Thank you, Chair.
Good morning to my colleagues.
Thank you to the witnesses for coming in today.
I remember coming home in 1988. I had my first job, at Canada Packers. My salary at that point was $20,000. I remember coming in the door, talking to my dad and telling him that I made $20,000. He had this blank look on his face: “You're making $20,000?” I said, “Yes. Dad, you've worked at a non-unionized place for 40 years, so what do you make?” Dad, at that point, was making $15,000. I dug into it at that point, and I realized very quickly that although he had a steady job, he had no benefits. He had two weeks' vacation after 40 years, no health plan and no pension plan, nothing. I did some comparison of other plants where he could have worked and quickly realized that he could have made a lot more.
We're doing this study, and I'll read part of the motion: “unionized workers receive more powerful paycheques; the impact of unionization on benefits and pensions; and the reasons behind such disparities”. That's what this study is about. We're here to study unionization: why companies that have unions pay better and do better. We always say that union wages set wages for the middle class.
Mr. Archer, my question is for you. I also want to thank you for your comments on the union training and innovation program. We've had some wonderful announcements in my riding of Saint John—Rothesay on UTIP, with the Heat and Frost union, IBEW and others. It's a wonderful program.
I do want to get your thoughts and comments. A Stats Canada labour force survey in 2023 confirmed that unionized workers made an average of $35.73 per hour in 2023, compared to $32.60 for workers who weren't unionized. That's a big difference. It's a difference of $3.13. You're probably not surprised by that, but does that align with your experience and what you've seen?