"BC Government ordering union back to work"

[Guest Ian Wong]

Here's an unfolding development in BC, that might be of interest to all you future healthcare professionals.

 

The BC HEU (Health Employee's Union) has been on strike over the last 4+ days. In that time period, surgeries and all manner of diagnostic tests (like CT scans and MRI's) have been cancelled, (as nurses have respected the picket lines and stayed off the job, although they are not members of the HEU) and all BC hospitals are operating at essential service levels only.

 

The government just passed back to work legislation to get these workers back to work. Here's an article by the Vancouver Sun (I've also appended it to the end of this post):

 

www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=f6e1e17c-943f-43c9-b8ec-fdaebd3ff4ff

 

The very interesting backdrop to this strike is the fact that the BC HEU rejected a government offer last year that would have set a hard cap on the number of jobs that could be contracted out to private companies. With this new legislation, there is no longer any mention of such a cap; the government is free to attempt to contract out any number of jobs they feel could be appropriately and more cost-effectively handled through the private sector.

 

The other interesting part of this scenario, is the fact that the HEU represents not only LPN's and lab techs ("skilled" workers, shall we say), but also housecleaners, janitors, clerical staff, food servers, laundry staff (relatively "unskilled" workers, who are not directly related to patient care) etc who happen to work in a BC hospital or other BC health facility.

 

In other words, this union represents both skilled and relatively unskilled workers, as well as representing workers who are directly involved in patient care as well as others with little to no patient care. It begs the question of whether there should be a "one size fits all" solution to this problem, or whether we need to examine if some parts of the union deserve their high salaries more than other parts of the union, and make adjustments appropriately.

 

I guess the question here is: are these union workers replaceable, and are they currently over-paid? If so, should we look into contracting out their services to private companies to see if that might be more cost-effective? If not, how high does their level of compensation need to be in order for it to be considered reasonable?

 

Thoughts?

 

Ian

 

Province ordering health care workers to end strike

Legislation tabled Wednesday includes 'unprecedented' 15-per-cent pay rollback

 

Jim Beatty

Vancouver Sun, with Canadian Press

April 29, 2004

 

VICTORIA -- The Liberal government was set to pass back-to-work legislation on 43,000 striking health care workers late Wednesday or early today, imposing a 15-per-cent wage rollback to end the four-day walkout that paralysed health care across the province.

 

The bill, which was to be debated into the night, rolls back the wages of Hospital Employees' Union members, increases their work week by 1.5 hours, and provides no job protection.

 

"This legislation ends the labour dispute and requires employees to return to work immediately," said Labour Minister Graham Bruce. "Patients are suffering," he said in introducing the bill. "We clearly have to intervene to end this dispute for the sake of patients, so that surgery backlogs caused by job action do not continue to grow."

 

Union spokesman Chris Allnutt ripped into the legislation, calling it "a stinging indictment of a Liberal government that has been unable to reach a negotiated settlement with anyone in the health sector. What government has done is unprecedented, imposing a 15-per-cent-wage rollback on health care workers who are exercising their legal right to strike," he said.

 

He would not say what his members' immediate response would be.

 

For a housekeeping aide or hospital cleaner, the legislation reduces the $18.90 hourly wage to $16.07 -- a $2.83-cent-an-hour cut Bruce called difficult but reasonable.

 

The legislation allows the HEU an option to avoid the across-the-board wage cut. It can opt to take benefit cuts -- forgoing vacation entitlement for example -- of the same value. However, the union must extend the work week to 37.5 hours from 36.

 

The legislation will take $200 million out of the pockets of licensed practical nurses, laundry workers and food service workers -- money the government pledged would be redirected to patient care.

 

Nurses and other health care professionals have refused to cross picket lines, leaving only essential services -- including emergency care -- at hospitals across the province.

 

The legislation marks the most extreme labour intervention since the B.C. Liberal government was elected in 2001.

 

"I don't feel very good about it," Bruce admitted. "I had hoped there was another alternative. Government has to make choices . . . and this was a very difficult one."

 

New Democrat house leader Joy MacPhail vowed to fight the legislation.

 

"This is the most draconian piece of the legislation that this province has seen in a generation," she said. "This is the government taking $200 million out of working people's pockets. This legislation says tens of thousands of health care workers who do their jobs every day with a great deal of skill can be tossed out on the street tomorrow."

 

Even if hospital employees do return to work today -- and many have threatened to stay off the job -- hundreds of surgeries are likely to be cancelled.

 

Premier Gordon Campbell hedged when asked what the government's response would be if workers disobey the legislation.

 

"I think we have to give the union a chance to live according to the law," he said.

 

With no cap on layoffs, at a time when the government is encouraging the privatization of laundry, food and security services at hospitals and long-term care facilities, the legislation leaves open the possibility that thousands more HEU employees could lose their jobs. Already, 6,000 have been laid off and 2,500 jobs are set to be gone soon.

 

Health Minister Colin Hansen said resolution of the four-day strike is long overdue.

 

"Clearly, it has gone past the point that is tolerable from the perspective of patients," he said. "From the perspective of the patients, the time has run out and we need to give them some certainty that they're going to get access to care."

 

The strike forced the cancellation of more than 2,400 surgeries and tens of thousands of diagnostic procedures such as lab tests, CT and MRI scans, ultrasounds and mammograms.

 

Hansen hopes health care officials could begin rescheduling surgeries today.

 

"We need to be able to get those rescheduled as quickly as possible so that they can make up for lost time."

 

During the last major labour dispute in 2001 more than 7,000 surgeries were cancelled, a backlog from which the province has never fully recovered.

 

This week's cancelled surgeries -- which could top 3,000 -- will only increase waiting lists.

 

Deputy labour minister Lee Doney, who was sent into the dispute Tuesday to find common ground, said there was no hope for a negotiated settlement.

 

"There wasn't enough movement to bridge the gap between the two parties. That became pretty clear to me," Doney said Wednesday after intense meetings with both the union and the employers. Doney said both sides moved modestly but not enough to provide any hope for a deal.

 

"They just weren't in the range of settlement."

 

The union agreed to negotiate and soften some of its demands if the government agreed to place a temporary halt on hospital service privatization and reduce its $900-million in rollback demands.

 

It isn't known what the government, through its bargaining agent the Health Employers Association of B.C., offered.

 

Please check http://www.vancouversun.com for the latest on the health care dispute.

[Guest moo]

These guys are way overpaid. Once upon a time, I was a part of the HEU. There's a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes that you do not see. For example, workers routinely take one hour lunch/dinner breaks when they are only allotted 30 minutes. They take 30 minute coffee breaks when they are only alloted 15. (And this was everyday, not some one-time occurence.) Workers routinely steal patients' food, sleep during the night shift (and I don't mean a 15 minute nap, I mean 2, 3, even 4 hours), etc. I made 20/hour doing what I did and even I don't think I deserved that much money, especially seeing how others struggle making minimum wage just because they are not lucky enough to get a government job. Now I was involved in direct patient care and I think all in all, we do care about our patients, but at the same time I don't think it's fair for the union people to be blasting this rhetoric saying how hard they work and how it's unfair, when really, they do a lot of unethical things on the job. WIth a private company, you will see less of this stuff, simply because workers there tend to be happy just to have a job, whereas union people, they know they are a big powerhouse, especially in a socialistic paradise like BC, so they can do whatever the hell they want and get away with it.

[Guest Ian Wong]

In a followup article, the Vancouver Sun has posted a breakdown of some of the wages that HEU members were previously receiving, as well as what they will be receiving in the future under this government-imposed deal. Comparison is made to the Canadian national average.

 

The article can be found here, and is appended to the bottom of this post:

 

www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=f524c45e-5db4-4658-bde2-b8f9b965fd30

 

PAYCHEQUES PRUNED:

 

The B.C. government has reduced the hourly wage rate for all workers in the Hospital Employees' Union by 15 per cent. Here is the impact on some health-care employees.

 

Housekeeping Aide

New: $16.07

Old: $18.90

 

Cook I

New: $18.16

Old: $21.37

National average: $16.57

 

Cleaner

New: $16.07

Old: $18.90

National average: $14.82

 

Food Service Supervisor IV

New: $25.47

Old: $29.96

 

Food Service worker 1

New: $15.39

Old: $18.10

National average: $14.39

 

Housekeeper

New: $20.49

Old: $24.10

 

Laundry Worker 1

New: $15.88

Old: $18.68

National average: $14.39

 

Licensed Practical Nurse

New: $20.34

Old: $23.93

National average: $19.30

 

The new rates are based on a total 15-per-cent reduction in wages and does not include pay equity increases. Comparable classifications do not exist in enough provinces to provide reliable national averages in some cases.

 

Ian

 

 

Strike chaos across B.C.: HEU defies back-to-work legislation

 

Doug Ward, with files from Amy O'Brian

Vancouver Sun, with files from Sterling News Service

Friday, April 30, 2004

 

The Hospital Employees' Union defied the Liberal government's back-to-work legislation Thursday, saying its members will remain at "protest lines" around health care facilities.

 

HEU secretary-business manager Chris Allnutt described the continued withdrawal of labour as a "protest" rather than a strike with picket lines.

 

The Health Employers' Association of B.C. responded by filing an application at the B.C. Labour Relations Board for a ruling declaring an illegal strike. A hearing into the issue began late Thursday afternoon with representatives present from the HEU, the HEABC, and other interested parties.

 

The union's lawyers challenged the proceedings, arguing its members had a constitutional right to protest and questioning the Labour Relations Board's independence from the provincial government.

 

But vice-chair Jan O'Brien ruled she would hear those matters at a later date and proceeded with the employers' application.

 

Earlier in the day Allnutt told workers to remain defiant.

 

"You are to respect the protest lines until we decide that you should go back to work," Allnutt told a crowd of about 1,000 HEU members and other union supporters outside Vancouver General Hospital.

 

Cheers erupted throughout his speech, along with chants of "H-E-U" and "general strike."

 

The Liberal government passed Bill 37 early Thursday morning, imposing a 15-per-cent wage rollback to end the four-day walkout that disrupted health care across B.C. The legislation provides no job protection for HEU members.

 

Labour analysts described the legislation as unusual because it lacked any arbitration mechanism or compromise such as job-security provisions in return for cost-saving concessions.

 

Asked by reporters what could be changed in the legislation to break the impasse, Allnutt said: "The particularly obnoxious part of the legislation is that they still retain the right to fire workers."

 

The legislation calls for pay rollbacks similar to those contained in a tentative agreement narrowly rejected last year by the HEU membership. But that agreement also contained limits on layoffs and a $65-million severance fund -- two items missing in the back-to-work law.

 

The B.C. Nurses' Union and the Health Sciences Association advised its members to return to work, but representatives from both groups sat alongside HEU lawyers at the Labour Relations Board's hearing as interested parties.

 

BCNU president Debra McPherson said Thursday she expects most nurses will return. Some BCNU members will likely refuse to cross the lines and those members will have the support of the union if there is any discipline.

 

"This government now has the most outstanding record of blatant abuse of workers of any province in the country," said McPherson.

 

Nurses are currently in contract negotiations with the province. The B.C. Liberals imposed their last contract and ordered them back to work, although that contract included a significant pay increase, not a pay cut.

 

Allnutt urged members of other unions to join the protest lines, but carefully avoided any talk of a general strike.

 

The legislation, however, did spark job action by members of the Office and Professional Employees Union, Local 378.

 

Hydro workers walked off their jobs in solidarity at the Mica Dam, near Revelstoke, and the W.A.C. Bennett Dam near Hudson's Hope, said Local 378 president Gerri New.

 

"They are frustrated and angry because of the regressive legislation passed by this government."

 

Louise Simard, chief executive officer of the Health Employers' Association of B.C., urged the employees to abide by the government's edict.

 

"Patients are being impacted and so we are appealing to our employees not to jeopardize patient care but to go back to work."

 

A ruling from the Labour Relations Board was not expected until late Thursday.

 

The employers' lawyer, Adriana Wills, pressed for a speedy decision and questioned the legitimacy of the union's constitutional challenges to the application.

 

"We are concerned whether this is a genuine issue or an effort to delay the proceedings," Wills said.

 

Some HEU members attending the union rally at VGH spoke bitterly about Bill 37.

 

"I'm not going back in there unless this is a negotiated settlement," said Terrie Roberts, an angry VGH medical lab assistant.

 

"I'm losing $3.62 an hour. I'm back to where I was six years ago," said the 41-year-old mother of three.

 

Roberts said that Victoria and health employers have misleadingly portrayed the dispute as being about unskilled workers earning too much money. She said the vast majority of laundry, housekeeping, and food services jobs in acute care facilities have already been privatized out of the HEU's jurisdiction.

 

Most of the remaining HEU members in hospitals are skilled workers with college education, said Roberts.

 

"I don't push a broom or clean a toilet, right? We are not a bunch of toilet washers and cooks. We are college-educated people fighting for a clear, decent living wage."

 

Juvy Gogoescu, 40, a licensed practical nurse said the cutbacks amount to more than 15 per cent.

 

"Because they are going to cut our sick hours, our vacations and before we know it, we will be on the street."

 

She said she performs many of the duties of nurses and "with the rollbacks, we will be very cheap nurses."

 

Meanwhile, in the Okanagan, hospital workers infuriated by the back-to-work legislation walked off the job Thursday, cutting essential services at the region's hospitals.

 

Hospital Employees' Union workers reported to Kelowna General, Penticton Regional and Vernon Jubilee hospitals early in the morning to maintain essential service levels, but by 10 a.m., dozens had joined the picket lines, forcing the Interior Health Authority to cancel all urgent care -- including cancer treatment.

 

Only emergency surgeries, where patients faced loss of life or limb were still going through.

 

Ken Robinson, Kelowna's HEU spokesman, said the move was not instigated by the union, but inspired by the workers' rage at the provincial government.

 

"It was impossible to staff the facility at the essential service levels they wanted. Employees just wouldn't go in to work. They were fighting mad," he said. "We apologize to all the patients. They need to contact the government very quickly and get this legislation repealed."

 

Pharmacy technicians and sterilization workers were among those who walked out of Okanagan hospitals, while licensed practical nurses stayed.

 

While essential services in Penticton and Vernon were restored later Thursday, it may be next week before care is back to normal at Kelowna General -- the only hospital in B.C. operating below essential service levels.

 

"We're working on it right now to see when and how we can get them back up there," Robinson said. "For that piece of @#%$ legislation last night, I don't know how to get them back in today -- maybe Monday."

 

Interior Health spokeswoman Alison Paine reacted with shock when she heard HEU essential service workers could be out until next week.

 

"I don't know if we can hang on that long. That puts an enormous strain on the biggest hospital in the Interior. We have some reserves, but if you're working people over 12 hours, you're getting into trouble," she said.

 

The hospital has called in non-union workers to fill the gaps. More than 600 surgeries and 2,400 diagnostic procedures have been cancelled throughout the Interior Health region since the strike began Sunday.

 

On the picket line, Kimberly Barton, a laundry worker at Kelowna General Hospital, appeared furious. She said privatization of the kitchen, laundry and housekeeping at Lions Gate Hospital forced her to transfer from North Vancouver to the Okanagan.

 

"All my friends have lost their jobs. Some people had no choice and they stayed on for $9.50 an hour. It's disgraceful," she said.

 

"There are people losing their homes and their livelihoods. If we're going to lose it all anyway, we might as well stay out here and picket."

 

A veteran national union leader called the legislation "unprecedented."

 

"I have never seen anything like this anywhere across the country in 31 years of involvement with CUPE," said Judy Darcy, former national president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

 

"People have been legislated back, they've had an arbitrated settlement or had a wage freeze, and occasionally a slight wage rollback, but to go back 12 or 15 per cent -- it's absolutely unprecedented."

 

University of B.C. labour relations expert Mark Thompson similarly said Bill 37 lacked the "balance" contained in most other back-to-work edicts.

 

"This order imposed wage cuts without the quid pro quo of restrictions on contracting-out," said Thompson.

 

He said the union would have been better off to accept a tentative deal last year that included pay concessions in return for a cap on layoffs. "In hindsight, that is a better deal than the one they got now, but democracy is a strange creature."

 

When the HEU's Allnutt was asked if he wished the members had accepted the earlier deal, he said: "Absolutely not. We are a democratic union and members decide what we should do."

 

Thompson said the union might have been better off in this set of talks if it had agreed to take wage cuts in return for job security and "dared the government to turn that down. "They would have been in a better situation politically at least."

 

Former HEU leader Carmella Allevato said the legislation is a huge setback for female health care workers. "What this is about is reintroducing gender-based wage discrimination in health care," said Allevato.

 

"When the government says it pays excessive wages, it is saying women have achieved pay equity in this sector and we can't allow that."

 

Allevato said the HEU went on strike on 1992 for three weeks for pay equity.

 

PAYCHEQUES PRUNED:

 

The B.C. government has reduced the hourly wage rate for all workers in the Hospital Employees' Union by 15 per cent. Here is the impact on some health-care employees.

 

Housekeeping Aide

New: $16.07

Old: $18.90

 

Cook I

New: $18.16

Old: $21.37

National average: $16.57

 

Cleaner

New: $16.07

Old: $18.90

National average: $14.82

 

Food Service Supervisor IV

New: $25.47

Old: $29.96

 

Food Service worker 1

New: $15.39

Old: $18.10

National average: $14.39

 

Housekeeper

New: $20.49

Old: $24.10

 

Laundry Worker 1

New: $15.88

Old: $18.68

National average: $14.39

 

Licensed Practical Nurse

New: $20.34

Old: $23.93

National average: $19.30

 

The new rates are based on a total 15-per-cent reduction in wages and does not include pay equity increases. Comparable classifications do not exist in enough provinces to provide reliable national averages in some cases.

 

Source: B.C. Ministry of Skills Development and Labour

[Guest extrachromasome]

Yes, looking at the national averages, clearly the HEU employees were overpaid up to this point. Blame has to go to the NDP for giving into the unions at any opportunity. You can't blame the unions for trying, can you?

 

However, has it occurred to anyone that the current government's approach (ie lets undo the mistakes all at once) are a bit heavy handed? Not unjustified perhaps, but a bit confrontational? I mean, 15% pay roll backs is pretty unheard of in these unions. And I've read some people have to pay back money they've already been paid. And, the quick back to work legislation...

Patients in BC really, really don't want a long drawn out strike. So would it be better for the liberals to be a bit more careful in their approach to this? (I'm asking, not really stating an opinion here).

[Guest moo]

The Liberals need to do what they feel is good for the province, not for special interests like unions. This confrontational style is the only way to get the unions to back down. Do you see their new tactics? CUPE (of which I will admit shamefully that I was a member) is picketing other public services, and you have now teachers and transit workers that are walking off the job on Monday. When does this stop? Why do unions have to continually feel that their own personal agenda is more important than the safety and welfare of the general public? Everyone cries sympathy for unions but where's the sympathy for the 80 year old widow who can't drive because of macular degeneration and has to take the bus to get her groceries and her prescriptions filled? Where's the sympathy for the seniors in high school who are preparing for provincial exams? Where's the sympathy for patients who've waited weeks and perhaps months for surgery, only to have it canceled??? Unions are way too powerful in this province, and the only way to stop them is with legislation. And even then, some hospitals are complaining that they can't even retain the absolute barest of essential services because staff are refusing to work by calling in sick! Tell me, where's the social responsibility that these unions claim to be for???? remember the nurses strike? Oh we're not asking for a 60 percent pay raise for ourselves, it's all FOR THE PATIENTS. The more we get paid, the more services they'll get. What a bunch of BS! You're not a waiter/waitress or a doorman. You're a professional, so act like one! Buncha hypocrites...

 

My dad has worked at UBC for 10 years as a systems analyst, but he hasn't gotten a raise in like the last 5 years, and why? Probably because the money he's gotten has gone to increasing the wages of these powerful union members. He's never threatened to walk off the job or anything, because he realizes he's lucky enough he even has a job.

[Guest extrachromasome]

Yes Moo, you have good points there. But the question I ask you and others, is are the liberals doing the right thing by hitting them hard, or doing more harm than good at the moment? Should they be fighting the unions (which as you've described is escalating things rapidly), or slow things down a bit and come across more negotiable?

[Guest Ian Wong]

The unions themselves started this strike, and started it in a big way. Within 2-3 days, they had full-on strike action at most hospitals. In the past, you'd get the work-to-rule job action, then you'd get some kind of rotating job action, then you'd slowly taper down to essential service levels only, and wait for the public/government to strangulate and give in.

 

Not this time. The unions went on a full-on strike crusade right away. They are already reporting that this 5 days worth of job action has already delayed surgeries as badly as the last strike action, and it took nearly a YEAR to clear that surgical backlog. That means that this 5 days worth of strikes may have far-reaching impacts of up to 1 year delays for some of the least urgent people waiting on surgery. That's frankly appalling.

 

I think the government was well within its rights to impose back-to-work legislation, and probably within its bounds to impose a 15% wage cut. I do think that making that wage cut retroactive (so workers need to pay back wages they've already received) is rubbing it in a little too far, but perhaps that was done as a negotiating point, to show that the government and taxpayers ultimately, are the ones paying the unions and keeping them employed.

 

In the grand scheme of things, here's my thoughts:

 

#1 Working in a hospital doesn't make you a health care worker. A laundry worker, a cook, a cafeteria cashier, a janitor, etc is still an unskilled worker whether that's inside a hospital or not. You are NOT involved in direct patient care, nor are you a skilled worker, and you shouldn't expect to be compensated as if you were.

 

#2 $18+ dollars an hour, plus a 36 hour work week, plus up to 9 weeks vacation, plus up to 18 sick days a year, to fold laundry, or to run the cash register in the cafeteria, or to put Jello on a dinner tray, or to mop the floor is freakin' ridiculous. You would never see such a sweet job offer in the private sector. Why not? Because it's economically UNSUSTAINABLE.

 

#3 Yes, BC is an expensive place to live. Wonder why? Because a large portion of our tax dollars is being used to pay for these bloated union salaries. The McDonald's guy working the fries for $8 an hour is being taxed to pay for the $18 an hour salary of the HEU fry guy in the hospital WHO IS DOING THE EXACT SAME JOB! How is that fair???

 

#4 This is an absolute insult to any student or worker, who is studying hard for an opportunity to earn a better career. Why bother busting yourself to get a degree, and make yourself into a skilled worker, when you could make even more money by joining a union (working a job that requires a Grade 10 education), and holding the public hostage by striking. The only way BC is ever going to become a "Have" province and not a "Have-Not" province, is if our residents get educated and gain valuable job skills. BC simply can't rely on the old standby's of forestry, mining, and fishing.

 

#5 Corollary to #4. Have you noticed that all these job actions are being taken by public sector unions and not private sector unions? And is it any surprise that the high overhead and bloat-factors of provincial industries filled with union workers (ie. BC Ferries, BC forestry, BC mining) has helped cause each and every one of those industries to come to a crashing halt?

 

#5 It's clear that the BC unions have been planning for this sort of a general strike for a long time (just look at the rapidity of how all the other unions are going on wildcat "protest" strikes, like BC Ferries, the BC Teacher's Union, the BC forestry industry, etc), and were just looking for an excuse to go nuts.

 

#6 Every time the union makes the claim that "it's not about the money, it's about job security", I wonder why that is? Here's a hint. People who do good work for a reasonable wage aren't worried about job security. They ARE secure. You guys, on the other hand, are at risk of being replaced because you are WAY overpaid; I'm sure there's no end of unemployed people that would eagerly replace you, and would love to put Jello on trays or fold laundry for $10-15 an hour.

 

#7 Even after a 15% wage cut (almost a third of could be accounted for by moving the 36 hour work week to a 37.5 hour work week), these HEU members will still be making more than the national average. As it stands now, they are the highest paid in the country.

 

When this job action started, I was pretty calm about it. Now I'm just flat out disgusted. For the first time ever, I found myself looking up my local MLA, and calling/emailing my government.

 

For Pete's sake, many of your jobs are not worth $18+ an hour! Accept it and deal with it. Your salary should be directly linked to an equivalent private sector salary, then indexed for inflation. That would be fair, considering the huge benefits package that you'd still retain. You've had a very good thing for WAY too long, and it's about time that a government finally realized that, and is trying to control costs. Ultimately, it's the taxpayers who win when we make the system more efficient.

 

I'm done ranting.

 

Ian

[Guest Jazz]

Ian, Moo:

Totally agree with everything you guys said, if the NDP wins the next election, I am getting the hell out of BC no matter what career I find myself in. Unfortunately, from watching the news, most people seem to be siding with the unions. A court order or threats of civil lawsuits from patients affected may be the only way to stop this.

[Guest Ollie]

OK, the fence I am sitting on for this issue leans slightly towards the union. The thing that bothers me is how people rage against the workers on these issues. These contracts were negotiated between the union leadership and the government (granted it was the previous NDP government). It's hardly the single mom working in the hospital's caf fault that she is overpaid by some people's standard. As far as private companies go, a lot of them make the profits they do because they rely on cheap labour. Hello Walmart. They could easily raise salaries without barely putting a dent in their profits. I also don't think that it is fair in all cases to just compare union wages to the private sector. The government has taken to calling a lot of these jobs "hotel services". You can't compare a cleaner in a hospital to one in a hotel. Hospital cleaners have a pretty big responsibility when it comes to infection control. Not to mention that they are exposed to infection risk daily. Their salaries should reflect these responsibilities and risks.

 

A few repsonses:

 

BC is expensive to live in because of the high union wages????? Come on, this is stretching it a little. There are a lot of places that are more expensive than here, and I doubt that the wages of their unionized workers has much to do with it.

 

The BC Teacher's Federation is not joining the protest/strike. The CUPE members that work in the school are and therefore the teachers must respect their picket lines. I don't blame the other unions for walking out. They know that if they don't stand up to this, it will be their union next.

 

You can hardly blame the problems in forestry, ferries, etc solely on the unions. Yes they it probably played a part but other factors like mismanagement (ferries, air canada) and external factors (forestry) also have a pretty big role.

 

I guess the problem I have is the general mean-spiritedness of the government (remember this is the government that proposed to take away discounted bus passes for seniors and disabled people). I don't have a huge problem with the roll-backs because for the most part, they are overpaid. But the way this contract was imposed was unprecedented. Usually back to work legislation comes with an agreement to go to binding arbitration. There was not attempt (on either side) to resume negotiating. The government sent the deputy minister of labour out to determine if there was a chance of resuming negotiations. Shouldn't the person determining that be at least somewhat unbiased? The contract imposed was worse that the one the government was offering last year. (not sure why the union voted against that one.) And from what I have read this is the first time that a wage rollback has ever been retroactive. Some of the Liberals MLAs did not even realize the extend of this legislation. There was one MLA that said he would have voted against it had he realized the extend of it at the time. I just think that this legislation is blatantly undemocratic and find it frightening that it was passed to easily with apparently very little investigation into it by MLAs. Makes you wonder what has gotten throught the legislature without anyone noticing. Labour negotiations should involve good faith bargaining on both sides. The process of labour negotiations has been totally undermined. I think the reponse of the unions has made the government realize thay they went too far. The premier since said that are arbitrator could deal with some of these issues. Hmmm, why didn't they just do that in the first place.

 

I guess being the child of a "skilled" union member, it bugs me how people villify the unions and put so much blame on them for the state of the economy. Let's remember that a lot of the cuts are being made because the Liberals spent $2.5 billion dollars on tax cuts. They swore up and down "tax cuts pay for themselves". Hmmm, guess what, they haven't paid for themselves and are instead being paid for but increased fees and decreased services.

 

Sorry for the disjointedness of this rant. I'm not really thinking in a straight line. I also now realize that I'm not really on a fence, but am siding with the union. But I will still point out that I don't disagee with the pay cuts per se.

 

OK, end rant, time to go to bed!

[Guest Ian Wong]

OK, maybe I'm not done ranting yet. I should state here for the record that Ollie, you're a straight-up person, and should we ever be colleagues at the same hospital, the first pitcher is on me. So, no personal disrespect intended.

It's hardly the single mom working in the hospital's caf fault that she is overpaid by some people's standard.

True enough. But when everyone else discovers that the single mom is being overpaid, then shouldn't we correct that? There are lots of other single mom's who aren't unionized who'd love to do that job, even for a little bit less money, because that would STILL be an improvement on most private sector wages. That shows just how out of whack public sector salaries are with the rest of the workforce. It would also free up money that could directly improve patient care, by keeping an Operating Room running for an extra shift, or recruiting new nurses or physicians to an underserved community.

As far as private companies go, a lot of them make the profits they do because they rely on cheap labour. Hello Walmart.

Walmart is also a successful corporation that is increasing our trade, has enabled lots of unskilled workers to find jobs (it's not like anyone's FORCING them to work there), and most importantly, generates tons of tax renevue for governments. No, Walmart is no saint, but it's a successful corporation in a capitalistic society. As opposed to the unsuccessful flops we've seen in most public sector corporations; BC Ferries, BC Transit, heck, Air Canada are all money-losers.

You can't compare a cleaner in a hospital to one in a hotel. Hospital cleaners have a pretty big responsibility when it comes to infection control. Not to mention that they are exposed to infection risk daily.

This sounds like a convincing argument, yet it falls down because there's obviously private sector people out there willing to do the job for less money, so clearly the small risk of infection is remote enough to those replacement workers. More importantly, lots of industries have risk. The guy at McDonald's has a really high risk of getting burned, or scalded, especially if he's anywhere near the deep-fryer when there's grease or oil on the floor. The dishwasher at The Keg has a really high risk of getting his hands gashed by an errant steak knife, or perhaps getting hepatitis after touching the potentially contaminated plate scraps of 200 people per night. The unfortunate guy working the late night shift at Subway (ie. myself 8 years ago), has a really high likelihood of getting robbed at some point (during the time I worked night shift, I happened to be working at the only store that didn't have a late-night stick-up at gunpoint or knifepoint that summer). Many jobs come with risks, but most people either don't take the job and look for something better, or else they deal with it and do the work.

 

More importantly, if there's a high risk of infection (and I'm not reading stories each day about countless hospital kitchen workers being felled by HIV, heck, even in the Toronto SARS epidemic, it was people with direct patient contact like medical students, residents, nurses, and physicians who were highest at risk), then the additional money should NOT be going into salaries, but rather into beefing up infection prevention strategies (like better gowns, more masks, more disinfectant gel dispensers on the wards, more patient isolation rooms, more infection-control education for workers and patients alike, etc). Paying people higher salaries won't make them immune to hospital-acquired infections. Spending that money on infection prevention protocols might.

BC is expensive to live in because of the high union wages????? Come on, this is stretching it a little.

Obviously things like a highly desirable climate and location drive up housing prices and the cost of living in BC as well. Still, we pay huge amounts of taxes in this province. Why? Because we have huge expenses, not the least of which is healthcare. Physician spending accounts for 20% of the health spending in this province. Salaries of other health care workers, (the HEU is included in this) accounts for another 20%. The less expenses you have, the lower taxes can be. Paying people more money than they are worth has huge implications for an economy. It drives up inflation, leads to increased taxation to cover those salaries, which in turn decreases businesses and investments in our province, and all sorts of other downstream impacts (like having impacts on our interest rates, currency values, and import/export ratios) that lead to economic instability. A LOT of the mess this province finds itself in is due to the rampant overspending, constant deficits, and huge provincial debt from the union-friendly days of the NDP party. We are currently paying for mistakes that were made 5-10 years ago. Just think of what mistakes we'll be paying for, and how trashed our health care system will be in 2014 if we keep up the overspending trend, instead of breaking it, like we are now.

The BC Teacher's Federation is not joining the protest/strike. The CUPE members that work in the school are and therefore the teachers must respect their picket lines.

If the BCTF isn't teaching the students, particularly when this is NOT a legal strike, then effectively the BCTF is on strike, no? Try telling all the parents who are currently scrambling to figure out what to do with their kids this coming Monday that there's no teacher's strike. The students aren't learning when they are supposed to be, particularly as provincial exams are nearing. That makes this a teacher's strike, and calling it something else is just semantics.

You can hardly blame the problems in forestry, ferries, etc solely on the unions.

No, you probably can't put the sole blame on them, but you CAN put a significant portion of the blame on them! Rule #1 of any corporation, is that when you are losing money you need to make cut-backs. If revenue in isn't equalling expenditures out, you gotta cut expenditures and make your product more competitive. That means lay-offs. Companies do this all the time, and in every industry. Nortel's done layoffs, banks have done layoffs, high tech did layoffs after the dot.com bubble burst. These companies are trimming the dead wood out of their organization during the layoff period, and usually emerge from this as a stronger company.

 

On the other hand, when a Crown corporation goes down in flames, you can't fire workers because they are unionized, so the company ends up losing money on a perpetual basis. BC Ferries has a complete monopoly over the Victoria/Gulf Island commuters, and still can't turn a profit. That means expenses are too high. Lots of those expenses come from paying their employee's ridiculous salaries. Air Canada had a complete monopoly over Canada for a long time, and now WestJet, a privately held company, is beating them into the ground. Worse yet, Air Canada just lost a bail-out bid by Victor Li, due to many Air Canada unions being inflexible with their contracts and pension plans, and now they're scrambling to try to get anything else to hold onto.

 

As for forestry, both construction in the lower Mainland and the housing market are huge right now. Condos and houses are popping up all over the place, and the retail market is incredibly bright. We should therefore be seeing a parallel, equally bright market for wood products and construction material. Yet the BC forestry industry and all its unionized workers, which presumably are the ones supplying all this lumber that makes the construction happen, are still not doing well (with mills closing all over the place). Again, this means that expenses are too high, and need to come down if the company is going to get the capital needed to purchase more sawmills, bid on more logging contracts, and expand their operation to make more money and employ more workers.

I guess the problem I have is the general mean-spiritedness of the government (remember this is the government that proposed to take away discounted bus passes for seniors and disabled people).

Tell that to the 4000+ patients who have had/will have their surgeries cancelled due to union members who are unsatisfied with $15-16 an hour salaries to fold laundry or serve cafeteria food as to who is really being mean-spirited...

 

Without doubt, people are suffering from this strike, and I'm certain that many illnesses are going to progress, and people may well die or otherwise damage their health from this. Cancelling elective surgeries has all sorts of ramifications. Just because a surgery is elective doesn't make it an unimportant surgery, nor does it mean that a patient can't have a bad outcome because the surgery was delayed/cancelled. It just makes the surgery less critical than an emergency surgery; after all, if a patient was truly healthy, he/she wouldn't be on a waiting list for surgery.

 

An example is an elective hernia operation. Most people don't die from hernias, but a fixed percentage of people each year are going to have complications from an untreated hernia, such as obstructed/strangulated or perforated bowels. If you've just delayed or cancelled 500 hernia surgeries, it stands to reason that by mathematical odds, one of your patients is eventually going to have a bowel infarction, and will need part of his/her intestines chopped out emergently or risk death. Or, a patient waiting on an elective gallbladder removal for gallstone disease is going to have one of those gallstones slip down into the common bile duct and cause a gallstone pancreatitis (an incredibly painful, and sometimes fatal complication), which might otherwise have been prevented by a timely surgery.

But the way this contract was imposed was unprecedented. Usually back to work legislation comes with an agreement to go to binding arbitration.

I agree with you whole-heartedly on this. The HEU struck way too hard and fast, and the government in their haste to get the union back to work have obviously managed to stir the other BC unions to job action. Ultimately, it makes both sides look bad, and does the patients and taxpayers no good either.

The contract imposed was worse that the one the government was offering last year. (not sure why the union voted against that one.) And from what I have read this is the first time that a wage rollback has ever been retroactive.

I did some more reading on this subject tonight. The HEU was working without a contract since Apr. 1. Since they only recently went on strike, they were working pretty much the entire month without any contract stipulating their terms of payment, etc. When the government introduced Bill 37 (the back to work legislation with the new contract), they set that contract to start on Apr. 1. That was what made it retroactive, but still, the union workers weren't working under a contract during this period anyway, so it seems like this should be legal. Obviously, I'm not a lawyer, nor do I have any experience in reading contracts, so I'd welcome any input into this matter. The thing is, even if the Liberals were to make the new contract go into effect May 1 instead (ie. get rid of the retroactive portion of the clause), I'm sure the HEU and other unions would still be striking. The retroactivity portion of this clause is obviously not the main issue at hand.

Let's remember that a lot of the cuts are being made because the Liberals spent $2.5 billion dollars on tax cuts. They swore up and down "tax cuts pay for themselves". Hmmm, guess what, they haven't paid for themselves and are instead being paid for but increased fees and decreased services.

Actually, we don't know that yet. Quite frankly, in order for a government to generate tax revenues to pay for things like roads, public schools, health-care, etc, it needs businesses to generate jobs, so that those individuals can be taxed. In order to create businesses, you have to build an environment where corporations and countries are willing to invest their money. Tax cuts are a big incentive to outside companies looking to invest. One example of this is/was ALI Technologies. It's a Vancouver-based company specializing in programming for Radiology applications. It was recently bought out by McKesson, a huge US company in the Radiology sector. Were it not for favourable tax structures, this company might very well have been started up in Seattle or Portland instead, or perhaps in Calgary or Edmonton, and then we'd lose the tax revenue from that company, not to mention all the jobs and spin-off growth in retail, housing, and other services needed by its employees. If McKesson didn't think that BC was a favourable place to do business, it might have gone looking to acquire Radiology companies in Alberta or Ontario instead, and then we'd have "lost" that opportunity to generate jobs. Even now, if we don't maintain favourable tax structures, McKesson could certainly uproot these operations in Vancouver for a more economically favourable location.

 

As the government, you've always got to look out for big business, because even if you aren't a right wing pro-business conservative, quite frankly it's those companies that provide the jobs to keep your citizens happy, and the tax revenues for your social programs.

 

As a last point, Ralph Klein slashed the heck out of public spending around a decade ago, and now Alberta is reaping the economic benefits of lower provincial debts and less interest on that debt repayment, while having the money and financial capital to invest in its citizens.

 

We should look to Alberta for a recent example in what is possible if we practice fiscal restraint, tighten efficiency in our government corporations, and stop spending money that we don't have.

 

You might make the counter-argument that it wasn't Ralph Klein who did all this, but rather it was the oil and petro-dollars that actually made this possible. In that case, then we in BC need to be doubly aggressive in controlling spending, because the revenue we are getting from our mines, fisheries, and forests is obviously not the equal to Alberta's oil money. And we need to be equally as aggressive in fostering a competitive business environment with low taxes so that we can grab business opportunities, investments, and money from companies and countries around the world.

But I will still point out that I don't disagee with the pay cuts per se.

As it stands, these guys are making huge amounts of money for doing jobs that might pay half (especially if you include the cushy public benefits packages) of that in private industry.

 

The Vancouver Province has an interesting article, located here:

 

www.canada.com/vancouver/theprovince/news/story.html?id=ac331624-c1de-4302-af9b-5579a8709070

 

I'll excerpt the interesting part of it, which is an analysis of what these workers will make even after the 15% wage decrease (they'll still not only be above the national average, but in fact will only be second to Ontario/Manitoba in compensation across Canada). Pretty stunning that even after a 15% wage cut, they are still comfortably getting paid higher than employees doing the same job in all but two other provinces in Canada.

WHAT'S THE DEAL?

 

Back-to-work legislation calls for a target of a 15-per-cent reduction in compensation for the 43,000-member Hospital Employees Union in a two-year contract retroactive to April 1. It also includes an increase in the work week to 37.5 hours from 36 hours, which was the lowest in Canada.

 

Sample pay rates with 15-per-cent cut:

 

Cook: Drops from $21.37 an hour to $18.16, which would still be the second highest in Canada after Ontario.

 

Licensed practical nurse: Drops from $23.93 to $20.34, third-highest behind Ontario and Manitoba.

 

Cleaner: Drops from $18.90 to $16.07, second-highest after Ontario.

 

Laundry worker: Drops from $18.68 to $15.88. The national average is $13.86.

Another interesting notable is the Polls Page of the CKNW (a local radio station) website, which ran online polls showing a sizable (70-75%) majority of voters being in support of the government rather than the unions. Obviously, this isn't the most scientific poll in the world, but certainly public opinion is not on the union's side as much as the HEU would like:

 

www.cknw.com/station/past_polls.cfm

Would you support back-to-work legislation in the HEU strike?

74.64% (10439) yes

25.37% (3549) no

Total Votes: 13985

 

Do you support the HEU in their strike action?

28.14% (3837) Yes

71.91% (9803) No

Total Votes: 13631

I'll just conclude by saying that this government has obviously cracked down harder on unions than any government in the last decade. Even still, the "raw deal" that the unions are threatening to strike over is a really sweet deal (their salaries are still comfortably over the national average, if not still at the top nationally). Besides, can it really be a "raw deal" if you're an unskilled worker with minimal/no post-grad education working 37.5 hours a week, with 4-9 weeks of vacation, and getting $16+ an hour for doing a job that the private sector could PROFITABLY do for $12-14 an hour?

 

Skilled workers are in demand, and should be paid accordingly (and this includes the skilled workers in the HEU). Unskilled workers are easily replaceable, and if other people can do an equivalent job for less money, we should look into that option.

 

Back to reality folks, the unions still have it good (whether it was the old contract or even the new contract), and your illegal job action is hurting our economy, our crown corporations and healthcare industry, and most importantly, our patients. Time for you to get back to work.

 

Ian

[Guest moo]

Ian pretty much summed up everything I wanted to say and a whole lot more... so I'm just going to add a few things.

 

First, you have to realize that unions only look out for themselves. This point was hammered home by both Ian and me. While what they do is valuable and certainly needed to run an efficient hospital, they are still overpaid. I don't think I'm necessarily mad that they are negotiating for more wages. It's their TACTICS. Tell me is it fair to essentially hold the public hostage while you "negotiate" with the government. Public unions are different from private ones in that if public unions go on strike, the whole province can shut down, whereas if a private union goes on strike, it can only hurt the company's bottom line. When United airlines pilots struck in the 1990s, people thought it was an inconvenience but by and large they flew other airlines and it was fine. United got itself into a hole that it's still digging itself out of but the public's danger and inconvenience was minimized. Now, tell me how it is that these unskilled workers can essentially shut down the province's transit, buses, health care system and other services?

 

And to answer someone's question about whether I think the government is right in doing this. YES!!!!!! These unions need to be crushed like ants. Whatever the government takes to shut these guys up, even get rid of them, I will support.The rhetoric that the NDP and other socialists (not necessarily Liberals) use is that capitalism is bad, and that conservative governments are corrupt, only looking out for themselves and big business. (I'm not saying this isn't true all the time.) Well, what about governments like the NDP, don't they look out for "special interests" like unions, which by and large make up a very small proportion of the work force. Tell me, does it necessarily make you evil that you are say a private sector employee versus one employed by the government. Places like Subway, McDo's etc. need janitors as well. You can make the same argument that janitors here have to keep the place clean, free of rats, free of infectious agents, etc. You can also make the same argument that workers at these same places have to be clean, cook the meat properly to limit the spread of infectious organisms, etc.

 

I think what makes me mad the most is the fact that people in BC seem to take the union's side all the time in these labor disputes. Yes, we live in a free society and are free to protest but when these "protests" infringe upon others' rights--whether it be a child's right to an education, or a patient's right to timely health care services, it should become illegal and outlawed. I was in two unions, over three years, so I know how these guys think. I find it extremely hypocritical that union people always say privatization is bad for the patients, yet when they go on strike and force the cancelation of surgeries they say they're doing it FOR the patients (an argument used many times by the BCNU). And right now if I were back in BC, I'd disrupt these protest lines and try to wreak havoc because they've wreaked havoc on thousands of other people's lives.

 

It's time to stand up for the little guy.

[Guest walton1]

Some very strange things are being written in this thread.

 

I'm a little embarrassed to read about the lack of sympathy some of the writers have toward the plight of unskilled workers, while in other parts of this board -- albeit likely written by a different set of authors -- there are very articulate essays about the inadequate compensation of overworked doctors.

 

I agree that doctors are underpaid. I agree, given the examples provided in these posts, that unskilled hospital cafeteria workers in BC are overpaid. But there is an aspect of social justice here that bothers me. What difference does it make whether a doctor makes $100,000 per year or $300,000 per year? Not much, as he or she will still be able to live very comfortably. My father has a PhD and is employed by the government as a scientist. His rare salary increases are always below 3%. Yet somehow he is still able to enjoy the same or better lifestyle today as he did when he started his career. However, there is a huge difference between $14/hour and $18/hour, especially if the person earning that wage has children.

 

I think the average member of the public would, quite correctly, be disgusted to read some of the opinions expressed here, and surprised by the level of anger. Although working in a cafeteria or laundry room is not intellectually challenging, these people still work hard. These people are trying to maintain their wage because they wish to maintain their lifestyle. Perhaps some of them have mortgages or are saving up for a home, and need every penny of their present wage. This sort of misfortune can befall higher wage earners as well, but it is easier for them to get back on their feet.

 

Ian made a remark about no-one being forced to work at Walmart, and the ability of private sector workers to replace public sector workers. Should we let the market decide wages for low-paying jobs? How do we want things to be in this country? To have a pool of unskilled workers earning $8/hour living in slums, with skilled workers earning $200,000/year living in fenced communities? I'd rather have less of a divide between rich and poor where I live, and if that means I will be overtaxed, so be it.

 

The 80-year old transit passengers, high school graduands, and elective surgery patients are unarguably placed in a horrible situation by the strike, but whose fault is that? Unionized workers, or cranky taxpayers shopping for a lexus and the governments they elect?

 

 

wally

[Guest marbledust]

I just want to commend and thank Wally and Ollie for their well written and thoughtful posts.

[Guest Ollie]

Hi guys,

 

Often discussions like this can get pretty emotional and a little out of control. I'm glad to see that we can all have some mutual respect.

 

I don't have huge problems with a lot of what Ian and Moo are saying (except for maybe the crushing like ants part). Certainly having unions that are too powerful is a problem. But I think the issue comes down to how we determine the value of work? Because Mcdonald's pays someone $6/hr to cook fries, then should all fry cookers make $6/hr. I always hear the argument that there are plenty of people who would be willing to do a job for half of what the current employee gets paid. So what? If someone is willing to do it for $3/hr, should we hire them? How low do we go? How does having an workforce full of minimum wage workers struggling to feed their kids help our society? It's kind of an endless cycle. These low wage workers have greater depedence on social programs, funded mostly by the taxes of high income earners. Shouldn't our goal be to ultimately decrease the number of people relying on social programs, and therefore the need of tax dollars to fund them? I could talk myself in circles all day about this!

 

I guess labour disputes come down to how you look at it. It's pretty easy to villify the giant greedy union. It's a lot harder to think the same way about the individual employee going about his/her own business, and just trying to make a living. I look at the individuals and I find it really hard to not feel sympathetic.

[Guest Jazz]

"Should we let the market decide wages for low-paying jobs? "

 

We should let the market decide wages for all jobs, it's not the employer's job to guarantee a comfortable lifestyle. That may sound harsh, but that's the way the real world works unless you want communism. Doctors can demand the high salaries because they can pack up and go elsewhere for more money if they choose and the public lose them (I do feel docs are fairly compensated but that's another story). These union workers know they are overpaid and replaceable and that's why they are on strike. If you want a better lifestyle, you work hard and try to make yourself more valuable, not by holding the public hostage. I hope the Liberals don't fold or this sort of thing will never end.

[Guest cheech10]

Maybe communism (in its real form, not that which was labelled "communism" by various oppressive regimes in the past) isn't such a bad thing. It certainly would be more attractive to the low income earners than the current system.

[Guest moo]

Like I said before, I think these people are needed in society. We need people to fold our laundry, to cook our hospital food, etc. And I don't think anyone here is disrespecting what they do. However, like I said before, unions are not all innocent, especially their leadership. I used to be on the other side, pro-union too, until I joined two of the biggest unions in BC and saw the dark side what their members do and encourage. Do you think sleeping on the job is acceptable (and I mean 2-4 hours per 8 hour shift)? How about stealing patients' food? Or leaving one hour before your shift ends (and you still got paid for that hour)? Or going on the internet, chatting and emailing while you are on duty. I saw all of this stuff routinely and everytime management "caught" someone doing this, the union people would come in and protest and management would back down. Don't sympathize with unions just because you think they are the "little man" and need to be protected from big government or big business or the rich folks. They are not as benign as you think.

 

Just for the record I don't think doctors should ever strike either. Do I think we're underpaid during residency? Sure, but we all realize this before entering medicine and I accept my 40 000/year salary while working 80+ hours/week. I suck it up and do it because I knew what I was getting myself into.

 

Unless you've lived in BC and been through the labor strifes of the last 10-15 years, you really have no idea the tactics the unions use to get what they want.

[Guest marbledust]

Unless you've lived in BC and been through the labor strifes of the last 10-15 years, you really have no idea the tactics the unions use to get what they want.

 

Unless you have tried to raise a family on near minimum wage without benefits, then you have no idea what the value of unions are. I am simplifying this, and am aware of that.

 

I don't think our country is served by having a large sector of it struggling beneath or near the "poverty" line. It also bothers me that this thread seems to suggest at times that uneducated/"unskilled" have made a socially unacceptable choice by not becoming educated or skilled and are therefore both underserving of wages that will a) inable them to have a decent rather than subsistent living; are lazy and out to rip off the system, c) don't deserve the protection that the evil, good-for-nothing unions attempt to provide them.

 

It's easy to comment when one is educated, considered an elite in society as a (future) doctor, and unlikely to experience the financial hardships that many workers face (the low pay of residency doesn't count, and you know you are headed to a good salary).

 

If this post makes a bleeding heart liberal than I guess that's what I am. I have to admit that I find some of the statements in this thread to be a little shocking. However, everybody is intitled to an opinion.

[Guest Ollie]

Moo:

 

I think these people are needed in society.

 

Wow, this comes across as incredibly elitist and condescending. So, these people are needed, but they better not ask for too much money, because they don’t deserve it? As far as the poor work ethic in union workers, I don’t doubt it exists, but I’m sure it’s in a minority of workers. The vast majority of people are hard working and honest. Poor work ethics exist in the private sector as well. Of course the difference being that they can be fired much more easily. One thing I would support is making it easier to fire under-performing, lazy workers.

 

 

Jazz:

 

We should let the market decide wages for all jobs, it's not the employer's job to guarantee a comfortable lifestyle.

 

Well, we are diametrically opposed on this one. I think employers should be socially responsible. Involved in this is passing on a portion of their profits to their front line workers who actually do the work. Obviously this should not be at the risk of the company’s viability, but I think once a companies profits reach a certain level, they should be sharing some of this with their employees. This benefits the company as well, in greater employee morale and productivity, and in a good public image.

[Guest Ian Wong]

The thing is that I believe intrinsically that people are rewarded for merit. If you work hard, good things will happen for you. It's inevitable. Even if all of life seems to be up against you (as often happens through bad luck), if you have the resiliency and resolve to work hard, things will work out. Hard times have happened to me, and to many of my friends, acquaintances, and past co-workers, but we all got through it somehow. If you happen to need help, then I think there should be a strong social net ready to support you in your time of need. But I don't think that you should be rewarded higher for doing exactly the same job as someone else simply because you are a member of a union.

 

There's also a circular argument here at work, which is that unions allow people to make ends meet more easily. That's true; obviously a unionized laundry worker making $19 an hour can make ends meet more easily than the laundromat worker at the local mall making $12 an hour. But thinking on a bigger scale, where do you think that $7 an hour difference came from?

 

It came from higher taxes, and the majority of it came from taxes from that laundromat worker making the $12 an hour, and collectively, from all the other private workers out there who form the majority of this province's workforce. Were the income taxes lower, those private workers would all have more take-home money. Or perhaps the government could use the savings from those high salaries to set up more social programs, or other benefits that would accrue to those private workers or the general public.

 

Money is after all, conserved. When you lose a dollar, someone else gains a dollar. When you spend $10, someone else gets back $10. That means that for every extra dollar you give to a unionized worker, you had to take that dollar away from someone else, or the general public's coffers at large, because every additional dollar that is over-paid to a unionized worker is a dollar that can no longer be used to fight the provincial debt, or hire another nurse, or shorten an OR waitlist, or any other action that is to the general benefit of our province.

 

In other words, the few union members of this province are gaining an unfair competitive monetary advantage over all the non-unionized workers who form the majority of this province's population.

 

Let's make the scenario even more extreme, and make EVERY BC worker unionized. That way, we'll never have to worry about a race to the bottom with workers making $3, and competing with each other to work as cheaply as possible. Now, everyone's making $18 an hour. Does this make society happy? No, because now a loaf of bread will cost $10, and milk will cost $10 a liter because you've just caused rampant inflation by devaluing your currency.

 

More importantly, let's look long-term. We can either buckle down, trim costs, and hopefully turn our economy over like Alberta, or we can continue in our high-spending BC ways. If unions continue to wield this much power in shutting down our health care system at will, on an illegal basis, how are we ever going to get reforms in place to improve our health care? If things look bleak now in 2004, how bad will they be in 2014?

 

I guess the bottom line is that I think you should earn what you deserve via merit, and not via legislation. If you are living at or near the poverty line, then we need to have the appropriate social programs to keep you going, and provide the opportunities for you to become a skilled worker, or to otherwise increase your instrinsic value to your employer to get out of that situation. Sort of like the old fable about "Giving a poor man a fish every day, or teaching him to fish for the rest of his life."

 

Unions, and taxpayer-subsidized high union wages are NOT the way to accomplish social justice, because they are only helping themselves, and not the rest of the needy public at large. I can't emphasize that enough.

 

I have no particular ill-will towards unskilled unionized workers, it just seems to me that they are causing provincial chaos trying to lobby for more money and more job security when they are already at elite levels in both those areas relative to the general public. Particularly now, when they are still on strike after defying government legislation, an order from the Labour Relations Board, and most recently today, an order from the BC Supreme Court itself. As it stands now, on Monday, we in BC could lose the services of BC Ferries, BC Transit, BC government workers, BC teachers (both high schools and universities), BC forestry, BC Hydro, and of course, our BC health care system. This is no longer a case of minor inconvenience to the public, we're talking about a full-scale shutdown of the province. And it's all being done illegally!

 

I don't see myself as being anywhere near as outspoken as moo, but I do think the unions have a great job situation already, and they should get back to work. If not, there are many other people who also need those jobs, and would benefit from having them as well.

 

Please don't make me out to be a villain because I happen to think that $18 an hour is more than a fair wage for those particular jobs, and that I happen to think that money could be put to better use elsewhere. I honestly believe that I'm a rather empathetic individual who really enjoys helping people.

 

The evening news is reporting that there's high level negotiations going on right now, and a deal might be announced within the hour. Hopefully this is the case, and we can all get back to work until the next big strike.

 

Ian

[Guest marbledust]

Ian I don't think anybody was making you out to be a villian. Of course I can only speak for myself :lol

 

As usual, you have put a lot of time, effort, and thought into your posts. I just don't agree with what you are writing.

[Guest cheech10]

Money is after all, conserved. When you lose a dollar, someone else gains a dollar. When you spend $10, someone else gets back $10. That means that for every extra dollar you give to a unionized worker, you had to take that dollar away from someone else, or the general public's coffers at large, because every additional dollar that is over-paid to a unionized worker is a dollar that can no longer be used to fight the provincial debt, or hire another nurse, or shorten an OR waitlist, or any other action that is to the general benefit of our province.

 

Actually, that money is well served by going lower-income individuals because of a difference in spending rate. For example, if you give $100 to someone that is poor, he goes and buys goods and services with pretty much all of it (to make things meet). Those business go on to buy further goods and services, and so on. The government gets taxes on each of these transactions and the local economy benefits. On the other hand, if you give $100 to a rich person, he puts virtually all of it in the bank. This earns him some money, and the bank and government some money, but the overall effect is less than if the poor person got it. Similarly, tax cuts do stimulate the economy, but the effect is magnitudes greater if the tax cuts go to low income peple for the same reasons as above.

 

More importantly, let's look long-term. We can either buckle down, trim costs, and hopefully turn our economy over like Alberta, or we can continue in our high-spending BC ways.

 

Alberta got into fiscal shape primarily by selling of its energy resources at a time when prices were quite favourable, not so much by cutting costs, etc.

 

This isn't meant to portray you as a villain Ian, just a different economic viewpoint.

[Guest moo]

Unless you have tried to raise a family on near minimum wage without benefits, then you have no idea what the value of unions are. I am simplifying this, and am aware of that.

 

That's the thing. Unions work for only a small subset of the population. There are still many many people struggling, who are unfortunately working in the private sector doing the same things as these unionized people and making much less than them. This was illustrated by Ian with people working at Subway. Why should someone who works at Subway be making only 8/hour? Should we all demand that Subway pay their workers 18/hour? If this were the case, Subway would probably go out of business and these people would be out of a job. Here's another example: My friend worked at a bike rental store downtown. He hauled bikes all day, worked pretty much full time and could barely pay tuition. I even had to pay his deposit one semester because he couldn't afford it. He made 9.50/hour. I, on the other hand, was extremely lucky and landed a unionized job, making 20/hour, doing much less. Is it fair that I got a union job, while my friend struggled making only 9.50/hour?

 

Vancouver's a very funny city. They claim to be socialistic and all that, but last year or a couple years ago, they tried to outlaw panhandling. And everytime I go home and go downtown I see homeless people every where. Much moreso than I am here in Chicago.

 

And Ollie, I'm not being condescending with that statement. All I'm saying is that, yes someone needs to do the stuff they do. I'm just saying that it is not the case that people don't appreciate what they do. You're reading too much into my words.

 

And this whole thing that Ian said about working for merits, well, why shouldn't you be rewarded if you work hard? Yes, in a perfect world, everyone should be equal. Everyone should make 50000/year, whether you are a doctor, lawyer, janitor, or a cook. But then again, is this fair? Is it fair that doctors have to undergo much more training than a janitor and still make the same? I'm sure there are many people here who think, oh yeah, I'd still be a doctor even if they paid me 50000/year. But the truth is, the majority of people will no longer be attracted to medicine if that job security and guarantee of a decent income is gone. Think about it: why has family medicine, which is arguably the "nitty-gritty" of medicine, declined in popularity by so much. If all these doctors who went into medicine truly were altruistic then, the numbers going into FP would be a lot higher than they are now.

 

Unions in BC are too powerful. Period. I've seen unions in America and by and large they are a lot more sane and reasonable. Oh, they still go on strike but never will they ever wreak havoc on a whole province like this General Strike will tomorrow.

[Guest walton1]

Hello all,

 

A few disconnected thoughts about this interesting debate.

 

I think what I was trying to get at with the comment about the wages was not that we should start printing out more money and tossing it from the rooftops, but to make sure that the spectrum of wages earned by Canadians does not become too broad or too skewed. To me, unions represent a force which helps sustain a balance between the socialist and capitalist values of Canadians.

 

Less of a division between rich and poor just strikes me as a desirable outcome. It is true that in many Canadian cities (e.g., Toronto, and, increasingly, Halifax) homelessness is a very visible problem, and of course the solution to this problem is unlikely to be brought about by trade unions. But is the absence of homeless people in Chicago observed by Moo attributable to the fact that they don't exist or is it attributable to their invisibility due to ghettoization?

 

We had a dinner guest recently who was from Seattle. We started talking about university funding, and he made a comment about what he called the "above $200,000 crowd," a reference which raised my eyebrows. He thought of the upper middle class as those who make $100 - 200k/year, whereas I think of the upper middle class being in the $75k - 100k range, and anything above being "rich." To me, his conception of what middle class meant was a sign of a large gap between rich and poor in America.

 

Unions are unpleasant institutions that do unpleasant things. A relatively mild example: for decades, school librarians in Nova Scotia have paid into the Nova Scotia Teacher's Union (NSTU). But when the NSTU negotiated its contracts with NS back in the mid-90's, they sold the librarians down the river in favour of more concessions for their main constituency, teachers. Very little justice in that, especially when you consider that the few remaining librarians are obligated to continue paying their union dues.

 

But in a big-picture sense, unions generally advocate things that benefit workers (wages, benefits, safety, job security). Unions exist and strikes exist. They are not good things, but they are sometimes the only way to respond to intransigence. Many things in life seem to involve needless aggression (e.g., the legal system, picket lines), when reasonable people making reasonable concessions should be able to meet halfway.... but it is just the way things are, and I'm not pleased about it either.

 

 

wally

[Guest Ollie]

Hey guys,

 

well it appears the two sides have come to their senses and reached a deal, which begs the question: why did this negotiation not happen in the first place? Ultimately I think we all want the same ends, but may not agree on the means. Thanks for everyone's opinions. I am anticipating questions about this at my UofT interview on friday!