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Tuesday, August 6, 2013

The need for massive reform in the role of Unions

The rationale that led to the creation of unions hasn't gone away.

For those of us who have been employees, at one point or another, we've been in a job where the boss was an absolute piece of shit. One of those wretches who is not only stupid and unreasonable, but compounds the misery of having to answer to them by demonstrating the pleasure they take in exercising authority over other people.

There is nothing more soul-crushing than being a parent with a family to feed and enduring the feeling of being trapped in such conditions.

Situations like that are among the reasons why unions emerged and why they continue to play a valid, valuable role in the workplace.

Under the watchful eyes of the sadistic totalitarian
Che Guevara, CUPE shows solidarity with
Communist dictators
(photo from CUPE annual report 2005/6)
If protecting the rights of workers what what unions did, then there would be little reason to argue against them. But in 2013,the people who run the unions, the union bosses, have ventured into areas which make them more reprehensible than anything the most sadistic employer and vile corporation would dream of.

Bringing to life caricatures of the pig Napoleon from Orwell's Animal Farm, reveling in their puffed-up pomposity, union bosses are bolstered by control over cash culled from workers' paychecks that they use to promote their own petty tyrannies.

Canadian public service unions, including CUPE, CUPW (Postal Workers) and OPSEU have poured money into causes like the racist Occupy protests, degenerate support for the terrorist government in Gaza, and support missions to show Communist solidarity with the totalitarian dictator Fidel Castro.Other unions, like the United Steelworkers and The Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation, have used dues paid by their members to subsidize the website rabble.ca which is the media voice of the anti-Semitic, so-called "Israel Apartheid Week" and has produced depraved videos comparing Canada's Prime Minister to Adolf Hitler.

Very few union members want their funds diverted away from workplace issues to promote the deplorable ideological tyrannies of the union bosses. Most don't even know their funds are used for such purposes, because the union bosses don't tell the workers how their dues money is spent.

A few months ago. some rouge Senators derailed Bill C-377, which would have forced the unions to tell the workers how the use their dues. Perhaps the unelected patronage appointees of the Canadian Senate felt solidarity with sleazy union bosses as the two share a resistance towards being held accountable for their inflated, self-serving expenditures.

Members of Parliament have said they will reintroduce the union accountability Bill in the future.  The Senate should take care if it hopes to sabotage the Bill again, since their obstructionism highlights the corruption in both institutions.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your argument is a bit like saying "I don't like what the government is doing with my money, therefore, I think parliament should be abolished." Unions are democratic organizations. If you don't like what your union is doing then go to union meetings, campaign, and get elected or elect someone to replace the incumbents.

Richard K said...

No Anonymous, you're analogy is simplistic and wrong for a variety of reasons.

I was in a public service union. They are "democratic" with a substantial element of thuggery and intimidation towards opponents.

Government elections and political parties operate with a degree of transparency that, while leaving something to be desired, is exemplary compared to that of the unions.

Employees in unionized workplaces are usually forced to join as a condition of employment. Expecting them to participate in the reprehensible, slimy, thuggish world of union politics is something few want to do. The union bosses know this and exploit it.

The reason unions are supposed to exist is to protect workers' rights. The right to know how their money is being used is something that a reasonable person would consider essential. The fact that union bosses and shills want to cover it up speaks to their corruption. Since the stranglehold on politics is jealously maintained by the Union bosses, it will take legislation protecting the rights of workers to remedy it.

Your argument is like saying, 'if you don't like what the government is doing, become Prime Minister.'

Free speech and the right to know what your representatives are doing with the funds to which they've been entrusted is supposed to be part of democracy too. It's not a part respected by union bosses and until it is, they don't deserve respect.

Anonymous said...

Management at a friend's workplace is arbitrarily cutting pay by 25%. He's not unionized so his only choice is to swallow the pay cut or look for another job. If he were unionized, or if his workplace were to unionize, it would be much more difficult for management to do that, at the very least they would have to negotiate. But you're arguing he's better outside a union - yes unionized jobs are better paid on average than equivalent non-union jobs in the same sector but you don't like the stance of unions on this or that political issue so it's better for my friend to be "free" and not be in a union. IE free to take a pay cut, free to earn less. Looks to me like you're as much of a dogmatists as the unions you rail against.

Richard K said...

Either you didn`t read the first half of the piece or you didn`t understand it.

It argues for reform, not elimination of unions.

Anonymous said...

At 12:55
Better to take a 25% pay cut and continue to have a job than to carry on at an unsustainable wage that eventually drives you out of a job.
Just ask the good unionized workers of Detroit how that's working out for them.