The union system is broken – formerly a guardian of workers’ rights, it has now become a polarizing and ideologically driven force, seemingly more intent on striking than negotiating.
Union leaders are holding us hostage: they operate through petty coercion and they exploit Canadians’ instinctive solidarity.
According to Statistics Canada, the productive trend of the 1990s – fewer working days lost and fewer work stoppages – seems to be going full speed in reverse, with last year’s records showing the most personal workdays lost due to strikes since 2005. And the rate didn’t just increase in 2009, it tripled.
Unions are now failing in their primary responsibility of ensuring the livelihood of their membership — perhaps because they are too busy stoking the fires of their strike machine, salivating at the thought of politicized action.
Historically, unions have been at the forefront of ensuring workers’ rights, a struggle based on serious labour concerns, such as workplace conditions, livable wages and job security.
And thanks to the unions, we have improved by leaps and bounds. Now that we enjoy some of the best working conditions in the world, coupled with a high standard of living, why are more workers walking off the job in supposed dissatisfaction?
Perhaps it’s because while many tangible concerns have been addressed, the union leaders have been allowed to relentlessly pursue their ideological grievances unchecked.
Take, for example, the fabled Ottawa transit strike in the deepest, darkest winter of 2008. Union strongman Andre Cornellier repeatedly made the point during the almost three-month strike that the workers had not walked out over money.
His rhetoric included the typical union tagline: “It’s about respect.” Which is largely superficial considering the workers lost an astonishing 50-plus days of work, over what he would allege is hurt feelings.
His consistent demands that the City of Ottawa treat the workers of transit union with “dignity” meant little to the public who were being held hostage, and with a measurable degree of contempt.
In a CTV interview in 2009, Cornellier lectured the public about the ideals behind the strike. “It’s about walking the picket line, stopping people from coming in like they do on a normal day, inconveniencing people. What’s wrong with that?” he insisted.
There is a lot wrong with that.
This mercenary attitude shows the massive divide growing between union leaders – willing to burn every bridge – and the workers they represent, the community they serve. This sort of political grandstanding does little to help the situation and often confuses the real issues with propaganda.
Essentially, we have allowed the union to be hijacked by self-serving ideologues. The interests and motivations of a union leader are different than those of the workers they represent. The workers of Amalgamated Transit Union will never regain those 50-plus days of work that they lost and it is doubtful whether they can repair the damage done to their image by the confrontational attitude of their leadership.
But it’s not just the bus drivers who are being short-changed. Last year, according to Statistics Canada, just under 2.2 million personal workdays were lost by unionized employees in Canada, the highest it’s been in five years. Considering the economic downturn, it reveals unions as out of touch with the real needs of people.
It is this combination of poor leadership and a general disregard for the best interests of labour that has brought about the shameful situation at Carleton University, a near-strike situation that would have had a serious impact on students and the community in which many of them live. One would think that the administration is running a sweatshop in the basement of Dunton Tower based upon the sheer volume of union grievances.
How can it be that the three unions most critical to maintaining the effective functioning of the institution were all brought to the point of mandating strike votes a month before the end of a semester?
Again, as with the example set by the bus strike, perhaps the point is to inconvenience people.
Unfortunately, it has become commonplace for unions to delay negotiation until the moment when it is least convenient for everybody involved.
What’s worse is that union leaders stand behind this tactic as effective regardless of the implications, unlike the workers, who must return to face hardened public sentiment as a result of arrogant union policies.
This is without considering that the communications within a union are often manipulative, coercive, and entirely focused on a strike mandate. By misleading the union membership into seeing the administration as out to get them, it radicalizes the debate. As soon as nature of the disagreement becomes “us versus them,” then you are either with us or against us, leaving the worker isolated, or to become a tool of a greater ideological struggle.
Either way, the union no longer represents the interest of the worker, the very ideal it was created to safeguard.