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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32039 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022

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Overriding the Constitution to avoid negotiating with janitors

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has a little escape hatch that has gotten more attention in recent years. By now I suspect there are even a handful of Americans who have heard of the notwithstanding clause; a segment of the Charter that allows provincial/federal governments the ability to temporarily pass laws that violate certain Charter rights (essentially all the rights except those that pertain to the democratic process). The Canadian Charter is a very popular document (in my opinion, it's one of the best things about my country), and the notwithstanding clause gained a sort of mystical aura in Anglo Canada since 1982 as a big red button that Should Never Be Touched. Outside of Québec, it had only been used a handful of times, and for fairly minor issues that many times were deemed by the courts unnecessary after-the-fact. A few other times it had been employed as a sort of rhetorical tool or threat, ultimately avoided because the legislatures did their job and resolved whatever problem they faced without having to use it. The political norm against not abusing it had become very strong.

Enter Doug Ford. Not the most respectful of norms (in the style of his late brother, who as Mayor of Toronto did a number of turned-out-to-be illegal things, and I'm not talking about smoking crack). His first use of the notwithstanding clause was immediately upon gaining power in 2018, in order to halve the size of the Toronto city council in the middle of Toronto's municipal election. Traditionally the provincial government does not interfere in the affairs of municipal governments, but again this was tradition only and ultimately the courts found that the use of the notwithstanding clause was not necessary. In 2021 he used the notwithstanding clause again to limit third-party political advertising in the run-up to the provincial election that he handily won. In this case the courts did rule that his actions were unconstitutional as they were restrictions on freedom of expression.

But his third use of the notwithstanding clause is the most bizarre, norm-upsetting, and (to me) infuriating of all. The contract for the province's school workers (janitors, early childhood educators, school monitors, basically the blue-collar school employees) is up. The average employee in this union makes $46k CAD (~33k USD). Their wage increases over the last decade was lower than last year's inflation. And meanwhile the cost of living has exploded, especially in the province's most populous areas. So obviously the province owes it to these critical workers to give them a good deal, right? This is not a case of some fat public-sector union, and the provincial government and society at large has spent the pandemic fêting the heroics of these essential "front-line workers".

Well, no. Instead the government is using the notwithstanding clause to override their Charter right to strike. Note that this is not back-to-work legislation; that process involves binding both parties to a neutral arbitration process that tends to give labour a fair shake. Instead this is the unilateral imposition of a labour contract by the state, a first in modern Canadian history. The union has declared its intent to strike anyways, but because this would now be illegal, the potential fines for this are up to $200 million per day.

There are no legal countermeasures available to the union. The provincial governments in Canada are very strong by design, but this was supposed to be balanced by social norms against abusing these powers. But with the increasing polarization of Canadian society and centralization of power within political parties, apparently the weight of the potential backlash has been weakened. It was never the intent of the notwithstanding clause to give provincial governments the ability to just force people to work on the state's terms because they can't be bothered to negotiate, yet here we are regardless. Unless the Prime Minister (or the Governor General) were willing to intervene from on high and use their big red button that Should Never Be Touched (disallowance), there's nothing to be done. But that would kick off a constitutional crisis over janitors, and I don't think Trudeau has the balls; he's no friend of labour regardless and oddly buddy-buddy with Ford (that's another topic though).

Even if you were indifferent to the situation of the workers, there's reason for concern here. This kind of flagrant norm-breaking is what tends to start unraveling countries. The notwithstanding clause was not supposed to be employed this way; indifferent and repeated use of it could turn the Charter into a piece of paper. What's to stop other provincial governments from using their powers in this way? What's to stop retaliation when some other party inevitably comes to power? It used to be that Canadian politics was largely regional, with provincial and federal representatives responsive to local concerns and willing and able to keep their leaders in line. That's gone. The safeguards against misuse of power have disappeared.

The strike starts on Friday, and I'm going to be out showing my support. I've tried to keep this write-up somewhat tonally neutral, but I'm truly incensed about this.

It's debatable whether the Charter of Rights and Freedoms really protects the right to strike. It's true that the Supreme Court has interpreted it as doing so through the right of freedom of association.

I don't understand this. As a general principle, employers can have you agree to give up constitutionally protected rights as a condition of employment. You can get fired for violating a non-disclosure agreement for example. You can also be fired for your political views. That is their freedom of association.

After all, if you're fired, you're in the same position respect to your former employer as everyone else. You don't have a right to your job (that you aren't even doing). You certainly never had a right to be hired by that employer against his will.

So the provincial government is using its constitutional power to unilaterally revoke a right that the courts unilaterally invented, and it's probably for the public good, because I don't see how public sector unions can be justified.

Public sector unions work by restricting the supply of labour available to the government to inflate wages above market rates. This can perhaps be justified when it comes at the expense of corporations, but how can it be when the taxpayer is the one paying? This gives an unearned special status to government employees to extract rents from the rest of the population. If the argument is that they aren't paid very much, why not give them money that everyone with their income level can access?

You can read the two decisions that led to this here and here. The 2015 decision ruled that the Charter protected the right to strike because it was a essential to collective bargaining which was guaranteed by the 2007 decision, and because it promoted equality between employers and employees. I don't see how allowing public sector employees to extract rents from the general by giving them power equal to their government promotes equality. Equality means treating people the same, not elevating one special interest group above everyone else. After all, I don't have a right to get paid by the government while providing nothing in return. Instead, by virtue of who my employer is, I would be forced to pay government employees while they do nothing for me. I never agreed to this, while they did agree to do the work they are now refusing to do.

The 2007 decision ruled that the right to collective bargaining existed because it existed before the Charter (according to what it doesn't say and in any case I don't see how that means the constitution enshrines that right), because of human rights obligations (why does that have any bearing on the constitution?), and because it "reaffirms the values of dignity, personal autonomy, equality and democracy that are inherent in the Charter." As I explained above, it goes against the value of equality. It obviously goes against the value of democracy when it is the democratically elected representatives of the people whose rights are restricted and whose money is being taken in favour of this special interest group.

The relationship between collective bargaining and dignity and personal automony are nebulous. Why isn't my dignity harmed by having rents extracted from me? I suppose there is some dignity and autonomy gained by being able to renege on one's contracts and extort the general public, but it seems like the public's dignity and autonomy pay the price.

The notwithstanding clause serves a specific purpose, which is to uphold the principle of parliamentary supremacy. The courts were not meant to use the Charter to legislate from the bench and undermine the people's representatives. Pierre Trudeau even said at the time it was passed in 1982 that it changed nothing, it only enshrined already existing laws. Clearly not.

The 2007 decision ruled that the right to collective bargaining existed because it existed before the Charter (according to what it doesn't say and in any case I don't see how that means the constitution enshrines that right), because of human rights obligations (why does that have any bearing on the constitution?), and because it "reaffirms the values of dignity, personal autonomy, equality and democracy that are inherent in the Charter.

@johnfabian 's post raised the same question for me. Where did this right to strike come from? I wasn't able to get any farther than that line in Health Services. It's baffling. It seems less "found" than invented out of whole cloth.

Edit: actually, later in the document, they elaborate, going on for several pages detailing the history of labour relations up to the Charter, but IMO including nothing of relevance until:

Collective bargaining, despite early discouragement from the common law, has long been recognized in Canada. Indeed, historically, it emerges as the most significant collective activity through which freedom of association is expressed in the labour context. In our opinion, the concept of freedom of association under s. 2(d) of the Charter includes this notion of a procedural right to collective bargaining.

This established Canadian right to collective bargaining was recognized in the Parliamentary hearings that took place before the adoption of the Charter. The acting Minister of Justice, Mr. Robert Kaplan, explained why he did not find necessary a proposed amendment to have the freedom to organize and bargain collectively expressly included under s. 2(d). These rights, he stated, were already implicitly recognized in the words “freedom of association”:

"Our position on the suggestion that there be specific reference to freedom to organize and bargain collectively is that that is already covered in the freedom of association that is provided already in the Declaration or in the Charter; and that by singling out association for bargaining one might tend to d[i]minish all the other forms of association which are contemplated — church associations; associations of fraternal organizations or community organizations."

(Special Joint Committee of the Senate and of the House of Commons on the Constitution of Canada, Minutes of Proceedings and Evidence, Issue No. 43, January 22, 1981, at pp. 69-70)

Which I think settles it. I mean, I don't think that's what most people would interpret "freedom of association" to mean, but if that's what was originally intended, then the court's decision is reasonable.

Rule by emergency law and decree has been fast becoming the norm across the western world. Savvy political actors are now realising this and the opportunities this can create in a myriad of areas that always annoyed the ruling classes. Labour action and not being able to pay below survival level salaries to unskilled labourers have long been one of those sticking points, especially since we decided any real manufacturing is beneath the white people so unskilled workers are just an annoyance to our economic systems.

So I don’t think this abuse of procedure is as absurd as you might think. Other provincial elites are likely watching it with great interest and considering the potential gains if it succeeds.

I’d like to see actual evidence for the claim that emergency law is taking over—outside of COVID, specifically.

I will second Hlynka in asking who, exactly, you mean by “we.”

I am not sure how one proves historical trends, while living through the said trend. But I will posit that if you took practically any western country and plotted the times the elites had to suspend or ignore the written and unwritten constitutional norms in order to get their will, you would get an exponential graph for the last 20 years or so. And there is no reason to think this is going to be slowing down since everytime some norm is is suspended there is broad elite support for doing more.

Almost every long term policy choice nowadays is justified by one or more of climate crisis, impending economic collapse if the central banks don’t print a couple trillions immediately once again, Islamic terror, plague wiping us out, energy crisis for europoors, right wing threat to democracy, impending Russian invasion of Eastern Europe etc etc.

The list grows at incredible speed. If a policy wish cannot associate itself with one of these crisis situations it’s as good as dead since western elites lost power to convince their citizens in any other way

especially since we decided any real manufacturing is beneath the white people so unskilled workers are just an annoyance to our economic systems.

Who's "we" exactly.

Modern neoliberal post-industrial western societies. I (and probably the majority of the people) don’t agree that this is a good way to structure a society, but I am also aware that I live in a country where this process is clearly happening and it’s the (somewhat) unspoken elite consensus. So I get to play the game to make sure I don’t get crushed at the bottom of this new hierarchy

Modern neoliberal post-industrial western societies.

You're not getting out of that one so easy, I will be holding you personally accountable!

I might go easier on you, if you rat out your friends.

I can always cope out and declare myself too kebab

Hopefully the province enforces all the fines, especially the ones against the union. It'd set a very bad precedent if people who aren't legally allowed to strike receive no punishment if they do.

Anyways, it's my personal opinion that public sector unions should not be able to strike. They have too much power.

It'd set a very bad precedent if people who aren't legally allowed to strike receive no punishment if they do.

By this reasoning, if Canada was run by a dictator and the law said that his edicts must be obeyed, you would hope that people would be punished for defying the dictator, because otherwise that sets a bad precedent for people being permitted to disobey the law and receive no punishment.

If a law allows arbitrary powers by the government, it's already setting a bad precedent. Allowing people to defy it sets a good precedent for keeping the government from exercising arbitrary powers, which is much more important than any bad precedent from letting people get away with violating laws.

I don't see how this law gives the government arbitrary power. It just forces government employees to do the job they agreed and are being paid to do.

The agreement to do this specific job normally includes a right to strike. The arbitrary power is being used to take away the right to strike that was in the agreement.

The government had an arbitration process available to them to avoid a strike. They chose to suspend constitutional rights rather than give lunch ladies raises that keep up with inflation.

It's a constitutional right that arguably shouldn't exist, and the lunch ladies are overpaid as is typical of government employees.

If Canadian lunch ladies are anything like in the US, they’re actually underpaid but get a more favorable schedule.

I guess it's not like the US then because in Canada, low skilled government employees tend to be paid much better than their counterparts in the private sector.

They have too much power.

The government could always send this to arbitration if they didn't want a work stoppage. Instead they violated the union's Charter rights.

There are certainly public sector unions that grow fat at the taxpayer's expense, but we're talking about a union whose average wage/salary is at about the Canadian median and has gotten dismal raises over the past decade. If they can exercise such power over the Ontario government they're showing it in an odd way.

Why should they send it to arbitration when it's in the taxpayers' best interest to pay them as little as possible? If the raises are so bad, why don't they work elsewhere? I think it's because they are actually well paid for what they do.

Good on you for going out in support. I don’t see how this can be anything other than an injustice.

Well yeah, including a process like this for provincial governments guarantees it’ll get used for crap like banning opposition parties right before elections and underpaying Janitors. And TBQH, after the federal government used a similar process to seize the property of dissidents(albeit temporarily), it was probably inevitable that provincial governments would use it for progressively dumber stuff. I mean, did anyone trust Doug Ford at any point?

Covid let the cat out of the bag on authoritarian ‘emergency’ powers that governments had very strong norms against not abusing. They will continue to use these powers to accomplish their agendas, over and over again, regardless of whether you like it or not, and given the incentives that apply to politicians making the rules, this will eventually be to tilt elections and renegotiate state obligations. Sucks, but it’s what happens.

How could they use the notwithstanding clause to ban political parties and why hasn't it happened yet?

I support this sort of action against public unions, but it is unfortunate that the people on the receiving end are not overpaid do-nothing employees and are instead the toilet cleaners.

There’s a reason that the most famous/effective unions are historically hard labor. This sort of abuse is the strongest case for public unions.

This is commonly argued, but I don't buy it. The constitution was almost amended in 1987. Why couldn't it be again?

How would it result in the dissolution of the state? That would require a constitutional amendment. If the provinces can't agree on an amendment, the constitution will just stay as it is.

Why do you think that's an artefact and not the design? Canada is a constitutional monarchy, the state apparatus is based in many ways on the King, whose role is fundamental to the de jure and de facto operation of the state. Similary it would probably be more straightforward for the POTUS to make a new country than to do something like eliminate the supreme court and senate and replace them with a council of representatives of his choosing.

The jokes almost write themselves at that point.

But his third use of the notwithstanding clause is the most bizarre, norm-upsetting, and (to me) infuriating of all. The contract for the province's school workers (janitors, early childhood educators, school monitors, basically the blue-collar school employees) is up. The average employee in this union makes $46k CAD (33k USD). Their wage increases over the last decade was lower than last year's inflation. And meanwhile the cost of living has exploded, especially in the province's most populous areas. So obviously the province owes it to these critical workers to give them a good deal, right? This is not a case of some fat public-sector union, and the provincial government and society at large has spent the pandemic fêting the heroics of these essential "front-line workers".

Seeing as the median salary is 40k it seems to me that, unless I'm missing something here, these people are getting a very good deal for unskilled, safe labour.

Not only that, but being government jobs, they probably get excellent benefits and don't require them to work very hard. These jobs probably pay well above average. Low skilled government jobs tend to pay far more than equivalent jobs in the private sector in Canada.

A lot of these people are doing labor with a fair degree of skill. Bus drivers, maintenance guys, some janitors and early childhood workers, possibly nurses(not sure if they’re in this union)- all skilled labor.

That's not usually what people mean by skilled labour. Bus drivers, for example, only get a few months training.

Not sure about CA, but all of the "help wanted" signs I'm seeing in the US are advertising bare minimum 16$ an hour, or about 32k a year. That is for starbucks baristas, grocery store stockworkers, etc; if you have any experience, it's probably closer to $18. And I'm not in a city which is particularly high COL (not the lowest, but not like the Bay or NYC either--basically like most growing cities). The average employee making this amount sounds low to me, given recent inflation.

The U.S. is a much richer country than Canada. I have an engineering degree and I make just under $16 USD an hour or about $12 an hour after income tax. This is in a city with a relatively high cost of living.

Also, despite the lower wages, the cost of living is similar to the US.

Huh, so the American factories here in Ireland really are getting cheap labour even though they offer decently paying unskilled jobs by local standards. A barista gets €10.50/hr while factory jobs range from €12.00-16.50/hr.

Yeah but that's a recent change to some degree. Before coronavirus fast food workers in the US weren't making $16/hr outside of very expensive cities. And the Euro was worth more.

You might not be aware of this but the US has over 30% higher GDP per capita than Canada.

40*1.3=52 which is roughly the American average.

I am aware. I took the converted value of 33K, which is the comparison point I was using, at face value, since recently I've seen more people using PPP-adjusted numbers instead of just conversion rates (and which is also better than just using GDP ratio). If that's only adjusted for currency conversion, I don't know off the top of my head what the PPP-adjusted numbers would be, but I think it's closer than GDP alone would indicate.

(Also I think that's quite a bit less than the American average, google says GDP per capita in the US is close to 70k)

Comparing to Sweden, whose numbers I'm very confident in, we get:

American workers compensation of GDP: 76%

Swedish workers compensation of GDP:

78%

It's not all unskilled labour. Some custodial labour is skilled, and there are other roles involved here (like early childcare assistants) that require degrees or specialized education.

I misunderstood what early childcare assistants were. I thought the teachers were called preschool teachers and that the assistants were just that, assistants, an title inflated way to say childcare worker.

Depends a great deal on where you live and what the conditions are. I live in Denver, and I legit have no idea how I would even live on $33k a year. Rent alone would cost 3/4 of my post-tax income! So for someone living here, I'd say no that isn't a good deal at all. For someone living in a small Midwestern town, maybe that's a better deal.

Regardless though, even if they are getting a good deal that doesn't justify using the law like this to say "no, you can't strike and have to take what we give".

I'm not disputing that it's a bad use of the law, I'm objecting to the appeal to emotion in an otherwise interesting post.

Very interesting, thanks for the well argued post.

Being American, I'm uninformed as to how federalist the Canadian system is relative to your southern neighbor. I think most would argue the US to be more polarized than Canada, and certainly at this moment in time. I think federalism helps moderate polarization as a whole...? Razor thin presidential elections result in radical policy shifts every four years that cannot be moderating, whereas having states be the laboratories of policy allow truly disillusioned individuals to move to more amenable environments, and of course make it more obvious just what policies are good or bad over time. Experimenting on a local/regional level, on the other hand, feels a bit too fractured, especially considering negative impact on commerce at the national level, so state/provincial feels like a good compromise in between.

In other words, I question your assumption that having other provincial governments abuse the notwithstanding clause thanks to Ford's lead is necessarily bad. Yes, janitors, like most working class professions, feel sympathetic to the average voter, but that sympathy gives them political power disproportionate to what the free market may otherwise dictate. Why not see what happens to the province when public unions are forbidden from striking? Maybe it results in a leaner state that is better off for growth and attracts taxpayers.

In Canada, pretty much everything of note policy-wise is decided at the provincial level, minus international affairs/defence and building cross-provincial infrastructure. The federal government's biggest role is collecting taxes and then distributing it to the provinces. Even the biggest federal projects enacted in the last few years has been childcare (and soon?!?) dental deals which again, amounts to giving cash to the provinces to spend on specific things.

However Canada's political culture is obsessed with the federal government, as well as the United States. So we have a very unproductive public discourse. Take the convoy truckers; the COVID restrictions they were protesting against were almost all provincial (except the federal border restrictions, but we were just mirroring the US and even if we had struck ours down it wouldn't have made a difference). Yet it was the federal government and Trudeau who was the target of the protests. It's not like they were going to protest against the mainly conservative Premiers.

Yes, janitors, like most working class professions, feel sympathetic to the average voter, but that sympathy gives them political power disproportionate to what the free market may otherwise dictate.

I'm aware of this issue. Certainly there are specific public sector unions which use their position to extract excessive concessions from the government. But this union's raises in the past decade combined were less than inflation last year. They have not been milking the province for all they could get. To have the government refuse to negotiate with them and just impose a unilateral contract on them is galling. If the PCs had wanted to they could've just enacted back-to-work legislation, schools would remain open, and arbitration would take care of it and get a fair-ish deal for everyone.

The federal government has the power of taxation which effectively gives it control over areas that are supposed to be under provincial jurisdiction. For example, healthcare is under provincial jurisdiction, but the federal government taxes every province and transfers the money only to those provinces with free public health insurance meeting its requirements. Provinces don't have to go along with this, but if they didn't then they would have to pay a heavy price, which the federal government can raise if needed.

Take the convoy truckers; the COVID restrictions they were protesting against were almost all provincial (except the federal border restrictions, but we were just mirroring the US and even if we had struck ours down it wouldn't have made a difference). Yet it was the federal government and Trudeau who was the target of the protests. It's not like they were going to protest against the mainly conservative Premiers.

The federal government is responsible for foreign policy. Thus, going to Trudeau to demand he remove federal border restrictions and also negotiate their removal on the other side is actually the correct course of action.

pretty much everything of note policy-wise is decided at the provincial level

Criminal code, environmental regulations, and border control (import/export) are all federal. Those are really powerful policy levers, especially because the former and latter effectively dictate how provinces run their economies; inter-provincial trade is not a driver of provincial economies to the same magnitude Canada-US trade is.

Anyway, since the current balance of political power in Canada tends to favor the economically-unproductive resource-poor parts of the country (as in, every province east of Ontario, though Quebec is a special case), the economically-productive ones tend to get real pissed off when they start going to culture war.

Like imposing that border restriction was- if the US border control had the same functional effect (and I agree that it did- most truckers were vaccinated anyway), then imposing a symmetric one was unequivocally "because fuck you". And in this light, it's also noteworthy that the places the protestors overwhelmingly came from have had effectively zero political representation in the Federal government since 2019 (the Liberal party has approximately zero seats west of Toronto, and because there are no votes but party line votes in Canada when it comes to anything of real consequence, this functionally equates to "entirely shut out of government").

As such, I believe that the fixation on the Federal government for political ills (and the protests worked against Provincial governments anyway- AB and SK lifted their restrictions more or less as the protest began) was and continues to be the correct choice.

But this union's raises in the past decade combined were less than inflation last year.

Though the union seems to be asking for annual wage increases of 11.7%. I'd imagine this is a 5-year contract. So the average will go from $48k to $80k. And this would be what every other union asks for. Basically doubling Ontario's expenditures.

All the more reason to engage in negotiation or arbitration, as expected, rather than pushing the constitutional “FU” button.

As a taxpayer, I want my government to use every reasonable tool available to keep costs down. Why should the government negotiate if it doesn't have to and if it might result in them overpaying their employees?

Is deploying this provision "reasonable"?

A government is more effective when it is predictable and accountable. Following the Charter is more predictable than breaking with it at random points. Waiving the potential for judicial review is a blow to accountability--at least from my American perspective.

More broadly, I think there's merit to some of the rights being suppressed here, and that it's unjust for the government to say they're protected up until they're suddenly not. That's not a right, but a privilege. I would be worried about a law which "notwithstandinged" Section 10 to deny me legal counsel, or Section 12 to decide that torture is fine just this once, or Section 2 to demand I convert to a religion. Freedom to form contracts isn't as sympathetic, but it's important nonetheless.

What recourse, if any, should the government have when the courts go rogue and start inventing rights that never existed before at the taxpayers' expense? Your argument seems to rely on the assumption that it's important to protect rights just because the Supreme Court decided it was protected by the constitution.

I'm not saying that it's good the government va always override the constitution on most matters. But I do think that it is good in this case, because allowing public sector unions to strike is harmful.

Edit: misread your quote.

But this union's raises in the past decade combined were less than inflation last year.

Workers as a whole in the US saw a 2.5% decrease in real average hourly earnings from Sep '21 to Sep '22 according to the BLS thanks to inflation.

Would it have been better if employment law had a clause that automatically indexed all wages to inflation? I suspect not, as it would necessitate price increases that will further fuel inflation and possible bankruptcies and wholesale job losses for price elastic sectors. Instead, we have what I think tends to be healthy free-market reallocation of human capital, with some businesses reducing hours or closing because they are not profitable enough to increase wages to market levels, while others with higher ROCE manage to attract and retain workers. Even in sectors with high union membership, like teachers and cops, you see news headlines of teacher or police shortages that in turn force cities to raise wages or offer higher starting bonuses. That seems more politically palatable and less likely to be corrupt and inefficient compared to wholesale strikes.

So why not let the janitors vote with their feet if they feel underpaid, just like the average US worker?

Constitution aside (since the inclusion of that clause guaranteed its eventual abuse, and no one should be surprised by the current situation), if asked privately, nearly every parent would be in favour of preventing a strike. So it’s really the parents tyrannizing the workers, using the province as their attack dog. The trouble is, though, that in order to pay the CUPE workers more, the population has to be taxed, and taxation involves the threat, however distant, of death. So CUPE would be tyrannizing the people of Ontario, with the province as their attack dog. And since shutting down schools does not hurt the government they way shutting down the kitchen hurts McDonald’s, CUPE is threatening kids’ and parents’ time (the least renewable non-renewable resource) in order to hurt the government’s money (they make more of it every day), which is a form of hostage-taking, and must also count as tyrannizing the people of Ontario. So in this exact public-sector union dilemma I count CUPE as aspiring to be twice as tyrannical as the government of Ontario, and therefore, bizarrely, prefer that the government win this one.

I can’t see a way to defend abolishing public sector unions, but they at least have to be honest about the fact that, in the end, they’re not extorting money from greedy capitalists, but time from ordinary citizens (and permanent residents).

So it’s really the parents tyrannizing the workers

It's the law of supply and demand that is the engine here. The value of goods and services is determined conclusively by the intersection of supply and demand, and that is as true of labor as it is of anything else. No one is tyrannized by earning only what their labor is worth. The tyranny inheres in permitting collusive behavior in the labor market (unions, organized strikes) to inflate the cost of labor above what it is worth. Preventing the strike averts the union's attempted tyranny over school children, parents and taxpayers.

If janitors aren't being paid enough for our sensibilities, then by all means supplement their income with the welfare state, but apply it evenly to everyone who isn't being paid enough, not just for those lucky enough to be able to hold schoolchildren hostage to their demands.

I can’t see a way to defend abolishing public sector unions

Hopefully my comment provides such a defense.

Isn't a limiting factor of unions' ability to bargain the employer's cost of firing everyone, and then hiring and training new employees? If the unions were to argue (without caving) for a crazy amount, like one million dollars per year per member, then it would be more cost-effective to replace the entire work force. It doesn't seem like it is possible for union members to inflate the cost of their labor far above what it is worth (cost of training could make paying an inflated salary preferred in the short-term). Unless there are laws about companies firing their entire workforce/an entire union, which there could be (maybe in France, I've heard they have strong laws supporting unions) but I am ignorant about laws surrounding unions.

I agree that there are limits to what a union can extort above the clearing wage in a free labor market, but limited extortion is still extortion.

It seems strange to use the word "tyrannizing" in the context of the government voiding constitutional rights, but having it apply to the ones whose rights are being violated

Is it actually a constitutional right at all if the constitution provides a "notwithstanding clause" that explicitly permits the government to violate it? I would argue that it isn't. At most it's a violation of norms.

Because this specific right isn't a real one, its a privilege. A right is something you can do as a human being as a result of existing. There is no right to be a government schoolteacher who is paid, because that requires dozens of prerequisites that cannot be assumed.

The government always could have passed back-to-work legislation and send this to arbitration. But instead they chose to unilaterally impose a contract on the union.

Politicians have gotten handsome raises throughout the pandemic. Does that not count as extorting the public?

I don't think back-to-work legislation would be constitutional anymore. In 2015, Canada's Supreme Court ruled that striking is a constitutional right, a component of collective bargaining which is protected in the charter under the freedom to associate. And Ontario courts struck down the 2012 back-to-work legislation as infringing on the collective bargaining rights of school employees.

So using the notwithstanding clause seems like the only way to actually do this, since I doubt the courts will see janitors as essential as police or w/e (and I never read the full Supreme Court case, so who knows, maybe police and doctors are allowed to strike?).

Since then there have been numerous instances of governments using back-to-work laws. Off the top of my heads the feds used it for Canada Post in 2018 and CP Rail in 2019

Sure, it counts. But we’re not talking about who is evil and who is righteous; we’re talking degrees of bad in badly conceived system.

As someone not familiar at all with Commonwealth law, does this set precedent for other former British colonies? Can the King step in to re-establish norms?

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