Mankind has always been plagued by myth and superstition.

There was a time when most people believed that the Earth
was flat, and the Moon made of green cheese. There was a
time when ‘‘witches’’ were burned at the stake, and

‘*doctors’’ used leeches as a cure for every ailment.

We like to think we live in more enlightened times today.
But myths still dominate the thinking of many people — and
nowhere more pervasively than in the world of labour
relations.

Most Canadians are labour illiterates. They accept as truth
numerous lies and distortions about unions that have no more

Union-won wage increases are the chief
cause of inflation, so controls on wage
increases will keep down the cost of living.

If this myth hasn’t been permanently punctured by our
experience with wage controls (1975-1978), it never
will be. During that period, average wage settlements
were reduced to less than one-third their pre-controls
level. If wages really are the chief factor in inflation, that
should have produced a sharp drop in prices. But it
didn’t. Prices kept skyrocketing, forcing most workers
to take cuts in their real income. The truth is that wage
increases do not cause price increases.

Wages go up as a response to rising prices. That has
been the finding of every objective, scientific study.
Most economists would agree with economic columnist
Dian Cohen’s statement: ““There has not been a shred of
evidence . . . that wages have added anything to the
Canadian rate of inflation.’’ Over the past 50 years,
total labour income, as a percentage
of the Gross National Product, has
fluctuated only a few percentage
points — proving that rising wages
and salaries have simply maintained
their usual share of a growing GNP.

Wages are continually sub-

I0 LABOUR MYTHS

factual basis than those superstitions of the past that they now
ridicule.

But a belief in labour *‘bogey-men’’ is no less ridiculous
than a belief in witches or demons. A belief that unions are
harmful to our economy is no less preposterous than a belief
that the Earth is flat.

The truly intelligent and open-minded citizen will make an
effort to find out the truth about unions. This brief
examination of the 10 most widely accepted labour myths
may serve as a learning tool in that re-education process:

Labour-management conflict can and
should be replaced by labour-management
co-operation.

As an ideal, this is quite acceptable. But unfortunately
we,live.in a society that is based on competition, not
co-operation: a society in which we are all supposed to
compete with one another for our respective shares of
the national income. That’s the underlying principle of
private enterprise.

No doubt the jungle, too, would be a much better
place if the animals would stop hunting and killing one
another. Given their nature, however, the suggestion
that the lion and lamb lie down together is not very
practical. Particularly not for the lamb.

The world of industry and employment is also a
jungle, a world in which the strong prosper and the
weak languish.

Many persons in both unions and companies
wish it were otherwise. But they are
trapped in the present system. They
know that it will take a complete
reversal of basic beliefs, and the

abandonment of our entire

ject to restraint through the
machinery of collective bar-
gaining, Compulsory concilia-
tion, and legal restrictions on {
the right to strike. Unlike other .
forms of income — profits, <
stock dividends, rents, profes-
sional fees — wage levels
must be set through negotiations with employers.
The only fair (and effective) form of wage control is
price control. If limits were enforced on price increases,
it would automatically lower workers’ needs and
expectations, and they would gladly settle for corres-

pondingly lower wage hikes.

economic philosophy, before a
change to labour-management
co-operation can take place.
Conflict is built into the present
system, and strikes are simply one
of its manifestations. As long as the relationship
between management and labour is based on their
respective power, the extent of that power will
occasionally be tested — if only because so many
employers refuse to take workers’ requests for better
pay and working conditions seriously unless they are
willing to strike for them.

Lumber Worker/April, 1980/5