From 400 to 10,000: Growth in an era of voluntary membership (Part One)

A two-part series charting the growth of the union

2024 is a milestone year for the Society of United Professionals. It’s the year the Society celebrates its 80th anniversary, and it’s the year the union attained a landmark 10,000-strong membership. From its humble beginnings in 1944 to now, the Society has expanded into new sectors and seized new ground. But what exactly has the journey looked like? What major moments have catalyzed our growth? What decisions shaped us into the union we are today? And what might the future hold for a labour union that has, over the decades, crafted itself into the union of choice for Ontario’s professionals?

The growth of the Society can be understood in two distinct phases. Part One examines the first 64 years of the Society’s life, from 1944-1999. Massive growth occurred despite the Society’s long absence of official union status. Yet, without the resources of the Rand Formula and without certain legal rights under the Ontario Labour Relations Act, the Society’s growth was confined to the workplace of a single employer – Ontario Hydro.

Part Two explores the Society’s new organizing approach at the turn of the century, when the Society adopted a robust organizing program in partnership with the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE). We take a deep dive into the Society’s organizing strategy, and we look at how the Society took up the torch to actively pursue new workplaces and new organizing opportunities so that more workers in Ontario can benefit from union representation. We then turn our eyes to the present moment and look at how the Society is preparing for opportunities to come.

PART ONE: GROWTH IN AN ERA OF VOLUNTARY MEMBERSHIP

When the Society was created in 1944 as Ontario Hydro Unit No. 1, it had 400 members.

By the time the Society negotiated its first collective agreement as a legal labour union in 1992, it had approximately 8,000 members.

What led to this extensive growth? Firstly, Ontario Hydro expanded massively as a company over the second half of the 20th century. In 1940, the assets of the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario – later named Ontario Hydro – were approximately 3.9 billion when adjusted for inflation. In Dec. 1991, Ontario Hydro’s assets were 43.24 billion. As the corporation grew, the Society’s membership grew with it.

But it’s important to note that until the Society certified with the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) in 1989, membership in the association was voluntary, and so was dues collection. This meant that to grow, the Society needed to sustain a constant campaign of member engagement. And it needed to uphold its solid reputation as an effective bargaining representative and advocate for Hydro’s professionals.

THE EARLY DAYS: 1940-1948

In the early 1940s, with the war effort in full force, the federal government was emboldened by the emergency powers extended to it in World War II. Canada had an interest in taming social unrest, especially in industries connected to the war effort, which were expansive.

For years, the Canadian Congress of Labour – later to become the Canadian Labour Congress – had been calling for a national collective bargaining policy. In 1944, the federal government delivered with the Wartime Labour Relations Regulations. While restricting the right to strike, the Order in Council made labour certifications easier. It was in this climate that the union that would become the Society was founded. A group of 400 engineers from the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario (HEPCO) came together to form a professional association named Ontario Hydro Unit 1. They had a master agreement and were voluntarily recognized by the employer.

One year later, however, the employer withdrew its voluntary recognition of the association. As a result, the Ontario Hydro Unit 1 applied to the OLRB to certify as a union. In 1947, the association became legally certified. The certification included all engineers and scientists classified as Management and Professional (M&P) staff, including supervisors. And in June 1948, the union entered its first collective agreement as a certified union.

"And in June 1948, the union entered its first collective agreement as a certified union. But the group’s status as a labour union would be short lived."

But the group’s status as a labour union would be short lived. In December 1948, the government changed the Labour Relations Act in Ontario to exclude professional engineers as part of its effort to dismantle the wartime measures put in place. Moving forward, Unit 1 would rely on voluntary recognition agreements with the employer. The association would lack rights to conciliation, mediation, or arbitration unless otherwise negotiated. For many decades to follow, the individuals covered by master agreements would be determined by employer-association negotiations, not by an independent labour board.

1956-1981 ORGANIZING WITHOUT LEGAL RIGHTS: 1956-1981

The two major membership groups that now make up the Society of United Professionals membership – lawyers and engineers – have long been denied the legally-protected right to association. It would be 23 years from 1948 before “engineering” would be removed from the list of professions excluded from the Ontario Labour Relations Act (OLRA) in 1971.

In these two decades, the association, through federated bodies like the Canadian Federation of Engineers and Scientists, lobbied for labour law reform. Efforts were also devoted to negotiating voluntary agreements with the employer.
There were some notable moments of growth. In 1955, the association’s recognition clause was expanded to include “professional scientists” and graduate engineers in training.

In 1956, Unit 1 changed its name to Society of Ontario-Hydro Professional Engineers. Its membership had grown to 800 members. The same year, it hired its first staff person – Helen Wedge – who would perform secretarial services.

There was moderate growth seen again in 1962 when the Society was renamed to the Society of Ontario Hydro Professional Engineers and Associates. The new name allowed for the inclusion of Executive Salary Range (ESR) managers – staff on the EP6 salary roll – who could join the Society as associate members. However, they were not included in voluntary agreements due to resistance from the employer.

With the growth in membership during that period, the Society adapted its organizational structure to allow for proportional representation: the Delegates’ Council was founded in 1963.

Through the 1970s and early 1980s, the Society’s membership continued to grow healthily. 1976 saw a membership-wide referendum that successfully pressured the employer, then called Ontario Hydro, to recognize the Society as the sole bargaining agent of all management and professional (M&P) staff. Of those M&P staff who voted, 87 percent voted in favour of Society representation, representing 75 percent of all M&P staff. A new Master Agreement was signed, and effectively, Ontario Hydro became a closed shop. The Society would now employ five full-time staff and boast of a 2,500-wide membership.

While the collective agreement would cover all M&P staff, membership in the Society was still voluntary. There was no Rand Formula in effect, and dues were only collected from those who signed membership cards. Without union certification, the union lacked the legal authority and clout to expand into workplaces beyond Ontario Hydro. Its status as a voluntarily recognized association served as an impediment to growth, as did the Society’s reluctance to identify with working class politics and the union movement. It viewed itself as a white-collar organization, and expanding outside its terrain at Ontario Hydro was not, by any indication, part of the leadership’s organizational vision. Yet it continued to grow locally.

In 1981, Office Services Supervisors and Trade Supervisor ranks would then join the membership through a representation vote in 1981. The Society constitution was amended to include them. As of March 1982, membership was reaching 4,400 members.

The Society's first women president Fay Greenholtz (centre) with fellow executive members. She was first elected in 1982.

THE FIGHT FOR LEGAL CERTIFICATION BEGINS: 1983-1993

1983 was a formative year. The Ontario Hydro president wrote to the Society informing it that the employer would be terminating the Master Agreement. Despite engineers winning the right to unionize in 1971, the Society hadn’t sought legal certification at the OLRB. But with the employer’s unilateral termination of the Master Agreement, the need for collective bargaining rights became an urgent priority. The Society would see another surge in membership in 1986 with a vigorous card signing campaign that engaged employees across the workplace. The Society began preparing its application for union certification before the OLRB, to enshrine its right to collectively bargain.

In February 1989, the Society was granted official trade union status. But Ontario Hydro responded with obstruction tactics, arguing that hundreds of names should be excluded because they were managers. The legal process dragged on at an agonizing pace.

The Society submitted a second application to the OLRB in 1990, the same year an NDP government was elected to the Ontario legislature in a historic win. A pre-hearing representation vote was held over a two-week period in February 1991. Almost 6,000 people (73 percent of the voters list) turned out in-person to the polls - reportedly the largest certification vote conducted by the labour board in the last 30 years. Due to a tremendous outreach and recruitment effort, 700 new members joined the Society by 1991.

In 1992, the NDP government directed Ontario Hydro to settle its dispute with the Society. On Jan. 1, 1993, the Society, then named the Society of Ontario Professional and Administrative Employees, signed its first collective agreement as a newly certified labour union. While some of the membership was lost to employer exclusion attempts, the majority of the employer’s challenges resolved in the Society’s favour.

1995-1999 ONTARIO HYDRO IS BROKEN UP INTO SUBSIDIARIES: 1995-1999

The Progressive Conservative Party under Premier Mike Harris was elected Ontario in 1995, ushering in a period of privatization in the energy sector. In 1999, the Energy Competition Act took effect, breaking up Ontario Hydro into subsidiaries, and paving the way for privatization. The breakup of Ontario Hydro fundamentally altered the shape of the union.

Ontario Hydro was the largest publicly owned utility corporation in North America. Ontario Hydro’s net income for 1998 was $1.83 billion. The privatization effort would transfer a portion of the crown corporation’s profits from the public to the private sector, lining the pockets of Corporate Canada with new wealth at the expense of the public treasury, and the public services funded by it. This created a new challenge for the union.

Thanks to labour law that granted succession rights to the Society, the collective agreements negotiated on behalf of Ontario Hydro employees would carry over to the subsidiaries, and the Society would continue to act as a bargaining agent. With workers now divided into different companies, however, there were smaller bargaining units. This meant that they would not have the same leverage in negotiations, particularly when it came to the threat of job action. This was seen as a deliberate feature of the Energy Competition Act, which sought to weaken unions.

The Society’s membership was now spread out over four seperate companies: Ontario Hydro Services Company (now Hydro One), Ontario Power Generation, Independent Market Operator (now Independent Electricity Systems Operator), and Electrical Safety Authority. The Society did not have members in Ontario Hydro’s fifth successor company, the Ontario Electricity Financial Corporation. Private sector consortium Bruce Power took over operations of the Bruce Power nuclear site after OPG entered a long-term lease agreement with the conglomerate in 2001. The Society is a partner in the consortium and is a part-owner of Bruce Power.

The Society had access to resources it didn’t have for the majority of its history. As an organization with rights under the Ontario Labour Relations Act, membership was no longer voluntary. The Rand Formula was now in effect, bringing in new dues money that was reliable and sustainable. At the end of 1999, the union had a new name: The Society of Energy Professionals. As the 2000s rolled in, change was coming.

June 10, 1998: Membership meeting of the Bruce Power Local.

To read From 400 to 10,000: New millennium, new family, new organizing (Part Two), click here.