Dave Bagler

So yesterday I posted a short little thing about how CUPE telling people to get back to work is ironic (and funny).  It is.

Let me get a few things straight.  The weekend is a good thing.  Safety regulations are a good thing. So are vacation pay, health care, and a slew of other great things that unions have gotten us.  I like unions or I guess I should say I like the idea of unions.  Perhaps a better way to say it is that I like what unions used to be.

I know what unions can do, two of my four parents are in unions.  However there is a real difference between unions.  CUPE is not the same as the USW.  ATU is not the same as the UMW.

UMW and USW had created much better working conditions for thousands of Canadian (and American)  industrial workers.  There efforts have arguable made working conditions and compensation better for all of us.

On the other hand CUPE let Jew hating (in my opinion) Sid Ryan attack academic freedom.  While in Ottawa the ATU lost nearly all support in the city when our bus drivers went on strike during the coldest part of the year.

During the bus strike there were stories of people who had to get up ridiculously early so that they could walk hours to work.  This wasn't a nice cool spring morning, we're talking minus 40 with the windchill.

Perhaps we should have told the Shoppers cashier that her frost bite was actually just her unique way of showing solidarity with the labour union?  Is that how we make a better community?

What critical issue was the ATU striking over?  Well the city wanted to add controls to the schedule so that those getting paid for 8 hours had to work for 8 hours.  The bus drivers had been setting their own schedules but they were gaming the system.  Senior drivers, who were being overpaid to the tune of 70k+ to drive a bus were routinely working less than 6 hours and still getting paid for 8.

Oh and they wanted more money.

There is a problem when while most Canadians were making sacrifices to deal with the realities of a recession, many union leaders declared not only should they not have to make any sacrifices but in fact they should be getting more.

I'm listening to a Steve Paikin interview Sid Ryan on the Agenda as I'm writing this and Sid just said:

So Ken [Lewenza] had to do what no union leader wants to do and that is to give a concession...

Sound's like a bunch eager to cooperate, right?

In a comment to my last post Steve May said that unions are the flip side of the capitalist coin.  Before I go on I should probably admit to being rather blue-green.  I think capitalism is well a capital idea (sorry).  Steve of course is right, unions do represent a counter balance to the corporate owners.  We have unfortunately reached the point where we have unions that are just as greedy as management with leaders who are just as corrupt as some CEOs.

I don't like trickle down economics.  Unions and big business both promote a form of trickle down economics.  The only difference is who they think should be at the top.  Who gets to be the chosen few?  For big business it's management, executives, the upper, upper class.  For unions it's senior union workers (and of course union leaders).  I will admit that the group the unions want at the top is larger than that of big business however it's kind of like saying an oligarchy is better than a dictatorship. Sure, I guess, but shouldn't we set the bar a little higher?

So again to make things clear it's not that I'm against organized labour, however I am against the greed and corruption currently found in some of our unions.  I'm against college instructors playing chicken with their students' education.  I'm against anti-Semites getting union support and access to a union megaphone.  I'm against unions holding Ottawa hostage, doing horrible damage to the city's economy, costing many their jobs.

I'm not a pawn.  I'm not a bargaining chip.  I'm not a hostage.  Certain unions need to start understanding that.