Suchergebnisse

I do not propose to discuss here the problems of the transition from war to peace, or how unions can help to get full employment in the first place. I am concerned with the more fundamental problem of the place of unions in a society which has achieved full employment in peace-time, without sacrificing any of the essential freedoms, and which wants to keep both full employment and freedom. I am assuming that full employment involves planning. I am assuming also that unions are not just nuisances but, in one form or another, permanent and desirable social institutions. Can we plan production without planning wages, hours, and conditions of work? If full employment involves planning these also, where do the unions come in ? Must they sacrifice their traditional freedom to bargain collectively on behalf of their members, and suffer a sea-change into something, if not rich and strange, at least very different from what they have ever been before? Or can the community do this part of its planning through collective bargaining? Can we continue to have purely sectional bargaining, plant by plant, industry by industry, or must the various unions act as a unit according to a general wage policy laid down by some central organization? Must trade unionism change its functions, or its structure, or both?These questions have been widely discussed in Britain, and to some extent also in the United States; in Canada, as far as I know, hardly at all. If we mean business when we talk of full employment, especially full employment in a free society, it is high time they were. For they are not by any means minor questions. Mrs. Wootton goes so far as to say that "Of all the possible points of conflict between conscious planning of priorities and traditional freedoms, the regulation of wages is likely to prove the most stormy"; and of course in this context "wages" include hours and conditions of work—not only what is paid, but what it is paid for. In Canada, freedom to bargain collectively can scarcely be called one of the "traditional" freedoms; for most Canadian workers it is still a recent, hard won, and imperfect conquest. But it is none the less prized for that, and it will not be easily surrendered, even as the price of full employment. For of all the freedoms, this is perhaps the one that comes closest home to the ordinary worker.

The present party standing in the Senate is sixty-five Liberals and twenty-six Progressive Conservatives, with five seats vacant. Since the Bennett government left office, thirty-seven Conservative Senators have died or resigned, eleven of them in the last three years alone. As the Progressive Conservatives are, for the most part, among the oldest Senators, it is by no means impossible that, if the Liberals retain office a few years longer, a succeeding Progressive Conservative government may find itself without a single supporter in the Senate. A C.C.F. government would, of course, inevitably be in the same position.Clearly, any government must have some supporters in the Upper House, if only to move and second its legislation. Would there be any way out of the difficulty short of an amendment to the British North America Act?The answer would seem to be yes. Normally the Senate is limited to ninety-six. But Section 26 of the British North America Act provides that "If, at any Time, on the Recommendation of the Governor-General, the King thinks fit to direct that four or eight Members be added to the Senate, the Governor-General may by Summons to four or eight qualified Persons (as the case may be), representing equally the four Divisions of Canada, add to the Senate accordingly." Sections 27 and 28 add: "27. In case of such Addition being at any Time made the Governor-General … shall not summon any Person to the Senate, except on a further like Direction by the King on the like Recommendation, to represent one of the four Divisions until such Division is represented by Twenty-four Senators and no more. 28. The Number of Senators shall not at any Time exceed one hundred and four." There can be little doubt that a government in the position just described would advise appointment of at least four extra Senators; and there can be equally little doubt that the advice would be accepted.