Western Standard - November 01, 2025


CORY MORGAN： Strike Threats？ Bring It — Alberta Needs Right-to-Work

Topics
right-to-work legislation Gil McGowan's strike threat
Mentioned
Gil McGowan Strikes Trudeau Smith
Austerity or activism？ Carney’s budget will try to be both THE PIPELINE： Federalists trigger Alberta independence referendum？

Episode Stats


Length

5 minutes

Words per minute

189.89

Word count

958

Sentence count

70

Harmful content

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Unions have been crippling Canada for years. It s time we had it out with the unions. They ve become too empowered, arrogant, and greedy thanks to decades of governments pandering to organized labor, rather than reasonably and firmly negotiating with it.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 All right, let's start out about more domestic news for now though. Strikes. They've been
00:00:13.680 crippling Canada for years. You know what? It's time we had it out with the unions.
00:00:17.280 They've become too empowered, arrogant, and greedy thanks to decades of governments pandering
00:00:21.080 to organized labor rather than reasonably and firmly negotiating with it. Canada's productivity
00:00:26.160 has been lagging and it's reflected in the sagging GDP per capita numbers. It's also difficult to
00:00:30.920 draw domestic investment into domestic industries when unions are rampaging unchecked. I mean,
00:00:36.580 the list of damaging labor actions just in the last couple of years is long and ugly.
00:00:40.720 Dock workers, rail workers, airline workers, federal civil servants, postal workers. So I see
00:00:46.820 that worker all the time, but they don't work a hell of a lot it seems, but they've all harmed
00:00:49.820 the Canadian economy with only the postal workers not managing to garner big settlements for their
00:00:54.360 actions. There isn't much that can be done on the federal front. Carney's averse to taking strong
00:00:58.660 stances in general as he tries to borrow Canada into prosperity. He hasn't the fortitude to battle
00:01:03.840 with labor unions. Legislation brought by the Trudeau government banning replacement workers
00:01:08.520 and federally regulated industries has tipped the power so heavily into the union hands that payouts
00:01:13.380 come hard and heavy once a strike is threatened. In Alberta though, we can change the balance of power.
00:01:18.740 This province could fall in the footsteps of 27 American states and embrace right-to-work
00:01:22.800 legislation. The right to organize with a union is an important one. The right to choose not to
00:01:28.400 participate in a union must be entrenched as well though. Closed shops, which force people to join
00:01:33.200 a union, whether they like it or not, are an affront to the right of free association and they empower
00:01:37.900 unions far too much. The stranglehold on some industries and the public sector in general
00:01:42.900 has to be broken. And there's no better way to do that than allow employees to choose.
00:01:47.920 Giving employees the choice with union membership forces unions to become competitive.
00:01:52.100 They'll suddenly have to be accountable to their members who they take dues from and prove that
00:01:57.040 they offer value to those employees. Members tired of seeing a chunk of their wages being taken
00:02:01.640 from by a union to use in woke lobbying and taking political stances unrelated to their workplace
00:02:07.060 can opt out. Regions with right-to-work legislation see economic benefits on all levels and the American
00:02:12.940 example proves that. Over a 10-year average, states with right-to-work legislation saw a 10% private sector
00:02:18.540 job growth, while states without it saw a 6.1% growth. Investment moves towards those states and
00:02:24.500 industries not hamstrung by overpowered unions and are able to expand their operations. Real
00:02:29.260 manufacturing GDP growth in the right-to-work states was 18.4%. In the non-right-to-work states,
00:02:34.760 it was 12.7%. Ontario, with its ailing manufacturing sector, should be keeping this in mind.
00:02:41.080 After-tax income growth in right-to-work states was 21.3% versus 16.8% in states without it. That's
00:02:48.900 a big one. Unions like to claim raises only come through union pressure, yet in the states where
00:02:53.600 employees have the option to directly negotiate their own compensation, the employees garner more
00:02:58.080 money. Well, at least the competent ones do. The reason they take home more after tax is because the
00:03:02.800 state government can operate more efficiently without being controlled by unions, so they don't
00:03:06.640 need to tax as much. Kansas and Missouri offer a great example. They're right next to each other.
00:03:11.620 The cost of living is similar. The median household income in Kansas, though, where there's right-to-work
00:03:16.140 legislation, is thousands of dollars a year higher than Missouri, which is right across the river.
00:03:20.260 The poverty rate in Kansas is 11.1%. We're really high, but it's still lowered into 13.4% in Missouri.
00:03:26.260 The stronger economy fostered through employee empowerment with right-to-work legislation serves
00:03:31.400 everybody. States with right-to-work legislation experience 48% fewer workdays lost due to
00:03:36.560 strikes. Employees make more money, while citizens are chronically held hostage with strikes.
00:03:41.720 Everybody wins, at least everybody aside from the union executives who profit on labor unrest. So in
00:03:46.280 Alberta, Gil McGowan heads the Alberta Federation of Labor. His organization takes a little bite out of
00:03:51.540 the wages of almost every union member in the province, and he has guaranteed spots on the
00:03:55.740 executive of the NDP. Gil's threatening a general strike over the back-to-work legislation the UCP
00:04:01.640 government just imposed on teachers. He wants to punish all Albertans and keep the children from the
00:04:06.500 schools while the strike's going on. McGowan's an old-school union tug, a thug. He isn't exactly 0.93
00:04:11.720 nuanced or cerebral, and he prefers conflict rather than negotiation. So the picture you'll see when
00:04:17.540 my column comes out, and we've seen it many times in the Western Standard, of him getting in the face
00:04:20.900 of one of reporters kind of demonstrates his nature. Let's indulge old Gil, though. Dare him to have over
00:04:26.200 300,000 union members walk off the job in Alberta. Let them show the millions of Albertans who pay their
00:04:32.580 bills just how entitled and belligerent these unions are. That sort of walkout would set the
00:04:37.740 stage perfectly for Premier Smith to table and pass right-to-work legislation. Let those who
00:04:42.160 want to work choose to work. All of Alberta would be better for it, and Gil will suddenly have to
00:04:46.760 serve his members rather than blow dollars with self-serving protests. Business and investment
00:04:51.220 will move to Alberta while entitled union types will flee. I can't think of a better outcome. If the courts
00:04:55.840 feel the legislation isn't constitutional, well, we have the notwithstanding clause, and we've shown we're not
00:04:59.940 afraid to use it. So bring it on, Gil. Bring it on.