Strikes are multiplying across Canada (over 700 in 2024) and are logically taking up more space in the media. Yet every time workers try to improve their conditions, mainstream media outlets seem to find a thousand reasons to oppose them. Whether it's exhausted nurses, underpaid warehouse workers, or postal employees watching their workplace fall apart, the media consistently sideline their perspectives instead of amplifying them.
Take, for example, the strike in Quebec’s residential construction sector, which began on May 28 and ended just last week. Throughout the conflict, media outlets like La Presse and Le Journal de Montréal rushed to hammer home the message that construction workers are already paid well enough. We were also repeatedly reminded that they are legally allowed to keep working despite the strike.
A similar tune played during the Canada Post conflict that reignited at the end of May, with headlines like: Canada Post says strike contributed $208M to the company's $1.3B loss last year. Thanks to the National Post for the subtlety!
One thing is clear: we almost never hear about these conflicts from the point of view of those most affected. Few mainstream media outlets bother to dig into the reasons workers choose to strike. Even fewer hold employers to the same level of scrutiny as they apply to the strikers.
Opinion columns are more openly biased. But it’s in so-called “news” articles that a more subtle—but very real—anti-worker propaganda slips through.
Distract to Divide
One article that throws workers under the bus in favor of employers is titled Why are construction wages so high? It was published in La Presse and written by Marie-Ève Fournier. The piece sparked a lot of reactions. In the very first paragraph, she writes:
“Wages in construction always stir up reactions and debate. This year, residential sector workers are asking for an 8% raise, which would bring their base hourly wage to $45. That captures the imagination. And while people worry about rising house prices, another imbalance is growing: undereducated men are getting richer... while women without diplomas are stagnating.”
At first glance, the author seems to be denouncing the low wages in jobs predominantly held by women. Yet she completely ignores the fact that, in recent years, over 10% of new hires on construction sites have been women.
More importantly, she crafts a deceptive argument. Before even addressing the core issues, she subtly pits construction workers against other precarious workers. This framing allows her to take the side of employers while posing as someone who cares about the working class.
In doing so, she glosses over a crucial fact: it’s the business owners who impose precarious conditions through their economic dictatorship. It’s not workers’ wages that are driving up the cost of living or causing cuts to public services. In fact, those very cuts are often what spark strikes in the first place.
As Marc-André Blanchette, technical representative of the Heavy Equipment Operators’ Union (Local 791), pointed out in a response to La Presse, workers’ wages reflect the difficulty of their job and the risks to their health, and sometimes their lives. And these decent wages didn’t fall from the sky! They’re the result of workers organizing collectively and fighting for decades against their bosses.
“Why is it shocking that men and women who didn’t spend 20 years in school earn a decent living?” Blanchette writes. “Because for decades, these workers were kept in precarious conditions until they decided to organize in unions.”
When major media columnists frame the conflict this way, the real demands and issues that lead to the strike are swept off the stage. The conversation shifts from why workers are mobilizing to whether they deserve a slightly better life.
“Holding the Public Hostage”
Another recurring tactic, seen most clearly during the 2024 Canada Post strike, is a bombardment of detailed articles focusing solely on the impact on small businesses. Strikers are accused of “holding the public hostage,” as if workers themselves weren’t part of that “public.” Most of the time, not a single worker is interviewed. Their demands are barely mentioned—if at all.
For example, The North Star reviewed about fifty articles published between November 20 and December 12, 2024, by Radio-Canada/CBC, La Presse, City News, Le Journal de Montréal, and the National Post. Only one of them explained postal workers’ demands in detail. Another briefly quoted a striking worker but didn’t include what she was asking for.
The rest of the articles blamed the strikers for Service Canada’s suspended passport deliveries, expressed concern about the impact on Black Friday shopping, called for privatizing the Crown corporation, or reported that small businesses were losing money. Some carried headlines like: “Why Target the People?”—The Canada Post strike has already cost $1.5B to SMEs.
It’s worth noting that a large portion of these articles were initially written by The Canadian Press, then purchased and re-published by major outlets. An absurdly high proportion of the strike coverage, therefore, came from a single source: the country's quasi-monopolistic news agency, The Canadian Press, owned by Power Corporation, a conglomerate worth over $600 billion.
Different Interests
Can we really believe that outlets like the National Post (owned by a shady New Jersey hedge fund) or Le Journal de Montréal (owned by Quebec oligarch Pierre-Karl Péladeau) have the will (or even the ability!) to be credible news sources for workers?
CBC/Radio-Canada, as a public broadcaster, is a somewhat different case. But let’s not forget that it is the propriety of the same federal government that forced 55,000 striking Canada Post employees back to work earlier this year. In that context, what interest does the working class have in relying on media that can’t even be bothered to represent its point of view?