Trade unionism is indicative of the democratic nature of society. Countries that do not recognize this usually offer indecent wages. Consequently, the popular classes are unable to buy the products of companies. This state of poverty is the sad reality of the majority of the 195 countries of the world. Thus, industrial democracy is, for the most part, observable in North America and Western Europe. Elsewhere in the world, with some exceptions, a union leader risks his life just because he exists.
According to a report by the European Institute for Economic Research in 2016, Canada ranks third among Western countries in terms of labor disputes, with 87 annual days of strike or lockout per 1,000 workers. This is a poor performance compared to Germany (seven days) or Switzerland (one day), countries which offer an enviable quality of life.
And as if the strikes were not enough, there are also lockouts. Yet in Western Europe there is hardly any automatic lockout. Therefore, you don’t have to be a diviner to understand that our labor relations system is violent because it has the property, whether it’s a strike or a lockout, to shut down the business entirely. .
Curiously in Quebec, partial or targeted strikes are prohibited. Certain European models of labor relations, such as that of Germany, remind us that there is no need to shut down companies globally in order to negotiate decent working conditions. All that is needed is patient social dialogue, inserted into an appropriate structure, and focused on efficiency.
In the name of freedom of association, the Supreme Court of Canada, by its decision Saskatchewan in 2015, made the exercise of the strike a fundamental right. However, a government can no longer, as it did in the past, ban strikes, impose wages and force a return to work. If he is required to authorize the exercise of a strike, he can, conversely, establish essential legitimate services to be respected.
In the search for a less violent labor relations regime, the use of the lockout should be prohibited or authorized exceptionally if its recourse is necessary for the survival of the company. In addition, if our labor relations system is failing, more than 95% of collective negotiations are resolved without a strike or lockout. So the shoe pinches in the remaining 5%.
The obligation to maintain essential services, during a strike, in the public sectors, reduces its pernicious effects. In any case, the State could play more of a preventive card. For example, union-management tensions over pension plans would ease in the presence of a decent universal state-run annuity system.
As for the right to strike, it must be maintained taking into account the aforementioned judgment of the Supreme Court. In addition, the partial or targeted strike should be accessible, which could limit the use of the general strike. It is also necessary to rethink the mode of exchanges between social actors, from the angle of better structured and guided collective bargaining. The path to better empowerment of social actors involves, in particular, better worker participation in the management of companies.
Having taken root in the American manufactures of the XIXe century, our labor relations system has never really been thought through taking into account the necessary juxtaposition of the needs of workers, businesses and society. Redesigned, it should induce decent working conditions without having to completely close businesses as it is currently doing.