Unions Do Deliver

By Kenneth V. Georgetti,

President,

Canadian Labour Congress.

Financial Post

Letter to the Edior

September 27, 1999

Some of your business readers may find unions hard to love, but even they should understand that the anti-union fanaticism of Howard Levitt (Strategies to Beat a Union Drive, Sept. 20) warps his analysis of labour relations and the law.

Canada is a signatory of a number of major international human rights conventions which recognize the basic right of workers to join the union of their choice, and to engage in collective bargaining with their employer. Even in relatively hostile provinces, Canadian labour law is broadly facilitative of the right to organize, and employers would be best advised to let workers make up their own minds as to whether they want and need union representation.

Even in the U.S., where it is much easier to use threats and intimidation to resist unionization, many employers have come to regret using the kinds of devices recommended by the anti-union consulting industry. A bitter and divided workforce is hardly a sure-fire recipe for higher productivity and better quality.

No competent economist would agree with Mr. Levitt's argument that there is no union advantage in terms of wages and benefits. Unions clearly do deliver benefits to their members far beyond the cost of dues. But employers should also note that union workplaces are more productive and efficient. That is because workers with a collective voice in setting pay and the conditions of work are much more likely to stay around, and much more likely to see their own future as bound up with the success of their employer.

A positive relationship can deliver benefits to both sides. But such a relationship simply cannot be established if an employer has all the power, and resorts to lies and intimidation to keep it that way.

Very few informed workers would agree with Mr. Levitt's argument that the right to take individual legal action is worth more than the right to grieve under a collective agreement. Sure, some highly paid professionals can get big severance payments if they are fired. But unionized workers generally get job security and promotions on the basis of seniority, as well as access to a grievance process that resolves a host of workplace problems, all for a small fraction of their paycheque.

Belonging to and actively participating in a union gives workers a real say in what goes on in their working lives, a say that makes a real difference. Hiring a lawyer when you are fired, harassed or made sick is a pretty poor alternative, particularly when so many of them don't know what they are talking about.

OTHER ANTI-UNION ARTICLES FROM THE NATIONAL POST

Statistics Canada recently published a revealing report called Unionization in Canada: A Retrospective. It's based on the last disclosed figures (1995) and presents a compelling case to me as to why taxpayers must demand that Ottawa audit and clean up union financial practices and tax privileges.

Keep in touch if you want to keep the union at bay By the time a campaign begins, it could be too late

When the union knocks at your door, what do you do?

AND CANADIANS FIGHT BACK

VANCOUVER - More than 40,000 people in Toronto, Vancouver and Victoria received copies of a parody edition of the National Post this morning. The four-page satire was produced by Vancouver's Guerrilla Media (GM) and tackles Canada's high degree of media ownership concentration.

"Whether it's print, radio or TV, the extreme levels of ownership concentration in Canada is a serious problem," says GM spokesperson Beau Gus Monniker. "Guerrilla Media has created this parody of the Post to point up the downside of letting a special interest group of a few wealthy men like Hollinger/Southam's Conrad Black or Power Corp.'s Paul Desmarais control the news we read."

Lovingly prepared to look like Conrad's flagship Canadian daily, more than 150 guerrillas and GM supporters in the three cities handed out 40,000 copies of the bogus daily directly to commuters. In addition, they wrapped thousands more around the National Post's Wednesday edition in the Post's own newspaper boxes. Guerrilla Media has also created a National Post parody web site at http://www.nationalpost.8m.com

"Obviously, Conrad Black epitomizes everything wrong with the state of Canada's media ownership," says Monniker. "He doesn't hide the fact he won't tolerate editors who oppose his views, and his downsizing tactics have severely hampered local coverage in many small- and medium-sized Hollinger/Southam papers. However, Black is just one of a few media barons bent on buying up print and broadcast outlets. If he left, another corporate raider would just fill his Gucci shoes. To reverse this anti-democratic media trend, we need major reforms to ownership in this country."

The first in a news series of media criticism parodies to be launched by Guerrilla Media, the bogus National Post featured satire pages with articles by prominent Post columnists such as Barbara Amiel, Kenneth Whyte and David Frum. The back page advertises a new horror movie called The ConBlob, a "Megalomedia/TeleTubby/Cuts of Thousands co-production of a Conrad B. DeMillions film." Another page is devoted to a straight-up discussion of media concentration in Canada, examining its effects on editorial coverage and alternatives that exist in other countries.

"In Italy, France and Germany, Black and Desmarais would not be allowed to control the number of dailies they currently reign over in Canada they would be breaking the law," said Monniker. "Canada needs to rethink it's media policies. We need to take ownership away from greedy, ideologically-driven media barons. We need to make the media a public trust."

Guerrilla Media is the Vancouver-based group of direct-action media critics who produced theConrad Black Envy website They look forward to future newspaper parodies there's just so much material out there. As AC/DC puts it, we're back in Black.

Contact Guerrilla Media at:

Email: gus@guerrillamedia.8m.com

Web: http://www.guerrillamedia.8m.com

Vmail: 604-8774721

MEDIA MERGERS/MONOPOLIZATION