Fighting poverty through increased unionization makes good economic sense
WAYNE E. HANLEY
WITH RECENTLY released Statistics Canada figures highlighting the growing gap between the rich and poor in Canada, the issue of poverty and how best to address it has been a popular topic with many in the media. And nowhere has the issue of poverty been more prevalent than in Ontario.
The Liberal government in the province boasts about tackling poverty and has struck a committee to study the issue and release a report by the end of the year. But is that too little too late?
Only 39 per cent of Ontario's 9-million jobs provide full-time employment. More than 3.5-million people work in jobs that pay less than $25,000 per year. The vast majority of these jobs are held by women, single mothers, racialized workers, new immigrants, and youth. More than 85 per cent of those in low-wage jobs are non-unionized.
Is there a correlation between the high rate of non-unionized jobs and poverty levels in the province? It would seem so. The mid 20th century saw an era of unionization that built a middle class based on good wages, benefits, and job security. That era of unionization continued in Ontario until 1995 when the Conservative Government of Mike Harris removed workers’ right to card-based certification from the Ontario Labour Relations Act, (OLRA). Since then, Ontario has experienced a decline in union density while at the same time witnessing a rise in the level of poverty.
Recently, Ontario NDP leader Howard Hampton introduced a bill into the Ontario Legislature that would have restored card based certification. Under his bill, if 55 per cent or more of the workers in a workplace signed a union card signifying their desire to have a union represent them in that workplace, the union would automatically become the workers' bargaining agent in their workplace. Unfortunately the Liberal government which claims to be fighting against poverty, voted against the bill.
Having a union card can be the number one poverty fighter in the province. Research by Professor Sara Slinn of Queen's University, shows that the changes to the OLRB in 1995 “had a disparately negative impact on relatively weaker employees, such that the employees most able to benefit from unionization are less able to access union representation.” This has created a situation where poorly paid and vulnerable workers, those most in need of unionization, are unable to achieve it.
Who are those poorly paid and vulnerable workers? According to Statistics Canada, they are: the new immigrants who earn 48 per cent of what Canadian earners receive; 40 per cent of workers in sewing, textile, and fabric industries; racialized youth who make up one quarter of Ontario’s young people; the lowest earning 40 per cent of Ontarians whose income did not improve at all despite an expanding economy; and the racialized families living in Toronto who, between 1980 and 2000, saw their rate of poverty increase by 361 per cent.
Harvard economists James Medoff and Richard Freeman wrote 25 years ago: “Unions reduce wage inequality, increase industrial democracy, and often raise productivity...in the political sphere, unions are an important voice for some of society's weakest and most vulnerable groups as well as their own members.”
Fighting poverty through increased unionization makes good economic sense. It is good for workers who will see their standard of living rise through increased and more equitable wages and benefits associated with unionization. It is good for employers who will profit from having a happier and more productive workforce and it is good for the economy as workers rise out of poverty to have less reliance on state social programs and greater economic spending power. From 1950 to 1996, when the province had card-based certification, Ontario annual economic growth averaged around 4 per cent. Since 1996, when card-based certification was abolished and we witnessed a decline in union density, economic growth has averaged only 3 per cent.
If the Liberal government is serious about reducing poverty, it will restore card-based certification to all workers in the province. Only then, with unionization as the premier poverty fighter, will we see a decline in the growing gap between the rich and poor in this province #.
Wayne E. Hanley is National President, United Food and Commercial Workers Canada (UFCW) Canada. UFCW Canada is one of Canada's largest and most diverse private sector trade unions with over 240,000 members from coast to coast in the food processing, warehousing, food retailing, hospitality, health care, and various other sectors.
For more information of UFCW click: http://www.ufcw.ca
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