Within a span of eight weeks, labour unrest has disrupted key transportation systems in Canada at crucial times, with more potential trouble looming.
WestJet mechanics went on strike for two days ahead of Canada Day long weekend, leading to the cancellation of 1,171 flights. Both of Canada’s main railways locked out workers represented by the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference on August 22 during fall harvest. On the same day, Air Canada pilots authorized their union to take strike action as early as Sept. 17.
Ship and dock foremen at the Port of Vancouver nearly went on strike in July over proposed automation, and may yet do so if a resolution isn’t found.
Labour unrest in Canada has been increasing in recent years. Close to 1,150 work stoppages have occurred in Canada since 2021, according to government figures, with the largest number—745—taking place last year, including a major strike by the Public Service Alliance of Canada in which over 155,000 federal government workers walked off the job.
There are a number of factors behind the surge in job action, including rising living costs due to inflation and an increased aversion to government intervention in labour disputes.
“We’ve suffered a tremendous amount of inflation, and where you have unions who have power, they’re exercising it to try and catch back up for what they feel they’ve lost,” Barry Prentice, a University of Manitoba professor of supply chain management, said in an interview.
Inflation
Inflation has been steadily climbing, reaching 8.1 percent in June 2022. It fell to 2.7 percent in June of this year, but still the accumulated increases are taking a toll.Related Stories
The precedent of 1970s stagflation (a stagnant economy along with high inflation) leaves workers with lingering reason for concern.
“I’m old enough to remember that inflationary period, and we got into what was a real wage price spiral,” Prentice said, adding that he sees current inflation rates continuing to be a problem, despite the recent slow down.
“People are feeling pinched between higher food costs, and those certainly living in places like Vancouver and Toronto that are facing very burdensome mortgage rates if they live alone,“ he added. ”I’m shocked sometimes at how much prices have gone up for certain things.”
US Movements
John Mortimer, president of the Canadian LabourWatch Association, says while inflation in both Canada and the United States has workers concerned, Canadian workers are noting gains made by unions south of the border.“Inflation has been very significant in both countries through the COVID period,” he said. “When I talk to employers facing union drives and unionized employers, they’ve got lots of employees who are really having a hard time, really upset, really pushing things. And some people are deciding to call strikes now.”
Pilots make healthy salaries on relatively few hours of work, and feel economic pressures less than the broader workforce, Mortimer notes. But, he says, the needs of the employer have put pilots in “the driver’s seat” not just in planes, but in labour negotiations.
“Airlines have a staffing problem in the pilot’s chair, from what I hear from WestJet and Air Canada people,” he said. “There’s not enough of them, and it takes a long time to train them. And during COVID, a bunch of pilots resigned. A bunch got laid off because they wouldn’t get vaccinated, and some of them aren’t coming back.”
Mortimer, whose career in human resources spans four decades, believes big gains by U.S. unions following an especially confrontational approach has emboldened Canadian unions to do the same.
In Detroit last fall, the United Auto Workers union went on strike against General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis, making substantial gains. GM workers got a five year contract with an immediate pay raise of 11 percent.
“Not only have we raised our wages, we have dramatically decreased the time it takes to get to top pay,” union president Shawn Fain said at a media event last November. “Part of our strength came from all three contracts expiring at once and taking on all three companies at once.”
In August 2023, threats of a Teamsters Union strike of 340,000 workers at UPS in the United States led to a five-year agreement that left the average driver making US$ 170,000 per year in pay and benefits.
Mortimer says Canadian unionized workers have taken note.
“They’re being affected by inflation ... and they’re saying: ‘We’re going to go for it and we’re going to see what we can get. Why wouldn’t we?’” he said.
Government
The labour environment in Canada changed with the passage of Bill C-58 on June 20. The legislation, which comes into effect in June 2025 and applies to federally regulated industries, bans employers from using replacement workers and bans unionized workers from crossing their own picket lines in defiance of their union.A study released June 3 by the Montreal Economic Institute (MEI) said the bill will likely lead to more and longer strikes. The findings were based on economic literature and comparisons between jurisdictions with laws that banned replacement workers—such as B.C., Quebec, and France—with jurisdictions without such laws.
Between 2014 and 2023, the days of work stoppage per 1,000 workers was 2,180 in Quebec, 931 days higher than second-place Newfoundland and Labrador. Alberta had just 34 days.
Renaud Brossard, vice-president of communications at MEI, told The Epoch Times the legislation has already “emboldened the unions” and made employers less “tempted” to use replacement workers, knowing this approach will soon be illegal.
Brossard said this dynamic combined with cost-of-living and inflationary increases has pressured both employers and employees alike, making a satisfactory resolution harder to find.
“For a lot of people, wages have not kept up, so that has made a lot of union members much more vocal, much more demanding in their wage negotiations. And companies are—it’s not like they’ve got all this extra profit just lying around to throw towards employees.”
Previous analysis cited in the MEI paper found strikes tend to be 60 percent longer in jurisdictions that banned replacement workers.
There’s also a change at the political level, as the government is increasingly less willing to be seen as being against workers.
Mortimer notes that past private member bills that sought to achieve what Bill C-58 intended were blocked by previous governments, including the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien. By contrast, Bill C-58 passed with even the Conservatives in support, he says.
