OTTAWA, ON – The Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) is demanding immediate and decisive action from the federal government to protect workers and defend jobs as an escalating trade war—fueled by U.S. President Donald Trump—threatens Canada’s economy. Just today, Trump announced yet another round of retaliatory tariffs on steel and aluminum, this time in response to Ontario’s energy surcharge. “This is spiraling out of control, and workers across Canada are rightfully alarmed. They are looking to their government for urgent and concrete measures to shield them from job losses and economic uncertainty,” said Bea Bruske, President of the CLC. Canada’s unions...
I recognise the benefit and purpose of unions, but recently I have to admit I’ve been a bit conflicted over them.
We frequently see stories about pending cuts / budget shortfalls here in BC, for things like Teachers and Transit workers. The news releases always phrase the issue as the amounts the govt gives these orgs having ‘failed to keep up with inflationary pressures’. They’ll very rarely also note that a huge % of that budget goes directly to salaries… where we’ve heard unions in past years negotiate fairly huge wage increases. Leads to a fairly simple conclusion that the “inflationary pressures” that are causing things like after school programs to be cut, are the union’s negotiated salary increases.
The wage increases that they negotiate, are also way higher than most of the increases I’ve seen / heard of in the private sector. The economy’s so bad, some jobs have even been unable to provide regular CPI increases… yet union workers still get their ~20% increase over 3-4 years or whatnot. The bank of Canada had cautioned people not to setup high-multi year increases due to the market uncertainty around the time covid restrictions were easing – private sector generally listened, unions/public sector did not.
The public sector also now employs more people than ever before – skewing statistics significantly. A recent stat I saw placed it at about 1 in 4 workers in Canada work for the public sector, where these sorts of increases are more standard. As a result, lopsided increases in public sector wages skews national numbers in regards to aggregate stats on wages. However, public sector funding comes from private sector taxes – and without gains in the private sector / productivity to fuel increased tax revenue, how exactly do unions / govt think we’re going to pay for those “inflationary pressures”? The private sector workhorse can only survive so much flogging.
When I was younger, govt work was viewed as lower pay, but far greater job stability. Now, it’s higher pay and greater job stability. And the amount of govt workers has increased dramatically, making it all the more obvious that it’s a golden ticket. When interacting with govt workers, there’s also a sense of ‘waste’ from the private side – like seeing 6 workers at a govt dispensary just standing around with no customers for hours, as they collect higher pay cheques than regular retail + have better job security. This creates animosity towards what’s essentially a privileged worker class. Govt workers in the states faced a huge backlash from the public, in part because of this sort of disparity, I imagine. I hope that the progressive folks are keenly aware of that gap, and are mindful of what may result if they leave it to fester. It’s the sort of situation that makes people vote in favour of things like DOGE, and allows more extreme folks to co-opt that message for far more nefarious purposes / more extreme actions. There needs to be an alternative, or a shift to more practical budgetary sanity.
if you can’t afford to pay people a fair wage to deliver a service, that service is too expensive… this isn’t the fault of people asking for fair compensation
okay but that is an argument that the private sector should be unionised though
that 20% is pretty peanuts since it covers the last however many years of unmet CPI increases, as well as the next 3-4 years and probably accounts for another 5 years or more of unmet CPI increases after that
CPI is on average around 2%ish, so that’s 10 years of CPI adjustment total - that leaves 6-7 years, so really only 3 years before and after the time… strikes don’t happen right away - people have been unhappy about their wages for years before
perhaps, but the capitalist class has done a great marketing job then: it’s not unions that’s the problem, it’s the capitalists that aren’t paying people!
(australian, so i’m sure there are canadian specifics with this case but the general concepts don’t differ at all)
I disagree, especially when focusing on Public Sector Unions. Making arguments about the cost of a service compared to the wage, is nonsensical when discussing public sector employment – 80-90% of the cost is the wage, and the ‘value add’ is nebulous and undefined, removed from regular market pressures. Trying to equate the job security provided by public sector unions to private sector business realities is also not convincing – in private sector, if business is stagnant/declining due to a recession, you fire people – doing so may allow you to increase wages for those who remain, though they may also need to increase efficiency/productivity. The OPs article is basically about unions wanting to ignore market realities… something that public sector unions do all the time, as they don’t need to look at the ‘cost’ side from a market perspective. They just yell at the government to tax us private sector workers more.
Unions have a purpose and a function, yes. But in public sector they are detached from market realities, and have skewed public sector employees into a position where they are the subject of private sector anger. It sets the stage for Republican style/Musk style cuts to gain support amongst the voting electorate – so regardless of whatever high horse pro-union people want to perch themselves on, its folly if they don’t take this disparity as a serious risk.
Even the Ops article belies that unions are no longer about ‘regular’ working class people – the letter is specifically saying that the unions are petitioning to provide better Employment Insurance options for “high earners”. So these salaries, that are well above the Canadian average need our government to increase the payouts to help protect those unionized workers from potential job losses? If their high pay is justified by high demand, they should be able to get other employment quickly in their field… but that whole letter sure isn’t about protecting the ‘regular’ common workers, and its the sort of statement that’s just going to antagonize private sector workers who earn “regular” wages. Why should even more of a waiters paycheque go to paying taxes, so that an Airplane Pilot can have an easier time if they lose their top 5% salary job?