Vancouver residents may soon experience déjàvu as garbage begins to pile up on street corners and in alley ways. Back in 2000 when Vancouver city workers walked off the job, hundreds of tonnes of garbage were left rotting in the summer heat. With the city teetering on the brink of another strike, residents are left asking why they are facing this situation yet again.

Residents of Vancouver are dependent on the public sector for many important services such as garbage pickup, the granting of licenses and permits, and the operation of pools and libraries, all of which could potentially be disrupted by a strike. Presumably one of the reasons that governments originally granted monopolies to the public sector is that these services (much like education and health care) were considered too important to be left to the competitive marketplace. However, if these services are too important to be subjected to the marketplace, why then should they be permitted to be withdrawn over a wage dispute?

It is inappropriate for governments to maintain monopoly provision of services and at the same time allow workers to strike. In other words, there is a choice: we should either allow competition and the right to strike, or continue to provide services in a monopolized manner and prevent strikes.

When it comes to labour negotiations there are real differences between services provided by monopolies and those provided in competitive markets. Suppose unionized workers at a grocery store decide to exercise their right to strike. First, the strike does little more than inconvenience consumers because so many alternatives exist. Second, market forces pressure both the employer and the union to settle their differences quickly.

Unions facing such competitive pressures generally understand that unreasonable wage increases and other demands will ultimately destabilize the company and result in reduced employment. On the other side, the employer must balance the effects of losing market share from a prolonged dispute with demands for wage increases. In other words, there exists sufficient market pressures on both the employer and the union to solve disputes quickly, on terms both can live with. No such mechanism exists when the service is provided by a government monopoly.

One sensible solution to ensure uninterrupted services is to deny the right to strike in the public sector as a condition of employment. If you want to work for the public sector, you must give up your right to strike.

Such a proposal would clearly ensure access to services but leaves the problem of how wages in the public sector would be determined. If public sector workers are not permitted to strike how can they be ensured that they will not be taken advantage of by their employer, the government?

The solution is to link public sector wages to their private sector counterparts through wage boards. Wage boards are independent governmental bodies responsible for collecting, analyzing, and setting wages in the public sector on the basis of wages and benefits in the private sector.

One of the main benefits of this approach is that public sector wages based on those in the private sector would reflect the economic conditions of the times. In addition, public sector workers would likely be better off in the long run under wage boards because the political nature of their wage negotiations would be removed. Currently, wage bargaining in the public sector often ends up as a political confrontation.

A longer-term solution is of course to allow competition in the delivery of services such as garbage collection. A wide body of academic research has found that private operations are more efficient and productive than their public sector counterparts. In addition, they provide citizens with the goods and services in a timely manner with superior customer service, higher quality and lower prices.

In order to solve the looming labour dispute and avoid these types of situations in the future, a clear choice must be made between allowing competition and the right to strike, or continuing to provide services in a monopolized manner and denying the ability to strike. If monopoly provision of services continues to be the preference, wage boards are the best way to ensure public sector workers are paid what they are worth.