> marvgandall at videotron.ca wrote:
>
>> But you had the same decline in union density and militancy
>> in all of the advanced capitalist countries - reflected in
>> the disappearance or transformation of the old socialist and
>> communist parties throughout - which would suggest that the
>> structural factors I identified, rather than ideological or
>> legal ones, were the more decisive.
>>
>> This doesn't mean that it is idle to trace the histories
>> of anti-labour legislation and efforts to repress and isolate
>> radical working class leaders, only to recognize that these
>> factors have ALWAYS been present.
>
> How insulated is Canada, compared to the US, from those structural
> pressures? You have (I am assuming from the .ca) more than twice American
> union density, with (Geoghegan argues) stronger organizing rights.
======================
I see you've changed the subject heading. Cute. If only willful thinking
could trounce the constraints imposed by the social environment, we wouldn't
be having this debate.
The Canadian labour movement is more insulated certainly from the legal and ideological pressures which exist in the US, but is affected by the same structural factors which have gravely weakened the American, British, and European industrial unions (globalization, automation, shrinking relative weight of manufacturing in advanced economies). Overall union density has dropped in Canada from nearly 40% of the workforce at the beginning of the 90's to roughly 30% now.
Overall density is higher than in the US because there is a much higher level of unionization in government employment at all levels and in health, education, and other public services - 75% of the Canadian public sector is organized compared to roughly half that number in the States - and also because we have card check. The EFCA bill, which will be an important test of the Obama administration, seems to be modelled on the labour relations regime in Canada. If the Canadian example is any guide, though, it will have little effect in arresting the slide of the industrial unions but could, if passed, stimulate service sector organizing.
The Canadian industrial unions now account for 17% of the workforce, better than in the US, but a miserable half of what they represented two decades ago. I don't have at hand the specific stats tracing the decline of union penetration by industry in auto, steel, mining, etc, but a little googling could probably provide you with these.
Naturally, we have had the same debates in the Canadian labour movement about whether it's stagnation is primarily owing to a lack of will to organize the unorganized or to deeper structural factors. Obviously, I think the former is mostly explained by the latter - but not exclusively, just so as not to be misunderstood.