Government Worker Unions: A Review Article

Abstract

ONE OF THE BIGGEST BUMPS on that famous "level playing field" that free traders insist on establishing between the United States and Canada is labelled "trade unionism." At roughly 36 per cent of the organizable work force, the organized share of the Canadian workforce is now triple the American rate. How did the bump appear? Will it last? How could it be flattened? Will it be? Until World War n, unionization rates in Canada consistently lagged behind those in the United States. After World War n, unprecedented prosperity and a belated legislative catch-up encouraged Canadian union growth until the mid 1950s. Then, in both countries, union strength began to fall. While legislative and judicial hostility played a role, especially in the United States, the biggest factor was a seeming inability to interest office workers, women and technicians in the robustly masculine values of the blue-collar unionism. It was easier to raid than to organize. In both countries the phenomenon encouraged the merger of central labour bodies-the AFL-CIO in 19SS and the TLC-CCL in 19S6, forming the Canadian Labour Congress. In turn, this led to a renewed commitment to political action-electing Jack Kennedy and the Democrats in 1960 and creating the New Democratic Party at Ottawa in 1961 out of the old CCF. From the early 1960s, the unionization curves diverge. While American unions have withered in relative and finally in absolute terms since the 1950s, union strength in Canada leaped upward in the 1960s and early 1970s, and the growth