It seems legally dicey anyway, for the exact reasons they mentioned. Going on strike is a charter right, and it's clear by this point the power will get used pretty much every time.
this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2025
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Anyone blaming unions are a fool. Sure you can keep pointing at the bad unions of this and that with abusive power. The overall calculus of it all is that it is good for the worker and good for the economy. The boomer middle class got to where it was is because of unions. Full stop.
Section 107 when used should trigger something like dissolving the C-suite and the board if government intervention is needed to resolve the dispute. After all, they are asking the government to do THEIR jobs because they made it worse due to THEIR poor management. But hey, people love blaming unions and the worker drone below trying to do the jobs they were hired for right? Right?
There will be people saying about "free market" - don't kid yourself - in Canada and many countries, there's no such thing. Government subsidies, incentives, tax credits etc all go against that concept. I'm not for a full blown "free market". That would be disastrous all around in this current reality.
you do know that the unions demanded that canada post not reduce services levels in the early 2010's and had the government mandate service levels by law at a unsustainable rate?
if the union demands that 20 people do a job that you only need 10 to do and the government makes it a law....
you blame the company???
that is why boomers owned houses, they took responsibility for their actions.
( btw less then 20% of boomers ever were union members unless forced to )
Do you have a source for the percentage of boomers (not) in unions?
He never provided a source of boomers not in unions.
When I asked to provide union membership data when doing "math" on Wikipedia he responded with this:
I responded to his comment with actual sources here (US data by the way):
there is a list of unions on wikipedia, and it shows when each one started and how many members it has.. not hard to look up at all...
Show your math. Otherwise doing self assigned math on wikipedia numbers doesn't cut it. Show us the math and numbers and why those math and numbers.
Three important points here.
-
Union membership never surpassed 40% but the residual effects may still effect culture and policy after peak membership.
-
Is it 20% of population or workers?
-
Women entered the workplace during this time may skew results/percentages.
What's undeniably true is that union membership increases as one gets closer to the depression era (both before and after) and that income share of the owners of companies and high earners is inversely correlated to union membership.
But yeah the union forcing unproductive/unnecessary work is wrong.
https://www.historycentral.com/sixty/Economics/Laborunion.html
in 1960, 28.4% in 1965 and 27.3% in 1970. Union participation has continued to fall since then.
so how did so many boomers get everything they wanted when less then 30% were union members? and yes 1965 is the start of the heyday of boomers. most were 20 years old and they all had houses by 1970
you know the 70's the decade of high interest rates and high inflation. but they could still manage to buy a house and not be part of a union.
and yes most unions force a unnecessary work force for a job. just look at road construction. 5 guys to hold shovels and one to dig.
Thank you for giving the History Central article. I see the data you used to make your conclusion.
I will show you what data I used. I present to you a US Department of the Treasury article (Figure 1):
https://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/labor-unions-and-the-us-economy
And a US Congress Report (Figure 1):
https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R47596#_Ref136534186
The data in the History Central article is represented in the graph and table in the US Treasury article and the US Congress Report. Where else would they get it?
For home ownership rates, that data can be found here:
US Department of Housing and Urban Development:
https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr-edge-housingat250-article-071025.html
US Census:
The greatest increase in home ownership rates happened during the rise, at the peak, and just after peak union membership.
I am not defending the view that unions don't force unnecessary jobs, they do.
But the viewpoint that union power is unnecessary to a good life for a majority of people is factually incorrect.
Unions power did increase the power of workers and gave the generations that built that movement (the Greatest and Silent generations) and the subsequent generation (the Baby Boomer generations) benefits such as the modern welfare state and larger share of the income of productivity that bought homes and feuled consumerism.
Baby Boomers had a preceding generation that had 33% union membership rates and the 1% taking a smaller share of income (10%). Gen Z does not (currently unionization is at about 9%). History is important, history does not start anew when you are born so saying Baby Boomers had below 30% while ignoring the history just prior to it is not honest.
The question your asking is why is it that Gen Z/Mellenials don't have homes but boomers do? Which is good.
But, your other question should be why did a higher percentage of the Greatest and Silent generation have home ownership as opposed to the Missionary generation?
Homes were simpler to build back then, you could built it your self in the middle of nowhere.
I will change my view if you can show a situation where industrialization occurred but without increased unionization rates nor worker/consumer friendly government policy leading to higher home ownership rates. Any country would do.
If you can do that then you would have shown that neither union membership nor worker/consumer friendly government policy are necessary for large home ownership rates.
I have provided primary sources with long historical views. I hope you keep to that same standard as opposed to secondary sources with short historical views.
according to your graph when union membership rates were at their highest was 1957 @ 33% and would would have made the oldest baby boomer 11 years old.. interest rates were %3.11 and inflation about 3%
pretty much exactly like today.. so no unions did not make it better to buy a house.
I will address some of your points at the beginning and then go to an explanation at the end.
according to your graph
First. Not my graph. The actual data. And to clarify, data from the US, though similar effects occurred in Canada.
union membership rates were at their highest was 1957 @ 33% and would would have made the oldest baby boomer 11 years old
First not only are baby boomers homeowners, but so were the greatest and silent generations, see again the US Census data.
Even if the oldest baby boomer was 11 years old (1957 - 11 = 1946 (9 months after VE day) remember the baby boomers got their name from the large increase in births after WWII). Who were making the baby boomers? A "mommy" and "daddy" from the Greatest generation, when "they shared a 'special' hug". And guess what? "mommy" and "daddy" from the Greatest generation also owned their own home. High unionization and the G.I. bill. Unions and Government working together, oh la la. Maybe if the Unions and Government share that "special hug" again another middle class will pop out. This is highly rhetorical, of course.
interest rates were %3.11 and inflation about 3%
Interesting point. Union membership was 33% at that time and 9% today but the interest rates and inflation is similar.
Furthermore, in Figure 1 of the Department of the Treasury article (link: https://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/labor-unions-and-the-us-economy):
Percent of income going to the top 1% was about 13% in 1957. From roughly 1972 to 1982 the percent of income the top 1% had is below 11%. Currently the top 1% receive 19% of income. This means when the top 1% of income earners received 1 out of every 9 dollars the oldest baby boomers were between 26 to 36 years old (1972-1946 = 26 to 1982-1946 = 36) these are prime "buy your first house" years. But today the top 1% get about 1 out every 5 dollars. In other words, Baby boomers got 8 out of 9 dollars (89%) while Gen Z get 4 out every 5 (80%) also worth mentioning that out of the bottom 99% getting 80%, the bottom 60% now get less than 20% of income.
The reason why "correlation is not causation" is a thing is because you need a causal mechanism.
You are correct that unionization by itself does not cause wealth nor home ownership. After all union membership is merely an expression of Freedom of Association. But the point of association is its effects. Freedom of Expression is hollow if the effect of petitioning the Government for a redress of grievances, circulate ideas, affect social opinion were not present.
Likewise you can clearly see in Figure 1 of the US Department of the Treasury article shows the inverse affect on the income of the top 1% lags (follows) union membership. Or in a causal way, union density leads (affects), inversely, the income of the top 1%.
Why does this matter?
Because money is not a real resource, it is a relative resource. It is the method by which resources and labour are distributed.
You cannot do anything with money (even Bitcoin) by itself, it is by exchanging it with something else, you can then use that something else to do something. And therefore whoever controls that money can get the something else so that they can get the thing they want done.
So with less money in the top 1%, means less resource attention goes to the top 1% meaning more resources and attention go to the rest of the population.
Hence, it is union membership (freedom of association) -> changes distribution of money (affect of stated freedom) -> exchange money for resource/labour/attention (physical manifestation of the distribution) -> people who are union members or benefit from union density use the resources (materials/labour) to make a house (realization of control and why one owns a house)
Therefore it is the distribution of resources that needs to be looked at. The houses are present and people are living inside of them, why then are these houses not owned by the young population? So they rent or stay at home?
The distribution of resources is downstream from the distribution of money. The distribution of money is affected by power dynamics. Unionization uses the Freedom of Association to affect power dynamics (that is the stated effect of this freedom). In like fashion Freedom of Expression (should) affect Government policy (that is the stated desired effect).
Thus union density is a contributing factor and a pathway to increasing the resource share ownership of workers.
There are other ways, and maybe new ways need to be found with new material conditions made by automation and AI. However, it is up to you to showcase how the distribution of resources can be made more equally (or equitably depending on style) through another mechanism where social relations between people and resources and the power dynamics that occur in a predictable way can be made.
If you care about people not working and getting a pay cheque. Why are you not mad about rent seeking (economic rent and land rents), usury, dividends, etc.? Are you mad that people get something for nothing? Are you mad the Gen Z, in your eyes, don't work hard and want to get something? If the last two are true, do you attack generational wealth? Of legal monopoly on land, on machines, or future AI?
This bill is just the start, it by no means is the end. There are deeper problems.
Again I have given you the parameters to change my opinion. I urge you to be multi-variate in your historical analysis and showcase how material reality materializes as opposed to one line cliches.
You can't just say "boomer work hard" and "gen z does not" because when jobs were shipped over seas, a lot of foreign workers worked really hard and didn't get what the boomers did. They got what the Missionary generation got, bad conditions and low pay. Now they formed unions, went on strike and recently got a pay increase with which they will improve their lives. Example that happened 10 months ago in Bangladesh with textile (clothing/garments) workers (link to AP article: https://apnews.com/article/bangladesh-garment-workers-wage-increase-5d55f9ba52ef2a156069e86dad665662). Thus the relation of freedom of association (union) -> power (strike/bargain) -> more money (relative resource) -> more goods (actual resource). You will now see that this current generation of garment workers will have more than the previous one. Thus Gen Z Bangladesh textile workers will own houses or better houses than their previous generation. Thus it is not "Gen Z" but a fact of material forces, of causes and effects, of power, the abstract and its realization.
You then have to provide a framework that explains the path of development through industrialization. Looking superficially does you, and everyone else, no good.
Again, you can state your states and explanation and falsification like I have or choose to not declare that you are mad about certain anecdotes of unions, which I do not deny.
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I encourage you to put this chain through Chat GPT and ask it to give you real resources and go back and forth on it.
I will not be continuing this conversation.
Since it your close to it any way, a bid you a dieu.
Just your first paragraph shows why you cannot think. You made assertions without evidence nor data, nor causal reasoning.
You cannot have wasted disposal income if you do not have income.
Again, money is a relative resource not an absolute resource.
Even showing that waste of disposable income as a percentage of one's income going up does not refute my point.
You have to show that wasted disposable income by the bottom is growng as a percentage of the economy, not their own income.
If wasteful spending is the same percentage of GDP but income of the bottom goes down, they cannot save. There, right there, is the answer to your first paragraph.
What about the generation that got hooked on cigarettes (lower now than before), drugs (counter culture) and travelled domestically and internationally?
You haven't shown wasted spending was less as a percentage for Baby boomers. You have not provided that data, you are still anecdotal.
You also did not show union dues rise as a percentage of GDP or wages over the years.
If you want these laws repealed, then you have to provide an alternative means of wealth/incom equality.
You also have to show that wasted income of the bottom deciles increases as a percentage of GDP. Again statistics, not anecdotes.
I am not blindly defending unions, you on the other hand are blindly defending reducing in my wages directly, by not tacking inequality, and indirectly, by discouraging union density.
If you want to feel superior and yell at clouds you can do that, it is a tale as old as time.
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First: The presentation of data and framework and the changing of one's options are two different events that are not causally linked.
Now to rebut:
I do not pretend to defend all union action. I only protect them insofar as that union action redistributes money, a relative resource.
You have not shown unions improve the economy by lowering interest or inflation.
Only BoC can change interest rates, and corporation changes the price of goods. So by your own definition, if improving the economy can only improved by lowering interest rates or inflation, unions cannot do it.
However, increased labour costs can be eating by corporations profit margin (if available) instead of passed to the consumer.
Unions increase affordability, a word you have not stated once in your reply. Unions increase labour costs, but they increase purchasing power faster than increasing costs, as such affordability (relative resource) increases.
You have not shown inequality is the cause of low wages.
It is by definition. Inequality is the distribution of income between owners and workers. When a sale occurs, part of the value goes to owners, part to labour; the larger the ownerβs share, the lower the relative wage. Money being a relative resource, high inequality and low wages are simply two sides of the same coin.
The last statement I made is ambiguous.
Statement:
But yeah the union forcing unproductive/unnecessary work is wrong.
I was trying to say that it is wrong for unions to force unproductive/unnecessary work. Not that the statement "union[s] forcing unproductive/unnecessary work" is itself wrong.
when you give all the power to the unions by making it illegal to hire "scab" workers to replace them, you have to have a way to keep the country running when the unions become corrupt with power. ( like the canada post union). real "free collective bargaining" means other people can take your job for less money if they want.
Keep licking employer boot. I'm sure they will reward your loyalty. Maybe one day you'll get to hold the whip too
Unions have pretty limited purview, so I'm not sure I could ever describe them as "corrupt with power". At worst they become stuck in the old way of doing things, which this seems like an example of.
have you never seen a union endorse a political party ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_trade_unions_in_Canada
that is more people then canada has indigenous people
and you think they have no power????
In practice, very little. People who are in unions tend to be a lot of other things first. Historically unions have endorsed the NDP, but the NDP never got close to actual federal power.
They can stop work. That's close to the only thing they can do, and they usually don't want to.
they also abandoned the ndp en-mass when they thought their vote mattered and voted liberal, now they are crying that the liberals are forcing them back to work.. ( the stewardesses were right and SHOULD have told them to fu** themselves ). the canada post union ( and let be honest they are a union that only exists for a government job that already has fantastic benefits) claims that everyday mail delivery is essential to canada, but still tried to shut mail down over christmas, the most important time of the year for mail.
by their own actions, they prove that mail is not essential as it is not as important as their money/ benefits package.
that was a LOT of power and they seriously damaged the canadian economy right before things went from bad to even worse.
personally i think canada post should be broken up by province and made a provincial crown corp .
no canadian organization should have the power to damage canada that only could compare to a war or a foreign nations actions.
by their own actions, they prove that mail is not essential as it is not as important as their money/ benefits package.
that was a LOT of power and they seriously damaged the canadian economy right before things went from bad to even worse.
Keep going, you are almost there.
Before calling Canada Post's union corrupt, have you ever looked at what their demands are? Because pretty much everything they're asking for is super reasonable, and Canada Post refuses to budge because they know that they're considered an essential service and the government will eventually step in to force a return to work. They've gotten no concessions in last year's strike or since then.
Never mind the fact that Canada Post is a service by definition and shouldn't be driven by profits.
yes i see that they demand zero job losses even though the company has lost over 1 billion dollars in the last year. i see that they demanded ZERO changes to services by law since 2014 ( or there abouts) canada post is NOT a service. and it is no longer essential. there is no human right to mail at your door EVERY DAY ( even if it is only a flyer). that day has passed. about 30 years ago. how about people who want mail to their door pay the full cost? you would not stand for that for a minute. anything that requires someone elses forced labor is not a human right.
"things that are human right" are not the only services the government should provide
no. you do not get to demand luxury items from the government for free.
mail to your door everyday is not something you need to survive.
mail to your door every day is only a luxury that only has existed in the last 40 years
and now you demand it.
it should have been ended in 2005 but the union refused to see how the world was going and kept demanding JOBS FOR LIFE.
IF THE UNION HAD GONE TO 1 day a week delivery in 2010 canada post could go forever. right now it is costing every person child or adult $50 a year to operate and that is only going to go up.
( do the math 40 million canadians over 2 billion of loses)
People should have an option to get official government notices, and other important notices from companies through a service that is not owned by capitalism. Sounds like it isn't for free if everyone is paying for it lol
they do. ever heard of the internet? just sign up and all government info is accessed for free. companies are begging you to sign up and save them $1 postage.
Did you not read my comment?
you mean? "People should have an option to get official government notices, and other important notices from companies through a service that is not owned by capitalism. Sounds like it isnβt for free if everyone is paying for it lol"
how do you think democracy works? or here is a better one HOW DO YOU THINK CANADA works? you take money from capitalists and spend it on what people vote for....
every service exists thanks to capitalists in canada. even the government CHARGES YOU AND MAKES A PROFIT off of documents and fees. that is CAPITALISM.
let me guess you dont have a job or have never looked at your pay stub....
Don't you love it when people just say stuff, like completely made up stuff that is the opposite of how things work in reality
either you dont know the history or dont care. thing dont work magically behind your back. anything that requires someone elses forced labor is not a human right. forcing me to pay extra taxes so you have mail to your door becasue you are too lazy to walk for it is laughable.
So are you one of those people that want no taxes or government? Like, sure, mail delivery isn't a human right, but neither are things we all agree someone should care for, like a transportation network of any kind.
taxed that are for worthwhile projects make sense. the transcanada highway is one good example. however building a opera house for the elite is not. and neither is day to day delivery of mail when the vast majority of people only get a letter 4 times a month. most bills are online, and NO ONE sends hand written letters anymore for personal reasons. its a waste of taxes to keep jobs for people who demand they have jobs for life.
Okay, it's just that the argument you wrote out there has implications far beyond the mail.
Besides, it would be simple enough to just mandate that 'last-mile' delivery is the exclusive right of Canada Post, which would have the effect of:
- not letting companies pick and choose the profitable routes while handing off deliveries that are money-losing to CanPost;
- guaranteeing good wages, benefits, and working conditions for all delivery workers.
I'm not sure I'd call full nationalisation of an industry "simple", especially when it steps on American toes that much. But I guess yes, it is an option.
Sure, maybe not 'simple', but it wouldn't be nationalising the entire shipping industry either - just the final leg of delivery
Nice whataboutism......
Says nothing about what's actually tabled here.....
https://achkarlaw.com/insights/federal/bill-c58-anti-scab-law/
you have no right to replace workers, no right to reduce services. what company can operate like that..
then add JOBS FOR LIFE... who has a job for life??? right canada post union members. not any more... which is how it should be. https://www.ipolitics.ca/2025/10/03/canada-post-removes-life-time-employment-guarantees-store-closure-moratoriums-in-new-offers-to-workers/
First off, Canada Post is a service not a busisnes. Do we expect direct profits from the trans Canada highway?
Also, bill C58 still isn't the topic at hand.
canada post is not a service. you do not require mail EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK TO YOUR DOOR.
and yes when unions push bill c 58 to protect their jobs, they cannot also demand that they can services levels also.
you cannot say i have a job for life becasue i decide how often you need me.
I think someone's jealous.
you do not require mail EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK
Counter point: mail is fun.