Murphy’s Logic: Big unions should reconsider tactics

All workers owe a debt of gratitude to organized labour.

Many things we now take for granted – minimum wages, occupational health and safety protection, health-care benefits and pension plans – are the product of hard-fought battles by trade unions.

In my own business, collective bargaining produced better salaries and working conditions, in radio and television newsrooms, particularly for the most junior staff members.

Ironically, for all unions have accomplished, union membership in Canada has fallen from 38 per cent of the workforce in 1981 to 29 per cent in 2022.

The observance of Labour Day is a well-warranted celebration of what unions and workers have accomplished.

But other recent events are also worthy of note.

Last week, a contract dispute between the country’s two major railroads and its unionized workers briefly stopped the trains and all the vital goods they carry. In July, a dispute involving unionized mechanics disrupted thousands of WestJet flights. In both cases, the federal government stepped in to end the risk, uncertainty and inconvenience with imposed arbitration.

It’s true that, historically, work stoppages and threats of work stoppages have been used to cause disruption and inconvenience, thereby prompting employers to give into union demands.

But in today’s world and economy, big unions, which have done so much to help workers, should ask themselves whether creating anger - often not sympathy - by threatening financial damage to an entire nation is really the best way to advance the interests of their members, and build on an honourable legacy.