And while the loonie may make things expensive now, long term Ontario is a good place to be. Ontario has pretty good schools and some of the cheapest electricity on the continent.

Ford’s St. Thomas plant is unionized, but it’s in farmland in the middle of nowhere. So, pray tell, what does the factory location have to do with the presence, or lack thereof, of a union?

And while Canada likely does have more unionized workers by percentage as someone (maybe you, bluecon, I don’t remember) pointed out, my point has always been it’s not because it’s our choice. No where is joining a union optional. I think given the choice, many Canadians would not join a union, because for the most part, it seems the unions protect the mediocre workers and just serve to deduct money from our paychecks.

And Canada is extremely more union than the USA, that is why Toyota builds these factories in a patch of farmland in the middle of no where.

To be fair, maybe it’s not all Canadian unions, and just the Food and Commercial Workers Union. But I’d say it represents a good percentage of all Canadian unionized employees, and if it does as poor a job everywhere as they do locally, then I can see most Canadians not really seeing a use for a labour union.

And in regards to unfair firing – the union does protect against that. But so does the Ministry of Labour. By law, you can’t be fired without just cause. And anyway, if one does his/her job right, there’d be no point to fire said person anyway.

Population percentage, I think, is a misleading statistic in regards to Canada versus the US, since the US has 10 times as many people (300 million versus 30 million.) Assuming your percentages are right (I’m not saying they aren’t,) about 45 million employees are unionized is the US, more than the entire population of Canada, while only 9 million or so are unionized in Canada. And I think a good portion of those unionized workers don’t really want or need to be; they are the ones working security, in grocery stores, and other low paying jobs where the union is simply deducting money from their paychecks while providing little or no return.

Indeed, looking at our new CBA at my grocery store, the starting hourly wage of new employees is LESS THAN minimum wage. Of course, they have to be paid minimum, which is guaranteed by law. What good is a union that can’t even negotiate a starting wage at minimum? By the way, having the less than minimum starting wage also means that as employees get more and more seniority, their wages go up according to the raise scale. BUT, in order to make more than minimum wage, you’d need to be working for over 3 years at the store. Until then, all you make is minimum. Unless of course, the store owner volunteers to give a worker a raise, as he did for me. So, the ‘evil’ owner treats his workers better than the union does. So what’s the point of the union?

By population percentage , Canada is way more unionized that USA. I believe the US sits at 12-15% of the job force unionized, where Canada is well over 30%.

Also, at the grocery store where I work, we recently signed a new CBA, after the old expired 2 years ago. The union actually proposed that if the proposal was voted down, they’d have a strike vote. Well, we’d get $100 a week to be on strike. I get $300 a week to work. I told my supervisor that if the union goes on strike, I’m not going with them – I can’t afford to strike. My sentiments were echoed by my coworkers as well. So what’s the point of a strike, when the employees can’t afford to engage in it? What good is the union when they have no striking power?

I say send the unions back to the States… we don’t want ‘em.

I don’t find anything ironic about Toyota paying enough to keep the unions out. In fact, if the domestics did that, they would be better off (the workers too).