As we all know, the organized labour movement was born out of deplorable working conditions that saw many workers die on the job, or contract severe illnesses that greatly decreased their quality of life, as well as unfair conditions that found people working 16-hour days sometimes seven days a week. The compensation would often be barely enough to support oneself let alone a family.
Nowadays people don’t have to fear for their lives at work, and have rights surrounding how many hours they can work each day or each week before they must take time off. Minimum ages were established so that children could spend their time in school rather than working to help support the family, thus ensuring that a solid education was available to all…not just the wealthy. To ensure that everyone would have the ability to support themselves, minimum wage levels were also set.
In 1982 the Trudeau government passed the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which included the Employment Standards Act. This act would dramatically change the landscape of the workplace for all. Together with the implementation of the Worker’s Compensation Act that was put into place in each province to ensure that injured workers would not be left without the ability to support themselves, making it unnecessary to sue the employer, all of the worker’s best interests were now accounted for.
Some may wonder why unions still exist.
Through the numerous employment and human rights Acts, the Federal and Provincial governments have taken the job of monitoring employer actions off the hands of the unions. Today the labour movement has evolved, and while unions are still concerned with the health and safety of the workers in their bargaining units, the main focus has now become getting their members top wages and benefits, among other perks.
The upside to union-negotiated wages and benefits is that they are standardized across the organization, widely publicized and secrecy-free, and reward employees for their loyalty to the organization. The downside is that it makes it very difficult for an employer to recognize an employee for doing an outstanding job, or penalizing an employee whose performance is so poor they are putting the organization’s reputation at risk.
This is why many organizations, including the Obama administration, continue to struggle with the decision to compensate its workforce for merely sticking it out, or for doing a good job. In light of the recent bailout initiatives the President would like to gain taxpayers’ confidence that he is putting their tax dollars to good use by compensating his administration fairly according to their performance on the job. However it is expected to receive significant backlash from federal unions.
Those of us who are in non-union jobs often feel as if we are taken advantage of by our employers, and not paid fairly. There are often significant wage differentials between employees with the same skill and tenure, and were based on the result of individual salary negotiations or budgets rather than the employee’s contribution to the organization.
Will we ever be able to have it both ways?
PHOTO: lazylikewally
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