These examples suggest that unionized workers bear some responsibility for the continuing plight of secondary workers. However, against this conclusion must be balanced evidence that shows their role has been a secondary one in comparison with that of the capitalist class. For example, it must be recognized that the union movement is numerically quite small--only one quarter to one third of Canadian workers belong to unions. As well, only a few of these unions have extensive influence in hiring, firing and other personnel decisions. Overall, according to Gonick, the economic power of unions is quite limited in comparison with that of employers:

Lest I have overdrawn the economic strength of primary workers, I hasten to add that they seem strong only by comparison to "dirty" workers. Even the most powerful trade unions have failed to protect the purchasing power of their members through most of the inflation spiral and in North , America, at least, they have been paralysed in the face of plant closures and mass layoffs.55

Moreover, according to Gonick, while primary workers have some short-range interests in the continued subordination of secondary workers, their long-term interests are in the elimination of the secondary labour market and the poverty which accompanies it. For example, the costs of poverty are borne heavily by primary workers--it is this stratum that supplies the bulk of the tax revenues from which social welfare, health and other government programs for the poor are financed. As well, the power of the working class as a whole is significantly impaired by the divided labour market:

In the final analysis, primary and secondary workers face the same class enemy. They are separated and isolated from each other because employers and sometimes trade unions find this arrangement profitable. Their continued separation only assists in their mutual exploitation.56

The division weakens the labour movement as a whole,, and so reduces the economic and social gains which could otherwise be made. For example, we saw above how employers are able to use secondary workers to undercut the position of primary workers in labour struggles.

This evidence suggests that there is only one party which consistently benefits in both the short and long term from the poverty and working class disunity which results from the divided labour market-the capitalist class. It is the main beneficiary, and the main obstacle to ending it. In a previous section we found that the liberal hypothesis that there is a short-range or immediate sense in which illiteracy causes poverty is incorrect--i.e. the primary obstacles to the entry of secondary workers into the primary labour market are not those of education and training. To that we can now add the conclusion that the most important factor underlying the barriers between the two markets are the actions of employers in pursuit of their class interests.