Labour Day Chamber Weekly CEO/Business Leader Poll by COMPAS in the Financial Post for Publication September 2, 2003

Transcription

1 Labour Day Chamber Weekly CEO/Business Leader Poll by COMPAS in the Financial Post for Publication September 2, 2003 COMPAS Inc. Public Opinion and Customer Research

2 1.0 Introduction In the week leading up to the Labour Day weekend, COMPAS asked business leaders to reflect on the accomplishments and weaknesses of the labour movement.. Overall, respondents see the labour movement as having the greatest contribution to improving safety and working conditions, as opposed to helping to decrease child labour, restricting the number of working hours per day, and accelerating economic growth by raising labour costs and hence motivating employers to automate and modernize. With respect to the abolition of child labour, their second highest choice, respondents are divided as to whether this would have occurred with or without the labour movement. Business leaders strongly believe that the greatest weakness of the labour movement has been its imposition of senseless workplace rules that have resulted in a reduction in economic productivity and effectiveness. These are the key findings from the current web-survey of CEOs and other business leaders conducted by COMPAS on behalf of the National Post under sponsorship of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. 2.0 Unions Bring Safety for Workers, But Not Necessarily Productivity When asked what has been the greatest accomplishment of trade unions, business leaders choose improving safety and working conditions (84) first, more than doubling the second most popular accomplishment; helping to decrease child labour (41), as shown in Table 1. With respect to other potential union accomplishments, restricting the number of working hours per day ranks third (35), while accelerating economic growth by raising labour costs and hence motivating employers to automate and modernize (24) ranks fourth. 1

3 Table 1: Q1 - As you may know, Canada has celebrated Labour Day for over one hundred years. In your opinion, which of the following has been the greatest accomplishment of the trade union movement Improving safety and working conditions First Mention 64 Second Mention 20 Combined 84 Helping to decrease child labour First Mention 17 Second Mention 24 Combined 41 Restricting the number of working hours per day First Mention 4 Second Mention 30 Combined 35 Accelerating economic growth by raising labour costs and hence motivating employers to automate and modernize First Mention 10 Second Mention 14 Combined 24 Don't know or no opinion Combined 17 In fact, when asked which achievement would have been most likely to have happened even without the involvement of labour unions 50 of business leaders polled answered economic growth by automation and modernization, as shown in Table of business leaders believe that child labour would have been abolished without the help of labour unions. Table 2: Q3 - Which of the following achievements would have been most likely to have happened even without the involvement of labour unions? Economic growth by automation and modernization 50 Abolition of child labour 32 Improving safety and working conditions 8 2

4 Reduced working hours 7 Don't know or no opinion Unions Hinder Business As shown in Table 3, 68 of business leaders believe that the labour movement has hurt business by imposing senseless rules in many workplaces having the effect of reducing productivity and effectiveness. Table 3: Q4 - Which of the following is the most serious weakness of the labour movement Imposing senseless rules in many workplaces having the effect of reducing productivity and effectiveness 68 Heavy political involvement favouring socialist parties and high spending, high taxing governments 17 Poor record of controlling corruption and crime in the labour movement 8 A record of support to lunatic fringe elements in Canadian politics and to dictatorships abroad 3 Don't know or no opinion 3 As some respondents said, Although the labour unions are quite successful in providing safe working environments for Canadian workers, the high prices of union wages are sending a lot of production and manufacturing employment opportunities to 3rd world countries, where the conditions are unsafe, wages are set at "starvation. Unions are the major road block to improving productivity. Unions only really represent 5 of the work force who happen to be very vocal. The majority are forced to follow. Unions do not work for the betterment of their "membership" and do not work for the betterment of society as a whole 3

5 4.0 Methodology Chamber CEO/Business Leader Poll by COMPAS in the Financial Post The National Post/COMPAS web-survey of CEOs and leaders of small, medium, and large corporations and among executives of the local and national Chambers of Commerce was conducted August 26 28th. Respondents constitute an essentially hand-picked panel. Because medium and small companies are more numerous in the economy and hence among Chamber membership, the actual respondents in this consultative panel are drawn more from these strata than from the stratum of the largest companies. Because of the small population of CEOs and business leaders from which the sample was drawn, the study can be considered more accurate than comparably sized general public studies. In studies of the general public, surveys of n=145 are deemed accurate to within approximately 8 percentage points 19 times out of 20. The principal and coinvestigator on this study are Conrad Winn, Ph.D and Tamara Gottlieb. 4