Canada Post Strike
For the past few weeks postal workers in Canada have been on strike. This has, of course, caused a fair amount of disruption during the Christmas season. Before I even knew the details of the strike I was naturally on the side of the workers. This is my default position: support labour. In general, I have found that if you are on the side of labour you’re on the right side of history. That’s not to say there aren’t corrupt unions, pointless strikes, or strikes that are regressive in their outcomes. However, in general strikes are a way for “the means of production” to get more of the benefits of that production. In other words; the people doing the work should be reaping the biggest rewards. Not the government, not billionaires, not some mythological “job creator” who took some risks a few years ago and has sat around collecting a “passive income” ever since. No, labor deserves the wealth, because they are the ones creating it.
The arguments against strikes have always been a bit baffling to me. There is no multi-millionaire union. The picket line almost always represents the low and middle class. These are our people, and they deserve more for what they do. Even highly paid people, in my view, deserve more for what they do. In Ontario it’s taken for granted that public teachers are “highly paid”. OTF, the Ontario Teachers Federation is very powerful and well monied. So what are these rich teachers making? After 10 years salaries appear to be capped at $102,000*. Great money for a single person, maybe more than you make, maybe more than you take home but I would ask; “why not more?” Teachers work damn hard, long hours, lots of stress and there is the years-long grind of even becoming a full time placed teacher in Ontario. Not to mention these are people who spend as much time with your kids as you do! Yes, I also think you should make more money, but it’s not a zero sum game; that’s kind of the point of unions. We are living through a time when the wealth gap looks more like France before the revolution; the middle class is shrinking and not because families are getting rich. A “high paying” job ten years ago may barely get you by; but billionaires own more than ever. In the past 25 years the world’s billionaires have added six trillion to their collective wealth. Anybody, any union, who takes a stand is fighting for all of us not just their workers.
Sure it’s an inconvenient time for a strike, but spare a thought. You may not get all your Christmas packages in time, but there are workers who literally cannot make ends meet 365 days a year, not just at Christmas. Strong labour is good for society as a whole!
*https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/81-582-x/2023001/tbl/tblc.6.3-eng.htm **https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/12-581-x/2023001/sec14-eng.htm