Canada proves the decline of unions is not inevitable

[Lucy Goosey]

In polite circles in Washington it is common to view unions as a quaint anachronism. They may have made sense back when most workers had little education and worked in factories, but there really is no place for them in a 21st century economy. From this perspective, the sharp decline in union membership that we have seen in the last three decades is simply a natural process, sort of like the development of more powerful computers.

There is evidence that suggests otherwise, most notably that many other wealthy countries still have very high rates of unionization. The share of the workforce represented by unions is 80 percent or higher in many European countries.  While some may want to attribute the eurozone crisis to factors such as high unionization rates (as opposed to inept central bankers) they face the problem that non-eurozone countries like Denmark and Sweden seem to be doing just fine. In Denmark 80 percent of the workforce is represented by a union and in Sweden the share is 91 percent. According to the most recent OECD data, their unemployment rates are both 7.8 percent. That isn’t great, but it’s still half a percentage point below ours. And, both countries are able to borrow at the same or lower interest rates than the U.S. Clearly, high unionization rates have not led to catastrophe.

But many still view Europe as being fundamentally different than the United States. And of course they don’t speak English in Denmark and Sweden, or at least not as a first language. This is why it is useful to look at Canada, a country that is culturally and economically very similar to the United States, and a place where they do speak English (for the most part).

My colleague, Kris Warner, compared trends in unionization over the last century in the United States and Canada. Several items jump out in his analysis. First, patterns in unionization were comparable until the early 1970s. While union membership rates fell consistently in the United States over the last four decades, they actually rose from the 1970s to 1990s in Canada. In the last two decades they have been dropping in Canada as well, but at 31 percent, the unionization rate is still far above the 10 percent level in the United States and in fact is still above its early 1970s level. Clearly it was not just economic factors that explain the decline in unions in the United States.

http://rwer.wordpress.com/2012/09/06/canada-proves-the-decline-of-unions-is-not-inevitable/

[Warpy]

1. The decline of unions was planned here

and executed by an unholy alliance between government and corporations.

Government has to be on our side against the powerful if we are to have strong unions and a large, stable middle class. Once they join the corporations, it's a race to the bottom for all of us.

[Teamster Jeff]

3. The Employee Free Choice Act

would be a good start. I like Canada's first contract arbitration rule, I worked at a company where after we were bought out "negotiations" lasted 5 years. No permanent replacements for strikers also would help. I agree that the demise of Unions is not inevitable if we can somehow reclaim our captured government.

[Citizen Worker]

2. It's not necessary for government to be on the side of Labor but rather to remain neutral. What

Labor should be doing is organizing among the public for support. In the US the general public is separate from the Trade Union movement and Labor has withdrawn from the public sphere.

To illustrate the point of Labor/public cohesion in Canada: during one of the major league baseball strikes the Canadian teams ceased all games during the strike rather than play with scabs. Not here. US teams put scab teams on the field.