LaborNotes: Ontario Next Right-to-Work Target?

When Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed right-to-work bills into law last month, he gladdened the hearts of anti-union politicians next door in Ontario. Could our province, a union stronghold, be next?

The more unions are beaten back in the United States, the worse it is for Canadian workers, whose jobs can easily be shipped south. One need only look at Caterpillar’s Electro-Motive Diesel jobs being moved from London, Ontario, down to Indiana in 2012, after that state passed right-to-work legislation. Such laws outlaw contracts that require all those represented by a union to pay dues, thus breaking up solidarity.

However, before we get too doom and gloom—Canada is not the United States. We have a different array of social forces and conditions that would make right-to-work-type legislation much harder to pass.

First is the existence of the NDP at provincial and federal level. The NDP has been drifting steadily rightward for a number of years, but its political base is still largely working class. Without the NDP as a counterforce, the Liberals and the Conservatives would surely pull the political agenda farther right than they have so far achieved.

The second point is Canada’s much higher rate of unionization. Union density is around 30 percent, compared to less than 12 percent in the United States. In the private sector, the numbers fall to 15 percent in Canada and less than 7 percent in the U.S. Even states with high union density such as Michigan, at about 18 percent, are significantly less unionized than Ontario, at 27 percent. Unions in Canada have relatively more members, more money, and more political clout.

The third reason is that the union movement has entrenched social gains that make a direct attack harder to win. The right-wing populist line of smaller government mixed with an Ayn Randesque individual entrepreneurial spirit does not have the same reach in Canada. Big government is not hated in the same way. Social programs and services such as universal health care are popular (though their popularity can’t ensure their safety from cuts). Right-wing populism does have a base in Canada, but it is narrower than in the U.S.

http://labornotes.org/2013/01/ontario-next-right-work-target