# Trade unions and matters related to unions



## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

*Eh! You're The Troll! No, YOU'RE The Troll, Eh! Canadian Edition*

Eh! You're The Troll! No, YOU'RE The Troll, Eh! The Canadian Edition


I would suggest we have Union thread for topics dealing with the discussions of the pros and cons of employees orgainising themselves into a Union.

The discussions could be pro union, neutral to unions or anti union. 

I have witnessed many discussions of topics related to workplace issues or issues of public services, not focus on the topic the original poster raised but on the right or values of the Union or myths about Unions.

Rather than see topics get continually derailed I would suggest the matter of Organised Labour pro or con be discussed in this thread.

The following are some recent comments from a thread result of a news paper article about whether a maid in a hotel in New York City where an alleged sexual assault took place had an advantage because her workplace was organised .



Macfury;1097506" said:


> From the fact that governments in various jurisdictions imbue unions with rights not given to other organizations.
> 
> So band together and raise a legal defense at the union's expense. But I don't believe that all people going to court are _entitled_ to a defense equal to that provided by the world's most expensive lawyers.





groovetube;1097510" said:


> and how does this affect what we're talking about?
> 
> And nice way to frame that. How about we fix that for you. People are entitled to the same level of representation and justice as the biggest richest entities they may face.





BigDL;1097535" said:


> GT Good question! (Where's that like function when you need it.)
> 
> So MF any links? Any literal examples?
> 
> Perhaps this is another notion like the way things were in the old days or is it some right wing big lie that has been around so long it must be true by now regardless of the facts?





Macfury;1097545" said:


> * The ability of union members to keep their jobs despite refusing to work.
> * The inability of employers to replace unionized workers who have left their positions to go on strike.
> * Allowing union organizers to trespass on the private property of the employer.





BigDL;1097548" said:


> Myths without tangible examples. You still a guy on the internet with only one thing...an opinion?


If you think the Union in of itself is a good or bad idea post in this thread rather than not talking about the subject under discussion.

So any thought from other members if this is a viable thread as well as any Union discussions.


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

Unions certainly had a role at the end of the 19th century, into the early to mid-20th century. Sadly, some unions have become as uncaring of the worker as some big companies. Still, there are good unions who work for a reasonable settlement with good companies, and there are bad unions and bad companies. I have been a member of various unions, and I never liked the idea that I was being forced to join the union or I could not work at a certain place. 

I have been on strike for all of two weeks in my 40 years of working for a wage. I actually voted against the idea of a strike. Still, under other circumstances, I would have voted for a strike had the opportunity come about due to circumstances that I won't go into here just now.

This is an interesting thread, and I hope that it does not get derailed with union or corporation bashing ............ leading to personal bashings. We shall see.

Good idea, BigDL. Paix, mon ami.


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## Puccasaurus (Dec 28, 2003)

OK, I'll bite.

I belong to one of the big, bad education unions everyone loves to hate. I cannot tell you how essential union protection is in my career (but I'll try). Teachers get it on all fronts: students, parents, and administration. Here are some real examples of situations that involve the union:

- Students and parents complaining that marks are too low and pressuring me to change them (even when the kid cheated). How long do you think I could hold out if I knew I could be fired for my stupid idealism?

- Administrators pressuring teachers to fudge marks so parents won't bother them and/or so a kid can get a scholarship. This happens all the time and I refuse, knowing that I am protected.

- The constant pressure, in general, to pass kids who don't deserve it in the name of "student success" (and making the government look good). I call this the "customer is always right" approach to education and it stinks to high heaven. 

- Workplace injuries and physical/verbal harassment of teachers. Admin is likely to shrug these off if possible. We can't hurt the kid's self-esteem by calling the police, of course. Threaten to kill a teacher? Be back in class within the hour. Thankfully the union takes these cases seriously. 

- Initiative overload and general BS. Every week it seems some new theory of education comes out and we're all expected to shift gears and experiment on your kids so some postdoc can gather more data on whether marking in red pen reduces literacy or something equally insane. Recently our fearless leaders realized that eliminating late penalties and failure from schools meant that kids never bothered to do any work at all (shock!). Is the union fighting for integrity? You better believe we're the only ones doing so. I suspect most parents aren't even aware of the nonsense passed off as "fact" in education by people who haven't set foot in a classroom in decades. Or whose agenda is as simple as selling their "training programs" and textbooks to school boards.

There are more examples, but I am wary of being too specific. You never know who might recognize me! I'd be happy to answer questions though, as long as people realize I can't always answer in great detail.

I know no one thinks of teachers as being in a vulnerable position but we are in many ways. Without my union I wouldn't feel safe to do my job with integrity and in safety -- and then what would education become? We'd be the USA, whose education system our politicians and policy wonks seem hell-bent on imitating. 

The union is our voice and we have a right to it. It's easy to be jealous but unions are vital to protecting those who need it.


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## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

Dr.G. said:


> Unions certainly had a role at the end of the 19th century, into the early to mid-20th century. Sadly, some unions have become as uncaring of the worker as some big companies. Still, there are good unions who work for a reasonable settlement with good companies, and there are bad unions and bad companies. I have been a member of various unions, and I never liked the idea that I was being forced to join the union or I could not work at a certain place.
> 
> I have been on strike for all of two weeks in my 40 years of working for a wage. I actually voted against the idea of a strike. Still, under other circumstances, I would have voted for a strike had the opportunity come about due to circumstances that I won't go into here just now.
> 
> ...


I can agree with you on some of your points. 

Some Unions are good and some Unions not so much. Unions are people organisations. That means Unions have the potential to be as good as the best of us or as bad as the worst of us.

I would disagree as far as the need for Unions today.

I would say there are workplace where the employees need to work in unison to protect their interests. In Canada people are free to form and joint into a Union. Or not.

After a Union is recognised the employer and the employees can make it a condition of employment that Union membership is required, this is true. 

With roughly 30% Unionised workplaces in Canada and (I am not sure of the percentage of closed shops) the small percentage of total workplaces of closed shops (Union membership required) I should not think it would not a hardship to find employment elsewhere if one objects to Union Membership.


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

Mostly valid points, Puccasaurus. My only concern is that I have been in various school systems as a teacher and a professor, and saw some excellent teachers ....... and some poor teachers. My concern is for my students who cannot get jobs once they graduate from Memorial's Faculty of Education because there are teachers out there just making time. The same holds true for the university, so I am pointing my finger both ways. Still, I feel that there are more effective teachers than ineffective teachers and professors.

I see your point about the protection needed by some in the school system, especially in the high schools. The last time I taught high school I was told to fail a student who had earned a "C". They needed her to fail three major courses (I was her social studies teacher, and she had failed math and English) in order to throw her out of school. I refused. I was told that I would not be rehired if I still refused to fail her. My union rep told me that his hands were tied since I did not have tenure. I saw the pressure he was under not to make me a "cause célèbre", so I passed the student and was not rehired. Still, I knew that the teacher's union I was a member of for that one year did take up the causes of teachers with tenure who were unfairly being harassed due to their political views. Thus, I see your points in your posting as mostly valid.

Paix, mon ami.


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

BigDL said:


> I can agree with you on some of your points.
> 
> Some Unions are good and some Unions not so much. Unions are people organisations. That means Unions have the potential to be as good as the best of us or as bad as the worst of us.
> 
> ...


Valid points, BigDL. I did not mean to say that unions were not important today, but from about the 1880s to the 1960s, they were very important, and many people were protected unfair working conditions and wages.

Paix, mon ami.


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## MazterCBlazter (Sep 13, 2008)

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## poisonmonkey (Sep 20, 2004)

I certainly would like to see major changes with how unions operate.

For example, for a up and coming worker, he /she would get rejected from going for "permanent" or better jobs for the sole reason that he/she does not have the requisite hours to compete for the jobs. I think that qualifications, education and variety of experiences should take precedence. Case in point, a person can be desk jockey for 20 years learn how to pass a test and interview and get jobs that a much more skilled and qualified person would be much better at because of seniority. (I've seen it happen). According to the union, one cannot be "more qualified" than another to do the job. This sets a pretty low "baseline" when as a group the union and employer could gun for some pretty highly educated and skilled workers. (Not all have to be young but could join the union at a later date from another industry)

On the flip side, terrible employees should be fired. That would help the union in the long run as they cull the few that make them look bad. A poor quality worker does no one any good. I don't understand the value of why unionists fight so hard to keep jobs for those unable or unwilling to do the job. I think the fine line of protecting jobs and protecting self interests is too often blurred. Whatever happened to work ethic? For a person unable to do a job, perhaps that person should change the job, that way the worker, employer and union stay relevant. But in the case of an unwilling worker, what good does that do?

Funnily enough, I've seen managers take better care of their employees than what the unions were offering or what union rules were stating.

And unions need to be aware and change to be more relevant in 2011; they can't act like it's 1920.
[/rant] 
(I like how I disappeared from the forum and come back with a massive block of text)


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## kps (May 4, 2003)

I've been on all sides of this issue. A member of one of the most corrupt unions ever established, on the management side dealing with two unions in a single workplace and direct dealings with some of the worst examples of unions imaginable.

There's nothing like being in New Jersey and threatened to have "the boys in black Cadillacs" take you for a ride. LOL! The guy was half joking...but still.

Dealing with the Long Shoremen and Stevedore's Unions in 1980's port of New York while controlled by Gotti was an interesting experience, although it wasn't all that bad even if it had it's moments. Closer to home, I was a paying member of the Teamsters and a small company union. I've dealt with UFCW and the Teamsters as management.

There are places where the unions are deeply entrenched and for the most part, if you know the game, things run extremely smoothly compared to similar places where the unions are not present. The issue is and always has been, the costs between the two.

However, there are union places which are a total disaster. These places are those which are relatively new and do not have the experience of years of being unionized or draw on the collective experience of 50+ years. These place suffer in terms of serious attitude on the part of the workers and in some cases end up being shut down.

I've also has some exceptional experiences with unionized workplaces. Everything is clear cut and runs like clock work. Everyone knows what to do and it gets done efficiently and properly. It does not take a genius to figure out that both the union and management are responsible for that.

In an adversarial environment, it does not matter whether the place is unionized or not, the atmosphere and productivity are a disaster.

To me it makes no difference, it takes two to Tango.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Again, I have no problem with unions, provided they get no favourable treatment under the law.

For example, Section 78 of the Ontario Labour Relations Act (LRA) prohibits strikebreakers from being hired by the employer during a strike or lockout. 

If the union is merely withdrawing unskilled (semi-skilled) labour, then let the employer replace them. If the union is withdrawing truly valuable, skilled employees, the employer will be compelled to negotiate with them.


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## kps (May 4, 2003)

Macfury said:


> Again, I have no problem with unions, provided they get no favourable treatment under the law.
> 
> For example, Section 78 of the Ontario Labour Relations Act (LRA) prohibits strikebreakers from being hired by the employer during a strike or lockout.
> 
> If the union is merely withdrawing unskilled (semi-skilled) labour, then let the employer replace them. If the union is withdrawing truly valuable, skilled employees, the employer will be compelled to negotiate with them.


Unions should not price themselves out of the market, they need to compete in the marketplace, they need to show value for services rendered. It's irrelevant whether they provide skilled or unskilled services. The problems arise when they do not provide expected value compared with a non unionized work force.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

kps said:


> Unions should not price themselves out of the market, they need to compete in the marketplace, they need to show value for services rendered. It's irrelevant whether they provide skilled or unskilled services. The problems arise when they do not provide expected value compared with a non unionized work force.


The point I'm making is that they receive unfair protection from having their members replaced while on strike. If those workers have no valuable skills, then it's easy for the employer to find replacement workers--and they should be allowed to. Let the value of the worker determine whether the employer is eager to replace them or not.


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## Lichen Software (Jul 23, 2004)

Macfury said:


> The point I'm making is that they receive unfair protection from having their members replaced while on strike. If those workers have no valuable skills, then it's easy for the employer to find replacement workers--and they should be allowed to. Let the value of the worker determine whether the employer is eager to replace them or not.


Normally I am pretty much on your side on this sort of thing. Here I see the process as a little more involved. At root it is preservation versus destruction of value.

The employee/employer relationship can be very adversarial. At the employer side, they have the opportunity to attempt to destroy value every day. You see companies like this, where the internal relationship is poison. It is a strategy to continually drive the value of the labour input down. It works by picking on one employee at a time and using them as an example to the rest, to the point where a new "Norm" is created. An example at the retail level is employees paid for 8 hours but expected to be there a half hour or so after closing to help in the shut down. I saw one store where the norm was at least a half hour of unpaid work per day. "Don't like it - hit the road."

Still on retail, in Ontario there is suposed to be a maximum number of hours that students work in a week. When my son was in highschool, the teacher in one class asked how many were working and got a show of hands. Then he asked how many were working less than the maximum hours per week and most of the hands dropped. The minimum wage for students is less than for others in Ontario. These companies load up on students, flouting the law, and driving the value of normal workers to the minimum wage.

Moving to contractors, I watched the value of real estate appraisals be destroyed to the point where I left the business. When I started residential appraisals in 1978, the value of an appraisal was $150.00. When I left the business, banks were moving to appraisal management companies. The appraisal management company would sign up several banks. then they would go to the appraisal firms in the area and say you can have all of the business at $x or none. Ostensibly they were there to promote quality, but in reality they were there to destroy value. In my opinion it was hidden collusion on a grand scale with some of the largest companies in Canada. When I left, in 1999, the value of an appraisal through these appraisal brokers was $97.00 in Newmarket. From that, the appraisal firm had to take it's cut. If you look at inflation as roughly doubling prices every ten years (less now - more in the 80's and 90's - and wait till the interest rates rise), that $150.00 in 1978 would be roughly $450.00 now, which is not far off what you would pay for a divorce appraisal where appraisal brokerage is not an issue.

An argument to that is "Move on". In the appraisal field, to some extent that has happened and it is my understanding that some value has returned to fees. In reality, labour is not that mobile. There are skills picked up in all businesses that are not transferrable. An electrician can go anywhere, but a papermaker or a specific assembly line worker, or an appraiser cannot. The skills have value within the industry, but only if that value is not destroyed. Also, the longer a worker has been in an industry, the more vulnerable they are to this. People let go at the age of 45 now may never work again. It is happening around you.

Appraisers are not the only professionals to have their fees attacked. It is happening with lawyers and surveyors too.

On a wider scale, the migration of originally manufacturing, and now many services, out of North America is also a very deliberate attempt to destroy the value of labour.

On the other side are those trying to preserve value. 

Striking is the most obvious example because it is a catastrophic event for a company. The right to strike is hard won. Historically labour is the lower classes who are supposed to listen to their betters and stay in their place. This comes directly from Europe. Immigrants escaped the major oppressions, but value for work done had to be fought for. The ruling classes did not like it and strikers were killed. Labour organizers in the 30's in Northern Ontario, had trouble getting a meal at a restaurant. Labour organizers today, have unlisted phone numbers. In other parts of the world, violence agains unions is the norm. Unions have a history and they remember. Don't expect them to be warm and fuzzy. People have died.

However, value is preserved in other ways.

Nepotism has always been around.

In the 50's in Ontario, your entry into the Ontario civil service and up the professional ladder was a Mason's ring.

Professional associations raise value. There are States in the US were the dentist lobby has made it almost impossible to enter the field unless you are trained in that state. 

Every time you see the terms "Professional" and "Preservation of Quality" in the same paragraph, be assured that what is being discussed has nothing to do with quality and everything to do with preserving the value of an existing profession. It rises to it's height in the US where it cost about twice as much as aother countries for medical services and drugs.

In the educational sector, it is tenure. A tenured professor cannot be fired in most cases. It is security for life.

To me, unions are an answer to those who would destroy value. They are as valid as the professional associations. Each have different tools to accomplish the same goal.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Lichen Software said:


> Normally I am pretty much on your side on this sort of thing. Here I see the process as a little more involved. At root it is preservation versus destruction of value.


I agree with much of your analysis, but I don't agree that it's right for government to intervene to help a union to preserve value in that which no longer has value--or now has less value. 

Loss of labour due to strike is only catastrophic to an employer if the labour has actual value. When government prevents the hiring of replacement workers it artificially inflates the value of their work.

I also don't believe that it is a deliberate effort to destroy value if a Canadian manufacturer closes a plant in Canada and then opens one in Mexico so that a worker can slap two plastic rings together repeatedly. That some unionized worker once managed to feed a family by endlessly repeating an act that could by learned in six minutes is an anomaly--not a sustainable norm.


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## kps (May 4, 2003)

Macfury said:


> The point I'm making is that they receive unfair protection from having their members replaced while on strike. If those workers have no valuable skills, then it's easy for the employer to find replacement workers--and they should be allowed to. Let the value of the worker determine whether the employer is eager to replace them or not.


I understand the point, but I think it largely depends on the industry...and I include government unions in that.

I don't agree with scab labour. If there's a collective agreement in place it needs to be honoured, otherwise close the plant/whatever and move on. If we take it to the Crown monopoly which is the post office, then it's not realistic to replace 50,000 workers overnight.

Many unions in private enterprise have become more competitive and that is precisely where government unions need to become more realistic.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

kps said:


> If there's a collective agreement in place it needs to be honoured, otherwise close the plant/whatever and move on.


I see this as a ludicrous choice offered to people in a free society. Refuse to hire replacement workers or close the plant? Granted, many companies with unionized labour are taking you up on that pre-emptively and will continue to move plants out of the country as long as this either/or choice is offered them.



kps said:


> Many unions in private enterprise have become more competitive and that is precisely where government unions need to become more realistic.


Other than a few jobs that actually produce measurable results--garbage pick-up for example--there are few reasonable markers to determine the competitiveness of public union workers. If you're doing a desk job designed to spend the rest of the budget at year's end, what does competitiveness matter?


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## Lichen Software (Jul 23, 2004)

Macfury said:


> Loss of labour due to strike is only catastrophic to an employer if the labour has actual value. When government prevents the hiring of replacement workers it artificially inflates the value of their work.


And when a government gives a patent or a license, it artificially inflates the value of the product. Generic drugs versus original, Doctors as sole providers of hospital services, licensed electricians and plumbers to do all wiring and plumbing as stipulated in some local building codes, Prefabricated homes legislated out of existence in major centers to protect local construction companies. All of these have happened for ages. Strike is labour's form of government protection. There is nothing special in it. Rather it is an answer to things that were there long before.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Lichen Software said:


> And when a government gives a patent or a license, it artificially inflates the value of the product. Generic drugs versus original.


Yes it does and should not.



Lichen Software said:


> Doctors as sole providers of hospital services, licensed electricians and plumbers to do all wiring and plumbing as stipulated in some local building codes, Prefabricated homes legislated out of existence in major centers to protect local construction companies. All of these have happened for ages.


Right. Time to say goodbye to them. People choose doctors because they think they're more likely to save their lies than plumbers. Why formalize such obvious choices at this point?



Lichen Software said:


> Strike is labour's form of government protection. There is nothing special in it. Rather it is an answer to things that were there long before.


It's not an answer to a problem. The creation of artificial value is the problem.


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## Lichen Software (Jul 23, 2004)

Macfury said:


> It's not an answer to a problem. The creation of artificial value is the problem.


LOL ... You are missing the point. Economists talk of the perfect market and things acting independently. This is a highly imperfect market. Sides are not equal with all sides seeking advantage. Some activities are seen as beneficial to the society as a whole and are favoured. It is not that "Value Is". Value is being created and destroyed all of the time. this is really just an examination of the various tools used by different groups.

We deal with the world as we find it.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Lichen Software said:


> We deal with the world as we find it.


For a little while--then we "destroy value" where it doesn't actually exist.


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## Lichen Software (Jul 23, 2004)

Macfury said:


> For a little while--then we "destroy value" where it doesn't actually exist.


Yup. On the union front, strike puts company out of business. Everyone loses. The name of the game is to know how much one can extract. There is a value pot (to suppliers including union labour) that is supported by sales of the company. The argument is what portion belongs to each player in the supply chain.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Lichen Software said:


> Yup. On the union front, strike puts company out of business. Everyone loses. The name of the game is to know how much one can extract. There is a value pot (to suppliers including union labour) that is supported by sales of the company. The argument is what portion belongs to each player in the supply chain.


I recall a sausage factory in Manitoba being shut down after a protracted strike involving meat grinders and people who stuffed the ground meat into casings. My father was a union man, so when I pointed out to him that the strikers now had no jobs at all--and neither did any of the people in the community who would have taken those jobs--he was unperturbed. As long as the system prevented the hiring of replacement workers, all was well with the world.


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## Lichen Software (Jul 23, 2004)

Macfury said:


> I recall a sausage factory in Manitoba being shut down after a protracted strike involving meat grinders and people who stuffed the ground meat into casings. My father was a union man, so when I pointed out to him that the strikers now had no jobs at all--and neither did any of the people in the community who would have taken those jobs--he was unperturbed. As long as the system prevented the hiring of replacement workers, all was well with the world.


I submit to you that your father was right.

Paraphrased from the Sayings of Lazarus Long: There is only one capital crime, Stupidity. There is no escape, no stay of execution and no pardon.

It would appear that corporate capital punishment was doled out in that instance. That being said, the system worked as it should have. The approved tools for extraction were used and the parties to the dispute were too stupid to realize that perhaps nuclear weapons were not the answer. However, the process and the right to use those tools was not undermined. All was well with the world. The right to inflict serious pain, the root of all serious negotiation was preserved.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Lichen Software said:


> I submit to you that your father was right.
> 
> Paraphrased from the Sayings of Lazarus Long: There is only one capital crime, Stupidity. There is no escape, no stay of execution and no pardon.
> 
> It would appear that corporate capital punishment was doled out in that instance. That being said, the system worked as it should have. The approved tools for extraction were used and the parties to the dispute were too stupid to realize that perhaps nuclear weapons were not the answer. However, the process and the right to use those tools was not undermined. All was well with the world. The right to inflict serious pain, the root of all serious negotiation was preserved.


I submit that my father was wrong. The sausage factory owner wasn't stupid. He moved his operation to another country and made sausages there using a non-unionized workforce. Beyond the cost of moving the factory to a place where people wanted to work for it, the only punishment meted out was to the workers and, courtesy of those same workers, to the community in which they lived.

If my father were still alive, he would also have seen his own workplace become unprofitable thanks, in large part, to the benefits and wages he had worked so hard to achieve. The company similarly moved its operations to another part of the world.


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## Lichen Software (Jul 23, 2004)

Macfury said:


> I submit that my father was wrong. The sausage factory owner wasn't stupid. He moved his operation to another country and made sausages there using a non-unionized workforce. Beyond the cost of moving the factory to a place where people wanted to work for it, the only punishment meted out was to the workers and, courtesy of those same workers, to the community in which they lived.
> 
> If my father were still alive, he would also have seen his own workplace become unprofitable thanks, in large part, to the benefits and wages he had worked so hard to achieve. The company similarly moved its operations to another part of the world.


I never said who was stupid and who wasn't. Part of negotiation is knowing the tools at your disposal and protecting them. Strike is a valid tool and was not undermined or suborned in this instance. That was as far as I took it.

From my real estate years, the other part of negotiation is knowing what constitutes a good deal. On this count, I would submit that many unions are ignorant, sometimes unwittingly and sometimes deliberately. All jobs come and go in value. 

Baker used to be a "union" job in Roman times, leaving the brotherhood being under pain of death. It is not considered such a skilled profession now.

Community colleges talk of preparing people for the future in all of their adds. In reality, they are an agent for destroying value of labour. As soon as there is a job that demands some sort of skill that people can actually charge for, they will offer courses and flood the market. The difference between an Electronic Technician and and Electrician is an apprenticeship with limited entry and about $20,000 per year. Electricians know how to preserve value.

Both plants you talk of moved to other lands. These moves did not come out of the air. Both may have happened anyway. A union smart enough to read the writing on the wall would protect its members by planned attrition through retirement, retraining and pension buy out packages as opposed to wage increases. They would have participated in the planned obsolescence of their members if possible, asking the last one out to turn off the lights. It did not happen.

Sometimes when change is seen as inevitable, the name of the game is to milk it as long as you can. You do not necessarily want anyone new coming in. You just want to run the pipeline of people in the system through to retirement. You see this in companies where old hires are treated one way and new hires are treated another.


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## mrjimmy (Nov 8, 2003)

A good day for unions and the members they represent.

Conservative senator's amendment guts union disclosure bill - Politics - CBC News



> Boulerice said it's "preposterous" that unions should have to disclose salaries and expenditures publicly just because union members can deduct dues. "If you consider any company or organization or person that in some way benefits from a tax credit, should they have to put it all on the table, or on a public website, how they spend their money?" he asked.
> 
> He added the bill was " a clear attempt to satisfy the base of the Conservative Party that doesn't like unions."


More insight:

Conservatives strike another blow to unions with Bill C-377 | Toronto Star


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Forcing them to quantify it is too much of an invasion into the privacy of a private organization. This is not so much a victory for unions as it is a victory for privacy.


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## mrjimmy (Nov 8, 2003)

Macfury said:


> Forcing them to quantify it is too much of an invasion into the privacy of a private organization. This is not so much a victory for unions as it is a victory for privacy.


As this was targeted _specifically_ at unions, I'd say it's definitely a victory for unions. 

Here is some more info for you:

Private Member's Bill - C-377, First Reading (41-1)


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

mrjimmy said:


> As this was targeted _specifically_ at unions, I'd say it's definitely a victory for unions.
> 
> Here is some more info for you:
> 
> Private Member's Bill - C-377, First Reading (41-1)


I understand. It's a union victory, but a larger privacy victory. The law must not target one type of operation over another.


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## Kosh (May 27, 2002)

Good news. Why should a union have to provide that info to the public. They don't work for the public, they work for their members. And from what info I've seen from my union, members receive a balance sheet at the end of the year from their union, I know I do.

Sounds like someone wants some information they shouldn't have, so that they can unfairly negotiate with the union, if you ask me. Let's face it, the Conservatives hate unions.


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## mrjimmy (Nov 8, 2003)

Kosh said:


> Good news. Why should a union have to provide that info to the public. They don't work for the public, they work for their members. And from what info I've seen from my union, members receive a balance sheet at the end of the year from their union, I know I do.
> 
> Sounds like someone wants some information they shouldn't have, so that they can unfairly negotiate with the union, if you ask me. Let's face it, the Conservatives hate unions.


It's not so much that they hate unions, they are simply kowtowing to their corporate masters.


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## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

The link below leads to a 40 page booklet with information explaining how the RAND FORMULA became established in Canada.

Where did our rights come from? | Canadian Auto Workers | CAW

BOOKLET HERE




> Today our basic rights to freedom of association, democratic representation in the workplace, and free collective bargaining may be easy to take for granted as having always been with us. But these rights didn't just happen. They weren't gifts from enlightened employers or kindly governments!
> 
> Like so many other advances in human rights, each and every step on the path to social progress came through hard-won struggle. The basic labour rights that all Canadians enjoy today were fought for by the generations of working men and women who came before us.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I'm still hoping that the Rand formula gets overthrown--however, such a level of freedom is somewhat anathema to organized labour. Justice Rand only expected a non-union worker to fund the cost of arbitration, not the vast political spending engaged in by many unions. In the EC, the European Court of Human Rights ruled a few years back that forcing a worker to fund political causes against his conscience, and without his consent, violated his human rights.

I expect to see Rand dialed back to just the cost of negotiating settlements.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

Mandatory union membership has and always will be, an infringement on the rights of Canadian workers. It needs to be abolished.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

BigDL said:


> The link below leads to a 40 page booklet with information explaining how the RAND FORMULA became established in Canada.
> 
> Where did our rights come from? | Canadian Auto Workers | CAW
> 
> BOOKLET HERE


There certainly is a concerted effort to erode workers rights now, how many times have we seen the phrases used that say people should be lucky to be paid crap and treated like disposable hankies?

Certainly not the vision of a fair and free society when nothing is there to protect worker's rights.


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## iMouse (Mar 1, 2008)

If you wish to avoid a closed shop, get a job with a fair one.

If you disagree with Unions in principle due to their power, vote with your dollars in other ways.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

iMouse said:


> If you wish to avoid a closed shop, get a job with a fair one.


If you wish to avoid a closed shop, get it opened up.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

iMouse said:


> If you wish to avoid a closed shop, get a job with a fair one.
> 
> If you disagree with Unions in principle due to their power, vote with your dollars in other ways.


True, no one is forcing you to work for a union shop.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

iMouse said:


> If you disagree with Unions in principle due to their power, vote with your dollars in other ways.


I won't punish a company that has been saddled with a union by refusing to buy their products, but in most cases those products have become overpriced anyway. It's natural selection.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

Over the years in my experience, unions did more harm to our business model than they did good for our employees. Thankfully, our employees twice had unions decertified and good riddance.


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## iMouse (Mar 1, 2008)

This is the way it should work.

The CAW has tried to crack both Toyota and Honda here in Ontario, and they always fail to get the necessary support from the workers there.

Unions however can be credited with the level of employment standards at both these plants. Make no mistake about that.

We need Unions as a leveling force, not as a mandatory one.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Isn't freedom wonderful?


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

iMouse said:


> We need Unions as a leveling force, not as a mandatory one.


Agreed. The mandatory requirement has done far more harm than good and only served to promote fat cat union bosses, who oddly enough, all seem to look alike.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

iMouse said:


> This is the way it should work.
> 
> The CAW has tried to crack both Toyota and Honda here in Ontario, and they always fail to get the necessary support from the workers there.
> 
> ...


I agree with that.


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## macintosh doctor (Mar 23, 2009)

Do I have to pay fees to be part of this thread, even though I don't want to have a membership.. LOL


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

No, but like unions, nothing is mandatory. Members can either de-certify or participate in another place/thread.


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## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

Isn't it interesting. 

The right disapproves of people who show initiative, people who organize their efforts to improve his/her lot in life. The pull yourself by your boot straps ethos, is not extended to a group of indivdiuals, apparently.

And then the toper to end all toppers, the right here, supports free loading and free loaders.:clap: :lmao: :lmao:


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

BigDL said:


> Isn't it interesting.
> 
> The right disapproves of people who show initiative, people who organize their efforts to improve his/her lot in life. The pull yourself by your boot straps ethos, is not extended to a group of indivdiuals, apparently.
> 
> And then the toper to end all toppers, the right here, supports free loading and free loaders.:clap: :lmao: :lmao:


It's poplar to paint the unions as the fat cats, despite the fact that the real fat cats are the company owners feeding off of cheap labour.

You're right about the hypocrisy of criticizing people for standing up for themselves.

How dare they!:lmao:


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

Notice all those silly laughing smilies? 

Kind of reminds me of fat cat union bosses laughing at their members supporting their extravagant lifestyles with those big union dues they collect.


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## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

SINC said:


> Notice all those silly laughing smilies?
> 
> Kind of reminds me of fat cat union bosses laughing at their members supporting their extravagant lifestyles with those big union dues they collect.


So how much do those big union dues cost?


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

If you don't know what they charge today, I am sorry, I cannot help. Google is your friend. I know what they charged back in the nineties and it was just way too much.


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## macintosh doctor (Mar 23, 2009)

SINC said:


> If you don't know what they charge today, I am sorry, I cannot help. Google is your friend. I know what they charged back in the nineties and it was just way too much.


its like having a second wife


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

macintosh doctor said:


> its like having a second wife


One thing I can tell you about the US union rep is that he was an *AAA* union man. *A*ll he had was *A*ttitude, an *A*ppetite for the very best meals in local restaurants and zero *A*bility to negotiate anything constructive.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

BigDL said:


> So how much do those big union dues cost?


I'm wondering the same thing. Also wondering what say Sid Ryan's salary is. What constitutes a 'fat cat'. 

I figure that title should be sitting north of say 300k a year. At least.


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## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

SINC said:


> If you don't know what they charge today, I am sorry, I cannot help. Google is your friend. I know what they charged back in the nineties and it was just way too much.


Ahhh! Talking out of your butt?

To an individual the cost of Union dues amounts to zero. Union dues comes off a worker's income as an expense, just like a business expense, for a business. All dues reduce the net personal income before taxes are even calculated.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

BigDL said:


> Ahhh! Talking out of your butt?
> 
> To an individual the cost of Union dues amounts to zero. Union dues comes off a worker's income as an expense, just like a business expense, for a business. All dues reduce the net personal income before taxes are even calculated.


LOL! Spoken like a true union rep to try and bamboozle those poor suffering members, many of them who have no wish to be members, to believe funding the fat cats is somehow a good thing for them. LOL! Zero? Spare me. You forget, it was people like me who had to authorize the payroll department to feed the fat cats monthly.


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## iMouse (Mar 1, 2008)

All part of the cost of doing business.

And if you price yourself out of the market, for whatever reason, you will fail.


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## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

SINC said:


> LOL! Spoken like a true union rep to try and bamboozle those poor suffering members, many of them who have no wish to be members, to believe funding the fat cats is somehow a good thing for them. LOL! Zero? Spare me. You forget, it was people like me who had to authorize the payroll department to feed the fat cats monthly.


Ahhh! I''m hearing sphincter utterance, not to mention the powerful olfactory hum wafting over to me, once again.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

BigDL said:


> Ahhh! I''m hearing sphincter utterance, not to mention the powerful olfactory hum wafting over to me, once again.


And this addresses my concerns about unions how? Seems like a diversionery bit of muddle to me. For the record my sphincter is sound, not as loose as that last statement.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

BigDL said:


> Ahhh! Talking out of your butt?
> 
> To an individual the cost of Union dues amounts to zero. Union dues comes off a worker's income as an expense, just like a business expense, for a business. All dues reduce the net personal income before taxes are even calculated.


This is really misleading. The cost of expenses to a business is not zero, even if that cost is a write-off. By that logic, a company could spend all of its income and claim the cost of doing business was zero. It would be penniless, however.


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## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

SINC said:


> And this addresses my concerns about unions how? Seems like a diversionery bit of muddle to me. For the record my sphincter is sound, not as loose as that last statement.


Ahhh! Once again I hear the rumble of the ol' toothless one.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

BigDL said:


> Ahhh! Once again I hear the rumble of the ol' toothless one.


These personal attacks are not permitted on EhMac.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

BigDL said:


> Ahhh! Once again I hear the rumble of the ol' toothless one.


boo! Hiss! If you can't have a decent coversation about the issue, you can always stoop down to an accusatory personal jab. You union thug you! That's how yooooouuuuu-nion people think, so you must be a youuuuuu-nion person.

You bad bad union person you.


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

I've held one union job in my life, a part time job at Save On Foods. I was in the lower tier of a two tier system, 50 cents above minimum wage yet 5-7% of my wages went to the union, depending on how much I made that week. Then when my probation was up, they were taking a quarter of my pay for initiation or whatever for a few weeks. 

I'm neutral about it. The work was tough but it was fair. I guess it all boils down to what happens when we go on strike or get laid off. Are we left to scrape by on savings and credit cards? Or does the union provide income assistance? Unions have become very irrelevant to my generation and they better figure out how to get out of that old boys club mentality and how to connect with the younger generation again. And to think, many people in my generation tend to be left leaning. 

Toyota and Honda are managing to provide a good environment and compensate their employees well without a union. I've been working for ten years in the consulting business and have always enjoyed good work environments and compensation. There are hardly any union consulting firms so I don't know if I can credit the unions for that.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

dona83 said:


> I guess it all boils down to what happens when we go on strike or get laid off. Are we left to scrape by on savings and credit cards?


If you want someone to bank your money and then give a fraction of it back to you during a strike, then union life is for you.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

dona83 said:


> I've held one union job in my life, a part time job at Save On Foods. I was in the lower tier of a two tier system, 50 cents above minimum wage yet 5-7% of my wages went to the union, depending on how much I made that week. Then when my probation was up, they were taking a quarter of my pay for initiation or whatever for a few weeks.
> 
> I'm neutral about it. The work was tough but it was fair. I guess it all boils down to what happens when we go on strike or get laid off. Are we left to scrape by on savings and credit cards? Or does the union provide income assistance? Unions have become very irrelevant to my generation and they better figure out how to get out of that old boys club mentality and how to connect with the younger generation again. And to think, many people in my generation tend to be left leaning.
> 
> Toyota and Honda are managing to provide a good environment and compensate their employees well without a union. I've been working for ten years in the consulting business and have always enjoyed good work environments and compensation. There are hardly any union consulting firms so I don't know if I can credit the unions for that.


I can. Unions in history can certainly be credited for improving working conditions, treatment of workers and pay. I don't know that people really understand that. There seems to be this whole all or nothing thing, 'you're either with us or against us' sort of attitude, which seems prevalent especially in the right.

I don't think unions are necessary, certainly not in all cases now. The unions have done their work, (and continues to do so), but governments and corporations, are always trying to undermine workers rights, and pay. Though some will deny it, but they simply are either not being truthful, or don't understand what's happening. When you have corporations pulling record profits, playing less taxes, and you hear this prevailing attitude that in rougher times you're damn lucky to have a job that pays you crap, you know the problems still exist.

Unions may be far from perfect, but they have served the people extremely well, and still serve as a protection to further kicking in the head by governments and corporations.

If companies give great working environments without a union, well as long as unions exist, I'm sure they will do whatever they can to avoid having one.

You watch what happens if unions were completely discarded. Do you really think that companies/corporations will simply 'do the right thing'? :lmao:


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## mrjimmy (Nov 8, 2003)

From August 2012:



> A Statistics Canada average hourly wage survey released earlier this month found the average year-over-year wage increase among the country’s 15.1 million employees was 3.6 per cent in July.
> 
> Among the 4.57 million unionized workers, the average wage was $26.83 an hour in July, up 3.0 per cent in the past year. Among the 10.51 million non-union employees, the average wage was $21.79 an hour – up 3.8 per cent year-over-year.
> 
> ...


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

mrjimmy said:


> From August 2012:





> But the Canadian Labour Congress, which says median wage figures are a better indicator of that difference than average wages, says the gap is closer to $7 an hour.


The largest group of Canada's 4 million union members is government employees at all levels, heavily skewing wage statistics upwards. This is a problem, not something to be proud of.


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## macintosh doctor (Mar 23, 2009)

BigDL said:


> Ahhh! Talking out of your butt?
> 
> To an individual the cost of Union dues amounts to zero. Union dues comes off a worker's income as an expense, just like a business expense, for a business. All dues reduce the net personal income before taxes are even calculated.


when I was a teen, worked for IGA during high school.. i was forced to pay the dues, which which were more than 15% of my income with the false hopes and lies they will help me.
But I had to stay over 6 months before they represent me.

Well, I was involved in an accident; a loser told us to stock the shelves with coke bottles, but never told us which stock to take from; one was recently delivered the other 3 days old.
Anyhow we began stocking and two bottle touched each other and blew up.. so did my pointer finger.. 
I was bleeding like a fountain, the manager refused to cover the cost of an ambulance or taxi - also said he was too busy to drive me to a hospital, so I had to take a cab out of my own expense.. LOSERS!!
So i did, I contacted the union rep, which refused to help.. my only course of action was workman's comp.. which helped, but the net result the company was angered and union staff were upset because I told the truth. In return I was made uncomfortable to remain as an employee.. 

Since then I made my choice of what unions are good for: nothing, except to suck staff dry of hard earned income.

from that moment on all I see is people like Buzz and Sid Ryan - preach with perfect chiclet teeth and brand name high end clothes about 'workers strife ' sorry it falls on deaf ears for me..


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I learned my lesson long ago, working for the CAW on a summer job. I was just working at a normal pace, but I was asked to slow down constantly. What's your hurry? Slow down, You;re working too fast! I recall the endless planning to make sure that little work was done. Stretching out a job until 11:46 because the next assignment required one to take a cart to another location--the reasoning was that since it would take 7.5 minute to get there and 7.5 minutes to get back, there was no point in doing any work now, so no work was done for the 14 minutes before lunch. Endless had washing because there was no reason to wash your hands on your own break time--the boss got your hands dirty, so the boss needed to pay for it. This was one of the plants that was eventually sold to a non-union company.


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## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

dona83 said:


> I've held one union job in my life, a part time job at Save On Foods. I was in the lower tier of a two tier system, 50 cents above minimum wage yet 5-7% of my wages went to the union, depending on how much I made that week. Then when my probation was up, they were taking a quarter of my pay for initiation or whatever for a few weeks.
> 
> I'm neutral about it. The work was tough but it was fair. I guess it all boils down to what happens when we go on strike or get laid off. Are we left to scrape by on savings and credit cards? Or does the union provide income assistance? Unions have become very irrelevant to my generation and they better figure out how to get out of that old boys club mentality and how to connect with the younger generation again. And to think, many people in my generation tend to be left leaning.
> 
> Toyota and Honda are managing to provide a good environment and compensate their employees well without a union. I've been working for ten years in the consulting business and have always enjoyed good work environments and compensation. There are hardly any union consulting firms so I don't know if I can credit the unions for that.


When we're young, things affect us greatly, it sometime takes a long time to come to terms with a situation that affected us back when. 

Guess who suggested the proposal to have "new hires" receive lower rates of pay.

Different Unions have different strategies to deal with layoffs, strikes and lockout. 

You make a good point regarding the freedom to organize your efforts to bargain collectively with your employer or not.










Seems your desires for Unions to change with the times is being addressed. 



Unifor The Union said:


> ..."We intend to change the unequal labour rules in this country," said Lewenza. "In every province workers should have the right to organize and not be impeded by employers’ threat of them losing their jobs."
> 
> By partnering with labour councils, affiliated unions and grassroots activists across Canada, the new union hopes to become a powerful force that won't be walked all over by governments and corporations.
> 
> ...


CEP, CAW forge cutting-edge vision for new union | rabble.ca


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

macintosh doctor said:


> when I was a teen, worked for IGA during high school.. i was forced to pay the dues, which which were more than 15% of my income with the false hopes and lies they will help me.
> But I had to stay over 6 months before they represent me.
> 
> Well, I was involved in an accident; a loser told us to stock the shelves with coke bottles, but never told us which stock to take from; one was recently delivered the other 3 days old.
> ...


So, you think that your bad experience wipes out all of what unions have done for workers in the 20th century? Really?

wow!


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## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

groovetube said:


> So, you think that your bad experience wipes out all of what unions have done for workers in the 20th century? Really?
> 
> wow!


 As I indicated earlier in this thread, the memories of incidents in our youth, are strong and foundational. Once aggrieved their wants can never be satisfied. 

Seems everyone must abide by the values of a few on the right of the political spectrum. These folks insist all must follow their paradigm. That's how they like their governments, industry and social institutions.

Unions are groups of people. Unions can be as great as good people make them and as poor as bad people make them. Just like any other human institution.


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## macintosh doctor (Mar 23, 2009)

groovetube said:


> So, you think that your bad experience wipes out all of what unions have done for workers in the 20th century? Really?
> 
> wow!


yes!!!!
are you trying to tell me I had the accident at the wrong location :lmao:
spoken like a true union person.. 

also after years of unions closing factories in Canada and claiming victories - that they taught the big corporations a lesson, while hundreds of unemployed scratched their heads, saying what just happened? [ I will tell you what happened.. you supported stupidity. ]


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## mrjimmy (Nov 8, 2003)

Finally!

All of these personal anecdotes have been enough to change my views regarding organized labour!

Unions have to be terrible, terrible things given these horror stories by respected members of this board. The truth really is that biased and one sided!

Speaking of bored...


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

macintosh doctor said:


> yes!!!!
> are you trying to tell me I had the accident at the wrong location :lmao:
> spoken like a true union person..
> 
> also after years of unions closing factories in Canada and claiming victories - that they taught the big corporations a lesson, while hundreds of unemployed scratched their heads, saying what just happened? [ I will tell you what happened.. you supported stupidity. ]


There will be one union worker left in Canada at the end of the century--but this member will be very well paid!


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

mrjimmy said:


> Finally!
> 
> All of these personal anecdotes have been enough to change my views regarding organized labour!
> 
> ...


I doubt that any posters expected they could convince anyone to get off the good ship lollipop once they were on it.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

mrjimmy said:


> Finally!
> 
> All of these personal anecdotes have been enough to change my views regarding organized labour!
> 
> ...


:lmao:


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## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

macintosh doctor said:


> yes!!!!
> are you trying to tell me I had the accident at the wrong location :lmao:
> spoken like a true union person..
> 
> also after years of unions closing factories in Canada and claiming victories - that they taught the big corporations a lesson, while hundreds of unemployed scratched their heads, saying what just happened? [ I will tell you what happened.. you supported stupidity. ]


Yes, the problem has been identified, who would have thunk it! It's always the workers fault, for some. 

Managers don't manage. Boards of Directors don't direct. Unions close factories. 

It a good thing factories in developing nations crash or burn to the ground on its own, without union labour. How would factories otherwise close to make the poor workers lives more miserable?


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

BigDL said:


> Yes, the problem has been identified, who would have thunk it! It's always the workers fault, for some.
> 
> Managers don't manage. Boards of Directors don't direct. Unions close factories.
> 
> It a good thing factories in developing nations crash or burn to the ground on its own, without union labour. How would factories otherwise close to make the poor workers lives more miserable?


Unions don't close down factories. However, they sometimes run them into the ground financially until they are no longer profitable to operate.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

If a company cannot operate profitably while paying its employees fair wages, the business model is flawed. Unfortunately, historically many business models were predicated on the exploitation of cheap labour, and labour unions arose in response to this. We enjoyed a brief period in which the businesses and the unions were largely equally matched, but, like any organization, unions also try to accumulate power, and many became too powerful. This led to the 'union-busting' of the 80's and 90's, and now we're back to a situation much like the pre-unionization days, in which the corporations have far more power than labour. This, combined with the Free-Trade deals that allow corporations to move their capital around with impunity (so that any labour protection or organization that starts to affect their profits can be avoided by moving operations to a different jurisdiction), has given rise to the most profit-friendly environment in history.

Productivity is up, and wages are down around the world. Where is all the money going? Into the tax-exempt off-shore accounts of the 1%.

If you agree that the economy should serve those who've got the capital and the connections to bend it to their will, this is as it should be. However, if you think the economy is an emergent property of society and human behaviour, and should therefore be directed as much as possible to the benefit of everyone, this situation is highly suboptimal.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

bryanc said:


> If a company cannot operate profitably while paying its employees fair wages,


Fair=what the job is worth on the open market.

The improvements in productivity are virtually all related to expensive equipment purchased by the businesses. The workers are becoming more productive without doing more work. Should workers be paid more because businesses are investing in high-tech equipment?


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

bryanc said:


> If a company cannot operate profitably while paying its employees fair wages, the business model is flawed. Unfortunately, historically many business models were predicated on the exploitation of cheap labour, and labour unions arose in response to this. We enjoyed a brief period in which the businesses and the unions were largely equally matched, but, like any organization, unions also try to accumulate power, and many became too powerful. This led to the 'union-busting' of the 80's and 90's, and now we're back to a situation much like the pre-unionization days, in which the corporations have far more power than labour. This, combined with the Free-Trade deals that allow corporations to move their capital around with impunity (so that any labour protection or organization that starts to affect their profits can be avoided by moving operations to a different jurisdiction), has given rise to the most profit-friendly environment in history.
> 
> Productivity is up, and wages are down around the world. Where is all the money going? Into the tax-exempt off-shore accounts of the 1%.
> 
> If you agree that the economy should serve those who've got the capital and the connections to bend it to their will, this is as it should be. However, if you think the economy is an emergent property of society and human behaviour, and should therefore be directed as much as possible to the benefit of everyone, this situation is highly suboptimal.


Interesting. It seems that more and more of the dollars are heading to the few, and much less of it to the ones actually doing the real production. Meaning the people producing are not getting their fair share. At all.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Macfury said:


> Fair=what the job is worth on the open market.


Where is this "open market" you speak of? Every market I'm aware of is distorted to a greater or lesser extent. Furthermore, how can the 'market' decide on the 'value' of activities which contribute to enormously important, but difficult to quantify social goods; things like teaching children, treating the injured or sick, discovering new things about nature, preventing accidents, reporting on the activities of our political and business elite?

It's pretty easy to say that a worker who builds 50 $20 widgets per hour is generating $1000 worth of 'value' per hour, minus whatever their material and other costs are. But how much value does the reporter who breaks a story about a corporation polluting a river generate? That story might cost the corporation billions, and it might only generate a few hundred dollars of revenue for the newspaper; so should we get rid of all the investigative reporters, because they cost us more than they make? That's where this sort of profit-motivated thinking is leading us. 



> The workers are becoming more productive without doing more work.


I guess that explains why so many households now require two people working, and the number of people who have to hold down two or more jobs to make ends meet.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

bryanc said:


> Where is this "open market" you speak of? Every market I'm aware of is distorted to a greater or lesser extent. Furthermore, how can the 'market' decide on the 'value' of activities which contribute to enormously important, but difficult to quantify social goods; things like teaching children, treating the injured or sick, discovering new things about nature, preventing accidents, reporting on the activities of our political and business elite?
> 
> It's pretty easy to say that a worker who builds 50 $20 widgets per hour is generating $1000 worth of 'value' per hour, minus whatever their material and other costs are. But how much value does the reporter who breaks a story about a corporation polluting a river generate? That story might cost the corporation billions, and it might only generate a few hundred dollars of revenue for the newspaper; so should we get rid of all the investigative reporters, because they cost us more than they make? That's where this sort of profit-motivated thinking is leading us.


I see no reason to tie wages to corporate profits or productivity at all. Your chart tied wages to productivity.



bryanc said:


> I guess that explains why so many households now require two people working, and the number of people who have to hold down two or more jobs to make ends meet.


High taxes are the difference between now and then.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Macfury said:


> I see no reason to tie wages to corporate profits or productivity at all.


It does not surprise me at all that you don't see this. For those of us who recognize that the economy should serve society, and not the other way around, this disconnect is one of the root causes of the problem we're trying to solve.


> High taxes are the difference between now and then.


This is demonstrably untrue. While the tax burden on individuals has shifted dramatically to the low end of the earning curve and away from corporations, taxes now are only slightly higher than they were in the 1960's. The wealthy are now much better at sheltering their capital from taxation, and the cost of living has gone up dramatically (far outpacing the earning power of the middle class), but the problem is not due to high taxation.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Historically, the money earned by the common citizenry was closely correlated with the GDP; market forces generated wealth, and it was distributed by the market in such a way that needs were met, and productivity was rewarded. It was a pretty good system; not without its flaws, but better than anything we'd had before.

However, in the 1970s, neo-concervativism swept the western world, and administrations like Thatcher's in the U.K. and Reagan's in the U.S. deregulated industry and fostered 'free-trade' and globalization. This allowed corporations to take advantage of cheap labor overseas, lax environmental policies, etc. and it allowed the CEOs and other 1%ers to shelter their exponentially growing wealth in such a way that very little of the benefit was shared with society as a whole, while simultaneously saddling all of us with the environmental, health, and social consequences of these actions. It's socialized risk for private benefit.

This arrangement is unjust, unsustainable, and unacceptable. Society can and must protect itself from the rapacious greed of the few, such that we retain a habitable planet and a sustainable society for the future.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

bryanc said:


> It does not surprise me at all that you don't see this. For those of us who recognize that the economy should serve society, and not the other way around, this disconnect is one of the root causes of the problem we're trying to solve.


The economy can't be made to "serve society." You can take away people's money and force them to do various things under duress, but the economy operates according to certain laws based on human behaviour. You can't confuse tax policy with "making the economy serve society."




bryanc said:


> This is demonstrably untrue. While the tax burden on individuals has shifted dramatically to the low end of the earning curve and away from corporations, taxes now are only slightly higher than they were in the 1960's. The wealthy are now much better at sheltering their capital from taxation, and the cost of living has gone up dramatically (far outpacing the earning power of the middle class), but the problem is not due to high taxation.


Quoting old tax rates from the U.S. doesn't nearly get at the heart of the question, particularly since they don't reflect actual taxes paid. For example, the 90% + tax rate frequently touted as a role model for current times was not a rate people were actually paying in the 1950s, after deductions.

Neither is the federal income tax rate a good proxy for total taxes paid. In Canada we now have a federal sales tax, provincial tax, high property tax rates, high land transfer tax rates and dozens of user fees which are simply disguised taxes. It is a combination of increased demand for consumer goods, coupled with the mounting total tax burden, that requires two people to work, where only one family member worked before.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

bryanc said:


> Historically, the money earned by the common citizenry was closely correlated with the GDP; market forces generated wealth, and it was distributed by the market in such a way that needs were met, and productivity was rewarded. It was a pretty good system; not without its flaws, but better than anything we'd had before.
> 
> However, in the 1970s, neo-concervativism swept the western world, and administrations like Thatcher's in the U.K. and Reagan's in the U.S. deregulated industry and fostered 'free-trade' and globalization. This allowed corporations to take advantage of cheap labor overseas, lax environmental policies, etc. and it allowed the CEOs and other 1%ers to shelter their exponentially growing wealth in such a way that very little of the benefit was shared with society as a whole, while simultaneously saddling all of us with the environmental, health, and social consequences of these actions.* It's socialized risk for private benefit.*
> 
> *This arrangement is unjust, unsustainable, and unacceptable. Society can and must protect itself from the rapacious greed of the few, such that we retain a habitable planet and a sustainable society for the future.*


Well put. This illusion of the mythical free market seems to keep many energized to valiantly fight for someone else's right to very unfairly benefit off of many people's work. 

I don't think it can ever dawn on them that there is a good happy medium that doesn't involve anything close to communism. WHat these so called 'free market defenders' don't seem to understand, is that they are unwittingly supporting the complete opposite.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

groovetube said:


> WHat these so called 'free market defenders' don't seem to understand, is that they are unwittingly supporting the complete opposite.


That may be true for many of them, but I do think that you're underestimating a lot of them; they're perfectly aware of how distorted their markets are, but they're distorted in ways that benefit them, so they'll fight tooth-and-nail to prevent change. Code phrases like "the free-market" and "family values" are just dog whistles to rally their political base; they have nothing to do with reality.


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## mrjimmy (Nov 8, 2003)

bryanc said:


> are just dog whistles to rally their political base


:lmao:

I laugh but I know it's true and effective. Their ignorance is their power.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

bryanc said:


> That may be true for many of them, but I do think that you're underestimating a lot of them; they're perfectly aware of how distorted their markets are, but they're distorted in ways that benefit them, so they'll fight tooth-and-nail to prevent change. Code phrases like "the free-market" and "family values" are just dog whistles to rally their political base; they have nothing to do with reality.


That's funny. Just like "making the economy work for people" represents a come-hither look to the socialist/"progressive" base.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Macfury said:


> The economy can't be made to "serve society."


Way to declare defeat before you begin... The economy already serves society; it just does so less well than it could.


> the economy operates according to certain laws based on human behaviour.


Exactly, so if we change our behaviour, we can change the economy. We also use tax policy and other fiscal instruments to manipulate the economy. So it is entirely possible to modify the economy in order to achieve specific objectives; it's just the the objectives of the current political elite are aligned with further enriching the 1% who bought them their offices.

There is nothing inherently problematic with making the economy serve society. But doing so will require that the politicians who set economic policy are beholding to the citizens of the country, rather than their current corporate puppet masters. It will also require that the citizens themselves start taking greater care regarding their spending choices; paying a little extra for sustainable, local goods and services may not appear to make economic sense in the short run, but these are exactly the sorts of choices we need to make to improve how well the economy serves society.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Macfury said:


> That's funny. Just like "making the economy work for people" represents a come-hither look to the socialist/"*progressive*" base.


Maybe that's why we're called "progressives"... improving how the economy serves people would certainly represent "progress", don't you agree?


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## mrjimmy (Nov 8, 2003)

bryanc said:


> Maybe that's why we're called "progressives"... improving how the economy serves people would certainly represent "progress", don't you agree?


I always found it peculiar why the term 'progressive' was considered insulting. I find it laughable when 'regressives' throw it around in an attempt to be insulting.

Oh the irony.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

bryanc said:


> Way to declare defeat before you begin... The economy already serves society; it just does so less well than it could.


This is sort of like saying that the Sun "serves" mankind. The fact that we benefit from it does not mean we control it.




bryanc said:


> Exactly, so if we change our behaviour, we can change the economy.


Perhaps if you can change human nature. I have seen no indication that this has ever happened. Even in totalitarian regimes, a capitalist-style underground economy forms despite the best efforts of the ruling powers.



bryanc said:


> We also use tax policy and other fiscal instruments to manipulate the economy. So it is entirely possible to modify the economy in order to achieve specific objectives; it's just the the objectives of the current political elite are aligned with further enriching the 1% who bought them their offices.


No. It is possible to _attempt_ to control the economy with specific policies, but the economy exists outside of them. You may have some temporary success in distorting the economy, but these policies merely create further unintended consequences.



bryanc said:


> But doing so will require that the politicians who set economic policy are beholding to the citizens of the country, rather than their current corporate puppet masters. It will also require that the citizens themselves start taking greater care regarding their spending choices; paying a little extra for sustainable, local goods and services may not appear to make economic sense in the short run, but these are exactly the sorts of choices we need to make to improve how well the economy serves society.


It's not surprising to me that"making the economy work for citizens" is usually a euphemism for reigning in freedom of choice.



bryanc said:


> Maybe that's why we're called "progressives"... improving how the economy serves people would certainly represent "progress", don't you agree?


No, I don't agree. I see progressive as a pejorative term representing fear-based regression to tribalism. Whereas much of the enlightenment led to the emancipation of individuals from the collective, progressivism actually attempts to reverse centuries pf progress.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Macfury said:


> This is sort of like saying that the Sun "serves" mankind. The fact that we benefit from it does not mean we control it.


The sun is a natural phenomenon, the economy is an emergent property of human behaviour. We create the economy, we don't create the sun. We can, and do, control the economy (just not as individuals), we cannot control the sun.



> Perhaps if you can change human nature. I have seen no indication that this has ever happened. Even in totalitarian regimes, a capitalist-style underground economy forms despite the best efforts of the ruling powers.


I don't see any need to eliminate capitalism or prevent the economy from having free reign in most sectors; we simply need to exchange certain deleterious aspects of the current distortions for different distortions that will serve us better.



> You may have some temporary success in distorting the economy, but these policies merely create further unintended consequences.


It's like sailing a boat, you don't have complete control, but with skill and some luck, you can achieve success. And if something isn't working well, you can change it and find a better solution.



> It's not surprising to me that"making the economy work for citizens" is usually a euphemism for reigning in freedom of choice.


Less freedom for some (who already have lots), more freedom for others (who have very little). Why is one person's freedom worth more than anthers?



> I see progressive as a pejorative term representing fear-based regression to tribalism.


You need a new dictionary; "progressive" means making progress towards a goal. You may not agree with the goal, but that's a different problem.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

bryanc said:


> The sun is a natural phenomenon, the economy is an emergent property of human behaviour. We create the economy, we don't create the sun. We can, and do, control the economy (just not as individuals), we cannot control the sun.


The economy is also a natural phenomenon, resulting from the interaction of humans. As I said, you can force humans to bend to your will and this will achieve some temporary changes in the appearance of the economy, but also create unintended consequences.

As Milton Friedman pointed out, 20 different suppliers can almost magically come together to create a pencil that sells for a quarter. Attempting to create such a system by dictate isn't possible. You might create a pencil at a woeful price, but you can't "create" the economy that produced it efficiently. 




bryanc said:


> I don't see any need to eliminate capitalism or prevent the economy from having free reign in most sectors; we simply need to exchange certain deleterious aspects of the current distortions for different distortions that will serve us better.


The creation of derivatives is the direct result of just such "fixing." I say, good luck to you sir! 



bryanc said:


> I don't see any need to eliminate capitalism or prevent the economy from having free reign in most sectors; we simply need to exchange certain deleterious aspects of the current distortions for different distortions that will serve us better.


That will serve_ you _better--or your ideas of what is right. However, most of the distortions you see today are the result of "fixing," not a natural product of he economy.




bryanc said:


> You need a new dictionary; "progressive" means making progress towards a goal. You may not agree with the goal, but that's a different problem.


I suspect you need a new sense of history. By that definition, all people are progressives, because they are all working toward goals, thus rendering the term meaningless in that conext, Progressivism is specifically a political philosophy pushing for social, political, and economic reform through government action.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Macfury said:


> The economy is also a natural phenomenon, resulting from the interaction of humans.


By that definition, art, music, poetry, politics, the internet and everything else is a "natural phenomena."

If we can change the curriculums in schools, or manipulate our biochemistry with drugs, we can certainly change the economy. But yes, I agree, doing things like this can have unintended consequences. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do anything, just that we should think carefully about what we do, be alert to unexpected side effects, and change our actions if such side effects are worse than the problem we're trying to solve.



> That will serve_ you _better--or your ideas of what is right.


We live in a democracy, in which we all get a voice in deciding what is right. I see the egregious damage to the environment, limited options for the poor, and obscene wealth of the 1% as serious problems all of which stem from the current operation of our economy. Many others agree with me; you are free to disagree, but I would like to know why.

Our economy is very much like an organism's metabolism, and like one's metabolism, we can alter the flow of energy and compounds by competitively inhibiting certain enzymes, or providing extra substrates for others. You might ask, why is one metabolic state more desirable than another? But if you have high cholesterol, or gout, or diabetes, or any of thousands of other metabolic disorders, you know the answer. There many be many different acceptable states of the economy, but this isn't one of them. We should change it to better serve society.



> By that definition, all people are progressives, because they are all working toward goals, thus rendering the term meaningless in that conext


Okay, fair enough. But what aspects of the goals of what you term "progressives" do you fear so much. How is a just society so dreadful a concept? How is increased freedom (e.g. freedom from disease through improved health care, freedom of thought through improved education, freedom of choice through increased wealth) for the vast majority so deplorable?



> Progressivism is specifically a political philosophy pushing for social, political, and economic reform through government action.


...through government (and other) action on behalf of the citizenry. Whereas the opposite (Regressivism?); a political philosophy pushing for government action (and inaction) on behalf of corporations, is currently in effect.

Fundamentally, this debate comes down to prioritizing the needs of people and society vs. the desires of capitalists. I have no trouble with capitalists making money; they generate lots of wealth, and as long as the rules don't facilitate their hoarding it all to themselves, everyone benefits. But they've gamed the system over the past several decades, such that now the rules do facilitate their hoarding it all, and that's got to change.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Macfury said:


> As Milton Friedman pointed out, 20 different suppliers can almost magically come together to create a pencil that sells for a quarter. Attempting to create such a system by dictate isn't possible. You might create a pencil at a woeful price, but you can't "create" the economy that produced it efficiently.


This is actually a good example; it is only because there is a market (i.e. people willing to pay for) pencils that this can happen. If corporations were selling sticks of chalk for $20 and lobbying government to keep pencils illegal, we'd have something resembling our current situation; there'd be a small market for wildly over-priced black-market pencils, and most of us would be stuck using over-priced chalk.

If using chalk is deemed socially desirable, and using pencils is socially undesirable, that's not such a bad situation. But if what has caused this is the chalk-factory owners have financed the election of politicians who will rig the system in their favour, and there is no social value to using chalk over pencils, then we have a problem.

The market and capitalism have no ethics; they just do what generates the most profit in the short term, in the same way that biochemistry follows the laws of thermodynamics. But that does not mean we can't harness biochemistry or the market-economy to achieve desirable goals. We simply have to manipulate conditions to make those goals, or at least the corporate behaviour that is likely to favour those goals, more profitable than the behaviour that acts against those goals.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

bryanc said:


> This is actually a good example; it is only because there is a market (i.e. people willing to pay for) pencils that this can happen. If corporations were selling sticks of chalk for $20 and lobbying government to keep pencils illegal, we'd have something resembling our current situation; there'd be a small market for wildly over-priced black-market pencils, and most of us would be stuck using over-priced chalk.
> 
> If using chalk is deemed socially desirable, and using pencils is socially undesirable, that's not such a bad situation. But if what has caused this is the chalk-factory owners have financed the election of politicians who will rig the system in their favour, and there is no social value to using chalk over pencils, then we have a problem.
> 
> The market and capitalism have no ethics; they just do what generates the most profit in the short term, in the same way that biochemistry follows the laws of thermodynamics. But that does not mean we can't harness biochemistry or the market-economy to achieve desirable goals. We simply have to manipulate conditions to make those goals, or at least the corporate behaviour that is likely to favour those goals, more profitable than the behaviour that acts against those goals.


You're turning to government to solve problems, when the power of the government to unfairly rig any number of games in favour of one side or the other _is_ the problem. In my daily life, the only companies I have problems with are those given unfair monopoly or oligopoly powers by government--Internet providers, telephone providers, gas companies, hydro companies, water utilities, etc. In all other cases, my dollar vote is adequate to bring about change. Government regulations of various industries--for example construction--is creating so much red tape that only the largest companies can afford the regulatory requirements to remain in the market.

Moving toward more freedom would limit the size and power of corporations, and the power of government to back them.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Macfury said:


> You're turning to government to solve problems, when the power of the government to unfairly rig any number of games in favour of one side or the other _is_ the problem.


As Homer Simpson said, "Alcohol is the cause of and solution for all of life's problems." I'm afraid that government is something we have to live with; I genuinely believe that if everyone in the world were like you and me, we wouldn't need government, and the fundamental difference between you and I is that I recognize that there are a significant number of people that are not like you and I. There are people who would simply kill us to take our stuff; people who would rape our daughters if we couldn't stop them. People who do not respect the right of every person to choose their own fate. And consequently, we need to band together and form societies that protect their citizens; and that, sadly, means each of us must give up a modicum of personal freedom in the interest of the whole. But, ideally, the whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts and we build a civilization in which individuals like me who would not be able to survive in isolation are able to contribute to a greater good and lead a life of dignity and value. 

Perhaps you are a warrior or athlete who might survive in a Hobbesian battle of all-against-all, and therefore you are less able to perceive the value of a society in which all give up a modicum of freedom for the security of self and property, and in which we all pay a modest tax to sustain a government in which we all have a say. But as a modest intellectual, who must rely on the honest efforts of young people who protect my rights; as police, soldiers, fire-fighers, etc. I have no qualms about paying my taxes and sharing what little I can contribute to society in the form of teaching and discovering new aspects of reality that may prove valuable now or in the future.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

People who find their views on the outside of society and what it is today have two choices. Shut up or conform. Pretty simple program.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

bryanc said:


> As Homer Simpson said, "Alcohol is the cause of and solution for all of life's problems." I'm afraid that government is something we have to live with; I genuinely believe that if everyone in the world were like you and me, we wouldn't need government, and the fundamental difference between you and I is that I recognize that there are a significant number of people that are not like you and I. There are people who would simply kill us to take our stuff; people who would rape our daughters if we couldn't stop them. People who do not respect the right of every person to choose their own fate. And consequently, we need to band together and form societies that protect their citizens; and that, sadly, means each of us must give up a modicum of personal freedom in the interest of the whole. But, ideally, the whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts and we build a civilization in which individuals like me who would not be able to survive in isolation are able to contribute to a greater good and lead a life of dignity and value.
> 
> Perhaps you are a warrior or athlete who might survive in a Hobbesian battle of all-against-all, and therefore you are less able to perceive the value of a society in which all give up a modicum of freedom for the security of self and property, and in which we all pay a modest tax to sustain a government in which we all have a say. But as a modest intellectual, who must rely on the honest efforts of young people who protect my rights; as police, soldiers, fire-fighers, etc. I have no qualms about paying my taxes and sharing what little I can contribute to society in the form of teaching and discovering new aspects of reality that may prove valuable now or in the future.


It's hard to believe that anyone could get this so incredibly backwards. So the answer to corporate influence in government, which is often the reason for watering down government power to regulate industry, is to make government even less effective. Of course this is why the real hard right favours this, as you said, they just blow the dogwhistle of freedom and liberty, this illusion that somehow corporations will do the right thing and not engage in an orgy of greed with government getting 'in it's way'.

Taking the power away from people we elect, and hand it to the private sector we don't.

This idea that you dollar will cast a vote is just a really big sham. You would have to be truly gullible to believe that.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

bryanc said:


> As Homer Simpson said, "Alcohol is the cause of and solution for all of life's problems." I'm afraid that government is something we have to live with; I genuinely believe that if everyone in the world were like you and me, we wouldn't need government, and the fundamental difference between you and I is that I recognize that there are a significant number of people that are not like you and I. There are people who would simply kill us to take our stuff; people who would rape our daughters if we couldn't stop them. People who do not respect the right of every person to choose their own fate. And consequently, we need to band together and form societies that protect their citizens; and that, sadly, means each of us must give up a modicum of personal freedom in the interest of the whole. But, ideally, the whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts and we build a civilization in which individuals like me who would not be able to survive in isolation are able to contribute to a greater good and lead a life of dignity and value.
> 
> Perhaps you are a warrior or athlete who might survive in a Hobbesian battle of all-against-all, and therefore you are less able to perceive the value of a society in which all give up a modicum of freedom for the security of self and property, and in which we all pay a modest tax to sustain a government in which we all have a say. But as a modest intellectual, who must rely on the honest efforts of young people who protect my rights; as police, soldiers, fire-fighers, etc. I have no qualms about paying my taxes and sharing what little I can contribute to society in the form of teaching and discovering new aspects of reality that may prove valuable now or in the future.


I would be much more comfortable with this if there were constitutional limits set on the power of government and their power to tax. This is why I would largely limit government to defense, judicial and policing roles. I'm also uncomfortable with the "modicum" required as my financial contribution. The quest for "fairness" and "justice" and other elusive goals seems to know no financial bounds. Why can't government revenues be limited to a share of the GDP?

Again, only companies regulated heavily by government appear to be able to form the powerful monopolies and oligopolies that people count on governmenst to control. Even mighty General Motors couldn't stand up to public disdain of its products and policies. Only government was powerful enough to reverse the public's verdict.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

SINC said:


> People who find their views on the outside of society and what it is today have two choices. Shut up or conform. Pretty simple program.


I think the third choice is to beat your head against a wall and affect such change as you're capable of making.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

SINC said:


> People who find their views on the outside of society and what it is today have two choices. Shut up or conform. Pretty simple program.


If that were true, society would never change. Society changes, sometimes rapidly. Therefore this is not true.

Did Rosa Parks "shut up or conform"? How about Martin Luther King, or Tommy Douglas?

I would argue that, if you find your views "on the outside of society and what it is today", the last thing you should do is shut up or conform. Canada is not (yet) a dictatorship where voices of dissent are outlawed or otherwise silenced (except, apparently, in the Conservative Caucus). So bring on the dissent and let's have a healthy debate.


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## mrjimmy (Nov 8, 2003)

bryanc said:


> If that were true, society would never change. Society changes, sometimes rapidly. Therefore this is not true.
> 
> Did Rosa Parks "shut up or conform"? How about Martin Luther King, or Tommy Douglas?
> 
> I would argue that, if you find your views "on the outside of society and what it is today", the last thing you should do is shut up or conform. Canada is not (yet) a dictatorship where voices of dissent are outlawed or otherwise silenced (except, apparently, in the Conservative Caucus). So bring on the dissent and let's have a healthy debate.


Bingo.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

bryanc said:


> If that were true, society would never change. Society changes, sometimes rapidly. Therefore this is not true.
> 
> Did Rosa Parks "shut up or conform"? How about Martin Luther King, or Tommy Douglas?
> 
> I would argue that, if you find your views "on the outside of society and what it is today", the last thing you should do is shut up or conform. Canada is not (yet) a dictatorship where voices of dissent are outlawed or otherwise silenced (except, apparently, in the Conservative Caucus). So bring on the dissent and let's have a healthy debate.


'Shut up or conform', is the rallying cry of every union I have ever dealt with, when addressing its members.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Interesting; perhaps you should get out more. It just so happens that I just got a bargaining bulletin from my union; "shut up or conform" does not appear in it anywhere. On the contrary, there are several points on which the union is actively soliciting suggestions and feedback from the membership, and on the few occasions I've submitted such suggestions, they have been enthusiastically accepted and acted upon. "Shut up and conform" seems to be the message of the university administration, rather than the union.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

bryanc said:


> Interesting; perhaps you should get out more. It just so happens that I just got a bargaining bulletin from my union; "shut up or conform" does not appear in it anywhere. On the contrary, there are several points on which the union is actively soliciting suggestions and feedback from the membership, and on the few occasions I've submitted such suggestions, they have been enthusiastically accepted and acted upon. "Shut up and conform" seems to be the message of the university administration, rather than the union.


It's a very long time ago, but I once worked in a union shop. I would agree, the members were very much involved and everyone's opinions and voice were heard. Unlike the company that was being dealt with.


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## mrjimmy (Nov 8, 2003)

groovetube said:


> It's a very long time ago, but I once worked in a union shop. I would agree, the members were very much involved and everyone's opinions and voice were heard. Unlike the company that was being dealt with.


Exactly like any union I've ever been involved with also.


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## mrjimmy (Nov 8, 2003)

bryanc said:


> "Shut up and conform" seems to be the message of the university administration, rather than the union.


:lmao::clap:


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

My very first experience with a union was when a group from a city two hours away showed up at our plant after my shift and tried to bully me into signing a certification document. I told them to go to hell. Our 23 man shop voted 22 to 1 to reject their hard handed tactics. From that day on, I have no use for a union or anyone who promotes them.


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## iMouse (Mar 1, 2008)

Anytime something like that comes up, I am reminded of the film Blue Collar.

Ugly little insight into unions not that long ago.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

SINC said:


> My very first experience with a union was when a group from a city two hours away showed up at our plant after my shift and tried to bully me into signing a certification document. I told them to go to hell. Our 23 man shop voted 22 to 1 to reject their hard handed tactics. From that day on, I have no use for a union or anyone who promotes them.


You know I was just out at a local take out for a lunch salad, the person behind the counter was rude and made me a terrible salad. Perhaps I'll never eat another salad again.

how did he bully you?

Sounds like your shop democratically decided not to unionize. That's how it's supposed work.

The union experience I had, I was there during the unionization process. At no time were any of us bullied in any way to sign.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

He grabbed me by the arm, shoved me back against the wall of the plant and told me to sign the paper, 'for my own good'. Eating a salad is one thing. Infringing on my rights by mandatory membership and ridiculous dues, combined with physical threats is quite another. I detest unions to this day and always will.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

What you experienced isn't something one can attribute to unions. That was called assault and I hope you called the cops to have him charged.

My quip about the salads was a point. Just because one arse committed assault doesn't mean people are routinely assaulted to sign. That's just ludicrous.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

Received death threats and threats to my wife and children during paper mill strike in Kenora, Ont. back in 1978 for writing columns about the strike. Nice guys those union types. Far too many goons belong to unions in my experience.


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## Kosh (May 27, 2002)

SINC said:


> 'Shut up or conform', is the rallying cry of every union I have ever dealt with, when addressing its members.


That sounds more like today's management cry than a union cry.

Like the other union members here, my union seems to take feedback from it's members. I've never seen them be heavy handed. 

In fact I've never seen any other union, that I've had dealings with, be heavy handed. The only bad ones I've heard of are the ones in the US.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

So, that's how all unions are them automatically.

Funny, I once worked as a scab for a job in a shop that was teamster's, reputed to be one of the more harsher unions. I got to be friends with the guys on the line and got along with them pretty good.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Kosh said:


> *That sounds more like today's management cry than a union cry*.
> 
> Like the other union members here, my union seems to take feedback from it's members. I've never seen them be heavy handed.
> 
> In fact I've never seen any other union, that I've had dealings with, be heavy handed. The only bad ones I've heard of are the ones in the US.


yep.


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## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

SINC said:


> 'Shut up or conform', is the rallying cry of every union I have ever dealt with, when addressing its members.


 Which union(s) names please?



SINC said:


> My very first experience with a union was when a group from a city two hours away showed up at our plant after my shift and tried to bully me into signing a certification document. I told them to go to hell. Our 23 man shop voted 22 to 1 to reject their hard handed tactics. From that day on, I have no use for a union or anyone who promotes them.


Which union? The 2 hours away Union is not one I'm familiar with. Where as Unions are made up of a group of people and where as the people travelled 2 hours to meet with you then would it not be reasonable that these people reflect the standards of community from which they departed?



SINC said:


> He grabbed me by the arm, shoved me back against the wall of the plant and told me to sign the paper, 'for my own good'. Eating a salad is one thing. Infringing on my rights by mandatory membership and ridiculous dues, combined with physical threats is quite another. I detest unions to this day and always will.


 Again which Union? I am not familiar with that particular strategy "to win friends and influence people" to have worker to join together for the purposes bargaining with their employer.



SINC said:


> Received death threats and threats to my wife and children during paper mill strike in Kenora, Ont. back in 1978 for writing columns about the strike. Nice guys those union types. Far too many goons belong to unions in my experience.


How were you sure the people were Union members or even part of a bargaining unit? Did you refer these threats to the police? I surely would.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

BigDL said:


> Which union(s) names please?
> 
> International Typographical Union, 1963.
> 
> ...


Oh yeah, sure, four of them one of me in the 1963 incident, no other witnesses. They caught me alone in a parking lot. Typical union thugs from the Moose Jaw Times-Herald at that time. What do you suppose police would have done with his buddies saying he didn't do it and my word against four of them? They had been in the shop hours before talking to us in a recruiting move which left no doubt in my mind who they were. My father was a police officer at the time and helpless to assist me without witnesses.

1978 incidents reported to both local police and the OPP. Was placed under surveillance for nearly a month and my home and office phones were tapped trying to catch the guys. They blew up transmission towers, flooded area roads with bent nails to give police vehicles flat tires. Nasty bunch of union thugs. They were nothing less than criminals and union members at that.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

So what have we learned here. SInce one person has some anecdotes, well by golly ALL UNIONS ARE CRAP.

And that's just the way it is so everyone tow the line k?


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Come on now SINC, just because these things happened doesn't mean that it should reflect badly on unions.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

It only reflects badly on those who actually want to be members. The ones forced to be members are innocent.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

SINC said:


> It only reflects badly on those who actually want to be members. The ones forced to be members are innocent.


My father was a union man, and I always felt a little felt embarrassed for him.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

of course, no one would be above framing things to make it -look- like the union attacked someone.

Lawyer of the Day: Another Midwestern Prosecutor « Above the Law: A Legal Web Site – News, Commentary, and Opinions on Law Firms, Lawyers, Law Schools, Law Suits, Judges and Courts + Career Resources

People like to only talk about union violence, but tend to fogey violence against unions in history.

I seem to recall a lot of people shot dead...


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## mrjimmy (Nov 8, 2003)

groovetube said:


> of course, no one would be above framing things to make it -look- like the union attacked someone.
> 
> Lawyer of the Day: Another Midwestern Prosecutor « Above the Law: A Legal Web Site – News, Commentary, and Opinions on Law Firms, Lawyers, Law Schools, Law Suits, Judges and Courts + Career Resources
> 
> ...


GT,

Good on you for trying to add some perspective to this thread but I wouldn't waste my time. It seems it has descended into trolling.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

mrjimmy said:


> GT,
> 
> Good one you for trying to add some perspective to this thread but I wouldn't waste my time. It seems it has descended into trolling.


yes I noticed the 'noise' starting to appear like clockwork. I don't wanna know the contents.

Certainly, there has been some violence over workers protesting/striking. But thinking it's one sided is really sticking your head in the sand.


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## iMouse (Mar 1, 2008)

My Dad was working for Rountree chocolates in the 40's, when he got into ...... wait for it ...... the ITU.

He credits that very union for allowing our little family to finally be able to buy a house.

But, and here's the kicker, unions like all things Human are not all black & white.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

mrjimmy said:


> GT,
> 
> Good on you for trying to add some perspective to this thread but I wouldn't waste my time. It seems it has descended into trolling.


Since when is the truth trolling? Does it hurt that much to know union members can be vicious, vengeful and just plain stupid some times? I know. I lived it.


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## mrjimmy (Nov 8, 2003)

SINC said:


> Since when is the truth trolling? Does it hurt that much to know union members can be vicious, vengeful and just plain stupid some times? I know. I lived it.


Trolling.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

SINC said:


> Since when is the truth trolling? Does it hurt that much to know union members can be vicious, vengeful and just plain stupid some times? I know. I lived it.


Trolling = "free speech offends me"


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

mrjimmy said:


> Trolling.


Yep.


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## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

SINC said:


> Since when is the truth trolling? Does it hurt that much to know union members can be vicious, vengeful and just plain stupid some times? I know. I lived it.


When facts are left out by some it is wrong. Some who have already admitted they don't need any facts because facts are too much trouble to bother with? A closed mind wants its way, that's all. 

Get with the program, folks. Projecting that sentiment undeservedly onto others. 

We all know who made that statement earlier, in this thread.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

BigDL said:


> When facts are left out by some it is wrong. Some who have already admitted they don't need any facts because facts are too much trouble to bother with? A closed mind wants its way, that's all.
> 
> Get with the program, folks. Projecting that sentiment undeservedly onto others.
> 
> We all know who made that statement earlier, in this thread.


I don't believe you've provided any overwhelming "facts." Your posts are simply reflective of an abiding admiration for unions. Although I believe such admiration is misguided, I would not accuse you of trolling by engaging in such repeated assertions.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

MY mind is totally open to the fact that some members of unions are thugs and my experience makes me very leery of any union member. And that's a fact.


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## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

When someone hates Unions they are free to say "I hate Unions." There isn't any legal sanction or impediment for doing so. 

Distortions and lying will not aid you in your desire to convince others with regard to having an animus towards Unions. 

People will believe the prima facia statement of a hatred for Unions.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

I smell a lot of furious backpedaling.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

BigDL said:


> When someone hates Unions they are free to say "I hate Unions." There isn't any legal sanction or impediment for doing so.
> 
> Distortions and lying will not aid you in your desire to convince others with regard to having an animus towards Unions.
> 
> People will believe the prima facia statement of a hatred for Unions.


Accusing a member of lying is a serious breach of the forum rules. I stand by what I posted. Both events actually happened and were the root cause of my distaste for unions.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

seemed just fine when someone accused someone else.

Well well different rules for different opinions. T'is a serious breach when it's done to you I suppose.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

My apologies, I forgot there for a moment you are all-knowing and always right.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Wasn't me who made this up.

Just a simple observation.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

I will tell you one more time. BOTH things happened to me personally. End of debate.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

well personal anecdotes up for debate and/or criticism seem fine to a few here as long as they aren't the target. I seem to recall you cheering someone else on kicking someone else down pretty good if I recall.

End of debate happens when members here say it is.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

iMouse said:


> My Dad was working for Rountree chocolates in the 40's, when he got into ...... wait for it ...... the ITU.
> 
> He credits that very union for allowing our little family to finally be able to buy a house.
> 
> But, and here's the kicker, unions like all things Human are not all black & white.


Nothing wrong with a negotiated raise in pay. Again, I have nothing against unions in general. If you have a valuable skill that's being undercompensated, by all means go in as a group and ask for more.

I simply don't want to see unions given any special powers, such as "card check." Likewise, if you go on strike and hold the company hostage, then the employer should have the right to replace you.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)




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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

Good thing I am not a baby boomer.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Or what do they call it, "gen Y" that will have to retire after all that mess.

I'm a gen Xer so hopefully I'll miss the real mess.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)




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## mrjimmy (Nov 8, 2003)

Hey it's Thursday, soon to be Friday - you know, that day before the two days off brought to you by those accursed unions.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

SINC said:


> Good thing I am not a baby boomer.


My fathers investment broker told him the best decision he ever made was being born in 1932; investing in anything ahead of the boomers was almost a guaranteed money maker, and investing in anything behind them is almost a guaranteed looser.

Those of us born between about 1963 and 1983 have been stuck in a demographic trough; eking out a living on the detritus left in the wake of the boomers, and looking forward to having to pay for their pensions and health costs.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

mrjimmy said:


> Hey it's Thursday, soon to be Friday - you know, that day before the two days off brought to you by those accursed unions.


A capitalist invention brought to you by Henry Ford!




> Ford's next act came in September 1926, when the company announced the five-day workweek. As he noted in his company's Ford News in October, "Just as the eight-hour day opened our way to prosperity in America, so the five-day workweek will open our way to still greater prosperity ... It is high time to rid ourselves of the notion that leisure for workmen is either lost time or a class privilege."


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

bryanc said:


> My fathers investment broker told him the best decision he ever made was being born in 1932; investing in anything ahead of the boomers was almost a guaranteed money maker, and investing in anything behind them is almost a guaranteed looser.


My parents and their peers thought hey were brilliant investors for putting their spare cash in a term deposit at 21%.


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## mrjimmy (Nov 8, 2003)

SINC said:


> MY mind is totally open to the fact that some members of unions are thugs and my experience makes me very leery of any union member. And that's a fact.


As I'm sure you know, this doesn't fit the classic definition of an open mind.

I'm sure this attitude has given you great wisdom over the years.

Such as:

Bad service in a restaurant? Hate all servers!
Bank turn you down for a loan? Hate all loan officers!
Rough ride on transit? Hate all bus drivers!

I'm sure you get the point. I would have thought an open mind such as yours would consider the folly of this. The folly and the inaccuracy.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

mrjimmy said:


> As I'm sure you know, this doesn't fit the classic definition of an open mind.
> 
> I'm sure this attitude has given you great wisdom over the years.
> 
> ...


I've tried explaining this already but it just descends into the usual trolling dance.

I don't think unions are great either these days quite often, but to make sweeping judgements based on personal anecdotes is pretty far from an 'open mind'.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

mrjimmy said:


> Hey it's Thursday, soon to be Friday - you know, that day before the two days off brought to you by those accursed unions.


Negotiated for a lot of workers by unions. I've read before how people who hate unions will tell you we didn't need unions to negotiate this, but apparently they've never read anything about it.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Macfury said:


> A capitalist invention brought to you by Henry Ford!


It was certainly before my time, but Wikipedia says the 5-day work week was first instituted by a cotton mill in order to allow their Jewish workers to celebrate the Sabbath, while still permitting their Christian workers to go to church on Sunday.

So it would appear we have our invisible friends to thank for this.

Given that Fridays are the Pastafarian Holy Day, it seems we need to have 3-day weekends.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

bryanc said:


> It was certainly before my time, but Wikipedia says the 5-day work week was first instituted by a cotton mill in order to allow their Jewish workers to celebrate the Sabbath, while still permitting their Christian workers to go to church on Sunday.
> 
> So it would appear we have our invisible friends to thank for this.
> 
> Given that Fridays are the Pastafarian Holy Day, it seems we need to have 3-day weekends.


ha ha! Like clockwork! You can almost set your watch by it. :lmao:

Someone else did it for some workers so therefore, everyone in the country got it. That logic sort of paints a picture of the rest of their story.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

groovetube said:


> ...but to make sweeping judgements based on personal anecdotes is pretty far from an 'open mind'.


It's like deciding that, despite its demonstrable failure and egregious cost to society, the "War on Drugs" is a good thing because you have personally had a bad experience with drugs. It boggles the mind that anyone could be so myopic, but there it is.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

bryanc said:


> it's like deciding that, despite its demonstrable failure and egregious cost to society, the "war on drugs" is a good thing because you have personally had a bad experience with drugs. It boggles the mind that anyone could be so myopic, but there it is.


+10000000000000


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

groovetube said:


> Someone else did it for some workers so therefore, everyone in the country got it.


As we were discussing with respect to SINC's addage of "Shut up and Conform" it is the non-conformists who change society (both for the better and for the worse). When non-conformists do things differently, or express dissenting opinions, the herd mentality is to reject them; however, if they persist, and their ideas have merit, sometimes they are adopted by minorities, and the new ideas take root.

I'm not an expert on the history of this, but it would appear that the chronology went something like this;

Religious traditions called for one 'day of rest' per week, and in the Christian-dominated western world that was Sundays. Jewish (non-conformist) minorities agitated for Saturday's off, and a few (enlightened) employers granted this in addition to the traditional Sunday holiday, presumably on the principle that the loss of hours worked would be compensated by happy, more productive workers. Henry Ford (who was a notoriously enlightened employer, who built his empire on the principle that he needed to pay his workers enough to buy his cars) adopted this in his factories (how much pressure from the unions affected this decision would be an interesting study). Finally, unions elsewhere took up this cause and helped cement the two day weekend as a standard labour practise in the west.

So attributing the two day weekend exclusively to Unions or to Ford, or to religious traditions would be over simplistic (and therefore the most likely position of most people).


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## mrjimmy (Nov 8, 2003)

groovetube said:


> Negotiated for a lot of workers by unions. I've read before how people who hate unions will tell you we didn't need unions to negotiate this, but apparently they've never read anything about it.


Exactly my point. Ford may have invented it, but it was the union movement that made it ubiquitous.


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## mrjimmy (Nov 8, 2003)

groovetube said:


> I've tried explaining this already but it just descends into the usual trolling dance.
> 
> I don't think unions are great either these days quite often, but to make sweeping judgements based on personal anecdotes is pretty far from an 'open mind'.


Here's a tasty tidbit for our friend from Henry Ford's Wikipedia page:



> To forestall union activity, Ford promoted Harry Bennett, a former Navy boxer, to head the Service Department. *Bennett employed various intimidation tactics to squash union organizing.*[32] The most famous incident, on May 26, 1937, involved Bennett's security men *beating with clubs UAW representatives*, including Walter Reuther.[33] While Bennett's men were beating the UAW representatives, the supervising police chief on the scene was Carl Brooks, an alumnus of Bennett’s Service Department, and [Brooks] "*did not give orders to intervene*."[34] The incident became known as The Battle of the Overpass.


Who are the 'thugs' here I wonder...


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

mrjimmy said:


> Who are the 'thugs' here I wonder...


In this incident almost a hundred years ago, the unionists were not the thugs! Nice backtracking on that union invention of the 5-day week.


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## minstrel (Sep 9, 2002)

But in an anecdote from fifty years ago, union members *were* the "thugs"! Apparently, as is true of any group, there will always be some members who exhibit behaviours that are outside societal norms. That should not mean we define the behaviour of the group based on the behaviours of such outliers, correct?


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

minstrel said:


> But in an anecdote from fifty years ago, union members *were* the "thugs"! Apparently, as is true of any group, there will always be some members who exhibit behaviours that are outside societal norms. That should not mean we define the behaviour of the group based on the behaviours of such outliers, correct?


No one incident can define the group. However, a repeated pattern of tactics can.


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## mrjimmy (Nov 8, 2003)

minstrel said:


> But in an anecdote from fifty years ago, union members *were* the "thugs"! Apparently, as is true of any group, there will always be some members who exhibit behaviours that are outside societal norms. That should not mean we define the behaviour of the group based on the behaviours of such outliers, correct?


Correct - with no caveat.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

mrjimmy said:


> Here's a tasty tidbit for our friend from Henry Ford's Wikipedia page:
> 
> 
> 
> Who are the 'thugs' here I wonder...


There's a lot of blather of thugs in the union, but of course, absolutely zilch on the sheer thuggery and skulduggery of companies/corporations and their treatment of people, their workers, and the environment that they do business in.

Nothing, nada, zilch. Whose side are they on? The people, or the ultra rich companies?

Pretty obvious what the answer to that question is.

You'd have to be pretty gullible to think that all unions can get what they want from these companies by being nice.


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## Kosh (May 27, 2002)

SINC said:


> Oh yeah, sure, four of them one of me in the 1963 incident, no other witnesses.


Well that explains SINC's experience with unions, he's talking about the 60's and 70's. In one case I wasn't even born yet and the other, I was still in school. Unions and work environments have come a long way since. Unions wouldn't be able to get away with what SINC's saying in my work environment. That's harassment, and is not put up with today.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Kosh said:


> Well that explains SINC's experience with unions, he's talking about the 60's and 70's. In one case I wasn't even born yet and the other, I was still in school. Unions and work environments have come a long way since. Unions wouldn't be able to get away with what SINC's saying in my work environment. That's harassment, and is not put up with today.


i haven't heard of much union violence recently, except for more isolated beatings in the U.S. For me, the paternalism of unions is an embarrassment.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Well, not in these parts; in Nigeria, corporations like Shell can hire death squads to hunt down labor or environmental activists with impunity, and wouldn't be surprised if there is still the odd union that uses the mafia 'protection racket' business model.

But ultimately, I think we have to accept that the labour movement of the last century has dramatically improved working conditions for most people. This is in contrast to the alterations to the tax and regulatory systems that corporations have successfully lobbied governments for over the past century, which have dramatically damaged the quality of life for most people.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

Kosh said:


> Well that explains SINC's experience with unions, he's talking about the 60's and 70's. In one case I wasn't even born yet and the other, I was still in school. Unions and work environments have come a long way since. Unions wouldn't be able to get away with what SINC's saying in my work environment. That's harassment, and is not put up with today.


That may be the case Kosh, but once burned, one never goes back for more and fears fire the rest of their lives. That has been and still is the case with me and unions.


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## Kosh (May 27, 2002)

bryanc said:


> Well, not in these parts; in Nigeria, corporations like Shell can hire death squads to hunt down labor or environmental activists with impunity, and wouldn't be surprised if there is still the odd union that uses the mafia 'protection racket' business model.


Let's stay in the US and Canada... where we have some semblance of civility.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

SINC said:


> once burned, one never goes back for more and fears fire the rest of their lives.


I wonder if all the people who were abused by nuns, raped by priests, or otherwise harmed by members of a religious organization are atheists?


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

bryanc said:


> I wonder if all the people who were abused by nuns, raped by priests, or otherwise harmed by members of a religious organization are atheists?


No. But in many cases, they cease to be church members.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

And who can blame them; but I would presume that they, like I, still recognize that others should have the right to go to a church, worship whatever invisible fairies they like, and that sometimes these organizations do good things for the community, despite the fact that some of their members are unmitigated monsters.

In a perfect world there would be no need for unions (or churches). But sadly, the world is not perfect.


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## MACenstein'sMonster (Aug 21, 2008)

bryanc said:


> But sadly, the world is not perfect.


Or is it?


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

MACenstein'sMonster said:


> Or is it?


Candide, is that you?


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## MACenstein'sMonster (Aug 21, 2008)

No.

Yes.

I mean...maybe.


By the way (BTW) if the world is sadly not perfect was it ever happily perfect?

Or is it possible that perfection is a man-made concept that does not exist. Maybe perfection is another name for "God" and according to some sadly neither exist?

Note - I am completely off topic but don't know how to get back on without first figuring this detail out.


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## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

minstrel said:


> But in an anecdote from fifty years ago, union members *were* the "thugs"! Apparently, as is true of any group, there will always be some members who exhibit behaviours that are outside societal norms. That should not mean we define the behaviour of the group based on the behaviours of such outliers, correct?


In order to make an application for certification of a Union as the bargaining agent for a group of workers in most jurisdictions the organizers have to accomplish two requirements.

The first is to receive a mandated fee, (by the government that regulates the act) as a sign of good faith, and have a card signed to demonstrate interest in forming a Union.

The fees and cards are returned to the appropriate (sometimes called "Industrial Relations" or "Labour Relations") Board. In many jurisdictions you have to sign up at least 50% plus one of the workers to have a vote. 

However if the employer agrees to recognize the Union then there would be a direct vote. If the employer recognized the Union why would there need to have cards signed? The workers could still vote against a Union at this point.

Any cards that were signed through threat, intimidation, coercion or claimed to be a fraud could and would be challenged by an employer at a hearing before the Board. If the Board received claims of a card(s) identified as being signed through threat, intimidation, coercion or claimed to be a fraud, the claim would be reviewed by the Board and if the card(s) that were the basis of the challenge was substantiated by the Board, the Board would be throw out all of the cards. The Union Organization drive would end then and there, no votes would be taken.

Who knows the level of experience of some organizers from 50 years ago. What were the laws in place from 50 years ago?

One person voted for the Union apparently. Maybe that's the worker that contacted the Union but again who knows. 

On a Union organization drive, you have to win friends and influence workers, to dig into their pocket for some dollars and to sign a card. If you can't win friends, intimidating workers, will never work. It is hard to imagine a Union had enough support to ever get to a vote as outlined by the recollections provided.

The recollections are the recollections of an individual from 50 years ago. Memories are not always perfect.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

BigDL said:


> The recollections are the recollections of an individual from 50 years ago. Memories are not always perfect.


My memory of that goon is burned into my brain. I can still see his face today. As for that one vote, it was from a recent employee transferred from the Moose Jaw Times-Herald to our shop (and former co-worker and friend of the four thugs that showed up to try and unionize our shop). Fact, not fiction.

The result: jaded for life against unions. End of story.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Whether or not it's fact, or fiction, it still doesn't erase all that unions have done this past century for workers.

Are they perfect? Hell no! Far from it. But it's all we had against the tyranny of employers many years ago, and still keeps them at bay, particularly at a time where massive corporate tax breaks, huge layoffs, pat on the backs and nudge nudge wink winks at companies who hire cheaper foreign workers here and send jobs overseas, and tell us we ask too much to make a decent living and should feel damn lucky to even have a job.

While they should be damn lucky to be able to reap the benefits of a working/paying society here.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

groovetube said:


> Whether or not it's fact, or fiction, it still doesn't erase all that unions have done this past century for workers.


Show me where I said it did please.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

SINC said:


> Show me where I said it did please.


ah. So if you agree that unions have been for the past century one of the most effective tools in standing up for worker's rights, then well, we're in agreement then!


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

groovetube said:


> ah. So if you agree that unions have been for the past century one of the most effective tools in standing up for worker's rights, then well, we're in agreement then!


I made no comment on their value to society. I stand by my comments that some members are thugs and goons and I do not have any use for unions in spite of what anyone believes they may or may not have done in that regard.


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## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

Should a hater hate, the hate shall be hateful. The hate shall be all encompassing, all consuming and an eternal hatred...so say the shepard, so say the flock.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

SINC said:


> I made no comment on their value to society. I stand by my comments that some members are thugs and goons and I do not have any use for unions in spite of what anyone believes they may or may not have done in that regard.


So, in a thread about unions where people are debating their usefulness etc., you have no opinion on the subject matter in general really, but wish to repeat your story that happened apparently 50 years ago, over and over and over so that everyone here really gets and understands, that you hate unions and have no use for them.

So what are you really doing in this thread besides repeating your story if you have no opinion on the subject either way? :lmao:


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## iMouse (Mar 1, 2008)

His experience has rendered him incapable of discussing Unions on a larger scale.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

I see that.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

BigDL said:


> Should a hater hate, the hate shall be hateful. The hate shall be all encompassing, all consuming and an eternal hatred...so say the shepard, so say the flock.


He sees the unions as worthless and pathetic, not hateful.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

Macfury said:


> He sees the unions as worthless and pathetic, not hateful.


Agreed.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

SINC said:


> Agreed.


Well you asked me where you said it.

You said it, right there.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

groovetube said:


> Well you asked me where you said it.
> 
> You said it, right there.


Sorry, I forgot about your superiority and being the ultimate authority on anything on this board. And why am I not surprised oh wise and always correct one?


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

what???????

You asked me to show you where.

I did.


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## mrjimmy (Nov 8, 2003)

Halifax coffee shop workers push for unionization - The Globe and Mail

Uh oh, my chai latte is going to go up to at least $4.00! Oh wait a minute, it already is...

Nice to see the huge profits made from hawking brown water go the the workers for a change.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

mrjimmy said:


> Halifax coffee shop workers push for unionization - The Globe and Mail
> 
> Uh oh, my chai latte is going to go up to at least $4.00! Oh wait a minute, it already is...
> 
> Nice to see the huge profits made from hawking brown water go the the workers for a change.


The chai latte will go up to $6. Tastes better, 'cause it's union made!


----------



## FeXL (Jan 2, 2004)

Macfury said:


> The chai latte will go up to $6. Tastes better, 'cause it's union made!


And delivered in only twice the time...


----------



## heavyall (Nov 2, 2012)

I'm really surprised when I read/hear of people still defending unions today. What they may or may not have done in years gone by isn't of much relevance to the issue of the problems they presently create. The thing that unions are mostly responsible for these days are bankruptcies and job losses.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

heavyall said:


> I'm really surprised when I read/hear of people still defending unions today. What they may or may not have done in years gone by isn't of much relevance to the issue of the problems they presently create. The thing that unions are mostly responsible for these days are bankruptcies and job losses.


Can't disagree with that!


----------



## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

Sad to see the anti-union animus. 

If people join together and seek to improve their lot in life, by improving their wages, scheduling and benefits isn't that their choice to make? 

What happened to freedom of choice?

Here's what I suspect and would like to confirm:

Q: Who thinks a worker would hide behind the group to slack off? 

A: Slackers projecting their personal strategy onto other, I should think.


----------



## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

The truth is that unions are dying and membership has been falling year after year as workers realize the cost of membership does not equate to any improvement for individuals, only the fat cats that run unions:

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/union2.pdf


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## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

SINC said:


> The truth is that unions are dying and membership has been falling year after year as workers realize the cost of membership does not equate to any improvement for individuals, only the fat cats that run unions:
> 
> http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/union2.pdf


*VERY GOOOOOD! Here's your Gooogleing GOLSTAR*


----------



## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

Now who is the bully? No secret unions are declining and I just provided the facts for the US. Canada is likely no different.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

BigDL said:


> Q: Who thinks a worker would hide behind the group to slack off?


This is the best line of the day!


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

FeXL said:


> And delivered in only twice the time...


I'm sorry sir, I can't put cinnamon sprinkles on your latte--that's not in my job classification.


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## Sonal (Oct 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> I'm sorry sir, I can't put cinnamon sprinkles on your latte--that's not in my job classification.


I need to go to these fancy coffee shops where they put cinnamon on your latte for you, instead of leaving s shaker by the milk and sugar for you to do it yourself.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Sonal said:


> I need to go to these fancy coffee shops where they put cinnamon on your latte for you, instead of leaving s shaker by the milk and sugar for you to do it yourself.


Scab!


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## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

SINC said:


> Now who is the bully?


I would say you, as well as you being a troll.

This thread was started to discuss Canadian Trade Union issues primarily. Not irrelevant statistics from them 'Mericuns in those Excited States.

Google is my friend as well. From Canadian sources we find the following:



StatsCan said:


> Average paid employment (employees) during the first half of 2011 was 14.5 million, an increase of 249,000 over the same period a year earlier (Table 1). The number of unionized employees also increased, by 80,000 (to 4.3 million). However, since union membership rose slightly more rapidly than employment, the unionization rate edged up from 29.6% in 2010 to 29.7% in 2011.
> 
> As women experienced disproportionately more gains in unionized jobs, their unionization rate rose to 31.1%. The unionization rate for men remained constant at 28.2%. As a result, the gap in the rates between men and women widened further in 2011.


Unionization 2011



CLC said:


> Average hourly wage for workers with unions	$26.50
> 
> Average hourly wage for workers without unions	$21.39
> 
> ...


Canada | Canadian Labour Congress

*It is a shame that you have to go Googleing to find "how you wish it were."*

Let's stay with the facts relevant to Canadians, or is that just too much bullying for you?


----------



## Sonal (Oct 2, 2003)

Macfury said:


> Scab!


Wouldn't they have to pay me to cinnamon my own latte for me to be a scab?


----------



## i-rui (Sep 13, 2006)

heavyall said:


> I'm really surprised when I read/hear of people still defending unions today. What they may or may not have done in years gone by isn't of much relevance to the issue of the problems they presently create. The thing that unions are mostly responsible for these days are bankruptcies and job losses.


you can pretty much say the same thing about unfettered capitalism.

unions are never behind financial crashes, and those do far more damage then any pension obligations ever will. unregulated banks do far more harm than unions and yet everyone is happy to support that enterprise.

I won't say unions are always good and right, but they certainly are needed to keep local interests in check, twice fold now that globalism is ever present.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

BigDL said:


> I would say you, as well as you being a troll.
> 
> This thread was started to discuss Canadian Trade Union issues primarily. Not irrelevant statistics from them 'Mericuns in those Excited States.
> 
> ...


In Canada, those rates are just the result of Your Glorious Leader hiring more government workers. It has nothing to do with any love of unions.

In the private sector:



> 17.4 per cent of private-sector workers in Canada belonged to unions in 2011, down from 21.3 per cent in 1997


The weakening state of Canadian labour unions - The Globe and Mail


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Sonal said:


> Wouldn't they have to pay me to cinnamon my own latte for me to be a scab?


No, just because you're working for free doesn't excuse you.


----------



## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

BigDL said:


> I would say you, as well as you being a troll.
> 
> This thread was started to discuss Canadian Trade Union issues primarily. Not irrelevant statistics from them 'Mericuns in those Excited States.
> 
> Let's stay with the facts relevant to Canadians, or is that just too much bullying for you?


Then you had best change the thread title:

*Trade unions and matters related to unions*

I see nothing about "Canadian" in the thread title, do you? It is open discussion on unions from what I can tell, but hey, if you want to change it NOW to suit your needs, fill your boots. And please stop with accusing me of being a troll for presenting facts YOU don't like. It makes you look like a, well, what you are.


----------



## Sonal (Oct 2, 2003)

i-rui said:


> you can pretty much say the same thing about unfettered capitalism.
> 
> unions are never behind financial crashes, and those do far more damage then any pension obligations ever will. unregulated banks do far more harm than unions and yet everyone is happy to support that enterprise.
> 
> I won't say unions are always good and right, but they certainly are needed to keep local interests in check, twice fold now that globalism is ever present.


Capitalism brings up an interesting issue, which is public sector vs. private sector unions, and if there is a difference.... I have a hard time seeing government as agents of pure capitalism. 

I've never worked in a unionized environment, either as staff or management, so pretty much all of my interactions with unions are as a member of the public when a public sector union--notably the TTC--goes on strike. It's an odd situation, in that it takes what would normally be an issue between management and labour and drags what is effectively the consumer into it.

The purpose of organizing, as I understand it, is to collectively bargain with management and (if needed) directly affect them via their bottom line. But when the public sector union goes on strike, it's not management who is directly affected, but the citizens who have very little to do with the whole issue except that they want it over with. And then management can simply raise taxes and blame the union and the citizens have to pay for it. So it becomes a very strange situation of collective bargaining by striking out at a third party who has no real control over the process....


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

SINC said:


> Then you had best change the thread title:
> 
> *Trade unions and matters related to unions*
> 
> I see nothing about "Canadian" in the thread title, do you? It is open discussion on unions from what I can tell, but hey, if you want to change it NOW to suit your needs, fill your boots. And please stop with accusing me of being a troll for presenting facts YOU don't like. It makes you look like a, well, what you are.


SINC, please don't allow another member to intimidate you into silence. We must all stand up to bullies.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

SINC said:


> Then you had best change the thread title:
> 
> *Trade unions and matters related to unions*
> 
> I see nothing about "Canadian" in the thread title, do you? It is open discussion on unions from what I can tell, but hey, if you want to change it NOW to suit your needs, fill your boots. And please stop with accusing me of being a troll for presenting facts YOU don't like. It makes you look like a, well, what you are.


Well DL did start the thread.

And as for your 'facts', I haven't seen much in the way of any facts, save for a PDF that you obviously never spent much time reading...

Though perhaps the headline was what interested you.

Bleh, I see much much dreck here, a bunch of headlines shrieking and a whole lot of unsubstantiated claims.



Sonal said:


> Capitalism brings up an interesting issue, which is public sector vs. private sector unions, and if there is a difference.... I have a hard time seeing government as agents of pure capitalism.
> 
> I've never worked in a unionized environment, either as staff or management, so pretty much all of my interactions with unions are as a member of the public when a public sector union--notably the TTC--goes on strike. It's an odd situation, in that it takes what would normally be an issue between management and labour and drags what is effectively the consumer into it.
> 
> The purpose of organizing, as I understand it, is to collectively bargain with management and (if needed) directly affect them via their bottom line. But when the public sector union goes on strike, it's not management who is directly affected, but the citizens who have very little to do with the whole issue except that they want it over with. And then management can simply raise taxes and blame the union and the citizens have to pay for it. So it becomes a very strange situation of collective bargaining by striking out at a third party who has no real control over the process....


I agree with you on the public service unions. I didn't much like the way Miller dealt with unions. I think there is a happy medium between ripping the pubic service to shreds, and no letting them rule things. After reading some of the comments here, it seems that balance never occurred to anyone. But the little game you described is a convenient one.

As for 6 dollar lattes, I'm a little astounded that free market captains would be using the fear factor of outrageously expensive lattes. I would have thought a free market with people's dollar votes would take care of this! :lmao:


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## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

SINC said:


> Then you had best change the thread title:
> 
> *Trade unions and matters related to unions*
> 
> I see nothing about "Canadian" in the thread title, do you? It is open discussion on unions from what I can tell, but hey, if you want to change it NOW to suit your needs, fill your boots. And please stop with accusing me of being a troll for presenting facts YOU don't like. It makes you look like a, well, what you are.


Well perhaps we should ask the original poster what he had in mind. 

Q: BigDL what did you have in mind when you started this thread?

A: Well I envisioned a discussion of Canadian current events as those events are related to situations affecting Trade Unions and their members.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

BigDL said:


> Well perhaps we should ask the original poster what he had in mind.
> 
> Q: BigDL what did you have in mind when you started this thread?
> 
> A: Well I envisioned a discussion of Canadian current events as those events are related to situations affecting Trade Unions and their members.


:lmao:

Jeez, I spend the day on my reno, I come back to the tap dancing of "I hate unions!" LOOK! A headline that says "Union bad!" or whatever.

Jeez. Surely it can get past that and something intelligent can emerge.

WHat am I saying...


----------



## Sonal (Oct 2, 2003)

groovetube said:


> I agree with you on the public service unions. I didn't much like the way Miller dealt with unions. I think there is a happy medium between ripping the pubic service to shreds, and no letting them rule things. After reading some of the comments here, it seems that balance never occurred to anyone. But the little game you described is a convenient one.


It would be nice if, realizing they are all government, they would quit with the adversarial roles that seem to help no one and work out a consensus that attempts to do right by the citizen. Given what I have heard about the cultures involved, however, that seems a bit of a pipe dream.



groovetube said:


> As for 6 dollar lattes, I'm a little astounded that free market captains would be using the fear factor of outrageously expensive lattes. I would have thought a free market with people's dollar votes would take care of this! :lmao:


Which is part of the issue with the public sector union.... the free market does not take care of this. If I would like to take transit, the TTC is the only game in town... and as such, I'm subject to the political games played by both the union and the government.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Sonal said:


> It would be nice if, realizing they are all government, they would quit with the adversarial roles that seem to help no one and work out a consensus that attempts to do right by the citizen. Given what I have heard about the cultures involved, however, that seems a bit of a pipe dream.
> 
> 
> 
> Which is part of the issue with the public sector union.... the free market does not take care of this. If I would like to take transit, the TTC is the only game in town... and as such, I'm subject to the political games played by both the union and the government.


that's true. But we can elect municipal leaders that promise to reign them in. A lot of Ford's supporters got behind his privatizing the garbage pickup. I don't know that it will save us as money as they say it will, but after what happened in the last decade, and that union's demands, well look what happened. Politically, it shifted to the likes of Rob Ford, and that whole sector lost out.

As far as the transit is concerned, there are plenty of examples of privatized transit that resulted in huge costs and mediocre service. So we'll have to elect leaders to stand up to them. Perhaps after weathering 4 years of this fool for a mayor, other candidates will get the hint and add standing up to the unions to their platform, and agendas.


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## Sonal (Oct 2, 2003)

groovetube said:


> that's true. But we can elect municipal leaders that promise to reign them in. A lot of Ford's supporters got behind his privatizing the garbage pickup. I don't know that it will save us as money as they say it will, but after what happened in the last decade, and that union's demands, well look what happened. Politically, it shifted to the likes of Rob Ford, and that whole sector lost out.
> 
> As far as the transit is concerned, there are plenty of examples of privatized transit that resulted in huge costs and mediocre service. So we'll have to elect leaders to stand up to them. Perhaps after weathering 4 years of this fool for a mayor, other candidates will get the hint and add standing up to the unions to their platform, and agendas.


Well to be clear, I'm not suggesting that we privatize the TTC or have multiple competing overlapping transit systems--infrastructure does not work well that way. But certainly, Andy Byford's job is a heck of a lot tougher for having to reform a group who has yet to show much desire to reform.

But yeah, over the last several years, the public sector unions in the City of Toronto have completely screwed the pooch in convincing the increasingly non-union public of the ongoing worth of unions. They chose short-term gains over their long-term survival. I suspect a lot more union-busing mayors to come....


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Sonal said:


> Well to be clear, I'm not suggesting that we privatize the TTC or have multiple competing overlapping transit systems--infrastructure does not work well that way. But certainly, Andy Byford's job is a heck of a lot tougher for having to reform a group who has yet to show much desire to reform.
> 
> But yeah, over the last several years, the public sector unions in the City of Toronto have completely screwed the pooch in convincing the increasingly non-union public of the ongoing worth of unions. They chose short-term gains over their long-term survival. * I suspect a lot more union-busing mayors to come....*


I think to a large degree they kinda deserve some standing up to.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

BigDL said:


> Well perhaps we should ask the original poster what he had in mind.
> 
> Q: BigDL what did you have in mind when you started this thread?
> 
> A: Well I envisioned a discussion of Canadian current events as those events are related to situations affecting Trade Unions and their members.


Why not change the title of the thread? Better than explaining your pensees every time someone fails to guess what you were thinking.


----------



## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

BigDL said:


> Well perhaps we should ask the original poster what he had in mind.
> 
> Q: BigDL what did you have in mind when you started this thread?
> 
> A: Well I envisioned a discussion of Canadian current events as those events are related to situations affecting Trade Unions and their members.


Ah, asking yourself questions. What's next? Answering yourself? Face it, you failed to title the thread correctly. Either that or you now discovered you made a mistake that takes too much loss of face to change. That's a real piece of work and you blame me? Sorry, but you failed once again.


----------



## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

groovetube said:


> :lmao:
> 
> Jeez, I spend the day on my reno, I come back to the tap dancing of "I hate unions!" LOOK! A headline that says "Union bad!" or whatever.
> 
> Jeez. Surely it can get past that and something intelligent can emerge.


Intelligent? It certainly didn't with that post.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

oh more farting. It continues.

I thought perhaps.... it may get on a better track.

As I said, what was I thinking.


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## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

*The Problem Is A TITLE?????*



mrjimmy said:


> Halifax coffee shop workers push for unionization - The Globe and Mail
> 
> Uh oh, my chai latte is going to go up to at least $4.00! Oh wait a minute, it already is...
> 
> Nice to see the huge profits made from hawking brown water go the the workers for a change.





FeXL said:


> And delivered in only twice the time...





heavyall said:


> I'm really surprised when I read/hear of people still defending unions today. What they may or may not have done in years gone by isn't of much relevance to the issue of the problems they presently create. The thing that unions are mostly responsible for these days are bankruptcies and job losses.





SINC said:


> Can't disagree with that!





BigDL said:


> Sad to see the anti-union animus.
> 
> If people join together and seek to improve their lot in life, by improving their wages, scheduling and benefits isn't that their choice to make?
> 
> ...





SINC said:


> The truth is that unions are dying and membership has been falling year after year as workers realize the cost of membership does not equate to any improvement for individuals, only the fat cats that run unions:
> 
> http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/union2.pdf





SINC said:


> Then you had best change the thread title:
> 
> *Trade unions and matters related to unions*
> 
> I see nothing about "Canadian" in the thread title, do you? It is open discussion on unions from what I can tell, but hey, if you want to change it NOW to suit your needs, fill your boots. And please stop with accusing me of being a troll for presenting facts YOU don't like. It makes you look like a, well, what you are.


My, my, my! The problem is a *title*

Well lets look at some facts.

First mrjimmy post a link to a G&M story regarding groups of Halifax workers forming Unions to address their concerns they have because of how life is unfolding.

Then FeXL and heavyall provide a chorus of Union Bashing with SINC chiming in his concurrence.

Then SINC provide a major distortions of Googled fact. The major distortion is presented as a reinforcement of the notion of a major decline or irrelevance of Canadian Unions. 

Let's remember the start of this latest meander to speak of Unions is a story of Canadian coffee shop workers in Halifax a Canadian city, but some how stats from the US Bureau Labour have relevance.

So as I have clearly stated in the past; people are welcome to state their opinions, even if they hate Unions, just say so, but don't offer distortions and lies, to convince people of your Anti-Unions Animus. I shall highlight distortions and lies.

When I saw a distortions bordering on lies, I called the posters on their BS.

I see no reason to Google some information from foreign nations say somewhere in Northern Europe to bolster a case to say Unions are on the rise in Canada, it makes no sense.

To the extent that "Canadian current affairs" I had in mind, is if it is something we Canadian are talking about...from the news...media...or what ever is the term today, let's discuss it here.

So the problem regarding this thread all boils down to the title. Really? The title? :clap: <SARCASM> for those not sure.


----------



## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

BigDL said:


> Then SINC provide a major distortions of Googled fact. The major distortion is presented as a reinforcement of the notion of a major decline or irrelevance of Canadian Unions.


Making things up again are we? There was no reference to 'Canadian' unions at all, just as there is no reference to them in the thread title.


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## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

SINC said:


> Making things up again are we? There was no reference to 'Canadian' unions at all, just as there is no reference to them in the thread title.


<SARCASM>So if you have a problem, go post somewhere else, where you will be happy.<SARCASM>


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I'm happy to post in the union thread!


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

i-rui said:


> you can pretty much say the same thing about unfettered capitalism.


Indeed. Unionization emerged as a response to abuse of labour by capitalists, and it worked. Now that most people enjoy legal (and/or union) protection from abuse by their employers, many are unaware of how important unions were in creating this happy situation. And, it is perfectly true that, in some sectors, union membership is declining; that's a good thing... if people don't feel they need the protection of a union, why should anyone be upset about that? However, I do think it's naive to think that, if all the unions went away, the capitalists wouldn't start squeezing their workers to improve their profits like they did in the past (and currently do overseas where there are no unions to protect the workers).

I'm fortunate enough to have skills that are sufficiently rare and valuable that I don't really need the protection of a union any more; however, I appreciate how unions protect the livelihoods of my friends and neighbours, so I will respect union lines and will not cross a picket.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

bryanc said:


> Indeed. Unionization emerged as a response to abuse of labour by capitalists, and it worked. Now that most people enjoy legal (and/or union) protection from abuse by their employers, many are unaware of how important unions were in creating this happy situation. *And, it is perfectly true that, in some sectors, union membership is declining; that's a good thing... if people don't feel they need the protection of a union, why should anyone be upset about that? However, I do think it's naive to think that, if all the unions went away, the capitalists wouldn't start squeezing their workers to improve their profits like they did in the past (and currently do overseas where there are no unions to protect the workers).*
> 
> I'm fortunate enough to have skills that are sufficiently rare and valuable that I don't really need the protection of a union any more; however, I appreciate how unions protect the livelihoods of my friends and neighbours, so I will respect union lines and will not cross a picket.


You pointed out something that seems to be missed by the anti union ranters. Unions, for all their faults and warts, were the most effective tool for workers to demand and get fair wages and treatment. I would agree that even though (in US anyway) union membership shows a decline, that really is a testament to how effective unions are, and were. If workers in other companies are paid well enough, and treated fairly enough now that there isn't a need for a union, I see that as a good thing.


----------



## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Herding is a natural reaction to predation; if the management is perceived by labour to be predatory, labour will herd-up into unions. If management treats labour fairly - as partners rather than prey - why would they pay the costs of being in a union? Indeed, the very fact that a group of employees considers unionization is existence proof that they feel exploited.


----------



## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

BigDL said:


> <SARCASM>So if you have a problem, go post somewhere else, where you will be happy.<SARCASM>


Obviously, I am not the one with 'the problem' in this instance.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

For the love of Christ stop derailing the thread.

This is getting childish.


----------



## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

groovetube said:


> For the love of Christ stop derailing the thread.
> 
> This is getting childish.


Yeah BigDL please stop.


----------



## mrjimmy (Nov 8, 2003)

Troll.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

mrjimmy said:


> Troll.


Exactly. He just doesn't give up.

Bullying just doesn't stop.


----------



## heavyall (Nov 2, 2012)

groovetube said:


> Exactly. He just doesn't give up.
> 
> Bullying just doesn't stop.



Were you looking in the mirror when you typed that? The biggest bully, doing the most trolling in this thread, is you.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Yeah? 

Unfortunately most of the members here would disagree with you.

Including quite a few members who stopped participating because if a couple certain someone's who constantly bash, badger troll and derail threads. They won't be happy until the rest have left.


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## mrjimmy (Nov 8, 2003)

heavyall said:


> Were you looking in the mirror when you typed that? The biggest bully, doing the most trolling in this thread, is you.


I disagree.

Why don't we start with the most recent comment:



SINC said:


> Intelligent? It certainly didn't with that post.


Perhaps you should re-read the thread.


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

bryanc said:


> Herding is a natural reaction to predation; if the management is perceived by labour to be predatory, labour will herd-up into unions. If management treats labour fairly - as partners rather than prey - why would they pay the costs of being in a union? Indeed, the very fact that a group of employees considers unionization is existence proof that they feel exploited.


For certain. Again, I have no problem with unions forming, but I don't want them given special powers by the government. Their power should be the simple ability to withdraw their labour from the workplace, not to prevent the company from operating by blocking the doors or intimidating other workers who want to work. If a group of unskilled or semi-skilled workers band together and picket a company until it can no longer operate, then that company needs to be able to let those workers go, so they can hire people who _will _work for them. If the workers have any real value, the company will settle.

I would even go so far as to say that the company should have the option of putting it in writing that any worker who spends more than X days per year in strike action may be subject to firing.


----------



## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Macfury said:


> For certain. Again, I have no problem with unions forming, but I don't want them given special powers by the government.


In principle, I agree; but it's worth noting that the same applies to corporations. When the government (legal system) gives corporations the status of persons, for example, that's a problem. Corporations have disproportionate representation at all levels of government, and while I agree that giving unions special privileges is philosophically problematic, it's a pragmatic reaction to an already tilted playing field.



> If the workers have any real value, the company will settle.


If the market were working properly, and the people making the decisions were perfectly rational, that would be the case. But frequently those conditions are not met. Furthermore, because capital is far less constrained than people, the capitalists running the corporations often have far more freedom to take temporary losses, move their capital off shore, put it in other investments, etc. in order to break the unions, than the unions who represent people who don't have much money or freedom to go work elsewhere or go back to school and learn new trades.



> I would even go so far as to say that the company should have the option of putting it in writing that any worker who spends more than X days per year in strike action may be subject to firing.


That would rather defeat the purpose of unions, wouldn't it.

I understand your position here; it's not that I'm a big fan of unions (indeed, I have to deal with a ridiculously complicated, error-prone, and inefficient purchasing department exclusively because they're unionized, and the obvious improvements in the way the system could work would make 6 unionized positions redundant), but I understand the fact that the vast majority of people have so little freedom or power to control their lives that their bosses and the corporations that employ them are defacto slave-masters. I don't think unions can level that playing field; but they can even it a bit, and they have successfully reduced the more egregious abuses of employees in the developed world.

What really needs to happen is for the garment makers in Bangladesh, the electronic workers in China, the shoe makers in Malaysia, etc. to unionize. But because the governments there do not give unions any special protections, if they did, those people (or their families who are often held hostage) would simply be killed.


----------



## heavyall (Nov 2, 2012)

groovetube said:


> Yeah?
> 
> Unfortunately most of the members here would disagree with you.
> 
> Including quite a few members who stopped participating because if a couple certain someone's who constantly bash, badger troll and derail threads. They won't be happy until the rest have left.


It's exactly the opposite. Those "certain members" have made some very good points in this thread, and they're met with unfounded viscious attacks. You are by far the worst offender when it comes to "bash, badger troll and derail threads".


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

bryanc said:


> In principle, I agree; but it's worth noting that the same applies to corporations. When the government (legal system) gives corporations the status of persons, for example, that's a problem. Corporations have disproportionate representation at all levels of government, and while I agree that giving unions special privileges is philosophically problematic, it's a pragmatic reaction to an already tilted playing field.


I have no love for any kind of government favouritism for any sort of organization.



bryanc said:


> If the market were working properly, and the people making the decisions were perfectly rational, that would be the case. But frequently those conditions are not met. Furthermore, because capital is far less constrained than people, the capitalists running the corporations often have far more freedom to take temporary losses, move their capital off shore, put it in other investments, etc. in order to break the unions, than the unions who represent people who don't have much money or freedom to go work elsewhere or go back to school and learn new trades.


Capital is ALWAYS less constrained than people. Either they move it away slowly or quickly. However, I consider it a real misfortune to see a company close due to extended strike action, when there are hundreds of people who would have been happy to work at the wages that the strikers found unacceptable. Also, not all companies are fleet-footed multi-nationals capable of waiting out a strike.



bryanc said:


> I understand your position here; it's not that I'm a big fan of unions (indeed, I have to deal with a ridiculously complicated, error-prone, and inefficient purchasing department exclusively because they're unionized, and the obvious improvements in the way the system could work would make 6 unionized positions redundant), but I understand the fact that the vast majority of people have so little freedom or power to control their lives that their bosses and the corporations that employ them are defacto slave-masters. I don't think unions can level that playing field; but they can even it a bit, and they have successfully reduced the more egregious abuses of employees in the developed world.


I think they can even it out, even without additional government backing. We may disagree on this point, but I believe that labour has less value because the government continues to accept immigrants, even in a situation where unemployment is high. This is just another subsidy to business, and also deflates the value of labour. 

We constantly hear that:
1. No Canadian would do the low-skilled jobs (fruit-picking, for example) because the wages are too low. Guess what? Without a major influx of itinerant workers, the wages would not be so low.
2. Canadians don't have the skills to do the work businesses require. Businesses should then either reach agreements with schools to get the people they need, or train them themselves.




bryanc said:


> What really needs to happen is for the garment makers in Bangladesh, the electronic workers in China, the shoe makers in Malaysia, etc. to unionize. But because the governments there do not give unions any special protections, if they did, those people (or their families who are often held hostage) would simply be killed.


That isn't "special protection"--that would be simple protection from being murdered or terrorized by one's employer. Unions would be of great value there. However, it's almost impossible to impose western values on an evolving society. It may be ugly for a while, but the changes are going to occur eventually. The best we can do is gently encourage those changes.


----------



## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

heavyall said:


> It's exactly the opposite. Those "certain members" have made some very good points in this thread, and they're met with unfounded viscious attacks. You are by far the worst offender when it comes to "bash, badger troll and derail threads".


That's your opinion, which doesn't seem to be shared by the rest of the participants in this thread.

As Mr Jimmy said, read the rest of the thread(s).


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## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

SINC said:


> Obviously, I am not the one with 'the problem' in this instance.


As a fair minded business here at EhMac we have an open door policy, or at the very least I, do. 

So tell me SINC; what is the problem?


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## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

. Double post from my iPod T.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

Macfury said:


> It may be ugly for a while, but the changes are going to occur eventually. The best we can do is gently encourage those changes.


Fundamentally, I basically agree with you, although we may disagree about how, and how much we should regulate those inevitable changes.

Ultimately the problem is a surplus of human beings, which makes human labour, creativity, and intelligence undervalued. We've enjoyed high standards of living in the West largely because our populations were relatively low, and, until recently, it wasn't feasible for many industries to take advantage of cheap labour and lax environmental laws overseas.

Eventually the Invisible Hand will spread all the wealth into a thin global layer of what a Pakistani brick maker would consider prosperity. Unless we can control our population, our decedents are in for a tough life.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

I posted this, entirely on subject:



SINC said:


> The truth is that unions are dying and membership has been falling year after year as workers realize the cost of membership does not equate to any improvement for individuals, only the fat cats that run unions:
> 
> http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/union2.pdf


You responded by mocking me and entirely off topic:



BigDL said:


> *VERY GOOOOOD! Here's your Gooogleing GOLSTAR*


Then you called me the troll: 



BigDL said:


> I would say you, as well as you being a troll.
> 
> This thread was started to discuss Canadian Trade Union issues primarily. Not irrelevant statistics from them 'Mericuns in those Excited States.
> 
> Let's stay with the facts relevant to Canadians, or is that just too much bullying for you?


And then you have the nerve to ask what MY problem is?



BigDL said:


> As a fair minded business here at EhMac we have an open door policy, or at the very least I, do.
> 
> So tell me SINC; what is the problem?


You are the person who is making an issue of a legitimate post.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

bryanc said:


> nless we can control our population, our decedents are in for a tough life.


The North American and European populations are already under control. Immigration is the sole factor changing that.


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## FeXL (Jan 2, 2004)

BigDL said:


> Then FeXL and heavyall provide a chorus of Union Bashing with SINC chiming in his concurrence.


Yeah, mine was a pretty brutal condemnation, wasn't it...

/sarc.

Long ago, on these very boards, I noted my some of my personal experience with unions. While I won't get into all of it (my other experience echoes the following mindset), I will recall the following:

Over 20 years ago I worked as a temp for a local food processing plant. It was a factory environment, unionized & I was there on a short term, non-unionized contract (~6 months) to help move their parts department from one building to another.

I used to watch the crew shut down 10-12 minutes before both coffee breaks and lunch break to go wash their hands & saunter (I mean drive stakes to see if they're moving) into the lunchroom. Then, after coffee & lunch, they'd take an additional 10 minutes to go wash their hands before sauntering back to work. 

Let's do some math, shall we? Effectively, this adds up to an hour per person per day, to "wash hands". Now, multiply this by the couple of hundred unionized workers at that plant. That's over 200 man hours pissed away every day, a thousand a week. Given an average of 3 weeks holiday per person, 49,000 man hours per year "washing hands". This doesn't even address lost wages...

While you may not have appreciated my obviously exaggerated timeline, the underlying message is patently obvious: Their production was 7/8 of a non-unionized shops' labour (at best), all the while being handsomely rewarded for it.

I got to know a few of the workers during my time there. Wasn't one of them that didn't tell me to slow down, take my time, once they found out mine was contract work. Funny thing is, because I put my head down & my arse up on every job I had with the temp company, I was the single highest paid worker on staff: over two dollars an hour more than the second best and nearly 5 over their average. Shortly after my "can do" attitude led to a job I had for nearly 6 years which experience opened doors to two more and another 7 years of employment.

OTOH, I guess I could still be washing my hands & working for the temp agency at ten bucks an hour...


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## FeXL (Jan 2, 2004)

groovetube said:


> That's your opinion, which doesn't seem to be shared by the rest of the participants in this thread.
> 
> As Mr Jimmy said, read the rest of the thread(s).


Are you going to contribute something to the thread topic?


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

bryanc said:


> Fundamentally, I basically agree with you, although we may disagree about how, and how much we should regulate those inevitable changes.
> 
> Ultimately the problem is a surplus of human beings, which makes human labour, creativity, and intelligence undervalued. We've enjoyed high standards of living in the West largely because our populations were relatively low, and, until recently, it wasn't feasible for many industries to take advantage of cheap labour and lax environmental laws overseas.
> 
> Eventually the Invisible Hand will spread all the wealth into a thin global layer of what a Pakistani brick maker would consider prosperity. Unless we can control our population, our decedents are in for a tough life.


They're starting to have to look for other sources of cheap labour I think, Some of the cheaper sources in the areas often used are starting to cost more. Add to that the cost of doing business overseas, and/or shipping, that levelling out begins and increases in future.

Of course, I think it would be pretty much obvious to anyone I'm not talking about manufacturing t-shirts by playing people 2 bucks an hour housed in buildings that collapse and kill them. I'm talking more about the more skilled and professional work.

EDIT:, well most I guess.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

FeXL said:


> Are you going to contribute something to the thread topic?


This is a rather interesting observation.


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## FeXL (Jan 2, 2004)

groovetube said:


> Add to that the cost of doing business overseas, and/or shipping, that levelling out begins.


You really don't have a clue, do you? You're great while agreeing with someone else but as soon as you strike out on your own...

The labour cost of doing business overseas & the minimal cost of shipping (if shipping is even required) is exactly why so much western product is assembled or conducted overseas. Back in the 70's you'd walk into a repair shop, look at your bill & whistle at the high cost of parts. That has long since changed. For some time it's been all about the cost of labour. 

When you can pay someone in Asia a few hundred dollars a year to assemble electronics for western markets, as opposed to tens of thousands of dollars in wages, benefits, holiday pay, etc., where do you open your assembly plants? How many laptops and cell phones can you stuff into a 48' sea can? Thousands and tens of thousands, respectively. What's the shipping cost per unit then? Practically nothing on a $2000 laptop or a $700 cellphone. 

When you can pay someone in Taiwan a few hundred dollars a year to sew t-shirts or make sneakers, as opposed to tens of thousands of dollars, where do your t-shirts & Nike's come from? How many t-shirts & sneakers can you stuff into a 48' sea can? Tens of thousands. Shipping = pennies each.

When you can pay someone in India a few hundred dollars a year to program your software for western markets, as opposed to tens of thousands of dollars, who does your subroutines for you? And, guess what? FTP the daily updates to your server. No shipping.

When you can pay someone in India a few hundred dollars a year to provide phone support for your software programmed down the street and sold in western markets, as opposed to tens of thousands of dollars, you get a couple 1-800 lines. Again, no shipping.

The high cost of labour (union or not) in the west will ensure jobs in the east for decades to come.


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## FeXL (Jan 2, 2004)

groovetube said:


> They're starting to have to look for other sources of cheap labour I think, Some of the cheaper sources in the areas often used are starting to cost more. Add to that the cost of doing business overseas, and/or shipping, that levelling out begins and increases in future.
> 
> Of course, I think it would be pretty much obvious to anyone I'm not talking about manufacturing t-shirts by playing people 2 bucks an hour housed in buildings that collapse and kill them. I'm talking more about the more skilled and professional work.
> 
> EDIT:, well most I guess.


So now, instead of directly replying to my criticism, you are retroactively going back, editing the post to CYA, getting your shots in & hoping the problem goes away.

In your OP, you spoke specifically of "cheap labour", hardly the sort of comment one would normally associate with the "more skilled and professional work" you added in your edit. In addition, you never addressed your erroneous observation about shipping costs, although you did attempt to mitigate it with the edit.

Nice try, strike two. Wanna swing again or just head back to the dugout now?


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## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

BigDL said:


> My, my, my! The problem is a *title*
> 
> Well lets look at some facts.
> 
> ...





SINC said:


> I posted this, entirely on subject:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I quoted (My) Post #230 from this thread in this response.

I shall not get into a pi$$ing match of "I know you are but what am I."

I shall address my remarks to the neutral third party who may read this. 



Any reasonable person might come to the conclusions that:
mrjimmy linked to and commented on an article published the Globe and Mail a Canadian Media outlet. The Globe and Mail story concerns recent activity by workers in 3 different Halifax coffee shops formed Unions with their fellow workers;

Any reasonable person might come to the conclusions that:
this is a Canadian story publish by a Canadian media outfit about Canadian workers; 

Any reasonable person might come to the conclusions that:
FeXL said if a group of workers form a Union the next day these workers will be lazy,

Any reasonable person might come to the conclusions that:
heavyall said that Union are no longer relevant and only cause problems;

Any reasonable person might come to the conclusions that:
SINC agreed with heavyall;

Any reasonable person might come to the conclusions that:
BigDL rebutted by saying the comments were anti-Union and further directed a comment at FeXL's post, that judging how others will act, people, someone has never met, must be based on, how the author would act in that situation. BigDL also said that workers made a choice and shouldn't we respect that choice.

Any reasonable person might come to the conclusions that:
SINC rebutted BigDL's post by asserting Unions are dying and backed that assertion with a link to the US Government's Department of Labor statistic witch did in deed show that Trade Unions are in decline in that country. 

Any reasonable person might come to the conclusions that:
This post of Sinc's was trying to lead the reader to infer that Unions in Canada are in decline and BigDL's suggestion to leave workers to their choices of joining Unions was a very incorrect path to take;

Any reasonable person might come to the conclusions that:
BigDL congratulated SINC by showing him a big gold star and mentioning the use of Google to find a link to support SINC's world view. 

Any reasonable person might come to the conclusions that:
BigDL used the technique of satire or sarcasm to lampoon the information provided by SINC.

Any reasonable person might come to the conclusions that:
The information provided by SINC's link was intentional; 

Any reasonable person might come to the conclusions that:
A story carried by a Canadian Media outlet, about Canadians, living in Canada forming Unions at coffee shops in a Canadian City was all about Canada and only Canada; 

Any reasonable person might come to the conclusions that:
SINC was not on topic introducing statistics from another country to bolster his contention that Canadians should not join Unions;

Any reasonable person might come to the conclusions that:
SINC knew the story was about Canadians in a Canadian city forming Unions; 

Any reasonable person might come to the conclusions that:
BigDL came to a reasonable conclusion that SINC was intentionally misrepresenting and distorting the facts so far as to nearly turn his facts into a lie;

Any reasonable person might come to the conclusions that:
BigDL linked to information from Canada and about Unions in Canada

Any reasonable person might come to the conclusions that:
The information provided by BigDL, contradicted SINC's information, to the point of diametrically opposing information;

Any reasonable person might come to the conclusions that:
Canadian Union are growing not in decline; 

Any reasonable person might come to the conclusions that:
the workers in the G&M story might in fact be the very demographic that is causing the increase in Canadian Union membership;

Any reasonable person might come to the conclusions that:
BigDL was justified to conclude that SINC's actions were intensional and;

Any reasonable person might come to the conclusions that:
BigDL was reasonably to declared those actions bullying and trolling.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

BigDL said:


> I quoted (My) Post #230 from this thread in this response.
> 
> I shall not get into a pi$$ing match of "I know you are but what am I."
> 
> ...


That is simply not so. Your logic short-circuits very early in your line of reasoning.


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## Sonal (Oct 2, 2003)

Perhaps we should change this thread title to "You're the troll! No, YOU'RE the troll!" in the hopes that it will more accurately reflect the content....


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Why not start a "Who is the troll?" thread so people who love that sort of thing can accuse each other of trolling and sort this out? Maybe call it the "Who is the _Canadian_ troll?" thread to avoid confusion.


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## FeXL (Jan 2, 2004)

BigDL said:


> Any reasonable person might come to the conclusions that:
> FeXL said if a group of workers form a Union the next day these workers will be lazy,


Let's get it correct, shall we? It'll be the same day.

That's quite a stretch from what was actually noted but, if the union expert says they're gonna be lazy, I guess it's reasonable...


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Sonal said:


> Perhaps we should change this thread title to "You're the troll! No, YOU'RE the troll!" in the hopes that it will more accurately reflect the content....


this whole thing has become ridiculous.


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## FeXL (Jan 2, 2004)

Tell ya what, Big DL. Contrary to your wonderful little extrapolation, the only conclusion I offered was was that the union's productivity was at least 12.5% less than that of a non union shop. That was it. Never insinuated as to lazy, speculated as to why such actions were taken with such fastidious fervour (I assure you, you could set a clock by the start of the shuffle), or anything else.

Why don't you offer your interpretation of my anecdote? Maybe you could offer a SWAG as to the reason for their conduct, as well. Were they simply that conscientious about personal hygiene or was there some other, deeper meaning behind their actions? How about some insight as to why it was suggested by multiple individuals that I should slow down my pace, perhaps? 

If I have been forfeit in supplying enough information for you to draw a conclusion, I apologize. Ask away. I'll furnish as much as I can.

I'm always eager to learn something new about human nature, especially from a reasonable expert like yourself.

TIA.


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## iMouse (Mar 1, 2008)

We need more sand in here.

We're getting down to bare ground.


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## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

SINC said:


> Then you had best change the thread title:
> 
> *Trade unions and matters related to unions*
> 
> I see nothing about "Canadian" in the thread title, do you? It is open discussion on unions from what I can tell, but hey, if you want to change it NOW to suit your needs, fill your boots. And please stop with accusing me of being a troll for presenting facts YOU don't like. It makes you look like a, well, what you are.





Sonal said:


> Perhaps we should change this thread title to "You're the troll! No, YOU'RE the troll!" in the hopes that it will more accurately reflect the content....



Based upon these two post I shall, as the original poster, change the name of this thread as suggested "to suit" my needs This thread hence forth shall be named:

Eh! You're The Troll! No, YOU'RE The Troll Eh! The Canadian Edition


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

iMouse said:


> We need more sand in here.
> 
> We're getting down to bare ground.


The post hole digger has been started up.



BigDL said:


> Based upon these two post I shall, as the original poster, change the name of this thread as suggested "to suit" my needs This thread hence forth shall be named:
> 
> Eh! You're The Troll! No, YOU'RE The Troll Eh! The Canadian Edition


Sounds pretty accurate!


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

BigDL said:


> Based upon these two post I shall, as the original poster, change the name of this thread as suggested "to suit" my needs This thread hence forth shall be named:
> 
> Eh! You're The Troll! No, YOU'RE The Troll Eh! The Canadian Edition


Too late--I posted that one a couple of hours ago!


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## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

Bump


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## FeXL (Jan 2, 2004)

BigDL said:


> Bump


Rather than merely bumping the thread, why don't you answer a few of the questions I posed for you? They're Canadian union related & fall squarely into your intended purview.

Would look a lot less transparent...


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

FeXL said:


> Rather than merely bumping the thread, why don't you answer a few of the questions I posed for you? They're Canadian union related & fall squarely into your intended purview.
> 
> Would look a lot less transparent...



You won't get answers here, FeXL. The thread has been re-christened by the OP as the:

"Eh! You're The Troll! No, YOU'RE The Troll, Eh! The Canadian Edition" thread.


----------



## FeXL (Jan 2, 2004)

The reason I won't get any answers is because he has none. Neither he, nor his complicit buddy. They rarely do. 

And, interestingly enough, he was ready to write off his thread, then he noted you had started another. Suddenly he has something to protect & starts bumping it, against ehMac rules.

Funny, that...


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

BigDL said:


> Based upon these two post I shall, as the original poster, change the name of this thread as suggested "to suit" my needs This thread hence forth shall be named:
> 
> Eh! You're The Troll! No, YOU'RE The Troll Eh! The Canadian Edition


has not seemed to take. Besides I think the sausage party moved to their own room. :lmao:


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## Kosh (May 27, 2002)

FeXL said:


> You really don't have a clue, do you? You're great while agreeing with someone else but as soon as you strike out on your own...
> 
> The labour cost of doing business overseas & the minimal cost of shipping (if shipping is even required) is exactly why so much western product is assembled or conducted overseas. Back in the 70's you'd walk into a repair shop, look at your bill & whistle at the high cost of parts. That has long since changed. For some time it's been all about the cost of labour.
> 
> ...


And then one night, a fire starts in one of these sweatshops, or a bulding collapses, or the workers die using toxic chemicals, and all these greedy scrooges go scurrying off to the next country to make things cheap. 

How many of these accidents have we seen in the last few months.

Greedy companies taking advantage of undeveloped countries, until that country gets smart. 

Trust me, it'll all come back to the west. Just watch. It's already starting to happen. Things used to be made in Taiwan due to low labor, they became developed, so then things were shipped to China... China and India will become developed, and then where is it going to go... South America (Foxconn has to pay higher prices in Brazil if they want to produce Apple products there)... Africa... not for long.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

Kosh said:


> And then one night, a fire starts in one of these sweatshops, or a bulding collapses, or the workers die using toxic chemicals, and all these greedy scrooges go scurrying off to the next country to make things cheap.
> 
> How many of these accidents have we seen in the last few months.
> 
> ...


Exactly. in many areas of IT, which is where I have a lot of experience, since I often manage projects that involve dealing with contracted out stuff overseas (not by my choice I might add...) and I've seen the numbers over the years. It very much -is- a case of moving to the next cheap country. And often I find those that only see the immediate numbers often don't see the bigger picture, and where things are going in future, which is what I was going with my post.


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## FeXL (Jan 2, 2004)

Kosh said:


> And then one night, a fire starts in one of these sweatshops, or a bulding collapses, or the workers die using toxic chemicals, and all these greedy scrooges go scurrying off to the next country to make things cheap.


I didn't say that the process was correct. Yes, all of the above is happening and probably more. The fact remains that there are dozens & dozens of countries worldwide containing thousands of cities who would love Apple (just picking a name) to show up on their doorstep and ask, "Hey, can we build a factory here?" There will be no shortage of inexpensive third world labour any time soon.


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## mrjimmy (Nov 8, 2003)

Inexpensive labour = sweatshop


----------



## Kosh (May 27, 2002)

FeXL said:


> Yeah, mine was a pretty brutal condemnation, wasn't it...
> 
> /sarc.
> 
> ...


So, in a food processing place we don't want the employees to wash their hands?!?

I would think the most important thing is to wash hands. And that's probably the reason for the 10-12 minute shutdown. I would think that's part of the company's procedures. I would think washing hands is more important than the time it takes, unless you think bad PR is easy to get over... maybe we should ask Maple Leaf?


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## Kosh (May 27, 2002)

mrjimmy said:


> Inexpensive labour = sweatshop


inexpensive, mistreated, unsafe workinging conditions, etc...


----------



## FeXL (Jan 2, 2004)

groovetube said:


> It very much -is- a case of moving to the next cheap country.


That's what I've been noting from moment one. I love when you confirm my argument for me. Thx.

There are no shortages of "cheap countries". Hence the years it will take for any significant movement to utilize labour back on western shores for the type of product we are talking about. 

Interesting thing is, I'd be willing to bet that most countries/cities have a real short memory about poor factory conditions when suddenly the employment drops after the business has left. It's entirely likely that the open/close a factory cycle could happen multiple times over the years.


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## Kosh (May 27, 2002)

When those companies run into a nightmare PR instance, they soon learn the cheap labour isn't worth it.

How many people now are not shopping at Joe or looking at "made in" labels and not buying anything made in Bangladesh.

How much money did Loblaws spend to whitewash things?


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## FeXL (Jan 2, 2004)

Kosh said:


> So, in a food processing place we don't want the employees to wash their hands?!?
> 
> I would think the most important thing is to wash hands. And that's probably the reason for the 10-12 minute shutdown. I would think that's part of the company's procedures. I would think washing hands is more important than the time it takes, unless you think bad PR is easy to get over... maybe we should ask Maple Leaf?


They never handled the product. It was canola oil.

Maple Leaf's problem wasn't unwashed hands, it was processing equipment that hadn't been cleaned properly.


----------



## FeXL (Jan 2, 2004)

Kosh said:


> inexpensive, mistreated, unsafe workinging conditions, etc...


It can equal all of these things. No argument.

It doesn't change the fact that there is no shortage of this kind of labour.


----------



## FeXL (Jan 2, 2004)

Kosh said:


> When those companies run into a nightmare PR instance, they soon learn the cheap labour isn't worth it.


Again, just as a for instance, hasn't stopped Apple (Foxconn).



Kosh said:


> How many people now are not shopping at Joe or looking at "made in" labels and not buying anything made in Bangladesh.


Don't know what "Joe" is. I don't know many people who label shop. Judging by the amount of people in Wal-Mart and similar buinesses, probably not many. I don't.



Kosh said:


> How much money did Loblaws spend to whitewash things?


I don't know what this has to do with offshore labour.


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## bryanc (Jan 16, 2004)

FeXL said:


> It doesn't change the fact that there is no shortage of this kind of labour.


I think people are arguing across each other here; we all agree that, in the current global economy, labour in developing countries is cheaper, and that given the opportunity, corporations will move their labour-intensive operations there to increase their profits.

The contention is over wether or not this is a good thing. Cheap labour == higher profits; so that's good. But cheap labour also generally equals exploited workers, poor working conditions, environmental problems, and frequently low quality products, all of which most of us would agree are bad.

So this is a classic case of the free market economy serving the interests of a small number of wealthy capitalists well, but serving the interests of human society and life on earth in general very poorly.

The interesting question to my mind is "how can we manipulate the economy such that it serves society and life on earth in general better?"


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

bryanc said:


> I think people are arguing across each other here; we all agree that, in the current global economy, labour in developing countries is cheaper, and that given the opportunity, corporations will move their labour-intensive operations there to increase their profits.
> 
> The contention is over wether or not this is a good thing. Cheap labour == higher profits; so that's good. But cheap labour also generally equals exploited workers, poor working conditions, environmental problems, and frequently low quality products, all of which most of us would agree are bad.
> 
> So this is a classic case of the free market economy serving the interests of a small number of wealthy capitalists well, but serving the interests of human society and life on earth in general very poorly.


Overall, I believe this process is working well to lift various nations out of poverty. It may be an ugly process, but is working where centuries brought only hunger and disease.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Kosh said:


> So, in a food processing place we don't want the employees to wash their hands?!?


I remember the hour a day of washing hands at a diesel train manufacturing plant. The union members had it down to a science. Of the 6.5 hours worked each day, easily 90 minutes was spent washing hands and employing other work delay tactics. The remaining 5 hours represented entropy at its most alarming.


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## FeXL (Jan 2, 2004)

bryanc said:


> I think people are arguing across each other here; ...
> 
> ...The contention is over wether or not this is a good thing.


No, it's not:



groovetube said:


> They're starting to have to look for other sources of cheap labour I think, Some of the cheaper sources in the areas often used are starting to cost more. Add to that the cost of doing business overseas, and/or shipping, that levelling out begins.


This observation has nothing to do with analyzing a good or bad process. It strictly addresses the movement towards utilizing more western labour in the face of the rising cost of third world labour and the high cost of shipping.

There's little of the former for the reasons outlined above and, as shown, the cost of the latter is insignificant.


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## Kosh (May 27, 2002)

FeXL said:


> Don't know what "Joe" is. I don't know many people who label shop. Judging by the amount of people in Wal-Mart and similar buinesses, probably not many. I don't.
> 
> 
> 
> I don't know what this has to do with offshore labour.


 
Apparently you don't watch the news. Just a few months back, a building housing the sweatshops for the "Joe" line of clothing which has it's own stores and also sells in Loblaws collapsed.

Loblaws and Joe had a PR nightmare on their hands. This PR nightmare cost them money. Money they wouldn't have had to spend if they had got decent labour at a decent cost.


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## FeXL (Jan 2, 2004)

Kosh said:


> Apparently you don't watch the news. Just a few months back, a building housing the sweatshops for the "Joe" line of clothing which has it's own stores and also sells in Loblaws collapsed.
> 
> Loblaws and Joe had a PR nightmare on their hands. This PR nightmare cost them money. Money they wouldn't have had to spend if they had got decent labour at a decent cost.


You're right, I rarely watch the news. Never heard anything about this. That said, we don't have Loblaws in Alberta, that may be partly why. That's more an Ontario/Quebec thing. Seems I recall seeing one in BC somewhere, too.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Kosh said:


> Apparently you don't watch the news. Just a few months back, a building housing the sweatshops for the "Joe" line of clothing which has it's own stores and also sells in Loblaws collapsed.
> 
> Loblaws and Joe had a PR nightmare on their hands. This PR nightmare cost them money. Money they wouldn't have had to spend if they had got decent labour at a decent cost.


I think Loblaws came out of it really well. it was not a Loblaws plant, just a supplier for clothing to Joe fresh and 30 other brands. Galen Weston vowed to remain in Bangladesh while improving the safety of workers. Western capitalism in action!


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## FeXL (Jan 2, 2004)

Galen Weston? Of President's Choice fame? That much is familiar...


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

FeXL said:


> Galen Weston? Of President's Choice fame? That much is familiar...


Now of Shoppers Drug Mart fame as well.


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## Kosh (May 27, 2002)

FeXL said:


> That said, we don't have Loblaws in Alberta, that may be partly why. That's more an Ontario/Quebec thing. Seems I recall seeing one in BC somewhere, too.


Do you have Super Store? In some provinces I think they go under the Super Store name. 

I'm not quite sure why they have two names.


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## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

Kosh said:


> Do you have Super Store? In some provinces I think they go under the Super Store name.
> 
> I'm not quite sure why they have two names.


In the far east it's the Real Atlantic Stupid Store...er Super Store. We also have the Loblaw brands of Red & White and No Frills as well.


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## heavyall (Nov 2, 2012)

Kosh said:


> Money they wouldn't have had to spend if they had got decent labour at a decent cost.


They wouldn't have had to spend that money if they had got decent labour at a decent cost. If decent labour at a decent cost was available to them domestically, they wouldn't have had to outsource to make products that they can sell at a decent price.


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## FeXL (Jan 2, 2004)

Kosh said:


> Do you have Super Store? In some provinces I think they go under the Super Store name.
> 
> I'm not quite sure why they have two names.


Yep, Superstore we got. Rarely go there, for no real reason.


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## kps (May 4, 2003)

Macfury said:


> Now of Shoppers Drug Mart fame as well.


You're kidding me, Westons bought Shoppers? Well I'll be. There'll be President's Choice products there in a jiffy. LOL


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## iMouse (Mar 1, 2008)

$12.5B.

Get ready to run the perfume gauntlet when you go into a Loblaws.


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## kps (May 4, 2003)

iMouse said:


> $12.5B.
> 
> Get ready to run the perfume gauntlet when you go into a Loblaws.


more price fixing at the pharma too I'll bet.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

heavyall said:


> They wouldn't have had to spend that money if they had got decent labour at a decent cost. If decent labour at a decent cost was available to them domestically, they wouldn't have had to outsource to make products that they can sell at a decent price.


would you consider the pennies they paid those poor souls in that building that collapsed 'decent labour at a decent cost?

And no, I don't buy crap about this 'we didn't know some slave driver did that over there! We had no idea!'.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

kps said:


> You're kidding me, Westons bought Shoppers? Well I'll be. There'll be President's Choice products there in a jiffy. LOL


It made sense--Loblaws was pushing its pharmacy line, and had failed at perfumes in their superstores while Shoppers was pushing harder and harder to get into the food retailing business.


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

kps said:


> You're kidding me, Westons bought Shoppers? Well I'll be. There'll be President's Choice products there in a jiffy. LOL


ugh. We've started going to a more local place, better selection and much fresher produce. Most of the loblaws stuff goes through that distribution plant and stories I've heard about that place


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## kps (May 4, 2003)

Macfury said:


> It made sense--Loblaws was pushing its pharmacy line, and had failed at perfumes in their superstores while Shoppers was pushing harder and harder to get into the food retailing business.


I guess the one with the most money won.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

kps said:


> I guess the one with the most money won.


The U.S. chain Walgreens was looking to buy Shoppers as well.


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## kps (May 4, 2003)

groovetube said:


> ugh. We've started going to a more local place, better selection and much fresher produce. Most of the loblaws stuff goes through that distribution plant and stories I've heard about that place


I was a manager in a grocery DC, meat and produce only, for a year and a half. Lots of fun.
I also delivered produce, meat, etc. to same for many years...also lots of fun


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## groovetube (Jan 2, 2003)

kps said:


> I was a manager in a grocery DC, meat and produce only, for a year and a half. Lots of fun.
> I also delivered produce, meat, etc. to same for many years...also lots of fun


I know you know it well, though it's not for me to say. As you know my dad worked for decades in that distribution plant, that's where I've gotten the stories. (Staunch union man and conservative to boot, go figure...)

Certainly loblaws isn't the only in this. But I've disliked their removing other competitors from shelves and filling it with their PC/organic, healthy blah blah crap. SO I rarely go there much anymore.


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