Standing up, fighting back: fostering collective action in CUPE New Brunswick, 1963-1993
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Date
2015
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University of New Brunswick
Abstract
The emergence of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) in the 1970s as the
largest union in Canada was a major development in Canadian labour history and the
result of extensive efforts to organize unorganized civil servants and public employees.
Public sector union growth has often been thought to have differed fundamentally from
the experience of private sector unions, on the grounds that union rights were extended to
public sector workers without struggle. The history of CUPE New Brunswick,
established in 1963, and its predecessor unions in the 1950s demonstrates the complex
struggles of civil servants and public employees to acquire and then to apply collective
bargaining rights in the province of New Brunswick. While the enactment of the Public
Service Labour Relations Act (PSLRA) in 1968 provided a legal means for civil servants
to join a union and bargain collectively, public sector workers continued to struggle for
improved wages and working conditions throughout the 1970s and 1980s. These
conflicts, which drew on both membership mobilization and legal strategies, are shown in
detail in the experience of CUPE members in Local 963, New Brunswick Liquor Store
Workers, and Local 1252, New Brunswick Council of Hospital Unions, the umbrella
organization representing hospital support workers. While locals within CUPE New
Brunswick worked independently of one another, the more than 200 CUPE locals in the
province joined together in 1992 to resist measures introduced by the provincial Liberal
government. While this was essentially a defensive struggle to protect existing rights, it
also represented a challenge to the emerging policies of neo-liberalism and a culmination
of a tradition of collective action within the union.