It’s an idea that deserves serious consideration, especially in light of the failure of Canada’s military brass to properly deal with issues such as care of its sick and wounded, harassment of personnel, and sexual assault: Should our military be allowed to form a professional association that will advocate for its members, assist and advise soldiers with any grievances that they may have, and bargain collectively with government to improve the conditions of service for all men and women in uniform?
Military associations with collective bargaining rights have, for decades, been a staple among many of our European NATO allies such as Germany, Belgium, Norway and the Netherlands. Most recently French military personnel won the right to form an association though the French government fell short of granting their soldiers full collective privileges.
No doubt, the thought of an association of uniformed and serving Canadian military personnel bargaining for better service conditions will raise a few worried eyebrows — much like women in combat roles did 25 years ago. Yet the idea is not as foreign to the Canadian security establishment as one might initially think.
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From the Canadian Border Services Agency to the Canadian Coast Guard to our municipal police and fire services, to various employees of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Communication Security Establishment, our security personnel carry out their duties in the defence of Canada and Canadians as members of a unionized workplace. Soon to be added to the extensive list of union shops in Canada’s security and defence network is the RCMP which, in a recent Supreme Court ruling, won the right to organize.
And though, for obvious reasons, many of these services may not have the right to strike, they still maintain the right to form an association, bargain collectively, and advocate on behalf of their fellow members.
If we trust our police, firefighters, coast guard personnel and border guards to organize and bargain for better working conditions and benefits , why then do we still find it necessary to deny our army, navy and air force personnel the same right?
It is a question that will inevitably be asked by an increasingly better educated and informed military
“In the decades ahead, Canada, like most advanced democracies, will find it increasingly difficult to compete on the open market to recruit and retain personnel to serve in the military,” says retired colonel and lawyer Michel Drapeau. “Given that the rank and file (and their spouses) are increasingly more sophisticated and educated, they will want to have a say in their conditions of service. At present, the individual has no voice whatsoever; it is all totally one-sided.”
For retired air force captain and disabled veteran advocate Sean Bruyea, an organized military association protecting its members would help protect the military’s “most valuable operational resource” — its serving members.
“Past and present military thinkers have all told us that the individual soldier is the greatest resource. Yet the interests of this greatest resource are placed last behind all other political and bureaucratic concerns. A military association or union would place these interests on an equal footing.”
Probably the largest criticism of a Canadian military association is that it would devalue leadership and compromise discipline, thus preventing the military from carrying out combat operations.
Drapeau insists that this is not what a military association is about.
“An association of military personnel would not be involved in these operational areas. They would respect the need for discipline as well as the need for the unity of command which provides a military force with the required command and control mechanisms to successfully conduct military operations.”
Instead, according to Drapeau, the focus of an association would be on personnel matters such as annuities and pensions, health and dental care, compensation and benefits, harassment, grievances where “military personnel should enjoy a level of support and benefits at least equal to that provided to a member of civil society or other sectors of the general public service.”
I don’t think anyone in the military and veteran community would oppose our men and women in uniform having the right to comparable pay and benefits to those of other members of the public service. Yet, when the u-word comes up as a possible long-term solution, it is invariably met with the argument that it would compromise the high standards of leadership that all officers and non-commissioned officers are rigorously required to uphold.
“That is not the case in Europe, that is not the case in industry and that is not the case in the public service,” says Drapeau. “Good leaders are sought everywhere, and if you happen to be a good leader then the association won’t come and play in your neck of the woods; they will only represent such matters as pay and benefits and pension issues.”
In fact, according to Bruyea, a military union would reinforce effective leadership.
“Leadership would have to become more caring through awareness and education from this new equal partner. Leadership would necessarily become stronger due to the need to more justly balance personal concerns with political interests, bureaucratic demands and operational needs.”
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In fact, as I have personally observed as a union steward in my current employment, only weak, self-serving and destructively career-obsessed leaders feel threatened by a unionized workplace. The military would be no different.
But maybe a unionized military need never be considered if we still honestly believe those who serve our military as infantry soldiers, naval combat information operators, airborne electronic sensor operators and communicator research operators, to name only a few, are simple mindless automatons who cannot be trusted with a legal collective stake in their own welfare and career progression.
Our men and women in uniform, however, may perceive their self worth quite differently.
