No More Going Postal
It's disrespectful to call these bureaucratic fiefdoms and the petty potentates who lead them Unions. Bureaucratic mafia, grifters, political manipulators, shakedown artists... not unions.
Millions of critical documents held up.
Including over 85,000 passports.
And untold Christmas correspondence and gifts that connect families and connect Canada to the world.
Food, supplies, and Christmas itself being denied to people in the North.
Hundreds of thousands of families depending on cheques that are not coming at this most vulnerable time of year.
And across the country, local small businesses, built by families over generations and on which families built Canada, are suffering through no fault of their own.
Take a minute and listen to this story from Vessey's Seed company. A nearly 100-year-old Maritime company that has served us all so well in good times and hard times too, sowing millions of our gardens from Victory to Kitchen, to Flower, to Commercial.
We owe them better than this.
And get informed. Build your own opinion. You can read here the position of the Postal Workers this week. It fairly represents the themes, attitudes, and workings of the new government public service political organizations.
“Although walking may seem like a harmless task”, Schatz said “you are always on the lookout for hazards while delivering mail.”
“You’re looking out for dogs, tripping hazards, branches that might be in the way and obstacles that people have left behind, like scooters in the middle of the walkway,” he said.
“Every single house or yard, you’re thinking of dogs, tripping, slipping, potholes. And then you get to the door that there are issues like the railings or stairs that might be rotting out.”
Public Sector Unions: A New Power Disguised As An Old Ally.
The story of traditional unionism is a story worth celebrating every day. It is a cornerstone of modern democracy: the small, united voices of labor standing tall against the towering shadows of industrial titans. In the darkened mines, clattering factories, and unyielding fields of the industrial age, unions were born from necessity. Workers faced exploitation so stark it could be measured in the spilled blood of strikes, the broken bodies of overwork, and the near-total absence of recourse. What unions achieved—weekends, safer workplaces, fair wages—is nothing short of heroic. We owe the workers who fought to find the balance with the machinery of the industrial age a lot. They built our modern world.
But institutions have a time and a place, and can become something else over time: An anachronism, or even the very thing they were intended to fight against.
With the post-industrial world came seismic changes. The factories and mines gave way to office towers and service sectors. Many unions evolved into professional associations, managing standards, certifications, and apprenticeships. In this quieter, more humane economy, the need for unions in their original form receded. Membership declined. But a curious thing happened: a new kind of union emerged to fill the void.
The Rise of Public Sector Unions
Public sector unions in Canada emerged in the mid-20th century, following the expansion of the welfare state and the increasing role of government in providing public services. Initially, public employees were barred from unionizing, as their work was considered a duty to the state. However, the 1960s and 1970s saw landmark changes with collective bargaining rights extended to government workers, reflecting broader labor movement gains. In the 1980s, public sector unions grew rapidly and mostly unchecked, particularly as industrial union membership declined due to the shift from manufacturing to a service-based economy. Today, public sector unions represent about 75% of Canada’s unionized workforce, wielding considerable influence in politics and public policy, particularly as their membership often enjoys inside access, higher job security, and benefits compared to private-sector counterparts and regular citizens who remain outside the golden circle of government jobs.
This unexamined change in Canadian governance and society now requires important review and debates about their role in shaping government priorities and their impact on taxpayers.
Public sector unions wear the rhetorical garb of their industrial forebears, but their DNA is fundamentally different. Unlike the original unions, which sought to curb the abuses of unbridled capitalism, public sector unions do not face robber barons. Their "employer" is the taxpayer—a collective entity that includes every worker and citizen in the nation.
There are no corporate profits to divide, no CEOs living in gilded mansions while workers live in squalor. The funding for public sector jobs comes from taxes, collected under the premise that they will be spent to serve the public good. Here lies the fundamental tension: public sector unions bargain not for a share of excess profits but for a larger slice of a finite public budget, often at odds with the interests of taxpayers.
Co-Opting the Language of Rights
Public sector unions have masterfully co-opted the moral language of traditional unionism. They speak of workers' rights and dignity while sidestepping the fact that their victories do not come at the expense of greedy industrialists but at the cost of strained public budgets. Wage increases for public employees mean higher taxes for private-sector workers or cuts to public services. The adversarial relationship that defined traditional unionism—worker versus owner—has become a tug-of-war between public sector workers and the broader citizenry.
This dynamic creates perverse incentives. Public sector unions thrive on the inefficiencies and bloat of government. A streamlined, efficient bureaucracy is anathema to their growth; their power comes from creating a layer of unaccountable governance within the public system. They have an open contempt for any frontline work and will belligerently resist it at any cost to the economy, the taxpayer, or the public good. They are incentivized to resist reform, protect inefficiency, and maintain the status quo, even when it is detrimental to the public good.
A Conflict of Interest
The relationship between public sector unions and elected governments exacerbates this problem. Public sector unions often play a significant role in political campaigns, funding and mobilizing for candidates who will favor their interests. Once elected, these politicians sit across the bargaining table from the unions that helped elect them—a glaring conflict of interest.
This cycle creates a dangerous feedback loop. Unions secure generous contracts and protections for their members, who then enjoy benefits far beyond those of the average taxpayer. This disparity fuels resentment and undermines public trust in government. Worse, it shifts resources away from critical public investments—healthcare, education, infrastructure—and into salaries, pensions, and benefits that grow unchecked.
A Festival of What Unions Had Intended to Change
If left unchecked, public sector ‘unions’ risk becoming the new robber barons of our time—not through malice but through inertia, inefficiency, and self-interest. They represent a profound contradiction: the championing of workers’ rights at the expense of those same workers who fund the system through their taxes.
The solution lies in reclaiming the spirit of governance as service. Public employees should take pride in their role as stewards of the common good, not as competitors for a larger share of finite resources. At some point that means believing in and putting faith in the leaders we’ve chosen for them - our elected citizen representatives and the thousands we pay in all the departments at every level of government to professionally, not adversarially, manage the complimentary interests of the public service and the citizens they serve.
John Ralston Saul wrote that the strength of democracy lies in its ability to confront its contradictions. Here is one such contradiction, crying out for confrontation. By addressing it head-on, we can move closer to a government that is accountable, efficient, and truly serves the people and its public service. It starts with trust and belief that we are building on a strong social foundation. Only then can we honor the legacy of those first unions who fought, not for power, but to build that foundation for us.
A related problem, one we certainly see in universities is "producer capture" whereby unions seek to conrol the institutions that employ them. Teachers unions have also mostly achieved producer capture, requiring every public school teacher to become a member of the union.
While schools and universities have limited competition from private institutions, as does the postal service, most government agencies and crown corporations hold a monopoly position. Industrial unionism could win rights for its workers because a strike could hobble a company in a competitive environment. At the same time, unions had to be careful that a strike did not prove fatal to the company that paid them. Government unions have no such worry.
very timely & well argued, JW. I don't think many people are aware of the contradictions you bring forward. It seems to me the cancerous growth of government is the foundation of this and many other similar problems. The economic weight/cost of having become the largest employer and the regulator of EVERYTHING to its own bureaucratically defined standards, has become as problematic as the voraciousness of the capitalist system. Serving the public-what a quaint idea!