Buzz Hargrove, a tireless champion for workers’ rights and human rights, died on June 15 at the age of 81.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
In early May, at the homey Lake Huron retreat of Unifor, Canada’s largest private-sector union, labour legend Buzz Hargrove was in his element: talking union strategy in the face of unprecedented threats to Canada’s economic sovereignty.
“I want you all to know that you’ve got this,” the former Canadian Auto Workers president told the assembled Unifor leaders who were working flat out with their members, employers and policy-makers to minimize the impact of United States President Donald Trump’s trade war.
The 315,000-member union has the collective strength to influence the outcome, said Mr. Hargrove, an early supporter of Canada’s resurgent “elbows up” movement.
A month later, the flag at Unifor’s Port Elgin, Ont., centre was flying at half-mast. Mr. Hargrove, whose health deteriorated following a recent fall, died on June 15 at the age of 81. In the outpouring of tributes from past and present union associates, business leaders, politicians, community activists and front-line workers, he was eulogized as a tireless champion for workers’ rights and human rights, a worthy adversary, a master negotiator, a strategic genius.
With characteristic candour, Mr. Hargrove noted in his 2009 memoir that he had his detractors. He drew the ire of international unions operating in Canada when Canadian autoworkers voted to break away from the U.S-based United Auto Workers Union – and workers in other sectors followed suit, severing ties with their U.S.-led unions to join the CAW in the drive for Canadian autonomy. Also, hard feelings between the CAW and the New Democratic Party leaders persisted for years when Mr. Hargrove broke with labour’s tradition of unqualified support for the NDP.
Michael Grimaldi, left, former president of General Motors of Canada, and Allen Green, right, former vice-president of personnel and operations at GM, face Mr. Hargrove, then-national-president of the CAW, before the start of contract negotiations at the Royal York Fairmont Hotel in Toronto in 2005.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
Having risen from an impoverished childhood in rural New Brunswick, Mr. Hargrove regarded unions as a vehicle to help others. When he was invested as an officer of the Order of Canada in 2009, this commitment was captured in the citation: “A proponent of social unionism, where unions play a broader role in society, he led the CAW into a number of important philanthropic areas, notably in support of homeless youth. He has … also been an outspoken advocate and committed leader in working for equality and human rights in Canada and abroad.”
Mr. Hargrove stayed true to his roots.
“It meant the world to Buzz that he was there for their [Unifor’s] national executive board meeting,” Mr. Hargrove’s wife, Denise Small, said in an interview. “Every time they would meet in Port Elgin, he sat through every second. He loved it, he loved hearing from the rank-and-file reporting on what was happening.”
Former Governor General Michaëlle Jean invests Mr. Hargrove as an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2009.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
Mr. Hargrove’s participation was inspiring, said Lana Payne, president of Unifor, which was formed through a merger between the CAW and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union in 2013.
“That kind of support is incredible because it makes today’s activists feel that, ‘yeah, okay, this legend is here telling us that we are doing fine and that we are carrying on the traditions he admired,’” Ms. Payne said in an interview.
“He might have been retired, but he wasn’t retired from caring about workers and this union.”
The concept of an organization like Unifor – a powerful, democratic, sovereign Canadian union – was what the late Bob White and Mr. Hargrove dreamed of when they famously led Canadian autoworkers out of the U.S.-based United Auto Workers Union in 1985 because of American interference in Canadian operations. They realized at the time that in order to build an effective, independent Canadian union, the Canadian Auto Workers would need to enter new sectors.
“In hindsight, the move to expand proved essential,” Mr. Hargrove wrote in his 2009 book, Laying it on the Line: Driving a Hard Bargain in Challenging Times (HarperCollins). “Without these new members, the CAW would be substantially weaker on the shop floor, at the bargaining table and in the halls of Parliament.”
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By the time Mr. Hargrove retired as CAW president in 2008 – having succeeded Mr. White in 1992 - the union had expanded well beyond auto and aerospace manufacturing. The new membership ranks included workers from the fisheries, health care, mining, airlines, hospitality, railway and gaming sectors – many following the lead of the autoworkers in breaking away from the dominance of international unions. One of the last organizing drives Mr. Hargrove participated in was at Casino Niagara, where CAW recruiters circulated among hostile managers, blackjack dealers and slot machine addicts, Mr. Hargrove related.
“This [diversification] was one of Buzz’s biggest legacies,” says economist Jim Stanford, who was hired by the CAW in 1994 to analyze economic issues affecting all the new sectors the union was responsible for.
But it didn’t happen without turf wars and acrimony. “It’s one of the reasons Buzz was often embroiled in conflict with the Canadian Labour Congress and other unions because he was pushing the envelope about Canadian democratic control of the labour movement.”
Mr. Hargrove works from his downtown apartment during his time as CAW president in 1999.Tibor Kolley/The Globe and Mail
The New Democratic Party expelled Mr. Hargrove in 2006 for recommending that left-leaning Canadians vote strategically for non-Conservative federal candidates in the best position to prevent Stephen Harper from becoming prime minister.
Mr. Harper won the election and when the subsequent global recession pushed the Canadian auto industry to the brink, Mr. Hargrove had several meetings with prime minister Harper to provide input on the bailout package, said Mr. Stanford, who was there.
Mr. Hargrove described his bargaining strategy as tough but pragmatic. He would enter negotiations armed with facts about the employers’ finances and the state of the Canadian economy.
Stacey Allerton, chief negotiator for Ford Motor Company of Canada Ltd. in the 2000s, said Mr. Hargrove was a masterful negotiator. “Buzz had a deep understanding of both his constituency and the companies where they worked. He knew that organizations needed to be successful for his membership to thrive. … Sometimes we’d have to try several different ideas, but by being open and transparent with one another, we were always able to find a way,” Ms. Allerton said in an email interview.
“He was a strategic genius, thinking about how to apply pressure and make deals that worked for both sides,” said Mr. Stanford, who accompanied Mr. Hargrove to Wall Street in 2005 to defend Canadian assembly plants when the Big Three automakers were contemplating shifting more production to Mexico if they couldn’t get health care expenses down.
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At the time, Canadian car producers operated at a US$10-an-hour labour cost advantage over the United States because of Canada’s universal health care and a weak Canadian dollar. Mr. Hargrove, toting a ramshackle file folder, pulled out various pieces of paper with the numbers to make his case. The idea was that the financial analysts might indirectly put pressure on the companies. The Canadians returned home to negotiate a decent settlement. Other times, Mr. Hargrove’s tactics were more direct. Two weeks into a strike at General Motors of Canada Co. in Oshawa, when the company tried to move equipment out of the plant, Mr. Hargrove, with the help of striking skilled trades workers, welded all the factory doors shut. “Lo and behold, the strike was settled within the next 24 hours,” Mr. Stanford said.
Mr. Hargrove signs a poster for the 2008 Chevrolet Camaro at a 2006 press conference, after GM Canada president Arturo Elias announced the company's Oshawa, Ont., car plant would manufacture the new car.Deborah Baic/The Globe and Mail
Ken Lewenza, who succeeded Mr. Hargrove as CAW president, cited the union’s social justice fund as a lasting legacy. All Unifor contracts include a provision to collect contributions from workers to support philanthropic projects around the world. Family-friendly contract clauses include child-care assistance and tuition assistance. Mr. Lewenza said he and Mr. Hargrove would be invited to the college and university graduation ceremonies of union members’ children.
Basil (Buzz) Eldon Hargrove was born on March 8, 1944, in Bath, N.B. His parents, Percy and Eileen Hargrove, were hardworking but poorly paid. Buzz and his nine siblings collected discarded beer and pop bottles for the deposits and harvested potatoes with their mother to help out. That work ethic stuck.
Mr. Hargrove began his working life on the shop floor of Chrysler’s assembly plant in Windsor, Ont. From those early days making car seat cushions and serving as a shop steward, he rose through the ranks of the labour movement. No matter how busy he was, he made time to call his mother every day, Ms. Small said.
His father had been difficult to live with and the marriage fell apart when Buzz was a teenager. Eileen Hargrove went on to work at a hospital in Woodstock, N.B., where she helped organize the union. Mr. Hargrove said her lessons served him in good stead throughout his life: Be open and honest with people, stand up for your rights and never be angry with anyone or anything for more than five minutes.
Mr. Hargrove celebrates along with strikers after he negotiated an end to the occupation of a GM fabrication plant in Oshawa, Ont., in October, 1996. An estimated 150 strikers occupied the plant and chained the doors after GM tried to get a court order to remove die equipment from the plant.Andy Clark
Post-CAW, Mr. Hargrove was executive director of the Centre for Labour Management Relations at Ryerson University (now Toronto Metropolitan University) and, in 2009, he was ombudsman for the National Hockey League Players Association. “Despite their incredible ability,” the players needed the NHLPA to ensure they got their fair share of the profits they generated for the league, Mr. Hargrove wrote.
While conflict was inevitable in his line of work, Mr. Hargrove was a kind man who “never held a grudge,” and respected the right of people to have different views, said Ms. Small, a former airline union leader who became a mediator with the Ontario Ministry of Labour. She and Mr. Hargrove met at a union convention.
In recent years, Mr. Hargrove enjoyed golf, mentoring the current generation of unionists, hanging out with his and Ms. Small’s children and grandchildren and lunching with old friends. Ms. Small said those get-togethers included Ontario’s former NDP premier Bob Rae, now Canada’s ambassador the United Nations, and the late Ontario Progressive Conservative attorney-general Roy McMurtry.
“Buzz was a fighter, dedicated to advancing the rights, incomes and security of his membership. We remained friends, despite differences, and was glad to be able to chat a few times in recent years,” Mr. Rae said in an online tribute.
Mr. Hargrove leaves Ms. Small; his daughters, Laura, Jamie and Karen; sons, Kevin and Corey; stepchildren, Christie and Darren; and several grandchildren, of whom he was immensely proud, according to Ms. Small. He also leaves his siblings Roma, Lyle, Cecil and Cynthia, who grew up with him in that small frame house, with no central heating or running water, in Holmesville, N.B.
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