‘The hangover of inflation’: What’s behind all the recent labour disputes?
Even as the trains start to chug again along Canadian railways, there are fears of another labour dispute among pilots at Air Canada grounding jets across the country in just a few weeks’ time.
It hasn’t just been a summer of strikes and stoppages in Canada: a wave of job actions in recent years has swept across ports in British Columbia, government offices in Ottawa and hospitals in Quebec.
Whether they work on tarmacs, behind desks or in classrooms, Canadians have been taking to the picket lines as negotiations between unions and employers seem to increasingly fall through at the table.
Experts who spoke to Global News say that even as the rising cost of living shows signs of cooling, inflation is still to blame, as workers see their purchasing power eroded and push for better wages in response.
“This is the hangover of inflation,” says David Macdonald, senior economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. “This is workers trying to claw their way back from this huge increase in prices.”
Inflation soared during the COVID-19 pandemic recovery, peaking at 8.1 per cent in June 2022 as Canadians rushed out to spend as travel restrictions lifted and semiconductor shortages drove up prices for goods like new cars.
Statistics Canada says that in 2022, the median after-tax household income fell 3.4 per cent to just over $70,000 as decades-high inflation levels coincided with a dropoff in government support tied to the pandemic.
Though inflation has cooled lately, last coming in at 2.5 per cent in July, wage gains tend to lag inflation. For the past 18 months, average annual wage increases have outpaced yearly inflation as the Bank of Canada’s benchmark interest rate rose to cool price pressures.
Some of those pay
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