Submitted by: Submitted by kpartovi
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Category: Business and Industry
Date Submitted: 05/03/2012 03:55 PM
Labour Relations Assignment
Kaveh Partovi Set A
Unions on the Decline
Unions and their power have been diminishing steadily in both US and Canada for the past few decades. The highest membership of Canadian unions in the private sector goes back to 1980s when it reached 33.4% which gradually declined to 16% in the year 2009. In the US it declined from 19% in 1970s to 7% in 2009.
Although there are many reasons that account for such rapid decline of unions such as loss of manufacturing and industrial jobs due to the trend of globalization and competition, outsourcing, growth of technology and downsizing of the labour, one main reason for such decline is the result of widespread assault on unions by the corporations by lobbying government officials to make changes in the labour laws that would make it easier for the companies to sue unions, and even to prevent workers from organizing unions in the first place. Synchronically the acquisitions of many small to medium size media, including the more independent media sources that were at least more sympathetic towards the struggle of the average workers’ rights, by the huge multi-national media corporations, many of which were financed by the very corporations which attacked unions, paved the way for an easy conquest of the public’s opinion against unions, blaming them for every failure in productivity of companies and every downturn of the economy. This way, many US corporations managed to create an illusion in the minds of the public that since unions are socialistic, they are equal to evil communism, which according to such media, is equal to fascism and ultimately they are devilish.
A close look at the conservative Harper’s government in the last couple of years shows a direct result of such political lobbying of the powerful corporations and the blatant direction that government has taken in regards to the unions by legislating the balance of power away in favor of the employers. Whenever the workers tried to...