Union Leaders: Not just for shilling used cars anymore

So The Globe and Mail had a piece last week on a poll of 1000 Canadians regarding whom they "trust." (Sorry, I'm a poli.sci. major; the word trust ALWAYS comes with scare-quotes. Take it up with Dr. Keeley at U of Calgary if it's a problem for you.) It was sponsored by, of all people, Sympatico.MSN (!) but it has some fascinating results.

The top of this list? The usual, and I'd say usually deserving, suspects: firefighters (93 per cent found them trustworthy), nurses (87 per cent), pharmacists (86 per cent), etc., etc. So great. Yay, emergency workers et al.

The BOTTOM of the list is where my attention went. Only 21 per cent of the respondents found CEOs to be trustworthy, which after Enron, WorldCom and Nortel (Canada's Own!), this is not surprising. But SOMEBODY scored below CEOs: Union leaders. Only 19 per cent of those polled said they trusted them.

Now, Buzz, Paul and their counterparts should take heart: they did better than local politicians (12 per cent), national politicians and car salespeople (both 7 per cent, which explains the suits).

And if you're keeping score, Canada's overall union density in June 2006 was 29.7 per cent (17 per cent if you're in the private sector).

Now what's not suprising in this finding is that union leaders sit where OTHER elected officials sit, which just happens to be at the bottom of the barrel. You could say that how unionized workers elect workplace representatives roughly reflects how all Canadians elect any public representative: badly.

But then you look at who else unions compare to--CEOs--and, after a fit of laughter at the irony of it, you start to wonder what it all means. The labour movement is having a tough time cracking new sectors of the economy where there has been lots of job growth--primarily the service sector, and among smaller organizations. Most of these organizations already have a CEO, which as we've seen, four out of five Canadians don't trust. So along comes some OTHER guy, who says "Give me $1 to join my organization, and after a big long fight with the employer in which we completely polarize your workplace, you can give me 1.5 to 2 per cent of your paycheque ad infinitum and I'll protect you from the really rich guy at the top." [Insert various promises of worker paradise, here.]

We are all familiar with the concept of "The Devil You Know." I think these results indicate that, just possibly, the average Canadian worker looks at her CEO, and then at this union leader, and says, "You know, one untrustworthy bastard in my life's enough, thanks."

And that's assuming she's not married.