E.O. Wells

Recently workers across the country have exercised their right to negotiate working conditions in the form of union action. Teachers have marched, postal workers have stopped posting and air service personnel have stopped flying.

This flurry of union activity is a reminder of the important role unions have in keeping employees happy and ensuring that employers are not being exploited. Indeed, the union’s historical roots are found in an era marked by worker exploitation — the Industrial Revolution.

While unions have sturdy roots in a humanitarian, emancipatory origin, is their role the same today as it once was? Some critics suggest that unions foster complacency and mediocrity more than they safeguard against corporate exploitation.

If I can’t fly to Las Vegas to recreate the events of The Hangover, if I can’t use the postal service to send lewd photos to unsuspecting recipients, if my niece can’t go to school to fawn over Robert Pattinson (of Twilight fame) with her friends — it is time to step back and assess the situation.

When services stop, society is reminded of the value of the service providers who help maintain day-to-day structure in our lives.

On the flip side of the coin, when services stop, pointed questions will be asked as to why.

Peering into the causes of union action in recent months, we can examine for ourselves whether or not the picket lines are drawn to prevent exploitation or to promote mediocrity; alternatively, we might find the line drawn somewhere between the extremes.

The job action of the postal service reveals some specific underlying causes for striking, along with other factors that mirror the unions of the flight services and teachers. At the beginning of June, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers went to the picket lines. Some carried cheesy signs (“Postal workers gone postal!”) and some carried signs that were more banal (“Honk to support you postal worker”) but postal workers around the country rallied around a few central causes: better compensation for the work they do (9 per cent wage increase over 3 years); adequate vacation time and sick leave; and perhaps most resoundingly, they wish to ensure that their pension plan remains unchanged for present workers and future workers alike.

It is apparent that postal workers are overworked and undervalued — as an experiment, approach the representative body for any profession (physicians, lawyers, teachers, janitors etc.) and ask them if the professionals they represent feel overworked and undervalued. I would put good money on there being consensus among all professionals. In fact, as a student I think even I have a real claim to being overworked and under appreciated.

Between the Canada Post strike and the Air Canada strike, similarities exist. When workers threaten to strike, it is expected that things like wage increase and extended vacation time are lobbied for. However, there will often be an underlying catalyst that causes the strike. In the case of the postal workers and flight service personnel, the catalysts leading to strike action are pension plans.

A good way for a company to recruit potential employees is to offer a lucrative benefits package. An especially alluring component of the benefits package is a good pension plan. Companies are set up to agree to pension plans now and worry about paying them later; employees are excited right now to be secure for the future.

Pensions become problematic for a big corporation when a large number of employees retire suddenly. The GM debacle stemmed in large part from the sudden exodus of retirees with pension plans. They had billions of dollars assigned to pension plans; when these plans were exercised en masse, GM faced serious troubles. Similarly, Air Canada has $2.1 billion in pension plans while Canada Post has $3.2 billion locked in. Because Canada Post is a public corporation, it can look to taxpayers to help out with the pension fund if need be — this sort of option isn’t directly available to a private corporation like Air Canada.

Both Canada Post and Air Canada have a real interest in altering the pension plans they offer; obviously, new and old employees for both companies want their pension plans to be secured. This begs the question: is cutting pension plans exploitative?

Where the postal and flight service strikes originate in a looming pension plan conundrum, the teachers’ strike is strictly monetary. It is about “professional recognition and remuneration” and asking that they be “properly valued for the work they do” to quote the Saskatchewan Teacher’s Federation. I will be the first to say that teaching is an undervalued profession; however, the argument made by the STF is a comparative one. In a nutshell, they have said “Alberta’s teachers get this and Manitoba’s teachers get that, so we deserve more!”

The teacher’s waste no time complaining about their unfair treatment in view of their siblings from Alberta and Manitoba but aren’t too hasty to suggest how they can reform education; it seems like the promotion of a program like the Knowledge is Power Program in the States should make more headlines than a strike rooted in feeling unfairly treated because your brother to the left and the sister to the right have salaries that are percentage points higher.

In the clouds, on the chalkboard and in your mailbox the effects of union action are felt. Some may be inconvenienced, claims may be overstated and employees may be undervalued, but at the end of the day the union is to the profession as the the gear is to the machine — in modern society, there can’t be one without the other.

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photo: Caelie__/Flickr