Garbage Strike
I’ve been in several unions over the years, I’m actually in one now, but when it comes to the current labour strife I have to side with the city.
From my personal experience about half of all unions are great - they collect appropriate and non-crippling dues and protect and represent the workers well. But half of all unions in my experience hurt the workers as much if not more than employers. Crippling initiation fees and dues make it unprofitable to be working. I once received a paycheque of $7 because the rest of it went to government (30%) and the union (65%).
I’ve been ‘represented’ by unions with more Vice Presidents that people in my job classification, all wearing Armani suits when I couldn’t afford new shoes.
The conclusion? Unions are neither inherently good nor inherently bad. As such we need to be critical and aware of such organizations. Being a ‘union man’ a blindly supporting whatever any union does may have been useful during the Industrial Revolution but now unions themselves are, or at least have the potential to be, big bureaucratic business.
Now I’m not saying that’s the case here, my Much belaboured point is that unions can make mistakes and from my point of view, this one has.
The primary issue upon which they are striking is length of contract. They want the contract to expire immediately before the Olympics or a year later during a municipal election. I’ll give the union credit that they’re looking after their members and looking to the future however they’re being unreasonable. They want to be in a position of ridiculous superiority in the next negotiation so they’re spoiling this one.
But what about the old adage ‘ask for everything, settle for less’? While a truism it only applies to the BEGINNING of negotiations. If you’re in a strike situation, it’s settle-for-less time.
Do I even need to explain why this request is unreasonable? Everyone is negotiating now for contracts that cover the olympics and end not long thereafter, it’s currently the standard, even the goal of unions and employers alike. It’s fair, it’s appropriate, and it a very reasonable compromise of divergent interests. But apparently it’s not good enough.
And if you negotiate during an election you politicize the process and unless you have concrete unending support of the majority of the electorate then this does not help your position. Plus if a deal is signed and the government changes immediately thereafter the government could have cause to break the contract on the grounds that the previous administration gave up more than they could afford to buy votes. Alternatively if you negotiate with a new government threats of public outrage mean less as it’s a long time before you can hold them accountable at the polls and the electorate, sadly, does not have a long memory.
So not onlyis their primary request unreasonable, it’s downright counterproductive to their goals and morally questionable to third parties.
Now on to the secondary and ubiquitous issue: wages. A nearly 10% raise over 3 hears was offered. My rule is if it’s higher than inflation then you’re getting a good deal but they demand 8% more than that.
And even if all those nicely reasoned logical points don’t make the case there’s the selfish emotional side, I have enough problems I don’t need this. It’s the innocents that suffer most in this situation and frankly I’m getting tired of suffering for things I can’t control.
