Buzz Hargrove shaped Canada’s modern labour movement

Hargrove, who passed away June 15 at 81, didn’t just lead a union. He changed the game for workers and politics

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Basil Eldon “Buzz” Hargrove passed away on June 15 at age 81. One of Canada’s most highly visible and recognizable labour leaders, he served as national president of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) from 1992 to 2008. He had been a director of the Centre for Labour Management Relations at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Toronto Metropolitan University since his retirement.

The story of Hargrove’s rise in the labour union movement is an interesting one.

Born in Bath, N.B., on March 8, 1944, he grew up in a large family of 10 children. Unifor, which was formed in 2013 when the CAW merged with the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, suggested this upbringing helped “shape his social conscience.” Ken Lewenza, who would replace Hargrove as CAW national president in 2008, told the CBC that Hargrove “brought a wealth of knowledge on the objectives of representing workers and the goals of making progress for workers and economic and social justice for so many people throughout the world.”

That’s how he went from making cushions at Chrysler’s assembly plant in Windsor, Ont., to becoming a champion of the auto workers.

“Buzz Hargrove was a giant in the Canadian labour movement,” Unifor national president Lana Payne said in a press release on Monday. He led negotiations with major corporations like General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Air Canada and CN Rail. “He never forgot where he came from,” Payne continued, “and he carried that working-class spirit with him into every boardroom, bargaining session, and public forum. His passion, his intellect, and his uncompromising belief in justice for working people shaped the labour movement we know today.”

There’s no doubt that Hargrove was passionate about Canada’s labour movement. His efforts and commitment to making the CAW a powerful voice for the working class and union members helped make Unifor the country’s largest private-sector union.

Yet beneath his achievements lay a rebellious streak that extended beyond typical union leadership. While some would argue this personality trait is commonly associated with union leaders, it went much further than this.

Hargrove was a “committed social unionist,” according to Unifor. In its view, this meant he “pushed the CAW to fight not only for better wages and working conditions, but also for broader social justice issues including public health care, retirement security, equity, and fair trade.” While he certainly believed in those ideas and principles, that’s only a partial definition of being a social unionist.

Social movement unionism goes well beyond the issues that public and private-sector unions have traditionally represented in Canada and the U.S. As Oxford Reference, an online research platform published by Oxford University Press, pointed out, there are three distinguishing features. To begin with, it “adopts broad goals oriented towards the achievement of social justice and is not confined to the narrow economic agenda of traditional collective bargaining.” It also “seeks to extend the terrain of union action outwards beyond the enterprise to the community and advocates the creation of broad labour-community alliances.” Finally, it wants to “recreate unions themselves as social movements which mobilize their members against workplace and wider social injustice.”

In this context, social unionists like Hargrove want their labour unions to become more activist, interventionist, militant and willing to examine issues on a grander scale. Good pay, job protection, benefits and safe working conditions are part of this equation. But if a union’s vision is only focused along these narrow parameters, it can’t become a real force for social justice—and a powerful voice for change.

This also helps explain why Hargrove’s political ideology gradually became more difficult to define and peg down.

Hargrove was nearly expelled from the Ontario NDP after the 1999 provincial election because he supported tactical (or strategic) voting as a means of defeating Premier Mike Harris and the Progressive Conservatives. He supported tactical voting in the 2006 federal election to stop Stephen Harper and the Conservatives from potentially forming a government. He broke with the NDP in February 2006 after the Ontario wing suspended and expelled him for supporting the Liberals. He told the Toronto Star’s editorial board there was “absolutely no reason to vote NDP,” and openly praised the Ontario Liberals during the 2007 provincial election.

The CAW broke long-standing ties between its union and the NDP in April 2006 due to Hargrove’s expulsion. Unifor hasn’t re-established those ties to date. Its preference has been to motivate its membership to get out and vote for the best parties and candidates. In other words, a near-carbon copy of Hargrove’s position on tactical voting.

How did this happen?

Hargrove claimed to be “leftist and socialist all his life” when he spoke at Queen’s University in March 2006. Yet, he gradually shifted away from supporting the NDP because of his belief that then-Liberal prime minister Paul Martin was more “left” than NDP leader Jack Layton during the 2006 federal election. He was also frustrated by the fact that Layton never used the phrase “working class” on the campaign trail. “It’s getting more muddled between the Liberals and the NDP today. But I think that’s going to change under the new Liberal party. They are going to move further to the left with their new leader, no matter who it is.”

While Hargrove’s comparison of Martin and Layton was inaccurate, he was right about the Liberal Party’s impending shift to the left. The only thing he got wrong was the timeline. The Liberals moved a bit more left during Stéphane Dion’s leadership, and went further left when Justin Trudeau became prime minister. It’s too early to tell whether this will change or stay the same under Prime Minister Mark Carney.

I faced off against Hargrove a few times on radio and TV. In spite of our many disagreements, I always respected his efforts and commitment to Canada’s labour movement and auto workers. He was their champion, and many championed his leadership until the very end.

Rest in peace, Buzz.

Michael Taube is a political commentator, Troy Media syndicated columnist and former speechwriter for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He holds a master’s degree in comparative politics from the London School of Economics, lending academic rigour to his political insights.