Open this photo in gallery:
Striking Air Canada flight attendants protest at Vancouver International Airport, in August, 2025.ETHAN CAIRNS/The Canadian Press
Thomas Collombat is a professor at Université du Québec en Outaouais.
Barry Eidlin is a professor at McGill University.
Stephanie Ross is a professor at McMaster University.
The number of labour disruptions has risen since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, as workers facing a cost-of-living crisis attempt to make up for decades of stagnating wages and eroding job quality. Alongside these struggles, anti-union discourse has increased, as have anti-union policies at the federal and provincial levels. As representatives of a group of 70 labour scholars from a wide array of disciplines (law, industrial relations, labour studies and social sciences) across Canada, we are concerned that governments and employers are seeking to weaken unions precisely when workers need them most.
The prime target of these attacks has been workers’ right to strike. A federal push to revise the Canada Labour Code, backed by a recent Senate report, suggests the Carney government may pursue further restrictions on the right to strike under the pretext of economic development and national emergency – protecting “essential services.” If “essential services” come to include anything that “harms” the economy, then no one will have the right to strike.
Fifteen months into his tenure as Prime Minister, Carney is drawing the ire of union heads
Despite the Supreme Court ruling in 2015 that striking is a constitutionally protected right, governments have intensified efforts to restrain it. At the federal level, the Liberal government rediscovered Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code, that allows the government to intervene in labour disputes in order to secure “industrial peace.” It has since used it repeatedly to end work stoppages or even pre-empt workers from going on strike, something that section was never designed to do. The decision of Air Canada flight attendants to defy its use and refuse to return to work in 2025 exposed both the lack of preparedness of the company and the government, and the corrosive effects of repeated intervention in labour disputes. Government interference compromises workers’ ability to secure better wages and working conditions.
Similar efforts are under way at the provincial level. Quebec’s Bill 89, for instance, expands the notion of “essential services” far beyond the International Labour Organization’s definition, which emphasizes threats to life, health and safety. The bill also grants the minister of labour sweeping powers to impose binding arbitration and stop strikes.
It is important to remember that Canada already has one of the most restricted rights to strike among industrialized countries. Because this right is tied to being unionized, only about 30 per cent of workers can legally exercise it. Unionized workers can strike only when collective agreements have expired and bargaining has reached an impasse, and then only on topics directly linked to bargaining. Essential services legislation and back-to-work laws further constrain this right.
Public servants protest return-to-office plan outside Prime Minister’s Office
Canadians owe a great deal to striking workers. Research shows that gains such as paid vacations, maternity leave, health insurance and workplace safety regulations were often won through collective action. Strikes allow workers to exercise collective power and challenge the concentration of wealth. Attacking the right to strike therefore undermines a key mechanism for addressing growing inequality. The renewed interest in curbing strikes largely serves employers’ and industry interests at workers’ expense.
At the same time, anti-union discourse has increasingly focused on corruption and an alleged lack of financial transparency in unions. Of course, there are incidents of corruption in unions. When they happen, they harm workers. But there is no indication that this phenomenon is more present among unions than in businesses, governments or non-profits. In fact, unions’ democratic structures often offer stronger guarantees of transparency than most corporate processes or public policies. Where corruption occurs, it is often linked to weakened union democracy, sometimes involving leaders supported by business interests to displace more radical, less compliant representatives.
Open this photo in gallery:
Students and supporters rally at the Alberta legislature to protest the province’s decision to order striking teachers back to work, in Edmonton, in October, 2025.JASON FRANSON/The Canadian Press
Editorial Board: Unions need to let the sunshine in
The best way to make unions more resistant to corruption is to further democratize workplaces, empowering workers to hold their officers accountable. This is not what “financial transparency” legislation accomplishes. Instead, measures from the federal Bill C-377 from 2012 to Quebec’s Bill 3 in 2025 impose heavy bureaucratic burdens that bury unions in red tape without providing workers with any new powers.
Quebec’s Bill 3 even dictates what unions can and cannot do with union dues, excluding political action. Alberta’s Bill 32 imposed similar restrictions in 2020, drawing on U.S.-style legislation aimed at limiting unions’ broader social role. These measures aim to restrict union power because unions are one of the most important counterweights to corporate power in policy making.
Unions are not without flaws. But they remain essential not only for fair treatment of workers, but for redistributing wealth and strengthening democracy. Attacking the right to strike, or invoking corruption to justify tighter controls, will only further weaken workers’ power and democracy. Now more than ever, we need stronger unions and more worker participation in them – not more restrictions.