A bit of a busy day today, so I only have time right now to recommend today's editorial in The Star, a timely warning about the implications of increasingly popular anti-union legislation that has only one goal: to reduce the remuneration of workers.
One can only hope that Canadians will not believe that such regressive laws are good for anything other than corporate profits.
In my favorite Shakespearian play, Hamlet, there is a scene wherein his erstwhile friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, explain that an acting company that used to enjoy great popularity has fallen on hard times. Thanks to a new craze in which troupes of child actors have become the rage, and "are most tyrannically clapped for", adults have had to go on the road to earn a living. Hamlet wonders about the child actors' futures, because their current success means they are in fact "exclaim[ing] against their own succession", since they will be out of work once they grow up.
I can't help but think about human nature's shortsightedness when I read those lines. We pursue things that aren't good for us, while we denigrate that which, in the long term, is of benefit. Take, for example, the public's attitude toward unions. More days than nought, there are columns and letters published condemning unions and their well-paid members, envy and resentment seeping through the pages, seemingly in a senseless quest to bring people down to the lowest pay and working conditions possible.
It is, of course, this irrational impulse to which Bill C-377, the thinly-disguised union-busting legislation passed on Wednesday evening by the Harper government, plays. Clothed in the rhetoric typical of a workers' rights-hating regime, the law will require labour organizations to provide extensive details, such as the salaries of top union leaders, to the Canada Revenue Agency, which will publish the information on its website.
All designed, of course, to stoke even more public contempt for those enjoying better working conditions and pay than those in non-union environments.
And yet, as observed by Thomas Walkom and David Climenhaga, unions themselves must bear some of the responsibility for this current sorry state.
Writes Walkom:
What’s really killing unions is not the political right. It is that, for too many workers, organized labour is no longer relevant.
In 2011, federal figures show, 31 per cent of Canadian workers overall were unionized. Of these, the vast majority are middle-aged or older. For younger workers between the ages of 15 and 24, the rate of unionization is just under 16 per cent.
Compounding the problem, says Walkom, is the fact that union membership is concentrated in the public sector, with only 16 per cent of private sector workers belonging to unions, largely due to the collapse of manufacturing jobs and the proliferation of part-time and contract work in North America.
He adds,
Unions — which understandably pay attention first and foremost to their own members — haven’t lobbied hard enough to tighten up the employment standards legislation that allows these low-wage practices.
Nor have most unions figured out a way to deal with a new kind of workplace, where people no longer labour in large factories and where strikes can be circumvented by technology.
Echoing this idea, in The Rabble David Climenhaga writes:
Ironically, while most unions don't do enough to represent working people beyond their own membership, what little they do to fight for the powerless in society is why authoritarian neoconservatives like Harper have such a hate on for labour and other groups that speak out for traditional Canadian values.
So one worthwhile response to the effort by the Conservatives to smother unions in red tape is to fight harder for real progressive causes, not to mention never again signing a lousy two-tier contract that leaves young workers with the short end of the stick to preserve the past victories of older workers. No, an injury to one remains an injury to all, people!
Perhaps the final consideration should be given to those who "most tyrannically clap[...]' for the kind of repressive legislative agenda epitomized by Bill C-377. In a jurisdiction near you, you can probably look forward to more of this.
Passed by a Republican-dominated House of Representatives, the new law was proudly proclaimed by Republican House Speaker Jase Bolger in the following terms:
“This is about freedom, fairness and equality” ... “These are basic American rights — rights that should unite us.”
Ah yes, those famous rights that allow workers to sell themselves to the lowest corporate bidder, a foregone conclusion in Michigan and the other 'liberated' states, a fact tacitly acknowledged with a wink and a nudge by supporters of the legislation, who say it will boost the economy by creating jobs, attract new companies to Michigan and give workers more choices for employment.
But then again, perhaps I am wrong, and that surge of expected new employment will result from corporations being attracted to states where the workers are revelling in their newly-acquired 'freedom.' After all, a happy and contented worker is a productive worker.
Lest Canadian workers feel left out, our federal overlords are laying the groundwork for similar serf-like satisfaction in this country. As reported in today's Star, Bill C-377, an alleged private member's bill about which I have previously written on this blog, is to receive the full backing of the Harper regime and is expected to be passed today in the House.
Says Labour Minister Lisa Raitt:
“Our government is going to support (the bill), with the amendments that have been brought in. It makes a lot of sense” ... “Workers want to know how their union dues are being spent.”
Of course, there are always naysayers when it comes to such liberating legislation:
Liberal interim leader Bob Rae said Bill C-377 “is an exercise in bureaucratic overkill that has nothing to do with transparency and everything to do with simply trying to punish trade union organizations.”
Rae said the bill, if passed, could be part of “the pattern in the United States” of limiting union rights. The next step, he warned, could by an attempt by the Harper government to eliminate the so-called Rand formula, under which workers in a bargaining unit must pay mandatory union dues.
Such carping criticism aside, can it be long before we are all living in a worker's paradise?
The other day I wrote a post about Bill C-377, ostensibly a private member's bill put forward by Conservative MP Russ Hiebert that would subject unions to unprecedented scrutiny. It is, in fact, a bill being guided by the Prime Minister's Office.
In his column today, The Star's Thomas Walkom says that the real target of the bill is the Rand Formula, which requires all employees in a bargaining unit that has democratically chosen a union to pay union dues.
Initiated in 1946, it was designed as a counterbalance to the power of the employer and as a means of ensuring that those receiving the advantage of union working conditions and pay could not simply opt out in order to avoid paying union dues. All in all, most would say it is balanced and desirable.
Everyone, that is, except the extreme right-wing, i.e., the Harperites, who are using this bill as a thinly disguised union-busting tactic. Writes Walkom:
On the face of it, Bill C-377 makes no sense. It argues that because workers can treat union dues as tax deductions, the general public has the right to know — in exacting detail — how unions spend their money.
Indeed, as drafted, the bill is remarkably intrusive. It would require the names and addresses of anyone who gives or receives more than $5,000 from a union. Unions would also have to categorize how and why they spent their funds.
As he goes on to point out, there are many tax breaks offered to professional organizations such as doctors and lawyers, as well as the executives paid in stock options, all of which cost the treasury countless sums. Yet none of them are being subjected to the kind of scrutiny Bill C-377 would impose on unions.
Walkom suggests the ultimate purpose behind the bill:
The unstated aim of this bill is to provide ammunition to politicians, like Ontario Tory Leader Tim Hudak, who would scrap the Rand formula and introduce U.S.-style right-to-work laws designed to sap unions.
The Conservatives’ working assumption is that once Canadians see how unions spend their money, they will be scandalized. It is another round in a sophisticated public relations war designed to portray union leaders as undemocratic pork-choppers.
Given the irrational contempt and envy much of the public feels toward unions, it seems likely that if passed, the bill will achieve its nefarious intent, and we will all literally be the poorer for it.
