Unions must fix image problem

The thought crosses one’s mind in the wake of recent developments, the most eye-popping of which is last month’s Insightrix poll that shows 59 per cent of Saskatchewan people see no problem with union members opting out of paying dues.

That citizens of this province, most of whom are not unionized, believe that it’s OK simply to dispense with the fundamental union principle of paying one’s fair share for the benefit of a negotiated contract – something etched in law in Canada since 1946 – should worry union leaders.

More worrisome, however, is that Premier Brad Wall’s review of labour laws has far less to do with the stated reasons of correcting some imaginary inequity of part-time students having to pay dues for the benefit of a good union job than it does with his Saskatchewan Party’s eagerness to chip away at the foundation of organized labour in the province at the behest of its big political donors.

In fact, the government’s surreptitious attempt to change labour laws through so-called “consultations” that feature no public meetings or disclosure of submissions (even who is submitting them) should concern us all.

This would be a wise time for unions to invest in an educational campaign. After all, they found money for advertisements during the 2011 election campaign to criticize the Wall government over privatization.

Unfortunately, this takes us to the biggest problem of labour: It can’t figure out why it is unpopular.

A recent article by Ed Finn, a senior editor at the left-wing Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, makes some interesting points about labour’s image, starting with how Canadians associate the words “strikes” and “union.”

“How else could they be expected to react?” Finn writes, adding that unions negotiate 97 out of every 100 collective agreements at the bargaining table, and that the average union member is on the job 96.4 per cent of her working life.

“The only time they read “The only time they read about unions in the newspapers or hear about them on TV or radio is when their members are walking the picket lines. The understandable assumption is that all unions ever do is go on strike.

“If unions and their members received even one-tenth as much publicity for their achievements in helping keep our society together as they do for the occasional strike they conduct, their public image might reflect something closer to reality.”

Once you get beyond the article’s horrific self-aggrandizement and self-pitying that’s so often heard from union leaders, one can accept that Finn has some valid points about unions still playing a role that extends from helping employees regain jobs, back pay, or have their vacation or sick leave credits reinstated, working to help rehabilitate workers with alcohol and drug addictions, depression and other personal problems, improving workplace health and safety and supporting social causes.

Perhaps the problem with today’s union leaders is that they are so caught up their own sense of nobleness that they don’t realize their image problems go well beyond the misconceptions of strikes perpetuated by evil mainstream media.

In fact, labour’s problem with reportage by “mainstream media” – a term of disdain unions ironically share with ultraright conservatives – is less about fanciful conspiracies than the fact that journalists have reported on how labour has evolved in a lessthan-flattering direction at times.

Today’s labour advocacy generally is no longer about appalling wages or working conditions. Stories tend to be about unions advocating for the already privileged – highly paid autoworkers demanding they maintain privileged wages, public-sector employees fighting for gold-plated pensions the rest of us can only imagine or about $6 billion in “severances” for public employees who aren’t being severed from their jobs.

The sad but unspoken truth is that union leaders are handsomely rewarded for such advocacy because high union wages translate into more dues collected.

In fairness, and contrary to the beliefs of the ultraright, the above doesn’t define labour, either. Make no mistake. Labour has reason to fear that Wall’s proposals will turn back the clock. We all should be worried. But the first thing labour needs to do is address its image problem.