tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1086764876629036045.post6815079271791626185..comments2023-10-06T06:29:02.689-04:00Comments on A Bright Cape: ShowdownSkyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10723733406348223879noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1086764876629036045.post-52335835681193497782010-10-07T11:01:40.182-04:002010-10-07T11:01:40.182-04:00"Now protected by government" is a far c..."Now protected by government" is a far cry from "always will be protected by government." I also completely disagree that employers facing off with unions are somehow more likely to try to lowball their employees as much as possible in terms of benefits and wages. Employers want to pay everyone as little as they possibly can.<br /><br />I don't like the adversarial bargaining process of unions vs. employers, but it's a lot better than the completely one-sided process of employers telling employees what they get. That means the employees who have good bargaining skills get paid a lot and employees who have poor bargaining skills get paid very little. Having unions negotiate on your behalf is just specialization of labour.<br /><br />When talking about public sector workers, who exactly are the employers competing with? While the schoolboards nominally employ teachers, the province pretty much pays everyone's salary. Some teachers may be able to move to Vermont, but if your spouse also has a job and you have friends and family then simply moving to another province or state doesn't really work. Maybe garbage workers can afford to be a little more selective since they have different municipalities to choose from, but if they didn't have unions to contend with then municipalities with inevitably make agreements with one another about how much they were going to pay for garbage collection to avoid competition.<br /><br />We have laws that prevent companies from collaborating on prices because 1) monopolies are bad for society and 2) competing is stupid and cooperating is smart - very large companies would not compete if they weren't forced to by law. There are no similar laws in the labour market. Companies do not have to compete with one another to pay a higher salary and they will avoid it if they can.Sthennohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05429676469805661834noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1086764876629036045.post-91252916236962726842010-10-07T10:19:38.405-04:002010-10-07T10:19:38.405-04:00What you're missing is that not every company ...What you're missing is that not every company wants to attract real talent. Seriously, how much skill do you need to have to be a garbage man? Does the city actually care if it hires the best garbage man in the world or if it hires some guy? There's no way they'd have 18 sick days if they weren't in a union because if they worked out individual contracts with any random dude they'd be much, much lower than that. I have 2! <br /><br />Is society as a whole actually better off with garbage men and auto workers and teachers getting extra benefits while data analysts and fast food workers don't? (And worse, since my taxes are going up or my benefits are going down to pay for those other people, is society as a whole benefited when I'm worse off to make them better off?)Ziggynyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07518980519046202646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1086764876629036045.post-21058329952920991972010-10-07T09:11:47.432-04:002010-10-07T09:11:47.432-04:00I have been in a number of jobs and never part of ...I have been in a number of jobs and never part of a union and yet I never felt like those things you bring up were a concern. Companies that want to attract real talent need to treat people well or they end up losing their best employees. I suspect having a union actually makes the employer far more likely to try to chisel away at the benefits employees receive because they are facing such a strong opponent in bargaining, whereas an employer who instead is competing with all the other employers out there for good personnel is more likely to try to find ways to keep people happy. Unions certainly brought about many big benefits but I feel like all the rights I ever needed are now protected by the government or are negotiable with the employer.Skyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10723733406348223879noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1086764876629036045.post-15489682885538352832010-10-07T00:55:30.960-04:002010-10-07T00:55:30.960-04:00I respectfully disagree about unions no longer hav...I respectfully disagree about unions no longer having an important role. For the last year I've been part of the OSSTF (Ont Secondary School Teacher's Federation) and I've seen, from the inside, work that unions do. It's usually not fun and it's never glamorous but I'm still doing it because I've seen that it is really important. <br /><br />Protecting workers rights (both collectively and individually) is hugely important from a social justice standpoint. Unions action can easily seem ugly but it is a key component to maintaining a strong middle class (cliche sounding ... I know) which I think is really important.<br /><br />I'm also the treasurer of my bargaining unit so I have a good idea about where the money goes and how much comes off of my paycheque. Money well spent for certain.<br /><br />In service training. Providing support for grievances and arbitration. Protecting the work week. Protecting and improving maternal and paternal leave rights.<br /><br />I speak not from a vague sense of unions but from personal experience as a volunteer within union ranks.Matt Royhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06532354277848905275noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1086764876629036045.post-83634225477517389362010-10-06T11:04:31.084-04:002010-10-06T11:04:31.084-04:00I actually Ziggyny makes a good point about how ha...I actually Ziggyny makes a good point about how having one disastrous bargaining result really makes you a weak target in the future. To use Ziggyny's letters, I think Miller was probably going for a C because he was worried about the public perception that he was an A kind of guy (whether you like A's or not, being seen as being in the pocket of big unions is very, very bad politically).<br /><br />Anyway, I also think we have to consider the possibility that this was just a book balancing strike. Let the workers go on strike for a month, save a month's worth of salaries, carry on as normal after. As I said above, public sector strikes are pretty much just a disaster.<br /><br />Essential services workers go to binding arbitration is they can't hammer out a deal, since we can't exactly have our firefighters go on strike. Since other public sector workers often use the essential services deals as frameworks for their own bargaining positions, that might be the direction to go for all public sector workers. Of course then we'd start running deficits because our governments couldn't force unions into two to three week unpaid vacations.Sthennohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05429676469805661834noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1086764876629036045.post-71408662534268961902010-10-06T10:17:41.489-04:002010-10-06T10:17:41.489-04:00While it is true that always giving in and never f...While it is true that always giving in and never forcing strikes to happen means you will get taken to the cleaners by unions again and again, what does giving in after a period of striking say? It says that once a strike starts they just need to hold out and keep striking and eventually they'll get what they want anyway.<br /><br />A) If he always gives in then my taxes go up or my services errode generally.<br /><br />B) If he gives in after a long strike then my taxes go up or my services errode generally AND I have to suffer through the complete loss of a service for months.<br /><br />C) If he forces a strike and gets a reasonable deal out of it then I have a complete loss of service for months and a smaller impact to my taxes or services long-term.<br /><br /><br />I don't want any of those options but in a world with powerful unions I have to accept that one of these is going to happen. To me B is clearly the worst, A is clearly the best, and C is a reasonable result given the other options.<br /><br />You could say that running option B doesn't mean you'll always run option B and as long as you sometimes get C out of it you're happy with that result. Personally I'm not, and would prefer A every time, but I can see why one would think that. However, I think once a mayor goes for C and ends up with B then his future bargaining is shot. A generic mayor may be able to get some Cs but I don't think the mayor that gave out a B has good odds at getting a C later on. Also, he's more likely to have B last a longer time to prove a point to his future opponents but will eventually cave.<br /><br />Which is why I said I'd make sure to vote for someone else - anyone else - over Miller. I think having him around for future negotiations would be a disaster for me and my values. Because I don't think he'd be rational, realize he'd cave, and just go to A going forward but because I think he'd be a stubborn politician and make things even worse next time.Ziggynyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07518980519046202646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1086764876629036045.post-88855091954792274582010-10-06T09:58:03.872-04:002010-10-06T09:58:03.872-04:00I think people greatly overestimate how entrenched...I think people greatly overestimate how entrenched the values that unions fought for are. It would be very easy for workers rights to erode over time. We do stupider things than that.<br /><br />But public sector strikes are actually a total mess. When factory workers go on strike, their employer loses a lot of money every day that production is stopped. When public sector workers go on strike their employer continues to collect all, or at least the vast majority of, its revenue but doesn't have to pay them. Letting your unionized workers go on strike for a month is a great way to balance the books.<br /><br />As for how hard it is to make the right decision in a negotiation, I agree that there was no way for the city to know the right decision, and they may have made the best decision available to them at all times. But when your opponent get his inside straight on the river against your set of Aces, you still lose all your money. In politics you pay for the outcome, not the validity of the decisions.Sthennohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05429676469805661834noreply@blogger.com