Cardus President Michael Van Pelt is quoted in Embassy's article on the newly appointed Office of Religious Freedom Ambassador, Andrew Bennett. To read the full article, click here.

Senior Editor Robert Joustra's September article on the Office of Religious Freedom was quoted in The Globe and Mail. To read the full article, click here.

On January 21st at 9:00 ET, www.OpenCanada.org—the online home of the Canadian International Council—will be hosting an online discussion on freedom of religion or belief and the future of Canada's Office of Religious Freedom. Discussion participants include:United Nations Special Rapporteur Heiner Bielefeldt Member of Parliament David Anderson Member of Parliament Scott Reid Dr. Malcolm Evans (Bristol) Dr. Nazila Ghanea-Hercock (Oxford) Dr. Janet Epp-Buckingham (Trinity Western)The discussion will be moderated by Robert Joustra (Cardus Policy in Public)To view the discussion, go to www.OpenCanada.org. Questions can be tweeted @TheCIC #CICFoRB.

Many Canadians on the left and right agree big is bad when it comes to business. So shouldn’t we be equally concerned that bloated labour unions will give the business to the working people who are their members? What, then, to make of the upcoming merger of the Canadian Auto Workers and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada? The big event in labour for 2013, according to a fine article produced by The Canadian Press, will see two of Canada’s largest private sector unions combine. We knew it was coming, but will it be a good thing for Canadian labour? The CAW-CEP merger will further consolidate a Canadian union movement that is increasingly cannibalizing itself. Smaller unions are being gobbled up by larger unions, and the labour landscape is increasingly dominated by a few big unions. According to a recent government of Canada report on union coverage, “almost 50% of ... workers belong to just nine unions, each covering at least 100,000 workers.” As of this Labour Day, nine unions drops to eight unions. The report also notes that “at the other end of the spectrum, 162 unions having fewer than 10,000 members represent just eight per cent of workers.” Necessity is the mother of consolidation, apparently. The Conference Board of Canada’s State of the Unions in 2012 notes that “between 1997 and 2011, union density (the percentage of the total eligible workforce that is unionized) in Canada fell approximately 1.7 percentage points, from 30.9 per cent of the labour force to about 29.2 per cent. And union density in the private sector now sits at an all-time low of 15.9 per cent.” If you look further back in time, you’ll note that this is not a recent trend. Union density in the private sector is a leading indicator of the health of unions because it provides a glimpse into whether unions are successful in communicating their worth to the majority of the Canadian workforce. Who’s to blame for the long-term downward trend of union density in the private sector? The answer to this is twofold: There are both internal and external factors at play. The traditional narrative, of course, dwells on those external factors. The left blames union decline on big, bad corporations and (as the Canadian Union of Postal Workers’ constitution puts it) “their agent,” the government. Ken Lewenza, the national president of the Canadian Auto Workers, pays due homage to this line when he says, “This is a battle and I don’t see that changing in the near future because public policy mechanisms are being put in place to force workers to feel the uncertainty driven by the economy.” The right blames union decline on obsolescence: Changes in government policy (for example, minimum wage laws and maternity leave laws) and enlightened employers responding to market conditions make unions superfluous. There is some validity to both points, of course, but both also represent a failure to do what any institution facing long-term decline should do. That is, examine the internal factors at play. A look inward might reveal that a leading cause for union decline in Canada is embedded within the structures and philosophy of Canada’s labour movement. The class-struggle-based approach to labour sees politics rather than shop floor representation or industry issues as primary. Big unions, says Lewenza, “(give) us the tools to be more active politically.” This obsession prevents them from developing relationships with employers and industry associations that could lead to the innovative approaches to labour and capital that happen in, say, Germany, or even within small unions in Canada. The “tools” require unions to be bigger, so they can exert more political pressure. And they need to have a political party to use them. As a result, big unions act like big companies — just from a different side of the spectrum. In order to achieve this leverage, large unions adopt a monopolistic “one big union” approach to labour. Yet why would big unions be immune from the institutional results of all monopolies? Monopolies in the business world achieve groupthink rather than dissent, stagnation rather than innovation, and graft rather than accountability. How’s this for a revolutionary idea for union revival: Take a page off our own picket signs, and embrace small as beautiful.

The Cardus Construction Competitiveness Monitor is mentioned in the Daily Commercial News. The article discusses the effects of construction monopolies on Ontario taxpayers, as found in the report. To read the full article, click here .

Convivium Publisher, Peter Stockland contributes to Cross Country Checkup's annual Christmas list of good reading. To listen to Peter's conversation with Rex Murphy, click here. Peter can be heard at 1:11:21.

The Chicago teacher’s strike is over, but contention between governments and public service unions is far from over. In fact, given that industrial nations in Europe and North America are swimming in red ink and looking for savings at almost every level, it’s plausible that strife between public sector unions and governments will become the new normal. Labor strife in the public sector tends to be more divisive than strife in the private sector. The fault line often falls between those who think public sector unions are publicly unaccountable organizations which hamstring elected officials, and those who consider them the protectors of government programs, and thus protectors of the public good. But are these characterizations fair? How should we think about public sector unions? How do we make judgments about their activities in the public square and for their members? The usual place to start is to ask the question that those in labor relations have been asking since Freeman and Medoff wrote their famous book: what do unions do? But, as noted in an earlier article in these pages, this fails to provide a framework in which we can speak normatively about the actions of unions. The better question, I think, is what should a union do? And to answer that question, it’s necessary to ask what a union is. So, what is a union? The answer to that question is not as easy to answer as it seems. A labor union is a complex organization with a social function: It’s held together not primarily by law, but by the workers themselves who organize around the concept of solidarity or mutual support. Thus, even an organization like Solidarnosch, which was illegal in Poland, could still be considered a trade union. Likewise with workers’ organizations which existed prior to the Wagner Act. But it also has an economic function: One of its purposes is to ensure that workers earn enough money to put bread on their tables and pay for other necessities. Unions also have a legal role: to create and enforce rules which limit and shape the actions of not only workers but management. There is a reason why unions use (and, frankly, abuse) the word justice so much. A collective agreement is, after all, primarily a private legal contract. But, we also have to acknowledge that there is an element of power which is integral to unions. They exercise this power in a variety of ways, sometimes in ways that are right, and sometimes in ways that are wrong. Previously, I set out some guidelines by which we can evaluate how unions exercise their power in strikes, but that picture remains somewhat incomplete. A fuller picture will not only understand what unions are in their own right, but also their placement within the institutional structure in which they are embedded. How we think normatively about a trade union in the steel industry—with a major multinational business corporation like ArcelorMittal , for instance—will differ in some respects from how we think about a trade union at a hospital, a school or a major retailer. And, in turn, how we think about a trade union’s role in private hospitals will differ subtly from that of a union in a public hospital. And, as if things weren’t complicated enough, even among the public services, there are subtle differences between the way we think about trade unions. There is, for instance, a reason why the military is a strictly non-union environment! In each case, how we think normatively about trade unions and their action is shaped by the goal of the organization within which the union works. It is difficult, therefore, to offer too many blanket statements about the actions of public sector trade unions. But, within the confines of the space provided here, there is a basic point which will set the table for further reflection. When asking questions about public sector unions, especially in the United States, our evaluation of public sector trade unions must work hand in hand with our evaluation of the state. In other words, we must ask the question of whether the actions of a trade union reflect, help or hinder the state in its pursuit of public justice, and whether the actions of the state in relation to its employees are, in their own right, reflective of the same goal.

Editor of Cardus Policy in Public, Robert Joustra is quoted in The Catholic Register. He discusses the effects of government policy on NGO's and charities. To read the full article, click here.