Unions have been one of the groups most interested in how the Occupy camps are faring around the world. These unaffiliated protest camps were not a union idea and they certainly don’t preach a labour-influenced message.
But they do talk about something union leaders are often trying to get a public conversation going on: income inequality between regular working people and those at the top.
(I realize this will cue some of you to dump on well-paid union members who get cushy jobs with benefits and pensions that non-union schlubs don’t. Fill your boots. I happen to be rather grateful to unions for the work they’ve done in the past 100 years or so in getting five-day work weeks, minimum wages, and all kinds of other things that benefit the working population as a whole.)
The Occupy Vancouver camp has been a dilemma for them, as a result, as I write here. You have a union-supported party like Vision Vancouver now taking a much harder-line position. The camp itself has generated an enormous amount of negative reaction among the very 99 per cent it’s supposedly protesting on behalf of.
And all that has resulted in uncertainty about what line to take on it, as what seemed like the start of a general rising up — with the potential to provoke some real changes in the system — degenerating into a squabble over the right to camp out on public property.
3 responses so far ↓
1 From the west ... // Nov 12, 2011 at 12:59 pm
If large labour unions were serious about “income inequality between regular working people and those at the top” they could start by demanding that the people that manage their generous pensions (OMERS, Ontario Teachers, Caisse de depot, AIMCO, BCIMC) put pressure on the Boards of Directors of public companies to address the shameful over compensation of their CEOs. These unions are huge shareholders in the companies they complain about. Rather than addressing this inequality by ‘demanding’ more money for their members they should go after the CEOs pay directly. There isn’t a single Board of Directors in North America that is going to reduce CEO pay because a group of the “99%” is camping out in public parks, but start putting shareholder pressure on these companies from the top and you can be sure you’ll get some attention.
2 Wendy // Nov 14, 2011 at 7:26 am
While I completely agree with From the West that the Unions have more power as shareholders than in endorsing a handful of rabblerousers in tents, CEO pay may not be the best target.
The combination of skill and interest in running large corporations is hard to find. If union shareholders push down CEO compensation, they’ll end up with less skilled CEOs running companies that fund their pension holders, which isn’t really in their interest.
But compensation policy overall, corporate social responsibility and environmental sustainability are things unions can push for.
Actually, they already do, and their behind-the -scenes voice is highly influential, but I suspect there is room for more.
3 From the west ... // Nov 15, 2011 at 4:28 pm
@Wendy …. I hate to burst your bubble but studies have found no correlation between corporate performance (by any measurement) and CEO compensation, so your argument that companies will end up with “less skilled CEOs” if they don’t pay outrageous compensation just doesn’t hold water. The biggest problem with CEO compensation is the boot-strapping that takes place at the compensation committee level. All it takes is a couple of good CEOs to get raises then every other CEO says “look Joe and Bob are making $X, our company is the same (Size, type of company etc) therefore I should get paid the same”. So what you end up with is a race to the top.
It is exactly the same strategy Unions use to force the same settlements out of different companies. For example: If Ford is doing the best this year then they can afford to pay, go after them first then try and force GM and Chrysler to settle for the same amount. You can replace Vancouver, Richmond and Burnaby in the above example and the result is the same.
I for one would love to see a large number of shareholders finally say enough is enough to some of these CEOs. The optics are terrible with some of the pay packages and golden handshakes these jokers get. And I am referring to both private and crown corporations.