Monday, June 2, 2025

When It Comes to Unions and Their Members, Who’s the Boss?

Unions have power over their members. If not kept in check, that power can become as oppressive as the power that employers have over individual, unrepresented workers

Guide Magazine

By Ian DeWaard, Ontario Director

Who’s the Boss? was a popular show on TV when I was kid. It was about a former major league baseball player and widower, Tony Micelli (played by Tony Danza), who becomes the live-in housekeeper for advertising executive Angela Bower (Judith Light) and her son and mother. The show takes a light-hearted approach to exploring inverted and uncommon authority roles, playing out in both a family and employment setting.

In a not so light-hearted play on the same theme, I recently came across a letter from the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry (the UA) addressed to its members. The letter warns that if UA members are caught working on a major project in western Canada (where many CLAC members also work), they would be guilty of violating the union’s constitution and would be expelled from the membership.

Such a tactic is not unique to the UA. Over the years, I’ve seen various building trades and other unions similarly threaten fines or expulsion to their members when they are found making a living at a company or project the union disapproves of. The consequences for workers can be severe. When these closed-shop unions expel members or eject them from the workplace, these members can be blacklisted (forbidden to reenter the union), issued fines in the tens of thousands of dollars, or threatened with their own pension plan.

This begs the question, who’s the boss when it comes to unions and their members?

When workers elect to join a union, they are choosing to change the contractual nature of their relationship to their employer. They shift from an individual contract of employment to a collective contract, which requires the employer to set common, negotiated, and ratified terms and conditions of work. As a value proposition, unions also offer an array of services in exchange for union dues.

But as the above story illustrates, unions have power over their members. If not kept in check, that power can become as oppressive—and sometimes even more so—than the power that employers have over individual, unrepresented workers.

Recognizing this potential power dynamic, CLAC’s founders thought long and hard about how to safeguard against the misuse of authority by the union over its members. It caused us to build important democratic structures (see CLAC’s constitution). It’s the reason that CLAC doesn’t compel workers to sign a union membership card as a condition of employment. Membership is optional, and it’s a privilege (under certain circumstances, membership can be revoked by the union).

But membership status at a CLAC job can never serve as a barrier to continued employment. This is by design, and it ensures the union’s authority over its members is kept in check.

Most importantly, CLAC supports the principal of freedom of association, which is guaranteed in Section 2(d) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This idea means we respect and support the democratic decision of workers to join, leave, or replace the union in their workplace. This feature—something traditional unions find very offensive—is the most important tool for ensuring a union is responsive to its members and that it is providing good value for the dues it collects.

Who’s the Boss? had a good eight-season run through the 1980s. But when it comes to ensuring balance, fairness, and accountability, it’s a good question to reflect on. In the context of union representation, the answer to that question needs to always be, the members!

When It Comes to Unions and Their Members, Who’s the Boss?

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