Unions' Self-Inflicted Problems

Allow me to be unequivocal from the start: I am a strong believer in unions as virtually the only effective means of countering the depredations that employers would inflict upon their workers if given the opportunity. However, I also believe that in some ways, unions are their own worst enemies, an opinion I formed as a member of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation during my teaching career.

Like many if not most institutions, unions have become highly political in both their structure and their treatment of members. My own experience with my former union was that they had little time or respect for those, like me, who expressed opinions that challenged their positions, especially if they were not a member of the executive. I suspect it is this refusal to both respect and to cultivate the 'ordinary' union member that poses a threat to the union movement's future greater than any that might emerge from so-called 'right-to-work' legislation that is becoming increasingly popular in the United States.

I was prompted to reflect on the topic this morning during breakfast as I read The Toronto Star. A story entitled Construction union pays $10 million to buy off employees reveals a curious kind of union-busting tactic within a union framework that has been employed by the Labourers’ International Union of North America in Toronto.

The first four paragraphs of the story read as follows:

The continent’s biggest construction local is spending more than $10 million to muscle out its own staff and their new union.

In a twist to the explosive political infighting that occasionally flares up in the labour movement, the Toronto-based Labourers’ International Union of North America Local 183 is buying out about 80 employees with lucrative financial packages after they joined another union.

Several insiders say the move will effectively snuff out the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 2, which represents Local 183 staff, because replacement members won’t have any allegiances and will eventually decertify it.

“It’s disgusting what Local 183 has done to get rid of them and the union,” one insider said Tuesday. “It’s a good example for non-union companies. If you don’t want a union, just buy off the employees.”

The rest of the story describes the political machinations within the local and how the staff joined a rival union to try to circumvent revenge firings that regularly ensue when staff has backed the wrong candidates for union elections. Indeed, there is even a tactic discussed in the story reminiscent of the show-trials popularized by Joseph Stalin during the 1930's.

I hope you will read the entire article to get the full flavor of union politics.

Please sign this petition urging Prime Minister Harper to stop threatening Michaela Keyserlingk and to stop exporting asbestos.

The Power of the People

Despite our almost legendary passivity as a people, one small part of Canada is offering an example of what can happen when citizens shed the mantle of political disengagement that our politicians have long cultivated and counted on in order to push through their misguided policies unchecked.

The small part of Canada to which I refer is the City of Toronto whose people, it is becoming increasingly apparent, now realize the ghastly mistake they made in electing a mayor who told them what they wanted to hear during the campaign and uncritically accepted his lies, only to be faced now with the cost of that misplaced trust.

As most people know, Rob Ford won the Toronto mayoralty race by promising low taxes and no service cuts, miracles that would be wrought by elimination of the 'gravy' that his profligate predecessors had swilled with abandon. Hundreds of millions of dollars in savings would thus be available. Of course, it turned out that there was almost no gravy, unless one were to reclassify services regarded as vital to a well-functioning city under that designation.

Earlier in the summer, impassioned citizens made public representations protesting many of the proposed cuts. Yesterday and early this morning, they did the same in a 20-hour executive committee session in which the delegates were allowed only two minutes each to make their case, down from the previous five minute allotment in the first confrontation. Nonetheless, it is clear that their voices have been heard.

In an online Star report entitled Ford backs down from cuts, for now, we are told that by the end of the marathon session,  Ford voted .... to reject some proposed cuts and to put off decisions on almost all of the others to the 2012 budget process, which begins in November and ends in mid-January.

While the issue of service cuts is not dead by any means, I suspect that as long as public anger and political engagement continues over the prospect of living in a city robbed of its vitality and habitability by philistines like Ford and his council supporters, the citizens of Toronto will have the influence they should have over forthcoming budget deliberations.

Now if we could only export that engagement to the federal level .....

What is Mesothelioma? A Question I Am Sure The Harpur Government Well Knows The Answer To

Think of Stephen Harper and his minions when you watch this video. He and his government are directly responsible for cases of this dread disease in developing countries such as India.

Please sign this petition urging Prime Minister Harper to stop threatening Michaela Keyserlingk and to stop exporting asbestos.

Forbidden Tory Video Available Here

Thanks to Impolitical for the link to this video:

The Scourge of Phantom Crime

Readers of this blog may know that I place a great deal of stock in critical thinking. Although I am sure that I stray from it on a regular basis, to be a consistent critical thinker is the ideal toward which I strive. It is therefore disheartening, though hardly surprising, that an internal memo circulated Sunday to Conservative Members of Parliament gives insight into a Harper political agenda that seems largely predicated on contempt for the electorate.

An article in today's Star entitled Crime crackdown tops Harper agenda reveals, to no one's surprise, that the Fall parliamentary session is to be dominated by law and order legislation:

While it’s not known for sure what measures will be in the legislation, they could include adult sentences for youths convicted of serious crimes, expanded surveillance powers for police, curbing house arrest for property crimes and ending pardons for serious crimes.

Not to be deterred by the fact of falling crime rates, the government has an interesting, but hardly novel way to justify its promise of more incarceration time for more Canadians, who will need to be quartered in the new prisons that will be built at a cost of over $6 billion:

"Quite simply, people are not reporting to the police that they are a victim of crime,” the memo says. “More needs to be done.”

The key word in the above excerpt is simply, which, in my view, reveals how the Harper government looks at issues, never allowing hard data to get in the way of its ideological imperatives. However, what I do resent is the assumption about the citizens of Canada implicit in such an assertion. Clearly, we are perceived as lacking either the fortitude or the intelligence to collectively challenge groundless claims about issues like phantom crime.

Time will tell whether they are correct in making that assumption.

A Reminder to My MP

I am a great believer in holding our politicians to account. Even though they may prove to be ultimately meaningless gestures, letters to our elected representatives at the very least remind them that their opposition is not simply going to give up and accept the atrocities they commit in our names.

The following is the latest letter I sent to my Member of Parliament, David Sweet:

Dear Mr. Sweet,

Given your government’s refusal to end the export of asbestos, and given the fact that your government was the sole nation to oppose the labeling of asbestos as a toxic substance under Annex 111 of the Rotterdam Convention which would have required the inclusion of explicit instructions in the handling of this deadly material, perhaps you can prevail upon your leader to include the following with all subsequent shipments: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jifoNSXvTuQ

At the very least, the inhabitants of countries like India should know the future that awaits them, thanks to your government’s insistence on elevating economics over morality and human decency.

Sincerely,
Lorne Warwick

Please sign this petition urging Prime Minister Harper to stop threatening Michaela Keyserlingk and to stop exporting asbestos.

The Ford Gang Stays True To Form

Although I don't live in Toronto, it has become an object of fascination for me since the election of Mayor Rob and Doug Ford. Within their fiefdom resides a psychology that provides fascinating examples of and insights into the darker aspects of human nature: our propensity for selfishness and short-shortsightedness, our fear of ideas that conflict with our worldview, our tendency to demonize those who disagree with us, our happy reliance on propaganda and absolutism, and our elevation of ideologies over critical thinking.

I may return to each of these aspects in future posts, but I have time for just one short illustration now. As predicted in a previous post, while some councillors are feeling the heat, Team Ford is officially dismissing the results of a recent poll showing an overwhelming majority of Torontonians strongly opposed to the cuts in city services under current consideration because it was paid for by CUPE Local 79.

You can read the full story here.