The forces affecting business are daunting both externally and internally. The company is a subsystem of the global society. It is influenced by its immediate or distant environment. Added to this is the rise of statutory law which, taking charge of individual needs, increases the existential constraint of companies.
Externally, the company finds itself faced with colossal challenges: broken supply chains, economic reprisals resulting from international tensions, price increases that it must pass on to its customers. Since the end of the 1939-1945 war, the world has never been so worrying.
Internally, the challenges are also enormous. The company is affected by a major collapse in its recruitment potential. Indeed, older workers leave their jobs without being able to count on young people to replace them. Clearly, young people are no longer there. The birth rate has plummeted. From 30 per 1000 inhabitants in 1960, it is currently at the historical threshold of 10 per 1000 inhabitants. An icy fact is obvious: the boomers have not reproduced the family sizes that gave birth to them.
But the company’s difficulties do not end there.
Public policies in turn exacerbate labor shortages by increasing legal absenteeism under the pretext of better taking care of family needs.
This is reflected in particular by an increase in vacation time and social leave provided for in the Labor Standards Act. Admittedly, the legal holidays of Quebecers, at the height of three weeks after three years of service, are among the lowest in Western countries. And when both spouses are simultaneously on the labor market, there is no choice to support them, in particular by increasing social leave. The minimum standards provide for 10 per year, two of which are paid. Clearly, aiming for the well-being of families does not always make it possible to satisfy that of companies.
Salary demands
And as if all the above were not enough, there is an extraordinary inflationary situation. In this respect in Quebec, a union common front is preparing its weapons for the public sector negotiations in the spring of 2023. In response to an inflation rate fluctuating between 6% and 8%, unionism will demand comparable levels of wage enhancement. Thus, like pensions in the public sector which are indexed, trade unions will want to put wage indexation back on the menu of collective negotiations.
In fact, wage indexation existed in the public service as it exists in certain private companies. It was eliminated on the grounds of putting Quebec’s public finances in order during the 1980s.
Added to this is the issue of pay equity in the public service, which has been undermined by a government which wanted to settle, in the turmoil of the pandemic, exceptional situations without an overall vision.
For example, the salary increase, recently granted to nurses, will probably serve as an argument for other professional categories.
But all of the above, whether in the private or public sector, whose issues are distinct, accentuates in several respects the length of the paths that companies must clear. However, compared to Western Europe, which has run out of energy, or the United States, which is on the brink of civil war for lack of a social charter, Canada is doing well. It can count on abundant natural resources and an efficient system of wealth redistribution.
Collective agreements
But Canada is not immune to extremism, political or otherwise, which a shock of values, stemming from the flow of migration or elsewhere, can amplify, by making, for example, real estate financially inaccessible. . Clearly, it’s fine to welcome, but the economy must be able to bear the consequences. In the United States, a new trend is emerging. More and more employees are on the street, because their salary cannot accommodate them. In all of this, the challenge for Quebec is to grow its secondary processing industrial sector by resorting in particular to robotization, which will require a reform of the content of several collective agreements. But the potential for growth is there. You just have to know how to optimize it.
Quebec, with 39% union presence, is the most unionized state in North America. Consequently, the consultation of social actors is a necessary step to get out of the current crisis and build a better future. Choosing between citizens’ wishes with ecology as a backdrop and economic growth will not be easy. Mixing union demands with those of employers may prove difficult.
The reconciliation of values, a priori contradictory, could propel the Quebec model towards a bright future. But the future cannot be as usual a reproduction of the past. The current great shift in workplaces prohibits it.