Goodbye Unions, Hello Inequality

There has been a trend of union berating that has been present for decades now. It is especially prevalent among conservatives, which is unsurprising, but in my experience also widely held among the mainstream. At the same time there is also a welcome concern about income inequality which has seen dramatic increases. The culprits of rising inequality are numerous and include everything from tax regimes that favour the wealthy, to the effects of increased trade liberalization. Paramount among these however, as well as the focus of this entry is unionization. It is not an accident that declining unionization happened concurrently with increasing inequality.

It may not be initially intuitive why unions contribute to greater equality. As a result of their ability to collectively bargain on behalf of their workers for higher wages, unions have had a strong contribution on maintaining a middle-class. The same middle-class whose gradual demise is lamented today. In fact, union’s representation is heavily concentrated among middle-class workers. This has positive spillover effects for entire sectors, even for non-unionized employees. When unions at one workplace secure higher wages and better working conditions, competing companies are pressured into matching this to ensure they do not loose workers and to discourage their own workers from unionizing. Critics of unions, foremost among them economist Milton Friedman retort that while resulting in higher wages, unions have the deleterious effect of fewer available jobs. It is also widely believed that much outsourcing can be attributed to unions which increase the cost of domestic labour, and make labour abroad for everything from call centres to computer programming more appealing.

There is no question that unions are not perfect. Economic doctrine establishes that there are trade-offs and Mr. Friedman might have had a legitimate claim that unionization has led to less jobs. Having full employment by sending workers to poor conditions might not be desirable either however. To use a brief example, many recent jobs have been created by retail goliath Wal-Mart. Wal-Marts in Ohio held food drives for their employees for thanksgiving because wages were too low for most employees to be able to afford holiday Turkeys for their families. Wal-Mart unsurprisingly has been a flash point for unionization with the company determined to ensure that workers do not unionize. I think many people would argue that these are not the types of jobs and working conditions that should be encouraged. Again, unions are often subject to bad management, ineffectively representing their workers, and are only representing their own interests. When large American unions support the Keystone XL pipeline they are not taking into account the environmental implications, they are simply interested in the jobs it could lead to for their employees. The flip side is that companies repeatedly suffer similar problems but no one advocates for the elimination of corporations. The fact that unions sometimes have problems does not circumscribe their important role in worker representation and helping in an economy-wide manner to greater equality.

While it is difficult to ascertain exactly how much of the upswing in economic inequality is the result of decreasing union presence, researchers at Harvard have tried to quantify this. They used data from the population survey from 1973-2007 in the US, during which time union membership collapsed from 34% to 8% of private sector employees. They conclude that a fifth to a third of growth in inequality during this timeframe was determined by the decline in organized labour. The trend to decreasing unionization has been slower in Canada but like our neighbours in the USA and UK the development has been ever-present. Perhaps one of the most striking visual representations of this trend and its economic effects are found in the following graph from the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank in the US.

The question is why this is happening? And while once again there are several factors, government policy is a significant reason. Instead of taking serious steps to tackle excessive levels of inequality which should include a healthy organized labour movement, policy has been routinely anti-union. Scott Walker the governor of Wisconsin might be the most famous anti-union activist. He is not alone however, so called “right to work” legislation is spreading in the US. The tenants behind right to work are enticing. Most workers do not particularly like having part of their salary taken away in the form of union dues. If workers have the option of opting out of their union as this legislation enshrines many will choose to do so. This law is pernicious because it undercuts the union’s bargaining position and effectively guts all unions in the states which have this law enforced. Canada is not immune from Ideological laws that hamper the middle-class by attacking unions. Russ Hiebert a little known conservative MP from White Rock has introduced bill C-377. This bill had the support of the Conservative caucus but is mercifully being held up and gutted in the Senate. This represents one of the few moments the Senate has been anything other than a wasteful repository for partisan faithful and actually served a purpose. This bill apparently aims to make unions transparent. This sounds great, but is terrible. It imposes extremely onerous requirements that apply to unions and no one else. These include a minimum of 24 different detailed statements, including reporting any transaction over $5,000. These extremely costly requirements would place more burden of “transparency” on unions than any other group in Canada including companies, non-profits, even government departments themselves face less requirements. The fact is this bill is not necessary, by law unions must make annual financial statements to their members and provide necessary financial disclosures publicly, as well as being democratically accountable to their members. Mr. Hiebert ostensibly states that the reason for this bill is because unions receive public funding. Shockingly we are still awaiting the announcement that oil companies and agri-business that receive millions in government subsidies will be under the same scrutiny.

Unions are increasingly under attack accelerating the decline of organized labour that has been taking place for years. Many still view unions as antiquated and archaic, if that is the case than apparently adequate economic equality and a thriving middle class are antiquated as well. 

The Olympics and Russian Crimes in Chechnya

Russia has been in the spotlight recently over a myriad of issues, many of which have been heightened due to the upcoming Olympics in Sochi. This is important, Russia has many human rights abuses to atone for under the present leadership. Russian President (for life) Vladimir Putin is under intense pressure and has released many political prisoners. These range from Greenpeace activists to a former Russian oligarch who fell out of favour with Mr. Putin. While many political prisoners have been released in the past weeks, too many still rest in Russia’s prison archipelago. The Olympics have also put pressure on laws contrary to homosexual rights, more explicitly legislation banning “homosexual propaganda”. While perhaps less directly related to the Olympics, Mr. Putin’s persistence in maintaining Syria as an ally in the face of horrific atrocities has been widely criticized. Finally, a subject that was broached on this blog is the situation in Ukraine. Russia is playing off Ukrainian reliance on trade and cheap gas to keep this nation within Moscow’s orbit, this has also been widely panned. Conspicuously absent from this list is the Chechen situation and the rampant human rights abuses there.

That is not to say that Chechens have been completely excluded from the news cycle. Rather infamously, the Boston Marathon bombing was the work of Chechens (though their ties to Chechnya were tenuous). Of late, the bombing in Volgograd appears to originate from the North Caucasus (the region that Chechnya is in). This has raised concerns of security for the Sochi Olympics, which is understandable since the games will be a prime target for terrorist acts. This story is not as one sided as it seems however, and there is a complete vacuum regarding the plight of Chechens. Terrorist acts are never tolerable and Chechens, especially Islamists have committed many atrocities. These include bombings in Moscow subways and even attacks on schools. These are often targeted by “black widows” the term for the predominantly female suicide bombers who commit these violent acts after they have lost their spouse (along with undoubtedly many other family members). Unfortunately atrocities are not one sided in this case, and Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union has been responsible for some hideous carnage.

As a brief digression, some background is important. Chechnya along with other former members of the Soviet Union declared their independence after the collapse of the USSR. This was not to last however, due to Chechnya’s slightly different status Russia saw it not as a former Soviet Socialist Republic, but as part of its territory. This resulted in a first Chechen war from 1994-1996. In the lead up to this war and immediately following it Chechnya had a democratically elected government that was quite moderate. In the period before the second Chechen war started however, the creeping tide of radical Islam started to take hold. This was largely felt in the presence of foreign Wahhabi troops. These Wahhabis support a puritanical version of Islam and receive much of their support from Saudi Arabia (basically like Al-Qaeda). This lead to many clashes between moderate Chechen groups and largely foreign Wahhabis in the inter-war period. The second war commenced in 1999 and effectively ended in 2009. Contrary to the first war which saw the shocking victory for Chechen rebels, this one saw Russian victory and the reassertion of Russian control in this territory.

That Russian control did not come without a price however. Credible reports, reported by Amnesty International detail indiscriminate shelling and bombing of towns. Perhaps more heinous, civilians and medical teams were specifically targeted by Russian troops. In addition, hundreds of civilians and Prisoners of War were extra-judicially executed. This led to untold numbers of mass graves, the current count is approximately 60 but it is assumed thousands more are buried. Russia has an official policy of not exhuming or searching for these graves, this helps expedite a process of war crimes denial. In order to find some recourse in the face of Russian orchestrated impunity Chechen victims appealed to the Council of Europe’s European Court of Human Rights. This court has ruled against Russia stating that it has violated many human rights laws. These horrors were responded to by often equally objectionable acts, particularly from the radical Islamic elements of the resistance. In my view, the brutality of the Russian invasion caused extremism to flourish and made the problem of radical Islam even rifer in Chechnya.  Mr. Putin was President during this period up until declaring victory in 2009. His policies have not improved during his present tenure.

Human rights activists in Chechnya were awarded the 2013 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders. This award is given by ten of the most influential human rights organizations including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. It was awarded to “Joint Mobile Group” who have given themselves the task of aiming to bring to justice those who perpetrate forced disappearances, extrajudicial executions and torture in Chechnya. This award is significant and well deserved. The state of Chechnya in the aftermath of the second war with Putin’s counterinsurgency campaign is marred by abduction, arbitrary detention and torture. Their bravery is clear, in 2009 several of the most prominent human rights defenders in Chechnya were abducted and executed, that fate could easily follow these brave crusaders. This is not to mention the persistent plight of ordinary Chechens under Russia.

International events with the prestige of the Olympics are critical in galvanizing international condemnation for abuses of all kinds. This has already begun with the release of political prisoners, the spotlight on Russia’s anti-gay law, and perhaps closer attention to Russian foreign policy. This has not happened with what is perhaps the most blatant of Russia’s human rights abuses. The Global community cannot in good conscience ignore Chechnya, these people should not be regarded as simply Muslim terrorists (though some are and those should be condemned) but as victims of horrific Russian policy. Hopefully the world will take note of this soon, the likelihood of that happening unfortunately seems slim.