Labour unions and strikes

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The city I live in is a Big Labour town. There are thousands of people here who are also members of the Canadian Auto Workers union. But there's another union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, who represent people who work directly for the city, and these people have been on strike now for over two months. During this time, the city parks are not being maintained (the weeds are now about two feet high, and you could lose a small baby in them), and garbage is piling up.

I understand why there was a need for workers to form labour unions. There was once a time when many had to work 14 to 16 hours a day in oppressive conditions just to make enough money for food and shelter, and there were no restrictions on putting children to work. It's a terrible thing to think about, and something was eventually done about it, thanks to labour unions. But doesn't there come a point where Big Labour has too much power? After all, you need to have capitalists to create the businesses that hire the labourers, and if unions continue to demand higher and higher wages, and more and more benefits, then the business will have difficulty surviving and it'll either fold or move out of the community, in which case those workers are screwed.

Another issue that really bothers me about this situation is when union members decide to go on strike, like what's been happening with this current strike. What specifically bothers me about it is the terrible behaviour that comes with it. Because it's the public service workers who are striking, there are some essential services that are not being performed here. Some citizens have tried to take it upon themselves to mow the grass in the parks so that people can play baseball or soccer, only to be harassed by angry picketers who shout abuse at them and call them scabs. Also, there was an incident, apparently circulating on YouTube (although I haven't seen the video) of a picketer dumping a garbage bag at the feet of a person who had just filled it, doing work that was not being done. Our Mayor was harassed by picketers outside his home, while he was trying to take his children to school! I have no respect for this kind of behaviour, and it seriously makes me sad: this city is falling apart, but the city workers don't care, because hey, they're in a UNION, and all that matters to them is the UNION!

I agree. Many unions abuse their power. Unfortunately, though, unions are a necessary evil. We are now moving back to the trend of low pay, etc. Globalization is big business favorite method of union busting, and it is one of the reason why I appose it so much. If a company doesn't want to pay market prices for labor, then they simply move to a different market.
I have watched globalization destroy as many nonunion jobs as it has destroyed union jobs. The United States was once the greatest industrial giant in the world. Unfortunately, now, the main thing we export is dollars.

Time to start paying private entrepreneurs to dump a big heap of garbage on CUPE HQ property....Everyone dump their garbage at CUPE!! !

And to deal with the union members harassing "scabs", maybe we outta let these "scabs" and volunteers be temporarily exempt from current concealed carry laws so they can defend themselves and their families if need be.

An armed society is a polite society.

That sounds like a good idea.

Unions are an absolute necessity and require total support.

This idea that they are not needed anymore is total nonsense. Labour productivity has greatly increased yet people are working longer for less... to maintain standard of living people are buried in debt, are made part of that ponzi real estate scheme to keep up and of course the pyramid has collapsed and we are in economic crisis. The idea that workers should be sufficiently paid has become a radical one... and this is the most important fact behind the crisis. Those who attack unions are part of the problem that has caused the economic crisis.

The Proles should be grateful their betters for providing them with jobs.

ruveyn

I think it can be easily shown that the more unions have the less their workers produce.

Could someone explain what is "too much" for a union and what is "not enough" when it comes to hourly pay, vacation time, health insurance, sick time, bereavement time, juror duty time, overtime, out of work hourly pay rate vs. working pay rate, golf course admissions, free bowling alley rentals, car insurance, life insurance, cat insurance, vision insurance, education reimbursement, training time, coffee breaks, lunch breaks, and holiday breaks just to name a few.

Obama wants non-union people to pay taxes on their health benefits while union members are not subject to the tax! UAW donated some $60 million to Obama to get elected. Looks like a good investment. Long live Cronyism in the era of Hope and Change..

There's something wrong when people are told to spend, spend, spend to keep the economy going and yet are having their jobs, wages and so on slashed at the same time. Then they are chastised for being too much in debt! Now, people are paying the debts. Not surprisingly, a deflationary situation is at hand...

It's a simple fact that the less people are paid, the less they can contribute to the economy. Trade unions see to it that people are paid more... and thus can contribute more to the economy. Seems to me that unions are part of the solution here.

Meh, it's one of the other extremes of the spectrum, you have the overcontrolling company presidents on one side, and you have the abusive unions on the other. =/ The trick is trying to keep the balance near the middle =.= .

Two observations:

1) A scab protects an open wound and prevents infection.

2) When workers are in dispute you don't cross a picket line (Scargill's Law). I lost one job because I refused to cross a picket line and my conscience is clear.

As for the need for unions, without them we would all be working for the minimum wage (if it existed) until the day we died. Our factories would be deathtraps and we could all be sacked without compensation or a moments notice.

Vanilla_Slice

Back in the bad old days of the Industrial Revolution, seven year olds were sent down the mines or worked 18 hours a day in "those dark Satanic mills" while the owners lived like kings.

Then the workers organized and demanded a fair share of the wealth that their labor produced.

This worked well for 100 years. Wages kept rising and working hours went down. The bosses were still rich but the average worker could afford to buy a house and drive a car on on only the husband's income.

Then came "globalization". This means that all the jobs went to China and India and Mexico.

Now if you are a skilled blue collar worker you are out of luck.
If you just borrowed a load of money to get a college degree in the hope that this is your ticket to the middle class then you are out of luck too.

So tell me again about those "evil" trade unions.

What you call "globalization" is the purchase of labor at the lowest available price. It is called the Law of Supply and Demand. When one goes out to buy something for a given level of quality he seeks the item with the lowest price. You do it every time you go to the grocery store. You want the lowest price for a given level of quality. So why do you complain when labor is treated the same way as a box of corn flakes? The are both commodities, they are both bought and sold. The Law of Supply and Demand applies.

What you apparently want is the government to set the price of labor well above the level of an open market. How would you like it if the government set the price of a liter of milk at ten Euros to give the milk manufactures a break? After all, the milk people have to live, don't they?

ruveyn

Well, i just recently found another reason to hate globalization =/ And sadly it will affect one of the oldest traditions of French people, which is to say, wine-making. For some reason, the Americans in the California state have found a way to control the degree of alcohol of their wine by sending it to some company which name i forgot =.= They take out the alcohol and the producer can then reinsert it back at his leisure (heard that's because there are taxes and stuff in Cali regarding the alcohol percentage). And sadly, they're blackmailing the Europeans to let them sell that sort of wine in their territory or they'll stop buying from them =.= . Seems that in a few short years 90% of the produced wine will be cheap mass consumption brand of wine, and only 5% of the world production will be the traditionnal "refined" kind of wine. =(

Who cares anyway when globalisation benefits my country as Singapore has nothing to fall back on when it sucks man! But of course, large countreies can just think differently...