Having never been an essential worker, or for that matter, essential at much of anything.
I have been thinking more seriously about who these essential workers are and who can ‘order’ them back to work. This recent back-to-work suggestion by the government to the rail workers and their saying ‘nay’ to binding arbitration, reminded me of the government ordering the WestJet mechanics back to work and thumbing their nose at the Minister for a couple of days.
Now the CN workers have done the same thing. The workers at CPKC also thumbed their noses at the government. The thing that caught my attention was that so many of these rail workers are citizens of another country – the United States – that it may have been presumptuous of the Minister to think that he could order them back to work. (The unions have since returned to work but are challenging the order).
See: CN, CPKC to resume railway service Monday as work stoppage ends
In fact, simply because a railroad company has a ‘head’ office in say, Calgary, does not mean its shareholders live there – or in Canada. I suppose the company is an entity and subject to the laws and rules of its domicile, but the international ramifications are becoming more obvious with every labour relations dispute.
Maersk, the container company, stopped all shipments to Canadian ports because their containers would be sitting dockside waiting for railways to delivery them. The company diverted their containers to American ports, thinking no doubt that American trains would deliver their metal boxes. Alas, that may not work as the rail lines are all interconnected and CN and CPKC run a great number of those branches in the US. What happens to our reputation as an International trading partner if our whole system can crumble by a striking sector?
The ‘Government’ decides who are essential workers and most of their classifications seem obvious: police, firefighters, ambulance personnel, doctors, nurses, communications workers, utility employees, farmers are on some provincial lists, care providers, and pretty much all important persons. Except rail workers, WestJet mechanics, and me. We will see how important Air Canada pilots are in September.
Recently Dougie had his fingers slapped because he claimed the TTC workers were essential and could not therefore strike. The high court said nay to Doug, apparently believing people could find their way to work by other means in Toronto the Good. My gosh, they could even walk to work or school.
As a citizen, I appreciate how essential workers impact my daily life, and as I age out, they are becoming more essential as I cannot fare for myself as much as I used to. However, I do see the obverse of that coin: the loss of truing bargaining power by the unions can have effects on working conditions besides monetary rewards. Oh, there is still ‘bargaining’ but the unions lose their clout when they cannot threaten to strike, withholding their services.
Some of those issues were at the core of the recent work stoppage – issues that the union says affect the safety of the lumbering trains running through our communities, and the moving of workers to sites away from their home base without their consent. The number of hours worked between rests is a concern as the people in control of thousands of tonnes of rolling stock cannot afford to miss a signal or a ‘slow’ caution order.
Now, it is true that essential workers can be rewarded financially for working under conditions essential to our well-being. Take, for instance, the nurses in Ontario who worked during the Covid pandemic: they were promised an additional $4 per hour. That they had to fight our provincial government to get that because Dougie is spending all our money on less essential things, is only a footnote.
In the midst of this bruhaha, a Liberal backbencher raised the possibility of making the rail workers essential. That rankled the NDP who have traditionally supported the union/labour movement and were in bed with the rest of the Liberals. This was a carefully floated trial balloon to test the Liberal/NDP agreement that supports the minority government. The Conservatives have been suspiciously silent.
In this ever more entangled world, it is becoming very evident that we are more and more reliant on each other or on strangers who are essential to our existence, both economically and physically. True, we can try to go off-grid and support ourselves but even that life relies on technology that although self-supporting initially requires some essential parts and pieces and will eventually need replacement. Besides, living remotely is not all that wonderful at times. Granted, it is better than living out of a shopping cart.
And if we are all essential to the national economy, the national health, and well-being, who will it be that tells us to get back to work? So many of the deemed essential workers are employed by the various levels of government, that it is our political masters who determine our working conditions. But what of those who are employed by private sector companies, like the rail workers? Who tells both the company and its employees to get back to work? What happens to that private initiative to gain wealth and power, to find rewards in entrepreneurship, to invent, to build? What happens to our capitalist system?
Do you foresee a system where we are all essential workers, working at the call of the government? Wait – doesn’t that sound a little like what is happening in say, China? Just asking.
