This text is part of the special section The 50 years of the CSD
“The world of work is always changing, but in situations like last year, it accelerates certain transformations that we could have seen happen over a decade or more,” notes Luc Vachon, president of the CSD. For the union, it is essential to remain at the forefront of future issues in the world of work in order to adapt its action to new realities.
CSD alone cannot change society. But to continue to support the workers and to ensure a lasting effect in the negotiations, it must take part in discussions in a concerted manner with the unions, the political organizations and the workers, in order to anticipate the major challenges facing society. “If we don’t manage to find a way to think about the future, change will still happen, but it will be done through the streets, strikes, lockouts, and therefore in some suffering,” argues Luc Vachon. .
The labor market is and will face several challenges, whether on the side of labor shortages, automation, digitalization or the fair distribution of wealth. “For the negotiations to have a lasting effect, we must intervene on several issues. We cannot just work on one axis,” explains Mr. Vachon. Some questions are predictable; others are more difficult to anticipate. Hence the importance of staying tuned.
The Labor Shortage: Chronicle of a Foretold Problem
While the labor shortage is particularly acute in the wake of the pandemic, it is far from a new problem. “We’ve seen it in demographic trends for about ten years: we’re going to run out of workers,” observes Luc Vachon.
To meet the shortage, some industries are likely to accelerate automation and robotization, which will profoundly transform the workplace. The central trade union can certainly not prevent this upheaval, but its role is to accompany the workers in this change: “we must ensure that people are able to adapt”, says the trade unionist.
Automation must remain at the service of humans and not the other way around: it can help with repetitive and alienating tasks, and make it possible to offer better jobs, rather than enslaving the worker to the machine. “We must not lose sight of the human dimension,” he believes.
Indeed, we must not forget that work is a tool for personal construction and enhancement. Automation doesn’t have to lead to more mind-numbing work. “Otherwise, people no longer find meaning in what they do. We will see an explosion of burnout, psychological distress. If we do nothing and if we don’t pay attention to changes in the workplace, we will see an increase in psychosocial problems,” warns Mr. Vachon.
Concentration of Wealth: Staying Vigilant
Another worrying issue for the CSD remains the concentration of wealth. With the pandemic, digital players have greatly enriched themselves. With this digitization comes offshoring; digital companies are both everywhere and nowhere. “It’s important to think about how these companies view employees and how they make a fair social contribution. Ultimately, we need mechanisms to redistribute wealth,” argues Mr. Vachon.
Even if the new forms of work organization such as telework will not affect the traditional environments as strongly as the majority of the unions and associations affiliated to the CSD belong to, they can still have an impact, since the work can be relocated elsewhere in the province, in the country and even in the world. “How is the organization of work going to be built so that it does not create precariousness and false self-employed workers? It can lead to a new form of vulnerability, ”said Mr. Vachon.
Ecological transition: support in the inevitable
Workplaces, especially industrial ones, are inevitably led to change in view of the ecological transition. “We are not an ecological organization, there are excellent experts who guide us in this. Our role at the CSD is to ensure that no one is left behind in this transition,” says Mr. Vachon.
Oil-based industries are set to change in the coming years, and the union organization wants to support workers by offering them training, for example, so that everyone comes out a winner.
Trade union organizations must reflect on the lasting transformations of the labor market. Nobody knows exactly what will happen in three, five or ten years: recession, economic slowdown, other world event…
“Today, things are going well, we are negotiating salary increases, but all of that is contextual and the challenges are structural. We have to think about that as a society. The CSD cannot do this alone, but it can participate in the reflection,” concludes Mr. Vachon.
Because if, in times of thinning, we lose sight of the importance of the trade union movement, what does the future hold for us?