In a drop that some economists are calling 'worrisome,' Canada’s labour market shed 84,000 jobs in February, one of the sharpest monthly declines seen outside the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nice theory you got there, shame it doesn’t bear out in practice. In normal labour conditions workers have no leverage over employers to demand higher wages because workers have to take any job available in order to avoid homelessness and hunger. Workers demand for jobs is inelastic. Only in labour shortage scenarios workers have leverage to demand higher wages. But even then industry consolidation counteracts that because large corporations not only have price setting market power in the consumer market but also in the labour market. This is why the only consistent way to create similar leverage for worker in the labour market is unionization. Wages have never grown significantly enough to chip away wealth inequality except in the presence of strong and wide unionization. This is the main reason why increased labour productivity decoupled from wage increases since the 70s and 80s, when union busting started picking up around the world.
Rapidly increasing labour supply can make wages worse but that’s not the main driver as there have been periods where wages have both been increasing with significant immigration and also others where wages were stagnant without significant immigration.
No I wouldn’t. I would say unionization is eroded through various union busting strategies as practiced as far back as the 19th century. The incentives to bust unions operate on individual firm level and do not require any other macro level phenomena to explain. Firms bust unions because unions increase wages and higher wages reduce profits.
Canadian government does PLENTY of union busting. Firms and government are completely aligned on this.
Government does everything it can to keep canadian wages low to attract business. Corporations are more likely to invest extract from Canada if the government of Canada undermines fair negotiations and writes back to work legislation every time and stomps all over its citizens’rights.
The AC union fought back and ignored back to work orders. They had huge support among Canadians. They were then quietly taken out back and shot by the Canadian government and its arbitration.
Nice theory you got there, shame it doesn’t bear out in practice. In normal labour conditions workers have no leverage over employers to demand higher wages because workers have to take any job available in order to avoid homelessness and hunger. Workers demand for jobs is inelastic. Only in labour shortage scenarios workers have leverage to demand higher wages. But even then industry consolidation counteracts that because large corporations not only have price setting market power in the consumer market but also in the labour market. This is why the only consistent way to create similar leverage for worker in the labour market is unionization. Wages have never grown significantly enough to chip away wealth inequality except in the presence of strong and wide unionization. This is the main reason why increased labour productivity decoupled from wage increases since the 70s and 80s, when union busting started picking up around the world.
Rapidly increasing labour supply can make wages worse but that’s not the main driver as there have been periods where wages have both been increasing with significant immigration and also others where wages were stagnant without significant immigration.
Sure I’d say unionization is eroded by mass immigration and capital shallowing, wouldnt you?
No I wouldn’t. I would say unionization is eroded through various union busting strategies as practiced as far back as the 19th century. The incentives to bust unions operate on individual firm level and do not require any other macro level phenomena to explain. Firms bust unions because unions increase wages and higher wages reduce profits.
Canadian government does PLENTY of union busting. Firms and government are completely aligned on this.
Government does everything it can to keep canadian wages low to attract business. Corporations are more likely to
investextract from Canada if the government of Canada undermines fair negotiations and writes back to work legislation every time and stomps all over its citizens’rights.The AC union fought back and ignored back to work orders. They had huge support among Canadians. They were then quietly taken out back and shot by the Canadian government and its arbitration.
https://www.reddit.com/r/aircanada/comments/1r7jj82/arbitration_over_for_flight_attendants/