Unions were very important to private sector workers at one time. When I was a young guy, I work on the log booms on Canada's west coast. I and the guys I worked with were members of the International Woodworkers of America and proud of it. The union made sure we were well treated and well paid. I got $2.12 an hour, which was top rate (well, it was the early 1950's).
It's not the same at all now. Machines have displaced a lot of things people used to do and a lot of jobs have been shipped overseas to Asia. The relationship between labour and management has changed, with management being more powerful and labour more replaceable. Government intervention is now much more prominent than it was. The Government of Canada wouldn't let postal or Air Canada workers strike and the Government of Ontario has frozen the wages of the province's teachers. In the US, Wisconsin's anti-union legislation may have the most blatant recent thing, but it's certainly not the only thing. Ed ----- Original Message ----- From: Ray Harrell To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION' Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2012 2:28 PM Subject: Re: [Futurework] Fw: Whither unions? The private sector workers don't want to think or be responsible. They just want to be told what to do and then go home, have a beer and watch TV. That's why the only way the private sector can gut public unions is to legislate them out of existence like in Wisconsin. REH From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ed Weick Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2012 12:59 PM To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Subject: [Futurework] Fw: Whither unions? Interesting article by Bruce Cheadle in today's Ottawa Citizen on the state of unions in Canada: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/opportunity+union+revival/7184414/story.html Some quotes: Figures from Statistics Canada suggest the labour movement in Canada is in a 30-year decline. And while numbers have stabilized in recent years, organized labour is surviving but not thriv-ing - and anchored disproportionately in the public sector. Just less than 30 per cent of the workforce - some 4.3 million employees - was unionized in 2011, a slight increase both in percentage and absolute numbers over 2010. But the public sector, including civil servants, Crown corporations, schools and hospitals, dominated. More than 71 per cent of the public sphere was unionized, while in the private sector that number plummets to 16 per cent. Ed ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
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