Canada’s Business-Class Brain Trust Is Warning About Labor Unrest
As Canadian workers face down rising living costs on stagnant wages while corporate profits soar, the country’s financial press is raising the alarm over a coming “labor Armageddon.” Such a reckoning would be both unsurprising and fully warranted.
Business elites in Canada are sweating over the prospect of an increase in workplace action amid inflation and stagnant wages. (Getty Images)
In recent months, Canada’s financial pages have pumped out warnings that “labor unrest” is the order of the day. This fall, the Financial Post anticipated that Canada’s “super-charged” inflation would drive an uptick in workplace activity not seen in a generation. As the Post put it, with a note of hyperbolic dread, “the potential for labour Armageddon is in the air.”
BNN Bloomberg likewise notified its readers that, “after years of stagnating wages, workers want to get paid. They’re tired of seeing their incomes evaporate as inflation surges, especially those in logistics or other frontline industries that kept economies functioning during the pandemic.”
Nick Axford, an economist for Avison Young, observed, “We’ve already seen increased wage expectations, increased wage costs, strikes and industrial action coming through.”
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