Scotty

Don't blame collective bargaining if management agrees to ridiculously generous benefits, salaries and conditions. Blame short term thinking on the part of management. In what way? It certainly takes a lot of taxpayers to support a bureaucrat doing his work at $60k per year. What of it? Does that mean his remuneration is unreasonable for the work he's doing?

Is a labour law going to save you when you're abruptly put on the midnight shift so your boss's nephew can have yours? Is it going to protect you when they cut your salary or decide you have to work during your scheduled holiday, despite already having bought plane tickets? Is it going to help you when your boss harasses you? What about when your boss decides to suspend you for a week because he finds you guilty of doing something you didn't do? If you have a crappy, unergonomic work area which is hurting your back every day, is the government going to do anything about it? If you are now ill and so unable to work quite up to your old standard, is the government going to protect you or see you get shifted to another job within the organization? If the boss decides he doesn't like you and is going to give you all the crappiest assignments, and won't promote you because he doesn't like your politics is the government going to step in to help you?

Government policies and procedures lead to enormous structural inefficiencies in how they work and deliver services. THAT is why everything takes longer and costs more, not because their workers are lazy.

The federal government did exactly that last year. They passed a law which retroactively canceled or clawed back the raises in collective agreements they had already signed with some unions. They were about to spend umpteen billions on a wild variety of 'incentive' schemes, but had to claw back 1 and 2% raises from their employees.

Would you care to name these laws?

Yes, big business loves immigrants. Treat them like crap, overwork them, then drop a penny in their hands and the poor immigrant weeps with gratitude and works all the harder. Most of the workers the company brought in to replace us during that long ago lockout were immigrants too.

What does that even mean? That's nonsense.

You've done a study of comparative contributions between public and private sector unionized employees, right? Care to cite it?

It's not ideological. Scabs harm other workers. It's self interest.

What a scab does affects all the other workers. If there are enough scabs, it damages the strike, and lets management hold out longer, lets them keep the rest of the workers out in the cold, walking the picket line. It gives them a lot more power over the workers. It's completely natural then, for the workers to dislike scabs. In addition, of course, when the union actually gets a raise or an increase in benefits, or some kind of protection, the scab benefits too, even though he hasn't contributed and has actually done his best to defeat the union's efforts. I was once replaced by a scab. Management showed up and brought these brand new hirelings in to replace all the unionized workers in a lock-out because of sputtering contract talks. Now had it not been for these scabs we would have arrived at a compromise. Because of the scabs the strike lasted almost a year. The company wound up going out of business because the poorly trained scab workers did such a lousy job that they lost a whole bunch of contracts and were never able to make up the damage to their reputation. Scabs do no one any good. I realize that there are cases where unreasonable union leaders provoke the use of scabs but in general they cost both the company and the union.

Well, just for you, I went and got my wife's pay stub. She had $109.45 deducted last month for CPP, and $136 deducted for superannuation. Because of the way the public service pension is worked, she doesn't really get CPP (they deduct CPP from her government pension) so in effect, she paid $245 for her pension in the last two weeks. Certain benefits are paid by the employer, be it public or private, such as dental care and eyeglasses. Others are paid by the member, if, for example, they want to upgrade their hospital insurance care. These two sentences should never appear together. So you think it's okay that private sector employers pay decent benefits and wages but public sector employers should screw over their workers whenever possible and give them the lowest possible wages? Is this the kind of example you feel the government should be setting to the country at large? Do you think society is improved by screwing over almost all workers so that the rich corporations and companies can get fatter and richer?

I'm not sure you have a proper understanding of the term "proof". For example, according to what you wrote, a couple of union guys were rude and thoughtless to you one day, and that set off a life-long hatred of all union members and a determination they were all vile people and that unions should be destroyed. Most of us would have just realized those couple of guys were jerks. Now you worked for the same employer for decades and apparently found that employment satisfactory. To you this seems to indicate all employers everywhere are fair and just and respectful towards their employees. Even though, by your own admission, you've never worked anywhere else, and thus have ZERO firs hand knowledge. You appear to be taking very deep seated positions based on virtually no evidence or information.

I think that by that time they were looking for a way out, and this gave them a way out, while still claiming a victory over the previous American president. You mean like Sadaam or Mubarak?

Public sector unions are greedy for wanting a living wage? Nobody likes to pay taxes, but those public servants are doing necessary work. Well, most of them In any large organization, whether it is public or private sector, you're going to find inefficiencies. It's inevitable. They used to call GM's headquarters The Detroit Kremlin, for how dense the bureaucracy was.

Could you rephrase this? I have no idea what you're trying to say...

The term 'economic migrants' includes both the principal and his family, so only about 20-25% of that number are actually educated/skilled individuals who may or may not speak English/French. The others are not assessed as to their language or skills or education. As to sponsored family members, there is no real mechanism in place to enforce that sponsorship. Many sponsors renege, sometimes the moment their relative steps off the plane, leaving various social welfare agencies to support them. Remember, also, that if we allow someone to sponsor their parents or grandparents those older people will come here and, having contributed nothing (and likely will never contribute anything) to Canada will still consume services, such as health care. According to one site I found there are currently 100,000 grandparents and parents in the queue for entry. I guess you are from the west if you have a lot of natives in your public housing. Here it is mostly immigrants.

The last time they had to relocate they used the Museum on Mcleod street. I don't know why they couldn't do the same again It's already got a big, ugly glass dome attached and was just renovated (thus the big ugly glass dome). The museum of nature isn't all that popular anyway. We could put it aside for a while.

That's simplistic twaddle. I've worked any number of places where the employer screwed over workers at every possible opportunity, including firing them at the first hint they were no longer capable of working at a top rate, regardless of years of service or illness. That's assume they were ever hired permanently at all. A lot of employers try to avoid paying any benefits or giving any raises by keeping people on rotating terms. Wal-Mart does that a lot. It hires for a year, then, if you've been a good, obedient little robot and never complained about working conditions, or unpaid overtime, they'll 're-hire' you after a one day break.

Public sector workers pay an awful lot of their paycheques into their pensions every month. Nobody pays for their own benefits. That's why they're called BENEFITS! Were you surprised to learn that the auto workers never paid anything into their pensions - ever? People have a cliche'd view of public sector benefits. There are many in the private sector which are better.

Without a raise, the cost of living means you make less money. Why would they NOT want a raise? It's not like the money is a major part of the enormous wasteful spending governments engage in every single year. I agree. We need a lot more unionization in the private sector so the private sector workers aren't screwed over so much.

Because workers are always treated honestly and fairly by employers?

There is a small-mindedness among many Americans. When they see ordinary Americans doing better than them they get jealous and want them punished. Then, oddly, when they see multi-millionaires reaping the rewards of theft, corruption and bribery, they admire them as though they were reality TV stars.

I think you have been reading too many stories about the fifties.

Given the growing tendency to screw over workers and to buy off politicians so you can do so I think the problem is a lack of unions in the private sector, not a surfeit of unions in the public sector.

Being an air traffic controller is a highly stressful job which requires a high degree of skill and training. They were making between $21,000 and $49,000 per year. Contrast that with what Teachers, cops, firefighters, or for that matter, government clerks make and it doesn't seem at all impressive. I don't know anyone dumb enough to want a job that hard for such low pay, and as far as I know they are perpetually short-staffed. As opposed to a politicians? So they don't need to eat so we should pay them as little as possible, is that what you're saying?