Three settlements, some enterprising soul spray-painted a huge "THANKS BUZZ" over the anti-union message.
What a difference a week makes.
Last week, Hargrove shocked CAW members at Air Canada by appearing publicly with Gerry Schwartz of Onex Corporation, and endorsing his takeover bid for Air Canada and Canadian Airlines.
Hargrove said he did so because he got agreements on job protection from Onex that he couldn't get from Air Canada.
This is misleading.
He got an agreement that there would be no layoffs until 2002.
But Onex wouldn't have needed layoffs to downsize the workforce.
Every year, there are at least 1,000 people who leave the two airlines, through retirement, sickness or career changes. Through attrition, then, a five year period could have seen at least 5,000 jobs vanish.
And everyone knew that the Onex bid was going to mean job losses.
Why else would Onex make the bid? They are out to make a profit, and they make profits by scooping up corporations, asset stripping them, and getting rid of workers.
When they first entered the game, it was estimated that their restructured Air Canada and Canadian Airlines would see a cut in jobs of between 5,000 and 10,000.
But it wasn't so much the terms of the deal that angered people -- it was that it was done without any attempt to consult with the rank and file.
"Why didn't you ask us?" shouted one CAW member at Hargrove, during an angry exchange between him and 100 rank and file union members.
"You sold us out to Onex and Gerry Schwartz!"
"You're in bed with Gerry Schwartz. You are in bed with [federal Transport Minister David] Collenette" ticket agent Charmaine Cole yelled at Hargrove. "You have the greatest ménage a trois in the country. And you didn't have the guts to come to us first."
Tragically, sections of the CAW at Air Canada, in breaking away from Hargrove, ran right into the arms of Air Canada management.
Last week, two busloads of employees chanted "Robert Milton, he's our man, if he can't do it no one can" outside CAW headquarters in Toronto.
Robert Milton is the CEO of Air Canada.
Hargrove's sell-out to Schwartz collapsed at week's end, when a court ruling ended Onex's take-over bid.
But the rift in the union is serious and deep.
Hargrove got himself into this mess by two routes. First, he has developed a penchant for siding with Liberals.
It is only a few months ago that he counselled working people in Ontario to vote Liberal as a lesser evil to the Tories.
Schwartz is a prominent financial backer of the Liberals, and that could easily have been a factor deluding Hargrove into making the agreement.
But there are deeper problems.
The CAW has written an excellent exposé of the problems in the airline industry created by deregulation and privatization.
Air Canada was privatized in 1988 by the Mulroney Tories. In the 28 years preceding that privatization, Canada's airlines had made money 21 times. The seven years of losses only amounted to $150 million.
But in the nine years since privatization, airlines have lost money in six, losses totalling a staggering $2.1 billion by 1997, much more in the two years since.
Privatization and deregulation -- that is opening up the airline industry to the ravages of greed and the free market -- has been a complete disaster.
Once the market was let loose on the air industry, a terrible logic took hold. There were two big competitors -- Air Canada and Canadian Airlines. They became locked in a bitter struggle for routes and passengers.
Each added routes and added debt, calculating that all would be well if only it was the other company, and not themselves, that went bankrupt.
By December 1998, Air Canada was saddled with $2.9 billion in debt, the much smaller Canadian with $1 billion.
This in spite of:
€ Debt write off at Air Canada in 1988 to set up privatization;
€ Wage concessions by unions at Canadian and Air Canada in 1992;
€ Bail-out of Canadian by American Airlines in 1994;
€ More concessions from unions at Canadian in 1995;
€ Another bailout and more concessions at Canadian in 1996.
In short, opening the airline industry to the market has been an unmitigated disaster.
But the CAW position is remains in favour of the two-industry model.
This opens the door to forcing workers to side with one or the other corporate player.
There is an alternative.
Recognize that deregulation and privatization have been a disaster. Renationalize Air Canada. Nationalize Canadian.
Get the market out of the airline industry, and ensure that not one job is lost in the process.