Basic Income: What Do Public Sector Unions Think?

1. Basic Income: What Do Public Sector Unions Think? Dr. Sid Frankel & Dr. Jim Mulvale Faculty of Social Work University of Manitoba (Canada)

2. Labour Movement Terrain in Canada Unionization Rates in Canada • Overall 37.6% Men 42.1% Women 31.4% • Overall 28.8% Men 27.2% Women 30.5% Related to changes in labour market: • fewer jobs in industries and occupations with high unionisation rates (e.g. construction and manufacturing) • more jobs in sectors with lower rates (e.g. retail trade and professional services)

3. Labour Movement Terrain in Canada (cont’d) • Rates falling among men, young workers • From 1999 to 2014: • public sector unionisation rates grew slightly from 70.4% to 71.3% • private sector rates fell from 18.1% to 15.2% • Rates have fallen in all provinces • In 2014, Alberta had the lowest unionisation rate of 20.3%; Quebec and Newfoundland & Labrador, had the highest rates, at almost 36%

4. Labour Movement Terrain in Canada (cont’d) • Local, provincial, and national levels of organisation of both specific unions and labour central bodies • All public sector unions and most private sector unions are Canadian-based (as opposed to “international”) • Autonomy of organised labour in Quebec

5. Labour Movement Terrain in Canada (cont’d) • Ongoing trend of amalgamations, especially among private sector unions (e.g. Unifor) • Current split of Unifor (310k members) from CLC • Large public sector unions include: • CUPE – 650k members • NUPGE – 390k (including OPSEU and MGEU) • Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions – 200k • CUPW – 54k

6. Labour Movement Terrain in Canada (cont’d) • Strong tradition of social (vs. business) unionism in both private and public sector unions • History (especially from the 1920s to the 1940s) of tension and conflict between more radical (Communist) elements and more moderate (social democratic) elements • Formal alliance with NDP since 1961, although instances of strategic support for other parties (usually Liberals)

7. Cdn Labour Movement’s scepticism / opposition to the idea of guaranteed or basic income • Labour’s strong reaction against the proposal for UISPby the Macdonald Commission in the 1980s • BI proposal by Guy Caron (a union economist before he was a MP) in the 2016-17 federal NDP leadership race • Opposition of CUPE Ontario to the recent (and now cancelled) BI pilot in that province • A question – is there now more openness to the BI model for economic security, especially among a new generation of labour activists and leaders?

8. Frequently Cited Objections to BI from the Labour Movement • The neo-liberal Trojan Horseobjection • The erosion of existing programmes objection • The low wage subsidy objection • The lay-off of social service workers objection • The undermining collective bargaining objection

9. OBJECTIONS (Cont’d) • The objection that BI syphons pressure off government for job creation • The objection that basic income (negative income tax) is selective, divisive and stigmatizing • The political feasibility objection – an adequate basic income is unaffordable and an affordable basic income is inadequate • The marketization objection – basic income is a consumerist approach that supports the market rather than reform of the welfare state