The Keynote Speech at the AFL’s 2002 Membership Forum focused on the future of unions and the need to change how we do things if we our future is to be one of strength. Dr. Charlotte Yates, Professor of Labour Studies at McMaster University spoke to the 150 delegates to the Forum about organizing and the shifting nature of the workplace.

"In 1999, for the first time in five decades, union density in Canada dipped below 30% of the paid labour force," Yates points out. This decline is alarming and "caught unions off-guard". The first reaction of many, she suggests, was to blame the labour laws. But this excuse doesn’t help, she retorts.

"Good labour laws don’t happen before you have power, they come from having power. So you have to grow the labour movement and organize without good labour laws. The first step is to build a more powerful labour movement." Bad labour laws should be a signal that we need to do more organizing and do it better, says Yates.

But to do it, unions need to change.

Yates says that workers are changing their relationship to unions. The demographics of workers are also changing. "You see younger workers and more women interested in unions," Yates points out. Their issues are changing as well.

"There’s a pent up demand for unions among women because their wages and working conditions are not good enough," says Yates. "But unions are still more likely to organize men. Women have to break down the door of union offices to get organized."

The biggest barrier to successfully organizing women and youth is the face the union presents when organizing. "The problem is that women [and youth] are not always made to feel welcome … male organizers are used to organizing males."

Yates suggests the best organizing strategy is using workers who have a similar life experience as those being organized. "The most successful campaigns are those that use inside committees or at least organizers who come from a similar background as the [workers looking to unionize]."

But Yates warns that picking the right organizer is not enough. She suggests that unions need to reform themselves on the inside to make sure their locals are welcoming places for different demographics of workers. "Unions need to open up their democracies."

She cites an example of an IWA local in Ontario which reversed the order of its agenda at membership meetings, so that every meeting began with member’s issues. This kind of symbolic gesture, says Yates, makes workers feel more welcome and more appreciated by their union.

Yates also discussed how employers are becoming more hostile, more aggressive and more organized in their efforts to defeat certification drives. "Management has become much more sophisticated in their strategies for dealing with unions. They are much more likely to hire consultants and lawyers skilled in stopping unions."

"Employer tactics work. Success rates go down when they’re used."

One of the key challenges for unions is that "employers are much more active between the certification application and the vote than they used to be. Unions, on the other hand, drop off after the application is filed. So in the crucial final days before the vote, the employer usually has a free hand."

Yates identifies three key union strategies that work in organizing drives.

The first is the use of inside committees and workers from similar backgrounds. Second, is making full use of people at the workplace with previous union experience. They combine belief in the union with a connection with their co-workers.

Third is to see unions as part of the community. Their activities need to expand beyond the workplace and into the community. They also need to take advantage of areas of strength. "If [a union] is big in your area, then [that union] should organize, even if it’s a workplace in a sector not usually represented by [them]."

The key to making this style of organizing work is a greater level of coordination and communication between unions about organizing drives, "so unions cooperate rather than compete" for new workers.