The Hub recently initiated a very interesting conversation on whether conservatives should support unions (or not). As a former president of the Quebec Employers Council, the lobby for large employers in Quebec, I have a perspective on the matter which, hopefully, will prove useful.
On a purely philosophical level, no decent person can be against unions per se, in the sense that they are (or should be, conceptually speaking) a practical incarnation of the right of free association. One problem, though, is that this right of free association often becomes, in practice, an obligation to associate, which is often implemented through a host of coercive measures. More on that later.
First of all, one must distinguish between private sector unions and unions that represent employees who work for various levels of government. Aside from the fact that the union leaders of the latter type tend to be more ideologically oriented (in favour of more government intervention in society and more government spending), there is also a tangible and more important difference between the two that has to do with economics and competition.
The employees who work for private firms are subject to the competition generated by rival firms, and therefore see their economic interests as intimately tied to those of their employers. This alignment creates a different, and in my opinion, healthier dynamic. Said differently, if any given private sector union pushes for excessively lavish working conditions for its members (excessiveness not in absolute terms, but rather in relative terms—i.e., what can the private company in question actually afford while remaining competitive), the employer can go bankrupt or move its activities somewhere else.
In contrast, public sector unions and the employees they represent are typically not aligned in this way, in the sense that the municipal, provincial, or federal government they work for will rarely actually go bankrupt, and will most certainly not “move its production elsewhere.” Governments in Canada benefit, for better or for worse, from a borrowing power that allows them to “kick the can down the road” in terms of fiscal accountability.
Another key distinguishing characteristic is that governments, unlike private companies, do not have shareholders or owners with a direct financial stake in the outcome of the negotiation of labour conditions. Sure, there are elected officials and bureaucrats who will often represent the government at the negotiating table as best they can, but again, this is simply different (and fundamentally so) from when someone has a direct financial stake in the matter.
