The State of the Union in Canada

Photo: CSM

Depending upon what political camp you reside in, labour unions are either the cat’s meow or a dog’s breakfast. Depending upon what perspective you carry, employee or employer, unions either protect or preserve the freedoms and rights of 21^stCentury workers or they impede the progress of modernization and the movement of companies into a competitive future.

We saw this tension between government and unions escalate into demonstrations within and without the Wisconsin’s State Assembly recently when Republican Governor Scott Walker acted on what he believed to be a state wide mandate – ie. to place collective bargaining limits on the unions controlled by public workers.

He was not alone in this. States like Ohio, Idaho, Iowa, Michigan, Indiana, New Hampshire, Kansas, and Tennessee have joined in with one kind of condition or limitation or another. Nine other states are in the process of similar limitations. Simply put: state governments are broke, the amount of pensions cannot be sustained, and citizens are not prepared to pay more in taxes in an already depressed and stressed economy.

Marches in Mexico. Demonstrations in American streets. Rioting in Egypt. Revolution in Libya. What do they appear to have in common? It appears that what people really want is personal security: they want to live and not just to survive; they want equity and a share of the common wealth, whether that is the wealth of dictators, corporations or governments.