Yeah, I actually do. I mean it's just my interpretation of events, but I think both privately and publicly owned companies have been doing this basically to weaken the Union's bargaining position, and help buffer against any possible public or legal backlash. Company's can get in a lot of trouble for trying to impose controversial restructuring while a Union is in a strong position, but if they can cite severe financial difficulties they're much more likely. In Canada, Caterpiller recently did this. And on a federal level, the Harper government recently restructured the Canada Post national mail service to lay off a bunch of people and eliminate home delivery nationwide which makes Canada the only G20 country not to offer home delivery. The new CEO who was appointed as basically gone on record saying he doesn't think a public ("socialized") mail service should even exist, and all the press releases like that one were written from that perspective. In both these cases the idea is that many people could tell you what the real problem with the companies were, which was baseline gross mismanagement of hours and logistics and a terrible efficiency record. People would come to work every day and sleep in the trucks not realizing that the power holders were watching them dig their own graves. A few years into no serious attempts to correct those flaws, they quote 'irreconcilable differences' and 'grave financial circumstances' to excuse imposing sweeping reform. The Ontario Government recently eliminated collective bargaining for teachers in Ontario in its entirety. Strikes are starting again as they're trying to increase class sizes, decrease supply budgets, and a province-wide hiring freeze on full time, part time and supply position workers has outright starved schools for manpower. I've heard of cases where they've been amalgmating classes in gymnasiums for a few days a week just so the kids can be physically supervised during class hours, let alone receive a decent education. And many teachers, burned out or originally bad hires, are responding with increased cynicism and taking more sick days and stuff. This is also combined with baffling incompotence at the board/managerial level, where each district seems to be functioning worse than the last. There are ramptant problems with two few hires in crucial positions, and a plethora of top-heavy managerial and consulting positions in places that can't and don't have a lasting impact on the problems the boards are facing. And all this was done by the Liberal party, which has always worked closely with the teacher's unions in the past to get into power. Though the conservative candidate in the last election was still so much worse that even the Police union was buying ads against them. I feel like this new business strategy is to just dig a grave around your competitor while you feed them wine and just wait for them to fall in.