"Significant attention has been given to social unionism in Canada as an alternative form of unionism which can combine successful bargaining with community-based action for broader, even radical, social change. Supposedly representing an engaged, socially rooted activist union movement which might revitalize the labor movement as a whole, social unionism is said to provide the basis to return unions to the center of social change and progressive political action in Canada. There is even expectation that social unions will play a leading role in the foundation of a militant left resistance. Unfortunately, the reality is that social unionism has not been anything, even approximating a militant force or change or community defense during the decades-long neoliberal period of capitalist development. In certain unfortunate instances, social union leaders have chosen to condemn the community groups that have put up a militant resistance, even going so far as to discipline their own rank-and-file members who have organized flying squads to support working-class community struggles more broadly. The fundamental limits of social unionism in Canada are related to three main problems: a hierarchical and conciliatory bargaining model for action; electoralism and commitment to social democratic pressure politics through boycotts, symbolic protests, and political lobbying, especially through the New Democratic Party, and more recently even the procapitalist Liberal Party; and a charitable approach to community groups coupled with a paternalistic relation with social movements."

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