quote:

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Union decline is a myth, and it is time we stopped perpetuating it. The real challenge for the union movement is not to save itself from collapse; it is to find a strategy for growth and influence at a time when the potential has never been so good.

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Check out the full article here:

Peter Hall Jones, "State of the Unions," new-unionism.net

(above text from an email message by Eric Lee)

[ 01 February 2007: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]

quote:

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Union membership in Britain has fallen to less than seven million today from 13 million in 1979.

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Canada criticized for economic costs of strong labour laws

Union membership can increase, while the percentage of workers who are unionized, decreases (population growth).

[ 16 March 2007: Message edited by: CUPE_Reformer ]

Again you do realise we are two different countries? I keep seeing this same pattern: everytime there's a positive discussion on unions you're quick to post some Stateside shite about how pointless unions have become in the Fascist States.

Obviously you have some issues with CUPE, but your disdain of all things about Canadian unions make me believe you are some neo-lib troll ensuring the bosses' version of events gets posted. Newsflash: if I want to hear what the bosses think of unions I'll open any paper they own (i.e. all of them)!

One of the few times you ever waxed poetic about a union was over CLAC. Here's the thread to jog your memory:
CLAC - A Bosses Union

As someone in the thread said CLAC are pure scum.

I had a CLAC encounter this fall. We were very close to organising a tire plant. When the boss found out he brought the CLAC team in and told his pets this was the union he wanted them to deal with. Our activists told CLAC to piss off and all hell ensued. In the end no one won except the boss. Which sounds to me is exactly the way you like it.

Back to the topic, I also received this e-mailfrom Eric Lee. I'm pleased to see our Canadian numbers still growing but am amazed at the increases within Asia and Africa. It's great to see workers around the world uniting for better workplaces.

[ 01 February 2007: Message edited by: a lonely worker ]

quote:

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CUPE Reformer, I followed your link and after figuring out what you were hi-lighting I was "shocked" to see it was another US study.

I'm pleased to see our Canadian numbers still growing but am amazed at the increases within Asia and Africa.

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My link was to a Globe and Mail article, about Canadian labour laws. U.S. hegemony affects all workers.

<------>

"Unionization in the private sector has fallen from almost 30% in 1981 to 17.5% today."

Organize! (PDF file)

[ 03 February 2007: Message edited by: CUPE_Reformer ]

Are Unions in decline?

Does the Pope shit in the woods?

quote:

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Originally posted by Sven:
The only sector that really has growing unionization is government bureaucracies.

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But bc we know Republican Conservatives LOVE bloated bureaucracies, the Homeland Security feds should all be earning a living wage and enjoying taxpayer-funded medical and dental, just like Republican senators and Congressmen do and who rail against socialized medicine on the behooves of big and bloated, insurance companies, each an inefficient duplication in health care bureaucracies paying exorbitant salaries to over-bloated top-down hierarchical lower-middle, middle-middle, and upper management corporate hangers on as well as shareholders expecting their cut from the public troff.

We'll stick with our all-the-way-around less expensive socialized medicine, but thanks anyhoo. Meanwhile, has manufacturing created a single full-time payroll job down there yet, Sven? Just razzin ya.

[ 02 February 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

I know see it's to a Globe Story (you should have linked the original article) quoting at length the brilliance of the wholely impartial Len Shackleton. Did a quick check and read his bio:

Len Shackleton is a neo-lib wanker

quote:

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He has written on a wide variety of topics, including the above, the history of economic thought, industrial economics, social security and retailing, and has published reports for a number of policy think tanks, including the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Adam Smith Institute and the Employment Policy Institute.

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Surely anyone who wrote for the Adam Smith Institute wouldn't be biased against unions?

ETA (because I couldn't resist). Here's professor windbag in an interview on another site:

quote:

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FC: How have reforms helped workers in Britain?

LS: What has happened is that union density has fallen very considerably. Private sector unionism is now a very small issue. There still remains a problem in the public sector.

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Conversations with a corporate shill

I'm sure these are the type of "improvements" for workers CUPE Destroyer would like to see continue here.

[ 03 February 2007: Message edited by: a lonely worker ]

He's being interviewed by the Alberta based Frontier Centre and is saying we need to institue Thatcher / Blair's labour reforms here including ending the Rand formula, removing all card based certification schemes and making it the law that a union can never have more than six members holding a picket line at anytime to ensure union's can never "coerce" their views on companies again.

The worst part is this exchange at the bottom:

quote:

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FC: If all labour laws were written to your specifications, what would they look like? What role in society do you envision for voluntary unions? Should they be given any special protection at all?

LS: I think there is a role. If you look historically at trade unions right across the world, unions have been very different things at times. The origins of unions in the U.K. were as organizations offering members benefits, things like burial clubs and basic medical insurance.

There is a positive view of unions, in which they become a positive force in the workplace as opposed to a negative one. By conveying to management the preferences of workers in relation, for example, to working times, benefits and pay, by presenting that kind of view and getting a better fit between worker expectations and employer expectations, they can play a positive role.

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So there you have it, the role of the future is for unions to return to being "burial clubs" to pay for all the funerals that will surely follow when our health and saftey standards return to 19th century levels and all what the unions can do is "convey their preferences" (probably whilst bowing and trembling at the same time).

I have friends and family in the UK. Everyone says Maggie destroyed the working class and it's impossible to make ends meet on just 40 hours a week. Everyone has something on the side or works massive OT. Sixty hours is now considered the average work week.

One friend was a shop steward with a large union there. When they tried to challenge the company's list of concessions the company hauled them in and showed them the adverts that were about to go in papers across the UK and Poland for scabs (which they would bus in). Management said the moment they walk out the door, they're gone and with only 6 on the line there's nothing they could do to stop the buses of scabs. They ended up having to take the concessions (even though the company was profitable) and he had to find a part time job to make up the difference in lost income.

Trust me, you don't want to ask him his views on "New Labour" and Thatcherism. This professor would also be wise to stay as far away from him as possible.

[ 03 February 2007: Message edited by: a lonely worker ]

quote:

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I know see it's to a Globe Story (you should have linked the original article) quoting at length the brilliance of the wholely impartial Len Shackleton.

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I didn't post the Globe and Mail article Canada criticized for economic costs of strong labour laws. I only quoted one sentence from the whole article.

[ 16 March 2007: Message edited by: CUPE_Reformer ]

Obviously by quoting or even considering this piece of anti-worker shite from Professor Shackles4workers as worthy of being linked or quoted exposes your bias for all to see.

BTW, according to the first article on this thread British unions are starting to rebuild after being gutting by Thatcher and their numbers are finally increasing. Most progressive would view this as a good thing. You obviously don't.

Hey here's a stat for you:

From 1807 to 2007 the rate of unionisation has gone from 3 burial clubs to almost 7 million today reflecting the largest increase in unionisation for any 200 year period in British history.

This stat is as valid as Professor Should-be-shackled and like him I just pulled it out of my arse. Unlike him, I wasn't paid god knows how many million Pounds by employer organisations to dig up useless stats to further their quest to destroy worker's rights.

Feel free to quote my equally legit stat to all your neo-lib pals!

[ 03 February 2007: Message edited by: a lonely worker ]

It has fallen, but seems to have bottomed out in construction, general services, etc. And then there are those sectors where it is still very weak: agriculture, textiles, retail services, etc. Those are the lousiest sectors to work in, as we all know.

Also, measuring the rate of unionization in the workforce can be more complicated than what the corporate media says.

For example, the oft quoted rates of 33 to 38 per cent of the workforce usually only counts those union members working in a certified bargaining unit with a collective agreement. They don’t often include union members working in non-certified units, self-employment, cooperatives, and unemployed or working in officially non-union places.

When you add all those up, it runs as high as 47 per cent (again, depending on who’s included and who’s not). According to several poll and studies referred to in the CCPA reports, support for the labour movement remains high among Canadians, despite decades of anti-union smearing from the corporate media and corporate politicos, running as high as 75 per cent among people.

It’s also important to point out that the overall decline in the OFFICIAL unionization rates isn’t because workers are turning in their memberships—but rather because so many of the key sectors that have been heavily unionized over the past 100 of more years have been fairly rapidly down-sized or eliminated in the last 20 years, being replaced by service sector jobs. Unions have, in general, not been able to keep pace with this change, even though organizing efforts have been under way with some great successes.

In the US, the main cause of the decline in unionization rates is the same. However, the sad state of the US labour movement (to the extent it moves much at all), with many of its unions so highly centralized and leaders so bought off to the corporate capitalist system and curtailed from innovative socialistic grass-roots activities—generally the cornerstone of labour unions in most parts of the world historically—has been really slow to respond. That’s the main reason for the huge drop in living standards, working conditions and overall liberties among Americans (and to a lesser extent in Canada as well).

However, if history has value, that won’t last forever. Either via the rise of an independent wing of US labour or a revitalization of existing groups, that situation will inevitably have to change. How bad things have to get or how clued in working people in these areas will need to be before it does in a matter of debate. But historically it always happens—everywhere.

Internationally, the situation seems the opposite. According to reports in both The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions and the International Labour Bulletin, union membership is growing rapidly throughout Asia, Middle east, South America, and even Africa, while it remains at its usual major strength in many European countries and Japan (in some countries running as high as 90 per cent in various forms of worker organizations).

So are they in decline? It’s hard to say. In some ways some unions are. And in other ways other unions are growing.

But to simply say they are is little more than a corporate capitalist dictator’s wet dream and in effect a lie. Labour organizations in various forms and to varying degrees have existed most everywhere throughout history. No matter how illegal or how repressed they have been by ruling classes and oppressive regimes, they have always been around and have always made a positive impact to some degree. And they clearly always will.