Not All Unions Are the Same

The article “Unions are a vestigial relic from a bygone labour era” by James Culic doesn’t do workers—that would be most of us—any favours. Unions are just as necessary as they have ever been—maybe more.

The problem with Culic’s argument is that he paints all unions with the same brush. “Unions are bad. All of them,” he opens his piece.

I have news for him: not all unions are the same. Some are more aggressive and display the kind of in-your-face unionism that he and other anti-union advocates dislike so intensely. But some are more progressive and have quietly adopted a cooperative, partnership model for conducting labour relations—the sort of win-win unionism we need today.

By castigating all unions as the same—and wishing for their demise—Culic misses the real solution: promoting union competition.

The problem isn’t that unions are unnecessary. Polls confirm what we know intuitively: the majority of people believe unions are necessary to protect workers from abuse. They are unique intermediary institutions that provide mutual aid and protection against arbitrary and unfair treatment.

Without union security and someone to speak for them, many employees do not take advantage of the legislated protections available to them. Many do not even know their rights, or if they do, they are too afraid to speak out or stand up for themselves.

Just look at temporary farmworkers right here in Niagara. They have good legislation to protect them, but abuse is still rampant. If they dare to complain, they know they will be sent home.

What’s missing? Union representation and security.

When a company fires an employee without union protection, no one is there to challenge the company. The employee is on his or her own. Good luck with that. It’s much easier for an employer to have to deal with a single, scared individual who has little power to fight back than a union that knows the law and stands up for its members.

Leave it to government? Governments never reinstate anybody.

The very fact that bad employers do everything possible—legal and otherwise—to avoid becoming unionized is proof alone of the continued need for unions. Without unions, their poor business practices would never be challenged.

But protection against bad employers isn’t the only reason why unions are still necessary today. Good employers do not fear unionization by a responsible, partnership-minded union because they know that unions can be a huge benefit to their workplace.

Unions provide a structured approach for employee input to respond to work and industry challenges. They provide a fair system for dealing with disputes. They help ensure proper training and safety standards. They help create a positive workplace community by ensuring everyone is treated with respect and dignity. They ensure workers are viewed not just as cogs in the machine but as human beings—in and out of the workplace.

It’s true that some unions are neither responsible nor partnership-minded. These unions should be challenged to change because they’re doing nothing to help the cause of their members and the companies they work for. If all unions are known for is their belligerence, we are right to avoid them.

The problem is not unionism itself but a lack of competition among unions. Competition would allow workers to have more control and input over their representation. Competition would lead to necessary innovations that would make unions better and more responsive to their members’ needs. Competition would eliminate abusive membership practises that some unions use in the name of “solidarity.”

We need to stop thinking that unions and the labour movement are one giant monolithic entity. We need to drop our conventional thinking that labour relations is inherently a winner-take-all proposition. Our workplaces are communities where the best efforts of everyone are needed to succeed in today’s hypercompetitive global marketplace.

Let’s embrace the potential that unionism represents, and encourage the kind of unionism that taps into that potential. There are responsible voices of labour out there. Maybe it’s time we gave them a listen.