School Strike

[cattra]

Toronto I know is a different beast but in Industry, unions are definitely a necessity. how safe would you feel if Bruce Power or Pickering decided to build their next nuclear reactor non-union?

Was just re-reading some things and I sadly missed this:

Fun Fact of the day. The USSR's farming sector was like this, 97% owned by the USSR and 3% privately owned. Now that 3% of Capitalist, non union worked land produced roughly 70% of the food for the ENTIRE country.

Because the 97% of the farmers were getting payed no matter how good of a job they did, or how they performed, or the fact they couldn't get fired, they showed up drunk, high, didn't show up, and didn't work hard because at the end of the month, no matter how GOOD of a job they did, they in the end were going to get the same pay in the mail EVERY time while the... I shouldn't really say Capitalist... but free farms, the farmers got payed by how well they worked the land and profits, and actually ended up making more money then the USSR owned farmers.

How is this relevant to the argument? Well lets look at another example:

The Hawthorne effect found in the 50's in, well, Hawthorne Works outside of Chicago by Henry A. Landsberger. Now this shows that production goes up with social interaction from an outside source (such as people doing studies) but it ALSO showed in side notes that workers were almost forced to produce the same amount of output each day. People who produced more were often out casted or shamed because employers then asked "if this man can produce X amount of goods per day, why can you guys not?" so people were forced to produce only X units a day to fit in with a primitive version of the modern union. This even stayed constant when Piece pay was introduced to the factory (your payed for how many pieces of product you produced) as a incentive's to work a bit harder for payoff, and even a offering of a trip for not only yourself but your family, work stayed at the same pace.

Anyways, interesting reads but in the end you cannot say that "Union workers do better work" in general, in fact, I would say that non-unionized workers have more to lose and gain. Would get the job done faster and most likely safer.

Point is, at the end of the day things are still debatable and yes, I would feel alright with the next power plant is built non-union.

 

[Fork Included]

Thomas I fully agree the school is fucking you over, if they're having a labor dispute they should be compensating you.



How about we get rid of the minum wage while we are at it?
Then lets Fuck the mid/low class by making our prisoners do all the low-level-job people barely make a living at now (yes this is Hudaks plan).

Without unions you get no pention, no benefits, jobs will go to the cheapest willing worker. I hope you enjoy working until you are dead.

Cock, you're bringing up a valid point, but also a very extreme one.

Unions were formed because of all those things that you listed (and then some) because employment was not regulated at the time.

Now we have many laws in place that protect the worker. Minimum wage, amount of a standard work week in hours, standard overtime pay, safety standards, etc, these have nothing to do with unions.

If we get rid of unions and your employer cuts your salary to 5 bucks an hour, you have places to go and people to complain to.


Unions were created at a time when the individual worker had little knowledge and even less power. Unions allowed a large workforce to come together and present a meaningful force to meet with those in charge.

This brought about change in workers law all across the globe, which is good.

However at some point they over did it. Unions representing large labour groups started to be in a position where they can wrestle more money out of an employer due to their size and ability.

This current college support worker strike is a perfect example, they know they can hurt the colleges if they go on strike (and they have, significantly).

But do they deserve any of this? Last thing i read was that the average salary of a support worker was well over 50K. 50K annual is a lot of money for an average person doing McDonalds level work.

For a capitalistic society, i'm surprised how as a general rule, people expect to grow and prosper when they don't bother putting in the effort to get the education to reach higher positions? Instead they want to live a "comfortable" life while there are people who put 10+ years in studying for a profession, putting their mental and physical health on the line hoping that they'll make it.


Unions have made the world a better and safer place for the average workers, but now it has become a tool for an unnatural elevation of the working class beyond their rightful place. At least in our capitalistic society, or as we would like to think of it.

I mean, we could all go the way of communism, then no one would have a salary, everything everyone makes will be taken by the government and we won't have a basis for conflict.. ehh? ehh?

 

[Brades]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/story/2011/09/13/ottawa-college-students-frustrated.html

 

[cattra]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/story/2011/09/13/ottawa-college-students-frustrated.html

Heh; this reminds me of STU when they had the teacher union walk out.
The Teacher union went through 4 laywers because all the laywers said "what the other side is offering is actually a great deal."

Kind of funny.

 

[DrUgZ]

Anyways, interesting reads but in the end you cannot say that "Union workers do better work" in general, in fact, I would say that non-unionized workers have more to lose and gain. Would get the job done faster and most likely safer.

Point is, at the end of the day things are still debatable and yes, I would feel alright with the next power plant is built non-union.

I respect your opinion but in my personal experience I would have to disagree. I have seen first hand the millions of dollars of safety training and job training that the Union shops provide each year that is not required elsewhere.

The Main thing people need to understand is that a non-union contractor does not have access to the amount of skilled labor required to build larger jobs. it's just not available. where the Union shops have the advantage where they can put out a call to hundreds of union halls all over the continent that all have hundreds of skilled workers that they can dispatch to the job (for example the wind generation project I am working on has over 150 licensed electricians working on it right now). A non-union shop would need to hire people off of the street with little or no job experience.

Basically all Union shops share the same skilled workforce to do all kinds of jobs all over, while non-union shops can only carry so many full time and just hire cheap labor because they need more bodies for bigger jobs.
On paper your statement makes sense but from my experience the fear of losing your job does not make the employee do a better job. speed yea, I know guys who will just cut corners and rush through things to make it look like they were really fast in fear of losing their job, but quality is more important when in construction people's lives may depends on your work.

 

[Fork Included]

Drugs,

you do not need a "union" as legally defined by law to do what you just described,

what is really up for discussion is the legal right of a unionized body to strike, and the legal proceedings that must happen in the bargaining environment, etc

the problems that we are mainly dealing with is the side effect of a Union body/leadership to put it into the heads of its members that they deserve better, be it better pay, better hours, better overtime, better job security (whatever the fuck that means in the 21st century), when the reality may contradict these demands.

but that doesnt matter, because unions as legal entities have the power to bring their demands to the employer with a majority vote (or a vote % as defined in the union organization articles)
, and we all know what "majority vote" means, esp in canada.


the pure market economy dicates that pay for work = whatever the market will pay

unions tramples over that idea by changing the rules, making job salaries equal to how loud a union yells and how much an employer can withstand not having a workforce.

all this is complicated even more by the problem of how society values work.

on some levels a Bus driver is more important than a Doctor, because more people use the transit system on a daily basis than those who visit the hospital... but that's another can of worms...

I respect your opinion but in my personal experience I would have to disagree. I have seen first hand the millions of dollars of safety training and job training that the Union shops provide each year that is not required elsewhere.

The Main thing people need to understand is that a non-union contractor does not have access to the amount of skilled labor required to build larger jobs. it's just not available. where the Union shops have the advantage where they can put out a call to hundreds of union halls all over the continent that all have hundreds of skilled workers that they can dispatch to the job (for example the wind generation project I am working on has over 150 licensed electricians working on it right now). A non-union shop would need to hire people off of the street with little or no job experience.

Basically all Union shops share the same skilled workforce to do all kinds of jobs all over, while non-union shops can only carry so many full time and just hire cheap labor because they need more bodies for bigger jobs.
On paper your statement makes sense but from my experience the fear of losing your job does not make the employee do a better job. speed yea, I know guys who will just cut corners and rush through things to make it look like they were really fast in fear of losing their job, but quality is more important when in construction people's lives may depends on your work.

 

[Brades]

At OPG when they have outages, they will hire temp workers from the millwright union or whatever it's called . OPG spends millions of dollars every year in safety training for these clowns. They don't give a shit, they complain about all the training they have to go through. Half of them are over 60 years old and just don't give a fuck.