Article content continued

Out of approximately 900 workers who were eligible to vote on the Saskatoon Co-op’s last offer, only about 360 members voted to reject it — more than half of the workers voted to accept or didn’t vote at all. Some employees have reportedly already returned to work, and some may have found other jobs. Saskatoon Co-op appears to be leveraging the lack of worker solidarity to wait out the strike.

Similarly, UFCW appears to be using the Co-op’s own democratic structure to gain bargaining leverage. A member of the Saskatoon Co-op, and former employee of UFCW, requested a special meeting to oust the Co-op’s board of directors. The request was overturned in a recent legal decision.

Both sides’ approaches undermine good-faith bargaining and turn each organization’s democratic strengths into weaknesses, doing long-term damage to worker and member solidarity. The solution: stop bargaining through the media, get back to the table, and stay there until an agreement has been reached.

While people may find it important to support striking workers — I did not cross the picket line when I visited Saskatoon in December — it is problematic to connect isolated labour disputes to a sweeping range of societal inequalities.

Rising inequality is driven more by asset ownership than organizational wage structures. Changes in work and employment due to technological advances, growing influence of finance on businesses, and the gutting of redistributive tax and transfer policies are the major culprits.

While co-ops and unions are formed and structured to address many societal inequalities, Saskatoon Co-op and its unionized workforce should not be expected to bear the responsibility for addressing all of them.

Dionne Pohler is an assistant professor in the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources at the University of Toronto, and a Fellow at the University of Saskatchewan Centre for the Study of Co-ops.