By Marty Logan
MONTREAL, Apr 29 2002 (IPS)

Native leaders in a western province have vowed to block union organising at their businesses in the latest skirmish of an ongoing struggle between labour and indigenous employers.

The Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations (FSIN) recently passed a resolution to ban unions on First Nations land and to set up a task force to thwart organising attempts.

Last year, the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear the FSIN’s argument that the aboriginal rights provision in the country’s constitution gave it the power to reject a union at a casino on Native land in Saskatchewan. The labour board there had certified the union, representing hundreds of Native and non-Native workers, in 1999.

The FSIN’s latest move comes as other First Nations across the country contest unionising drives, many arguing that unions import a confrontational structure that is alien to traditional indigenous culture.

Evelyn Lube fought for three years to organise a union and sign a contract with her employer – the Westbank First Nation – in the interior of west coast British Columbia province. Last December, Lube quit her job to become an organiser with the British Columbia Government Service Employees Union (BCGSEU), which is now in final negotiations to sign a first contract with Westbank.

“I’m very happy,” says Lube from her Westbank home. Tired of arbitrary hiring and firing, wage increases and discipline, workers went to the union — so the organising drive was not a foreign import, as many people characterise it, adds Lube.

She dismisses the argument that unions are alien to aboriginal culture, saying that First Nations step outside of that culture when they participate in the mainstream economy.

And despite the controversy generated by the union, Lube says, “I still haven’t heard a really good argument from the First Nations organisations about why we’re not entitled to it”.

The FSIN’s February resolution says “non-First Nations labour unions are creating an employee-employer relation that is adversarial, and inconsistent with our conciliatory manner of dealing with issues of concern”.

Union spokespersons say that is just an excuse for Native bosses to mistreat their employees. “I don’t think that concept has any merit at all – it takes away First Nations people’s rights as workers,” says Dale Patterson of the Canadian Auto Workers, which organised the Saskatchewan casino employees.

Unions are not targeting indigenous employers, he adds, but responding to a need. “We don’t normally go into a workplace without being invited,” Patterson says. “There has to be some issues that the employees are unhappy about.”

FSIN Chief Perry Bellegrade did not return telephone calls from IPS and Canada’s largest Native group, the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), said it has no jurisdiction in labour issues. But in April 2000, the AFN approved a motion to establish a labour relations committee to respond to unionising efforts.

The idea came from Mike Mitchell, then chief of the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne, a large First Nation straddling the Canada-U.S. border in the central provinces of Ontario and Quebec.

Mitchell says he did not reject the concept of workers’ unions, but that they did not fit in with the community he led for nearly two decades.

“I guess I was opposed to outside unions coming in and not knowing what was going on, not having a clearly-defined relationship with the community,” says Mitchell, now head of a centre on aboriginal governance.

The former chief says he understood why employees grumbled about the council’s lower wages and substandard working conditions compared to outside businesses. “I started to realise that we weren’t keeping up with protecting the workforce, in terms of benefits and opportunities. It was always a catch-up.”

But he says the council in the fast-growing community could not afford to match conditions at non-Native employers.

Mitchell set up a management-employee group. In 1985 it produced an employee policy, which became the basis for a separate 1994 agreement between the council and its management staff.

Vincenette Cook led management employees in negotiating that deal, which, she says, is flawed but an improvement on previous working conditions. “When the idea first came around, I thought it wasn’t needed. I thought ‘we’re all Aboriginal people, we can sit down and talk about our problems’.”

“But when I started to talk to other people, I realised there had to be a better system,” adds Cook. “Because this is a small community, there was stuff like nepotism or favouritism. I think this is a little bit better – it’s not perfect.”

Cook says Akwesasne’s current leaders are more aware of working standards and have tried to include management workers in decision-making. But that hasn’t stopped some non-management staff – who signed their own agreement in 1998 – to look toward unions. The community’s police officers now belong to the Canadian First Nations Police Association, which is active across the country.

Mitchell says unions will have to change their approach if relations are to improve between First Nations and labour in Canada.

“They would have to take a few steps back. There are lots of things in First Nations communities that non-First Nations don’t have to worry about, like poverty and lack of money for salaries,” he says.

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