Shining a light on union spending

The Canadian Senate, in its final act, passed a bill that will require the country's unions to "publicly disclose all transactions over $5,000, reveal the details of officers or executives who make over $100,000, and provide that information to the Canada Revenue Agency, which would publicly post the information to its website". Of course, it's by no means certain that the new law will ever come into effect, in that the Liberals have vowed to repeal it should they take power and the unions have vowed to take it to the courts.  more

Nevertheless, it's interesting to speculate on the reaction of teachers' unions' members if the bill became law. Right now, most teachers have only the haziest notion of the political causes their union dues support. And virtually no teachers have a clue how lavishly their union executives and officials pay themselves, what with salaries and benefits. If this information became publicly available, it is possible that teachers would be less supportive of their unions - perhaps even protesting the fact that they must join the union in order to teach in a Canadian public school. After all, their annual union dues are more than $1,000 - a very hefty bite out of their salaries - and for what? To support political parties they don't support themselves? To pay huge salaries and benefits to fatcat union officials with cushy jobs? 

Comments