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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 November 2009
Raymond Hudon of Université Laval recently undertook, in the pages of this Journal, to offer a critique of my treatment of the Lapalme affair. Unfortunately, Hudon's critique is so overburdened with irrelevancies and digressions that it is difficult to discern a coherent line of argument. Indeed, one is sorely tempted to follow him from paragraph to paragraph, discussing each of his statements in turn. However, that would only produce a reply as difficult to follow as the critique. Instead, I shall attempt to divide the substance of the critique into two sets of arguments and proceed to deal with each set separately.
1 “La poursuite des fins organisationnelles par un groupe de pression: la csn et les unités nationales de négotiation dans l'affaire Lapalme (deux versions contradictoires),” VII, no. 2 (June 1974), 328–34
2 “Pressure-Group Demands and Organizational Objectives: The cntu, the Lapalme Affair, and National Bargaining Units,” VI, no. 4 (December 1973), 582–601 at page 585, second paragraph
3 Memorandum submitted by the Confederation of National Trade Unions to the Federal Cabinet, 16 February 1966, pp. 26–7. Interestingly enough, in the end the cntu won its point. In 1973 the Canada Labour Relations Board was re-organized. The principle of nominated members was abandoned although there are two members with union backgrounds – one each from the clc and the cntu.
4 The chief of the Canada Labour Relations Board Information Division informed me that sifting the required information from the voluminous files on these two agencies would require several man-days of work. As an outsider, I could not be given access to do the sifting myself.
5 It is not the organization of workers by the cntu that the clc finds so distasteful but, rather, the practice of attempting to secure bargaining rights on behalf of workers already organized by a clc affiliate.
6 Cited by Hudon, 331
7 Hudon, 333
8 Ibid., 331
9 Unlike the legislation which governs labour-management relations in the private sector, there is no alternative in the federal public service to certification by the Public Service Staff Relations Board. There is no provision for voluntary recognition by the employer.
10 I here anticipate a reply consisting of a list of government offers rejected by the drivers against the advice of the cntu leadership. The problem with those rejections is that they all occurred after 17 December 1970.
11 Quebec: A Chronicle 1968–1972, ed. Chodos, Robert and auf der Maur, Nick (Toronto 1972)Google Scholar