Unions are dominating the headlines lately. All I can say is it's about time the people doing the actual work get some press. The management fretting and spewing psycho-babble inside and outside negotiating rooms is especially entertaining; after expanding at a rate only comparable to infectious disease, now the white shirts are claiming the cupboard is bare. It's the best political theatre we've had since our Prime Minister decided to play Mr. Dressup in India.
Of course, an honest treatment of the issues at hand is required if one desires to keep their journalistic reputation outside the wastebin occupied by the Tyee.
The first distinction is between government and private sector workers. This will naturally lead to the issues of white collar versus blue collar, or intellectual versus musculature labour. Finally, the future of unions, as regards an evermore hostile socio-political situation aided by technology, will bring us home.
The plainest fact that greets us in this discussion is that unions operating in the private sector are at the mercy of market forces in a way their government brethren are not. It cannot be overstated how drastic a difference is found between them: even in the same area of work, a government employee is almost always better paid and certainly better pensioned. This sows division within the movement, challenging the solidarity that should mark all unionized labour.
Solutions to this dilemma are not obvious, especially given the fact that unionization in the private sector has declined steeply for over a generation. To reactionary readers, I can only remind them that a "trickle down effect" does occur economically thanks to unions. Yet I would also caution progressives that radical social agendas are obstacles to spreading the gospel of organized labour: wages and working conditions are the best topics to draw in new members.
Class distinctions are also a source of division within the movement. Teamsters and tradesmen exist inside the public sector, but with the socialization of education and healthcare, the average public employee's experience differs vastly from most private blue collar workers. Thus, a professor and pipeliner may both have union cards, but in every category, from safety at work to political party affiliation, these members of the working class could not be further apart.
This has harmed the solidarity of the movement more than anything else in the last few decades. It is not that unionized social-democrats in the public sector should suddenly become rip and ship Manchester Liberals; but a lack of empathy for those who rely on resource industry dollars or the strength of their own body and will has turned former allies into enemies. I can only point out that a rapprochement is necessary if unionists of all classes hope for political power.
Globalization has had an unfair effect on those in musculature labour. Government work cannot be outsourced, as that puts the nation-state at risk. But evidence the same applies to industry, as China's malfeasance amply shows, has been ignored. Even administrative jobs are sent overseas: RBC made current workers train their replacements, a story Amanda Lang tried to bury to protect the executive she was dating at the time. Truly, wickedness knows no bounds.
Finally there is the question of technological development and the social upheaval it has caused. The prospect of automation displacing thousands of people who drive for a living is best left to a longer meditation. But the shifting attitude instant communication has created is a more immediate threat: the gig economy, with unlicensed, unbonded, non-unionized, third-parties has set former allies against each other. Of course this pleases the oligarchs who profit from all of it.
The labour movement must recommit to growing the membership and the solidarity that preserved it through the toughest times. As the old rallying call goes: "do not mourn - organize!"
