Unions not getting much public support: expert
Posted October 14, 2011 8:02 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Lots of labour disputes are making the headlines these days: BC teachers taking job action, Air Canada flight attendants prevented from taking job action, and Canada Post questioning back-to-work legislation.
But it seems most Canadians have little sympathy for striking workers.
For one, the vast majority of Canadians don’t belong to unions, so it’s difficult to drum up support for them and their causes, says University of Victoria labour professor John Fryer. “Unions, for many years now, have declining public support.”
“That’s in large measure due to the fact that, generally speaking, if you are in a union you have much better wages and working conditions than those folks who aren’t in a union,” he points out.
On average, a unionized employee gets $7 an hour more than a non-unionized employee.
Another reason Canadians are showing little support for unions is most organized workers are employed in the public service, and taxpayers realize they’re paying those wages.
“There is some resentment, I think, when people realize that the wages and benefits for public sector employees are better than those they get themselves,” Fryer says, adding only a third of the workforce belongs to a union.
