These articles take it for granted that there is political advantage to be gained by any politician who chooses to fan the flames of resentment against public sector workers and their unions.
As I noted in my response to Dan Lett's column, Canadian public attitudes towards unions remain very positive. The pollster we work with, Viewpoints Research, regularly surveys western Canadians on their views towards unions and consistently finds 85% agreement with the statement that “employees should have the right to choose to join a union without any interference from the employer.” It finds that 2/3 of the general population agrees that “overall, unions are beneficial for working people.” In 2010, a major national poll, found that 60% of Canadians approve of labour unions while 67% of non-union members agreed that despite inconvenience, strikes are part of democracy. It is not clear at all how Lett can credibly assert that, “unions, public sector ones in particular, have become vilified institutions,” or that unions are “less and less popular.”
But the biggest fly in the ointment for those who think public sector unions are an easy mark for politicians is the reaction to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's attempt to remove the collective bargaining rights of public sector workers. To put it mildly, Walker's bold attempt to blame public sector workers for his state's problems has backfired. Right across America, not just in Wisconsin, the public has taken the workers' side in the Wisconsin dispute. The polls show it. Ongoing rallies against Walker's union-busting bill have been massive, including 12,000 people this past weekend in a rally that spanned 20 Madison city blocks:
The point isn't that workers and their unions are scoring a moral victory. The point is that picking on public sector workers is hurting the Republicans politically. Check out this morning's polls, which show a clear turn away from the union-busters. Public sector workers, the so-called easy targets, appear to be turning the political tide in the US, a tide that had been ebbing strongly to the right for more than a year.
If Mayor Katz or other Canadian politicians are considering the pundits' advice to scapegoat public sector workers and their unions, they might want to have a closer look at what's really going on in Wisconsin.
