Jobs in Canada are changing from primary and secondary industries, such as mining and factory production, to the third sector, which is mostly retail, services and finance.
The good news for workers is that the bosses cannot sell food by exporting the grocery store to another country.
The bad news is that the jobs in this third sector pay poorly for the most part and are often composed by design of part-time and low-wage jobs.
Between 1997 and 2009, the number of temporary jobs has grown in a way “far exceeding its relative weight” in the Canadian economy, according to a recent Statistics Canada report on temporary employment in the downturn. In effect, one in eight working Canadians, totaling 1.8 million people, make their living through part-time jobs.
Permanent jobs have only grown by 2.3 million in the last 12 years.
One reason for the growth of part-time jobs are employers who are trying to avoid the costs of full-time employees.
One key player in Canada’s retail market is Wal-Mart, with 322 stores and 78,000 employees country-wide as of 2009. It is known as a market leader and for its anti-union stance.
Wal-Mart workers in Gatineau and in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, are doing something to change their situation: they are voting union. Rather than negotiate a contract, Wal-Mart challenges the votes and attempts to delay recognition and bargaining for years, appealing to Canada’s Supreme Court repeatedly — and generally losing the court battle.
So it is a major victory for nearly 400 Wal-Mart employees between the two stores to be unionized, even if the contracts are being handed down by a Quebec labour board arbitrator.
In October, the Gatineau workers finally received their union contract. Wal-Mart is playing down the contract as only gaining a 30 cent per hour raise this year and another 30 cent per hour raise next year. But a raise is a raise and belonging to a union got it.
But the money is not the most important part. The true victory is that the workers are no longer individuals who can be picked off by management one-by-one.
They gained a grievance procedure for when management gets out of control and the right to bargain for a new contract when this one is over. These are the basic rights that most retail workers do not have, but need.
Still, there is fear that Wal-Mart will shut these two stores as it has done at two other union stores without contracts, in Jonquiere and in Gatineau. A 2009 Supreme Court ruling said that Wal-Mart could close a store for business reasons, but set out a guideline for the next time which requires the company to prove it.
It’s unlikely that Wal-Mart would want any court assessing its viability, so there is a real possibility that the union stores will stay open.
Certainly, the United Food and Commercial Workers union that has doggedly fought this multinational is not going anywhere.
Service workers across Canada need to follow the Wal-Mart workers’ example. Like it or not, retail and other service jobs are no longer “summer jobs” or something to tide people over until a better job comes around.
These jobs are the future for Canadian workers and so it is time for people to accept it and dig in their heels to make these jobs better.
Peter Moore is a freelance writer based in Ottawa and former editor of the Industrial Worker newspaper of the Industrial Workers of the World.