Posted: Tuesday, 3 July 2012

CLC President Ken Georgetti published the following letter in the National Post on June 30, 2012 following its coverage of a proposal by Ontario Conservative leader Tim Hudak, which would make it more difficult for unions to organize workplaces.

[Your] editorial indicates that neither the National Post nor Tim Hudak understands the democratic processes that occur within unions on a daily basis. On anything - from voting on who leads their unions to voting on collective bargaining settlements - union members set the direction of their unions. We challenge any business to be as democratic and transparent in their operations and shareholder meetings as we are in ours. The Post and Mr. Hudak are simply perpetuating a myth that does not bear scrutiny. You also appear to fully accept his claim that so called right-to-work states in the U.S. have better rates of economic growth than others. It is a myth that unions undermine productivity and a country's economic performance. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the International Monetary Fund have found no such link. In fact, many successful, highly unionized economies, such as Germany, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries, have done much better in recent years than the U.S., where the level of private sector unionization is very low.

Ken Georgetti, president, Canadian Labour Congress