Month: April 2023

On Strike Votes and Turnouts

Last week, more than 120,000 members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada/Alliance de la fonction publique du Canada (PSAC/AFPC) – the union that represents many of Canada’s federal employees – went on strike. The unresolved bargaining issues include wage rates and the amount of remote work (“work at home”) done by PSAC members.

A PSAC member filed a complaint with the Federal Public Sector Labour Relations and Employment Board asking for the strike vote to be declared invalid, because PSAC shortened the voting period after the announcement of the vote. In their decision, the three Board members hearing the complaint noted that while “the respondent made no discernible effort to announce its reduction of the voting period”, and expressed misgivings about other aspects of the changes to the voting process, such as limited attempts to reach members without email addresses, and limited capacity at the mandatory information meetings held online prior to the vote itself.

Nevertheless, the Board members concluded, the vote was more than 80% in favour of striking and “the Board is satisfied that in the current circumstances, the vote result would have been the same even without the irregularities.”

A considerable amount of the news coverage of this case has focused on the low turnout in the vote – only 35% of eligible PSAC members participated. The underlying tone to much of this coverage is that because of the low turnout, the vote is somehow not representative of the opinion of the entire PSAC membership. It seems that some journalists and commentators could benefit from a review of some basic information about strike votes and democratic processes. Here it is. (more…)

Count It Up

With the cost of living on the rise in many parts of the world, I’ve been thinking a lot about the unseen advantages – sometimes called social capital or cultural capital – that give some people or groups the ability to weather economic challenges better than others. These advantages aren’t necessarily explicit or visible advantages such as education or employment, although individuals with more social or cultural capital will likely have better access to those kinds of advantages. Social and cultural capital are more the implicit knowledge and skills that someone acquires from living in a specific part of society – and they may not even know that they benefit from having that capital.

Rather than me explaining this in more detail, instead I want to share a song that captures this idea perfectly in its lyrics, and challenges you to think about the advantages that you have that you may not even realize. Please have a listen to Field Music’s ‘Count It Up’.