Labour learns a lesson

Nobody likes a strike. Parties on either side call them frustrating, gruelling and often confrontational. For union leaders, picketing is a last resort. Managers who must toe the company line can’t make too many concessions in a competitive era of cost-cutting. But most of all, it is the tax-paying public that’s held hostage by strikes as their access to services is extremely limited or snipped.

And the public is exactly who both governments and unions courted this week as Labour Minister Lisa Raitt’s tabling of the back-to-work bill helped usher in a tentative deal between Air Canada and its striking employees – a political hardball she said would serve the best interests of Canadians.

Locked out Canada Post employees may also be legislated back to work by Tuesday if weekend negotiations fail to bring a resolution. In the meantime, postal workers in Montreal, North Bay, Vancouver and Windsor strayed from their picketlines Friday and formed vocal rallies in an effort to shore up public support – something unions say is desperately needed if they want to strengthen their cause.

Good luck getting it, observers say. The new fiscally conservative political climate, the post-recession economy and an increasingly fractious labour market have weakened unions, seriously eroded public support and shifted society in a way that has made some conventional strategies and issues of union past seem almost anachronistic, experts said this week.

Stephen Harper clinched the majority in Ottawa he was hoping for by stressing his success in shepherding Canada through the 2008 recession. Fiscally austere Toronto councillor Rob Ford became mayor last fall on the promise of halting the gravy train (he’s also made the Toronto Transit Commission an essential service and is well on his way to privatizing waste collection in response to outrage over the garbage strike of 2009, largely hinged on the issue of bankable sick days.) Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives are leading the polls for this October’s election and have already vowed to take a no-nonsense approach to unions that has found some favour with the current Liberal government.

Unions were already skittish about the impact of this populist political shift, fearing a sweep of Tea Partier efforts in the United States stripping public employee unions of their collective bargaining rights -a change that led to the massive general strike in Wisconsin this spring.

While private-sector unions have been on the decline for the past 20 years, public-sector unions have been on the rise, and now make up the bulk of unionized Canadians. That new reality means unions are indirectly accountable to taxpayers, said Satinder Chera, vice-president for Ontario’s chapter of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, which advocates on behalf of owners of small-and medium-sized businesses. Governments have felt the pressure to help mitigate the conflict and make sure Canadians aren’t burned by any strikes.

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Source: National Post