Union Politics

First, who is the employer of the government employees? It is the government, right? Then who is the shareholder of our government? The shareholder of the Canadian Government is the Canadian people! It is the Canadian people who pay the tax to fund the running of our government. Now you probably already get it: the unions of government employees strengthened their bargaining power against the Canadian People as a whole. It is 170 thousand government employees who bargain against 35 million Canadian People. How 35 million Canadian People can bargaining with such a strong union to protect their valuable tax dollars be used wisely and effectively? Through the government, they voted. However, Justin Trudeau is for the unions. He is on the union’s side. When Post Office Union bargain with the government, they know they will win huge, because the other side of the negotiation table is with them. This scenario already happens in Ontario where the Liberal government not only grand the terms to the union but also funds the union for the negotiation cost. Liberal’s stand is inviting all the public service unions to strike.

Conservative support bills regulating unions. Why unions should be regulated? If unions act outside the collective bargaining function, they should be regulated. Political propaganda should not be the purpose of unions. Each worker should have their own political point of view that is not to be dictated by union leaders. Union leaders represent union workers in collected bargaining, not represent their political views. As we can see, Justin Trudeau supporting unions is a dirty trick that made unions a political tool.

Why do Conservatives want to regulate unions? Because the bargaining between unions and employers has an external effect! Right. External effect! Other stakeholders have been affected by unions because of their collective bargaining. Some of the external effects are beneficial to the public, but some others are bad for the public. The improvement of the working environment is good both for union members and not union members. This is an example of good external effects. Collective bargaining, on the other hand, elevated the entry barrier of the labor market and made our talented youth hard to get employed. Unions divided our labor market into two sectors: Unionized and not-unionized. 63% of our labor is not unionized, they are the outsider; 37% of our labor is unionized, they are the insider. The outsiders have difficulty entering the labor market, and easy be squeezed out. When the economy is bad or companies have to scale down, the first casualty is the outsiders, regardless of their performance. The distorted labor market hurt the Canadian economy as a whole. Conservatives lost the ballet of unions, because they uphold the principles for a functioning labor market, for a healthy Canadian economy, and for the well beings of Canadian people as a whole, not just the 37% inside the interest groups.