| It’s been over a year since the widely acclaimed documentary The Corporation was released, and one of the big minds behind the project says the current crackdown on organized labour shows the problem of psychopathic and unethical corporate behaviour hasn’t declined.
"In some ways it’s worse, simply because the tendencies that we note in the film – namely, the retreat of government from any kind of substantial role in trying to hold corporations accountable for their actions – have continued," says Joel Bakan, who wrote the book the documentary is based on and was an associate producer and writer for the film.
Bakan, a law professor at the University of British Columbia, says one doesn’t have to look very far to see examples of corporate misbehaviour. He points out that the crackdown on organized labour is not only happening in the private sector, but spilling into the public realm as well. The Telus labour dispute dragged on for more than three months, employees of the country’s national broadcaster were locked out for more than a month, and when I spoke with Bakan, the B.C. Teachers’ Federation was in the midst of its dispute with the B.C. government, with both sides refusing to budge.
"In British Columbia, we have a government that is using whatever measures it can – including ones that are breaches of international treaties – to push labour down and break unions," Bakan says. "So all these tendencies are definitely still in place, and there’s still a need for us as citizens to think about how to address them."
Two of the largest labour disputes in Canada in recent months have not involved private corporations, but a government itself (in B.C.) and the CBC, a publicly funded corporation. Bakan says that governments are following the trend of the corporate world in "riding roughshod" over the rights of working people and privatizing public services.
The CBC, he says, "wanted to essentially privatize aspects of its operations" by aiming for more contract work instead of full-time employment, and Bakan says there’s good reason to be alarmed by the privatizing of the public sphere.
Meanwhile, there’s no shortage of conflicts between private corporations and workers. Here in Alberta, the Lakeside Packers dispute in Brooks has been violent and messy. The Telus dispute has been tense as well, with the telecommunications giant flexing its muscle by repeatedly disregarding orders from the Canada Industrial Relations Board to bargain in good faith.
"I think Telus is a company that, like the British Columbia government, tries to draw lines in the sand in terms of its negotiations with unions, and doesn’t fully respect the collective bargaining process," says Bakan. "And it’s sad to see this, because we are living in a time over the last decade or so where we can no longer take for granted that employers will respect collective bargaining."
While the future of organized labour looks bleak at times, Bakan says that the relentless anti-union stance of many corporations could backfire and stir up support for workers.
"Most members of the public have to work for a living," says Bakan. "They may not all be members of unions, but they certainly benefit from what unions do in the sectors where they represent workers. And I think when most people see employers acting as bullies, they understand and tend to empathize more and sympathize more with the workers, with the unions.
"In some ways, I think what governments and employers are doing is helping mobilize people and helping them understand that they need to do something. That might be the silver lining in the cloud." |
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