The Taint of Ideology

Although I'm sure that I frequently fall victim to it, I am deeply offended by lazy thinking, our seemingly endless capacity to fall back on ideological bromides as a substitute for careful and reasoned consideration of an issue. Instances of such defective cogitation abound, and are especially noticeable in online commentary, where, for example, those of a left-wing or progressive perspective will regularly denounce their ideological opposites as 'fascists', while those on the right frequently take great delight in dismissing progressive notions as the work of 'leftards' or other such idiomatically imaginative labels.

The challenge in overcoming these reflexive reactions is considerable, but I sometimes wonder if part of the problem lies in how we phrase the issue or ask the question. All too often, the choices are presented as grim absolutes. For example, we are told by our political leaders that any measures to improve our society can be achieved only at a great cost to the economy. Never is there a middle ground, where a tradeoff between the two polarities is presented as a viable option. But perhaps we are not asking the right question.

The following video is a brilliant example of how to reframe the question. The library of Troy Michigan, fighting a well-funded Tea Party campaign opposing a 0.7% increase that would keep the facility from having to initiate severe cutbacks, came up with this strategy:

Stunningly effective in its simplicity, the campaign perhaps suggests that there may be many ways in which to frame a question, many ways to engage people so that they think about the implications of an issue rather than simply dismiss it reflexively on ideological grounds.

My reflections are prompted by Martin Regg Cohn's column in today's Star. Entitled Time to put Flaherty on the spot, his opening sentence says a great deal:

When Finance Minister Jim Flaherty debates pension reform with the provinces Monday, he’ll be counting on Canadians to tune it out so he can wait it out — yet again.

He goes on to discuss something many of us are well aware of, namely that far too many of our fellow citizens do not have sufficient savings to ensure a comfortable retirement, and that the average pension afforded by the Canada Pension Plan is hardly adequate to bridge the gap. Real reform that would ultimately lift many retirees out of poverty is very achievable at moderate cost, as attested to by a 30-page discussion paper prepared by federal officials. Unfortunately, Finance minister Jim Flaherty, doubtlessly prompted by ideology and the financial community to which he pays obesaisance, claims that this is not the right time to act, as additional payroll costs would hurt employment in Canada.

Cohn dismisses this fatuous defence of inaction effectively, and I hope you will take a few minutes to read his piece.

As a retired teacher who enjoys a pension that provides for a decent standard of living, I am acutely aware than many others struggle tremendously in life. However, unlike those commentators who disparage and debase people like me for my good fortune and would like to see me brought down to a more hardscrabble existence, I am very much interested in seeing the opportunity of comfortable retirement living extended to as many people as possible. And that can only be achieved by confronting and challenging the conventional 'wisdom' of our political 'leaders'.

We have become a nation of complacent people, content to use our cynicism about the political process as an excuse for our inactivity, our refusal to advocate for an improved society.

We can do and be so much better than this.

With Some Ambivalence

In light of the unspeakable tragedy in Connecticut yesterday, in some ways it seems manifestly disrespectful to write a regular blog post today. Yet, to become paralyzed with despair over the evil in the world is not the answer either. Far better it is, in my mind, to try to confront and combat the evil that we actually have some possibility of mitigating.

Such is my feeling about the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party's exultancy over so-called right-to-work legislation now in effect in 24 U.S states, Michigan being the most recent jurisdiction to join the fold.

As reported in today's Star,

Tories are eager to follow in the footsteps of Michigan’s anti-union legislation ... and turn Ontario into a right-to-work jurisdiction where workers can opt out of joining unions and paying dues.

The move is near the top of the agenda for the Progressive Conservatives led by Tim Hudak should they be elected come the next general election.

Liberally quoting Christine Elliott, a Tory MPP and the wife of Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, Richard Brennan tells us that Ms Elliott is confident that such legislation will be the answer to our economic woes since new businesses [will] pick Ontario because they will have the “flexibility” they need to get the job done without tangling with a unionized workforce.

'Flexiility' is always one of those words that sets my spider-sense atingle, since it is usually a euphemism for lower wages and working conditions. She then goes on to talk about the need for a 'nimble' workforce (spider-sense now on full alert!) so that businesses when they need to adapt to changing conditions in the workplace they have the flexibility to be able to do that.

With an apparently straight face, Ms Elliott avers that taking away the power of unions will result in higher wages “because we will have more businesses locating here. They will do well, they will be able to hire more people and pay higher wages.”

Only those who drink a certain brand of Kool Aid would accept such fatuous assertions without some research. Happily, the American site Media Matters has done the heavy-lifting on the subject, the full report of which I hope you will take some time to read. Its two most salient conclusions, supported by data, not empty rhetoric, are that right-to-work laws lead to lower wages and benefits for workers and that right-to-work" laws have little impact on employment.

As well, for those interested in the quite sordid provenance of the right-to-work movement, The Galloping Beaver has a post and a link that is most enlightening.

But I suppose Ms Elliott and her party of benighted souls are anticipating that people will simply react with Pavlovian salivation rather than reasoned discourse over her twisted version of a worker's 'paradise.'

The MacKay Mission

I really have nothing new to add to the sad spectacle of ministerial incompetence epitomized by Defense Minister Peter MacKay, whose ongoing mission and primary responsibilibilty seems to be never admitting to error or apologizing. However, the Star's Tim Harper does have some thoughts on the reasons for his intransigence in today's column:

For his part, MacKay has adopted the warrior stance of the men and women he represents in his ministry. No surrender, no weakness.

In politics, an apology is seen as a sign of weakness, a hole to be exploited by your opponents and, in MacKay’s case, it is far better to endure humiliation than to utter a mea culpa after more than two years of obfuscation, lowballing and attacks on the patriotism of anyone criticizing the F-35 fighter jet procurement program.

Perhaps the most compelling reason for his reticence lies in what an admission of error would really mean:

... it would cut to the core of the Conservative brand — its financial rectitude — and dredge up the charges that the government deceived the public during the 2011 election campaign.

Harper goes on to detail the internal humiliation that this proud soldier of the No Apologies PMO has had to endure:

He had his toys taken away. After the auditor-general’s report, the government created a fighter jet secretariat and handed the file to Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose.

He had to sit, mute, in the Commons while Liberals brayed for his resignation and surrogates answered for him.

His increasingly chippy parliamentary secretary, Chris Alexander, has an ongoing starring role in political talk shows trying to explain this failed process for MacKay.

He had to endure those Top Gun images, played on an endless loop, of him strapped in the cockpit in 2010.

All doubtlessly hurtful to Central Nova's favourite son.

I find myself curiously unmoved by his plight.

A Lesson From Egypt

The other day I wrote a post contrasting the fervent engagement of the Egyptian people as they pursue their demands for a representative democracy, contrasting that passion with our own seeming indifference to the deficits we face here at home.

This morning's Star has published a letter from James Quinn, a Hamilton area activist and biology professor at McMaster University, on the topic of what we can learn from Egypt. I reproduce it below:

Re: Morsi calls in the military ahead of constitution vote, Dec. 10

I think we can learn a thing or two from the protesters in Egypt.

They have won the right to elect their own government. They went through the election process. They did not face robocall scandals and ended up with what was deemed a fair election. They thought they were in a democracy.

But Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi has made decisions that were not part of his platform when he was elected. The protestors recognize that their elected leader should not be free to do as he chooses until the next election. They recognize that this is not democratic. Are they just being idealistic?

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has passed two omnibus bills, C-38 and C-45, that devastate our environmental and waterway protection in very dramatic ways. He has declared open season on nature. He has paved the way for dangerous rapid expansion of the Alberta tar sands.

I do not recall these dramatic changes being mentioned in his election platform. The people of Canada have not had any democratic input into these dramatic changes.

We have lost our democratic rights to this Conservative dictatorship. We should learn from our Egyptian colleagues and take to the streets.

Unions After Bill C-377

In my favorite Shakespearian play, Hamlet, there is a scene wherein his erstwhile friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, explain that an acting company that used to enjoy great popularity has fallen on hard times. Thanks to a new craze in which troupes of child actors have become the rage, and "are most tyrannically clapped for", adults have had to go on the road to earn a living. Hamlet wonders about the child actors' futures, because their current success means they are in fact "exclaim[ing] against their own succession", since they will be out of work once they grow up.

I can't help but think about human nature's shortsightedness when I read those lines. We pursue things that aren't good for us, while we denigrate that which, in the long term, is of benefit. Take, for example, the public's attitude toward unions. More days than nought, there are columns and letters published condemning unions and their well-paid members, envy and resentment seeping through the pages, seemingly in a senseless quest to bring people down to the lowest pay and working conditions possible.

It is, of course, this irrational impulse to which Bill C-377, the thinly-disguised union-busting legislation passed on Wednesday evening by the Harper government, plays. Clothed in the rhetoric typical of a workers' rights-hating regime, the law will require labour organizations to provide extensive details, such as the salaries of top union leaders, to the Canada Revenue Agency, which will publish the information on its website.

All designed, of course, to stoke even more public contempt for those enjoying better working conditions and pay than those in non-union environments.

And yet, as observed by Thomas Walkom and David Climenhaga, unions themselves must bear some of the responsibility for this current sorry state.

Writes Walkom:

What’s really killing unions is not the political right. It is that, for too many workers, organized labour is no longer relevant.

In 2011, federal figures show, 31 per cent of Canadian workers overall were unionized. Of these, the vast majority are middle-aged or older. For younger workers between the ages of 15 and 24, the rate of unionization is just under 16 per cent.

Compounding the problem, says Walkom, is the fact that union membership is concentrated in the public sector, with only 16 per cent of private sector workers belonging to unions, largely due to the collapse of manufacturing jobs and the proliferation of part-time and contract work in North America.

He adds,

Unions — which understandably pay attention first and foremost to their own members — haven’t lobbied hard enough to tighten up the employment standards legislation that allows these low-wage practices.

Nor have most unions figured out a way to deal with a new kind of workplace, where people no longer labour in large factories and where strikes can be circumvented by technology.

Echoing this idea, in The Rabble David Climenhaga writes:

Ironically, while most unions don't do enough to represent working people beyond their own membership, what little they do to fight for the powerless in society is why authoritarian neoconservatives like Harper have such a hate on for labour and other groups that speak out for traditional Canadian values.

So one worthwhile response to the effort by the Conservatives to smother unions in red tape is to fight harder for real progressive causes, not to mention never again signing a lousy two-tier contract that leaves young workers with the short end of the stick to preserve the past victories of older workers. No, an injury to one remains an injury to all, people!

Perhaps the final consideration should be given to those who "most tyrannically clap[...]' for the kind of repressive legislative agenda epitomized by Bill C-377. In a jurisdiction near you, you can probably look forward to more of this.

Workers of the World Unite- You Have Nothing to Lose But Your Union Shackles!

That perhaps might have been the call in Michigan yesterday, as it joined 23 other states in enacting so called 'right-to-work-legislation' that 'liberates' workers from mandatory union membership and union dues.

Passed by a Republican-dominated House of Representatives, the new law was proudly proclaimed by Republican House Speaker Jase Bolger in the following terms:

“This is about freedom, fairness and equality” ... “These are basic American rights — rights that should unite us.”

Ah yes, those famous rights that allow workers to sell themselves to the lowest corporate bidder, a foregone conclusion in Michigan and the other 'liberated' states, a fact tacitly acknowledged with a wink and a nudge by supporters of the legislation, who say it will boost the economy by creating jobs, attract new companies to Michigan and give workers more choices for employment.

But then again, perhaps I am wrong, and that surge of expected new employment will result from corporations being attracted to states where the workers are revelling in their newly-acquired 'freedom.' After all, a happy and contented worker is a productive worker.

Lest Canadian workers feel left out, our federal overlords are laying the groundwork for similar serf-like satisfaction in this country. As reported in today's Star, Bill C-377, an alleged private member's bill about which I have previously written on this blog, is to receive the full backing of the Harper regime and is expected to be passed today in the House.

Says Labour Minister Lisa Raitt:

“Our government is going to support (the bill), with the amendments that have been brought in. It makes a lot of sense” ... “Workers want to know how their union dues are being spent.”

Of course, there are always naysayers when it comes to such liberating legislation:

Liberal interim leader Bob Rae said Bill C-377 “is an exercise in bureaucratic overkill that has nothing to do with transparency and everything to do with simply trying to punish trade union organizations.”

Rae said the bill, if passed, could be part of “the pattern in the United States” of limiting union rights. The next step, he warned, could by an attempt by the Harper government to eliminate the so-called Rand formula, under which workers in a bargaining unit must pay mandatory union dues.

Such carping criticism aside, can it be long before we are all living in a worker's paradise?

A Canadian Success Story

Many years ago, campaigns urging people to 'Buy Canadian' abounded. A point of pride with many, patronizing our domestic suppliers of goods and services, although more difficult than in earlier times thanks to the corporate pursuit of ever-higher profits at the expense of domestic jobs, is still possible.

Today's Star has a piece about a very successful Canadian company whose products are prominently displayed in most grocery stores that we visit. The story of Chapman's Ice Cream, and the commitment that it has consistently shown to its workers, perhaps makes it something of an outlier; it also makes it an inspiring success story that I hope you will take a few minutes to read about.