New column day

Here, expanding on the hostile labour environment that's developing as federal and provincial governments alike use back-to-work legislation as a pre-emptive attack on workers.

For further reading (which should be familiar to those who read the blog regularly):

- Ryan McGreal's "revenge egalitarianism" concept earns a mention in the column, and for those who haven't read it yet his general discussion is also well worth a look.

- Andrew Jackson points out the research showing a link between decreased unionization and increased inequality, including this summary with a similar theme to the column:

The path from strong unions to greater equality among non union workers likely runs through two channels. The first is fear, non union employers in a strong union environment will pay higher wages to lower paid workers in order to avoid unionization. The second and likely stronger channel is norms. Strong unions establish norms of fair wage differences between management and workers and between groups of workers which spill over into the non union sector.

- And the theme of the column is developed from a couple of my earlier posts on the Canada Post strike/lockout.