The full text of section 107 says that the federal minister responsible for labour may “do such things as to the Minister seem likely to maintain or secure industrial peace and to promote conditions favourable to the settlement of industrial disputes or differences and to those ends the Minister may refer any question to the Board or direct the Board to do such things as the Minister deems necessary.”
Since June 2024, section 107 has been invoked eight times to interfere with bargaining or end strikes, including those by postal workers, flight attendants and railway workers.
“When big corporations complain, the government caves,” Gazan said while tabling the bill on Monday. “This is a direct violation of workers’ rights, the right to strike and the right to free collective bargaining. These rights were won through generations of struggle and sacrifice, yet government after government violates the rights of workers whenever it is politically convenient.”
Anyone blaming unions are a fool. Sure you can keep pointing at the bad unions of this and that with abusive power. The overall calculus of it all is that it is good for the worker and good for the economy. The boomer middle class got to where it was is because of unions. Full stop.
Section 107 when used should trigger something like dissolving the C-suite and the board if government intervention is needed to resolve the dispute. After all, they are asking the government to do THEIR jobs because they made it worse due to THEIR poor management. But hey, people love blaming unions and the worker drone below trying to do the jobs they were hired for right? Right?
There will be people saying about “free market” - don’t kid yourself - in Canada and many countries, there’s no such thing. Government subsidies, incentives, tax credits etc all go against that concept. I’m not for a full blown “free market”. That would be disastrous all around in this current reality.
you do know that the unions demanded that canada post not reduce services levels in the early 2010’s and had the government mandate service levels by law at a unsustainable rate?
if the union demands that 20 people do a job that you only need 10 to do and the government makes it a law…
you blame the company???
that is why boomers owned houses, they took responsibility for their actions.
( btw less then 20% of boomers ever were union members unless forced to )
Do you have a source for the percentage of boomers (not) in unions?
He never provided a source of boomers not in unions.
When I asked to provide union membership data when doing “math” on Wikipedia he responded with this:
I responded to his comment with actual sources here (US data by the way):
there is a list of unions on wikipedia, and it shows when each one started and how many members it has… not hard to look up at all…
@nutpantz Does that show the percentage of boomers though.
My cousin who is 22 years old just joined a Union. Age of union does not reflect on boomer percentage.
Show your math. Otherwise doing self assigned math on wikipedia numbers doesn’t cut it. Show us the math and numbers and why those math and numbers.
Three important points here.
Union membership never surpassed 40% but the residual effects may still effect culture and policy after peak membership.
Is it 20% of population or workers?
Women entered the workplace during this time may skew results/percentages.
What’s undeniably true is that union membership increases as one gets closer to the depression era (both before and after) and that income share of the owners of companies and high earners is inversely correlated to union membership.
But yeah the union forcing unproductive/unnecessary work is wrong.
https://www.historycentral.com/sixty/Economics/Laborunion.html
in 1960, 28.4% in 1965 and 27.3% in 1970. Union participation has continued to fall since then.
so how did so many boomers get everything they wanted when less then 30% were union members? and yes 1965 is the start of the heyday of boomers. most were 20 years old and they all had houses by 1970
you know the 70’s the decade of high interest rates and high inflation. but they could still manage to buy a house and not be part of a union.
and yes most unions force a unnecessary work force for a job. just look at road construction. 5 guys to hold shovels and one to dig.
Thank you for giving the History Central article. I see the data you used to make your conclusion.
I will show you what data I used. I present to you a US Department of the Treasury article (Figure 1):
https://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/labor-unions-and-the-us-economy
And a US Congress Report (Figure 1):
https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R47596#_Ref136534186
The data in the History Central article is represented in the graph and table in the US Treasury article and the US Congress Report. Where else would they get it?
For home ownership rates, that data can be found here:
US Department of Housing and Urban Development:
https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr-edge-housingat250-article-071025.html
US Census:
https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial/tables/time-series/census-housing-tables/owner.pdf
The greatest increase in home ownership rates happened during the rise, at the peak, and just after peak union membership.
I am not defending the view that unions don’t force unnecessary jobs, they do.
But the viewpoint that union power is unnecessary to a good life for a majority of people is factually incorrect.
Unions power did increase the power of workers and gave the generations that built that movement (the Greatest and Silent generations) and the subsequent generation (the Baby Boomer generations) benefits such as the modern welfare state and larger share of the income of productivity that bought homes and feuled consumerism.
Baby Boomers had a preceding generation that had 33% union membership rates and the 1% taking a smaller share of income (10%). Gen Z does not (currently unionization is at about 9%). History is important, history does not start anew when you are born so saying Baby Boomers had below 30% while ignoring the history just prior to it is not honest.
The question your asking is why is it that Gen Z/Mellenials don’t have homes but boomers do? Which is good.
But, your other question should be why did a higher percentage of the Greatest and Silent generation have home ownership as opposed to the Missionary generation?
Homes were simpler to build back then, you could built it your self in the middle of nowhere.
I will change my view if you can show a situation where industrialization occurred but without increased unionization rates nor worker/consumer friendly government policy leading to higher home ownership rates. Any country would do.
If you can do that then you would have shown that neither union membership nor worker/consumer friendly government policy are necessary for large home ownership rates.
I have provided primary sources with long historical views. I hope you keep to that same standard as opposed to secondary sources with short historical views.
according to your graph when union membership rates were at their highest was 1957 @ 33% and would would have made the oldest baby boomer 11 years old… interest rates were %3.11 and inflation about 3%
pretty much exactly like today… so no unions did not make it better to buy a house.
I will address some of your points at the beginning and then go to an explanation at the end.
First. Not my graph. The actual data. And to clarify, data from the US, though similar effects occurred in Canada.
First not only are baby boomers homeowners, but so were the greatest and silent generations, see again the US Census data.
Even if the oldest baby boomer was 11 years old (1957 - 11 = 1946 (9 months after VE day) remember the baby boomers got their name from the large increase in births after WWII). Who were making the baby boomers? A “mommy” and “daddy” from the Greatest generation, when “they shared a ‘special’ hug”. And guess what? “mommy” and “daddy” from the Greatest generation also owned their own home. High unionization and the G.I. bill. Unions and Government working together, oh la la. Maybe if the Unions and Government share that “special hug” again another middle class will pop out. This is highly rhetorical, of course.
Interesting point. Union membership was 33% at that time and 9% today but the interest rates and inflation is similar.
Furthermore, in Figure 1 of the Department of the Treasury article (link: https://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/labor-unions-and-the-us-economy):
Percent of income going to the top 1% was about 13% in 1957. From roughly 1972 to 1982 the percent of income the top 1% had is below 11%. Currently the top 1% receive 19% of income. This means when the top 1% of income earners received 1 out of every 9 dollars the oldest baby boomers were between 26 to 36 years old (1972-1946 = 26 to 1982-1946 = 36) these are prime “buy your first house” years. But today the top 1% get about 1 out every 5 dollars. In other words, Baby boomers got 8 out of 9 dollars (89%) while Gen Z get 4 out every 5 (80%) also worth mentioning that out of the bottom 99% getting 80%, the bottom 60% now get less than 20% of income.
The reason why “correlation is not causation” is a thing is because you need a causal mechanism.
You are correct that unionization by itself does not cause wealth nor home ownership. After all union membership is merely an expression of Freedom of Association. But the point of association is its effects. Freedom of Expression is hollow if the effect of petitioning the Government for a redress of grievances, circulate ideas, affect social opinion were not present.
Likewise you can clearly see in Figure 1 of the US Department of the Treasury article shows the inverse affect on the income of the top 1% lags (follows) union membership. Or in a causal way, union density leads (affects), inversely, the income of the top 1%.
Why does this matter?
Because money is not a real resource, it is a relative resource. It is the method by which resources and labour are distributed.
You cannot do anything with money (even Bitcoin) by itself, it is by exchanging it with something else, you can then use that something else to do something. And therefore whoever controls that money can get the something else so that they can get the thing they want done.
So with less money in the top 1%, means less resource attention goes to the top 1% meaning more resources and attention go to the rest of the population.
Hence, it is union membership (freedom of association) -> changes distribution of money (affect of stated freedom) -> exchange money for resource/labour/attention (physical manifestation of the distribution) -> people who are union members or benefit from union density use the resources (materials/labour) to make a house (realization of control and why one owns a house)
Therefore it is the distribution of resources that needs to be looked at. The houses are present and people are living inside of them, why then are these houses not owned by the young population? So they rent or stay at home?
The distribution of resources is downstream from the distribution of money. The distribution of money is affected by power dynamics. Unionization uses the Freedom of Association to affect power dynamics (that is the stated effect of this freedom). In like fashion Freedom of Expression (should) affect Government policy (that is the stated desired effect).
Thus union density is a contributing factor and a pathway to increasing the resource share ownership of workers.
There are other ways, and maybe new ways need to be found with new material conditions made by automation and AI. However, it is up to you to showcase how the distribution of resources can be made more equally (or equitably depending on style) through another mechanism where social relations between people and resources and the power dynamics that occur in a predictable way can be made.
If you care about people not working and getting a pay cheque. Why are you not mad about rent seeking (economic rent and land rents), usury, dividends, etc.? Are you mad that people get something for nothing? Are you mad the Gen Z, in your eyes, don’t work hard and want to get something? If the last two are true, do you attack generational wealth? Of legal monopoly on land, on machines, or future AI?
This bill is just the start, it by no means is the end. There are deeper problems.
Again I have given you the parameters to change my opinion. I urge you to be multi-variate in your historical analysis and showcase how material reality materializes as opposed to one line cliches.
You can’t just say “boomer work hard” and “gen z does not” because when jobs were shipped over seas, a lot of foreign workers worked really hard and didn’t get what the boomers did. They got what the Missionary generation got, bad conditions and low pay. Now they formed unions, went on strike and recently got a pay increase with which they will improve their lives. Example that happened 10 months ago in Bangladesh with textile (clothing/garments) workers (link to AP article: https://apnews.com/article/bangladesh-garment-workers-wage-increase-5d55f9ba52ef2a156069e86dad665662). Thus the relation of freedom of association (union) -> power (strike/bargain) -> more money (relative resource) -> more goods (actual resource). You will now see that this current generation of garment workers will have more than the previous one. Thus Gen Z Bangladesh textile workers will own houses or better houses than their previous generation. Thus it is not “Gen Z” but a fact of material forces, of causes and effects, of power, the abstract and its realization.
You then have to provide a framework that explains the path of development through industrialization. Looking superficially does you, and everyone else, no good.
Again, you can state your states and explanation and falsification like I have or choose to not declare that you are mad about certain anecdotes of unions, which I do not deny.
The last statement I made is ambiguous.
Statement:
I was trying to say that it is wrong for unions to force unproductive/unnecessary work. Not that the statement “union[s] forcing unproductive/unnecessary work” is itself wrong.