Mar. 17, 2006. 01:00 AM
TONY VAN ALPHEN
STAFF REPORTER
Organized labour needs a long overdue "makeover" in its approach to politics and traditional automatic support of the NDP, says prominent union leader Buzz Hargrove.
Hargrove, president of the Canadian Auto Workers, said yesterday it is imperative that unions start to rebuild an "independent political capacity."
"We can no longer have our political hopes and dreams symbolized in the fortunes of one political party," he told more than 200 students, faculty members and industry officials in a special lecture at Queen's University in Kingston.
Hargrove, who heads the country's biggest private sector union with about 260,000 members, said the view of the NDP as the labour movement's hope in the political arena doesn't work any more.
"Whether some union and NDP leaders like it or not, those days are long gone," he said about labour's efforts to build the party in the workplace.
"Union members are no more likely to support the NDP than other Canadians. And union leaders who position themselves as automatic spokespersons for the party are wasting their political credibility with their own members."
In promoting the lecture, the university said in a "Buzz on Campus" notice that Hargrove "knows how to stir controversy."
Hargrove's remarks will likely spark a backlash from other labour leaders, who are furious with him and his union for their federal election stance.
The CAW national council supported a Hargrove recommendation to strategically endorse some Liberal candidates to keep Conservatives from winning in ridings where the NDP's chances were poor. Hargrove attended Liberal events, endorsed some of its candidates and gave leader Paul Martin a union jacket.
The NDP, which the labour movement and the old Co-operative Commonwealth Federation co-founded in 1961, kicked out Hargrove, a member for 40 years, last month for supporting another party.
Hargrove told the crowd at the university that unions "are long overdue for a makeover" in their political activity.
Hargrove said CAW members would laugh at their union if it advised them to vote for the NDP and, when the party wins, everything would be fine.
"In the first place, we've learned the hard way that electing the NDP does not solve all our problems," he said, referring to the Ontario NDP's 1990 win.
"We need an active, demanding independent labour movement to push the envelope and hold government accountable — whatever party is in power. Second, our members are far more sophisticated and independent- minded in their politics today. They do not want to be told how to vote."
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