That's what I personally think should happen, leave workers with a right to withdraw their labour but not completely. The public has a right to transit also.
Should transit be an "essential service"?
I'm leaning in that direction if they can work out something with transit workers that is fair. It needs to be settled in advance by management not in hindsight by legislation. Seems so simple.
Abolishing the right to strike for any group is a slippery slope. I'm with Unionist, I'm not sure why it is being discussed here.
My genuine query is: how do other trades and professions that have been deemed essential services maintain their bargaining leverage, and why would this not work for transit workers?
That is an interesting question. What lever of power does a union of essential workers wield in the absence of a threat of strike?
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[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]
The opening point in the rebuttal by Larry Brown demonstrates how this discussion is really a red herring: why discuss the right to strike right after a large action that inconveniences lot of people? Even if we, as labour-friendly progressives, decide to debate a worker's right to strike, we should realize that Canadian governments and funding bodies declaring transit an 'essential service' comes from the same rightwing hacks who are concerned about how the poor will get to work while the well-paid transit workers are on strike.
If the government wants to call the transit essential, how about funding it like it is? Making sure everyone can afford to take it? Making sure it goes where it is needed, and organizin urban spaces acordingly. Instead, in the context of the OP and of the governments' decision, 'essential' just means ripe for the hatchet.
Give the workers power - to own and control and manage the transit system. Then we will ensure that the poor and ill and elderly and marginalized and everyone else is looked after.
Until then, don't touch our right to down tools if we don't like the conditions offered.
Until then, go see the owners and managers. Demand that they pay people's way to work by other means. Demand that they meet the workers' demands, if you find those workers so essential.
With power comes responsibility. Give us one and we'll accept the other. Until then, anyone trying to limit our rights will meet a very firm opposition, especially if they try to pit one section of the oppressed and exploited against another.
This thread is disgusting.
What Unionist said.
My question is: how do other unionized workers whose services have been deemed essential, such as nurses, hospital aides, first responders for example, maintain their bargaining rights? How are their rights to strike curtailed? Does the fact that they are essential service workers affect the kind of contracts they attain in the end?
I also question whether it would really be in the interest of "the Right" or a right-leaning government to deem transit an essential service. The argument that essential service designation reduces pressure on gov'ts or employers to negotiate seems questionable to me in the case of transit. Transit services are provided only grudgingly to begin with. City administrations allow transit strikes to go on as long as they do because they know that only a minority of people are severely affected. There's no immediate pressure on cities to end them at the best of times, with the right to strike intact, so how will deeming it an essential service change anything for the workers? Are the contracts that the workers win after two or more months of striking any better than what they would earn by arbitration? Seriously. Are they? Having transit as an essential service could actually work in transit workers' favour, as is suggested in the article by the quote from one of the veteran transit workers.
In any case, I'm sure this argument is purely academic, as no right-wing city administration is going to declare transit an essential service because then, as someone suggested above, they'd have to actually fund it like it is.
That is an interesting question. What lever of power does a union of essential workers wield in the absence of a threat of strike?
Essential service designation does not always preclude the right to strike.
Does the fact that they are essential service workers affect the kind of contracts they attain in the end?
Great question.
Did the freed African American slaves in post-Civil War U.S. enjoy better or worse living condiitons?
What a tiresome and patronizing and condescending discussion.
Workers feed, clothe, and house you. They make it possible for you to render your thoughts here. You should respect their freedom of choice as to how they will exercise their Charter rights.
As for your "veteran transit worker" cited in the anti-worker article, he should go to a union meeting (I'm sure someone could provide him with the coordinates) and try to convince his fellow workers of the brilliance of his analysis. Until then, he can enjoy himself as a poster-child for crushing workers' rights.
Maybe a lot of transit workers should go to union meetings, Unionist, since they certainly don't seem to share your ultra-purist values.
By the way, I too, work for a living. I am a union member, and one of my jobs is considered essential service. As workers, both unionized and non-unionized, we [i]all[/i] feed, clothe and house each other. Nobody is doing this just for me, thank you very much. Nor am I seeking to benefit by treading on others. I think you would do well to stop romanticizing the average labour unionist and, along with some of your ideological compatriots, consider how your message may be getting across to the not-so-understanding moderate majority during strike actions. Unions continually lose the public relations wars during strikes or walkouts and continually (except CUPE, who are beginning to understand the importance of long-term public relations) do nothing about it, which only serves to work against them in the long term. And I'm sorry, but it's leftist-purist-elitist attitudes like yours that perpetuate the communication divide. If you can't answer some simple questions in this thread, maybe you shouldn't be attempting to speak for labour unionists.
Who [i]do[/i] you speak for, anyway?
Jas, ask any question you like and I will answer it. But don't tell me you know one single worker who believes their right to strike should be taken away.
Go ahead. Ask your questions.
I know a lot of workers who don't care about their right to strike. I'm not sure they'd notice if it was taken away. I'm not saying that's a good thing. In any case, workers always have the ability to lay down their tools, whether it's legal or not. Yes, they can be fired for doing so, but it all depends on how quickly the employer can replace them. Workers also have the ability to quit. In the field I work part-time in, high stress and high turnover force wages up. When people quit, the employers have to quickly find new people that can maintain the same level of service, as it is an essential service, and also to minimize overtime costs. This puts pressure on gov't to keep funding at a certain level and on agencies to make sure that the funding is going where it should. I won't argue that we aren't still underpaid because we are, especially if you look province-wide, in rural areas. But just to recognize that "market" forces can play a role in wage improvement, and possibly moreso if a service is considered essential.
But to reiterate my questions:
Does a lengthy, unpopular transit strike, the stoppage of service that affects only a minority of citizens, produce better contracts than arbitration would? I don't know how or if this can even be researched, but an honest consideration of the question as it pertains to the next one would be appreciated.
How do other trades and professions that have been deemed essential services maintain their bargaining leverage, and why would this not work for transit workers?
And are there other ways transit workers could "strike", such as refusal to do overtime? This may sound trivial, but in health care, refusal to do overtime can throw the system into crisis.
Does a lengthy, unpopular transit strike, the stoppage of service that affects only a minority of citizens, produce better contracts than arbitration would?
Not necessarily. The theory of what is called "interest arbitration" is that it is supposed to reproduce, as faithfully as possible, what the outcome would have been, had economic warfare been permitted to run its unrestricted course. The difference is this: that with arbitration, the result is binding. No choices. People are fined, or fired, or imprisoned, if they don't agree to work under the imposed conditions.
How do other trades and professions that have been deemed essential services maintain their bargaining leverage, and why would this not work for transit workers?
If they have no power to down tools, they have no bargaining "leverage". They depend on favours. Any other view of this situation is delusional. Slaves have no leverage except for rebellion.
And are there other ways transit workers could "strike", such as refusal to do overtime? This may sound trivial, but in health care, refusal to do overtime can throw the system into crisis.
No offence, but that is a question founded in ignorance of the law. Overtime bans, work to rule, slowdowns, are all defined as "strikes" in labour law. If strikes are banned, the rest are equally banned, and attract the same penalties.
Well, again, the removal of the right to strike does not always accompany essential service designation.
Slaves have no leverage except for rebellion.
And this is a little bit dramatic. No one is going to shoot me if I quit and walk away. And no one is going to shoot workers who walk out en masse. And not serve jail time, anyway.
Gee thanks jas. For being so honest. I'm glad you don't care about your rights. But be cautious when applying that to others.
In 1972, the leaders of three union centrals went to prison rather than obey laws that the likes of you would impose. But you don't know about that. You live in a free country, where people haven't a care in the world, except maybe what time their fucking bus will show up. Lucky you.
Although it might be essential in many modern city, I can't see a complete eliminationa of all job actions during a contract negotiation. Strike, sure ban it if its an essential service. But what about a Work to Rule campaign? Instead of great regular service, provide crappy Sunday service during regular business days.
How do other trades and professions that have been deemed essential services maintain their bargaining leverage, and why would this not work for
Which is something to consider. The police aren't exactly on minimum wage amd they can't ever take job action that involves much more than wearing the wrong hat.
Although it might be essential in many modern city, I can't see a complete eliminationa of all job actions during a contract negotiation. Strike, sure ban it if its an essential service. But what about a Work to Rule campaign? Instead of great regular service, provide crappy Sunday service during regular business days.
Welcome, Acadieman.
In a situation where a strike is unlawful (as I said earlier), so is every single type of job action which restrains "production":
A strike or lockout does not have to involve employees walking off the job and/or forming a picket line to meet the definition of strike or lockout in the Code.
According to the Board, the following activities may also constitute unlawful strikes:
* a ban on, or concerted refusal to work overtime, even if in some cases the collective agreement provides for individual voluntary overtime;
* a refusal to handle "hot goods" where not provided for in the collective agreement;
* a refusal to cross the picket line of another trade union;
* a work to rule, such as a "slow wheel" in the railway industry.
[url=http://www.cirb-ccri.gc.ca/publications/info/01-06_eng.asp][color=red]So...
So you can be fired, fined, or imprisoned as much for a concerted "Sunday driving" activity as for carrying a picket sign outside your workplace, once transit is declared "essential".
Well, again, the removal of the right to strike does not always accompany essential service designation.
Oh, right. It's essential, but everyone retains their right to strike anyway. That's so reassuring. Where do I sign?
Isn't this a clash of "which group is more oppressed"?
If mass transit was used and needed by everyone, then this thread wouldn't even exist (under those conditions, no one would consider mass transit as being "essential"--and that term would be used for true life-and-death matters).
But, here, we have two oppressed groups: the poor (who predominantly depend on mass transit and are hurt disproportionately by mass transit strikes) and workers...and, hence, a clash of which oppressed group is more deserving of protection.
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[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]
And the only time many will profess their concern for protection of the poor. So no, it's not a clash. It's right wing propoganda.
And the only time many will profess their concern for protection of the poor. So no, it's not a clash. It's right wing propoganda.
The fact that it is used as rightwing propaganda is self-evident...and that's not my point.
I'm talking about the debate within the confines of progressive circles.
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[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]
A progressive circle doesn't pit worker vs poor. Perhaps you mean the progressive square talking points.
A progressive circle doesn't pit worker vs poor.
Well, not intentionally, of course. But that is, in fact, what is happening.
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[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]
A progressive circle doesn't pit worker vs poor.
Aw c'mon RP, be a sport. Play the poor card game:
- immigrants stealing jobs from poor "real Canadian" workers
- unionized workers living high off the hog while the "poor" have to pay higher prices for their products
- wasting money on education while seniors can't afford to make ends meet
- cutting subsidies to feminists and civil rights and other urban lefties so that we can reduce the GST for poor hard-working folk
... the possibilities of getting people to see each other as The Enemy - rather than the wealthy and powerful - are virtually endless!
Don't be such a party pooper. Look at all the "progressives" in this thread who have suddenly started to shed salty tears for the "poor". Comfort them.
A progressive circle doesn't pit worker vs poor. Perhaps you mean the progressive square talking points.
Right, so the poor people who are affected, as I have been, should just shut the fuck up in the interest of preserving "workers' rights". Never mind that I'm a worker, too. I better not say anything about how difficult it is for me to get to work and how isolated I feel, offered no sympathy, let alone options, by my brothers and sisters in the labour movement, because that's just anti-labour.
Have any of the offended people in this thread actually had to rely on transit to get to [i]their[/i] jobs, or to get groceries? No one's answered that question yet. And if so, have you lived through a transit strike that's lasted more than two weeks? The one in Vancouver lasted 123 days. Am I complaining about the transit workers' right to strike? No. I am merely suggesting that it's plausible, and not a right wing plot, to consider transit as an essential service.
A progressive circle doesn't pit worker vs poor. Perhaps you mean the progressive square talking points.Right, so the poor people who are affected, as I have been, should just shut the fuck up in the interest of preserving "workers' rights". Never mind that I'm a worker, too. I better not say anything about how difficult it is for me to get to work and how isolated I feel, offered no sympathy, let alone options, by my brothers and sisters in the labour movement, because that's just anti-labour.
If you don't understand that they're the main reason things aren't worse for us and why it's more important than ever, I don't know what to say. Maybe you could use that energy on the ones that have the power.
Have any of the offended people in this thread actually had to rely on transit to get to [i]their[/i] jobs, or to get groceries? No one's answered that question yet. And if so, have you lived through a transit strike that's lasted more than two weeks? The one in Vancouver lasted 123 days. Am I complaining about the transit workers' right to strike? No. I am merely suggesting that it's plausible, and not a right wing plot, to consider transit as an essential service.
But it is a right-wing plot and you've fallen for it. That's as nicely as I could say it.
How come the media never blames the management? Why is it always the Workers? Think about it.
Well, if I fell for their ploy, then I guess we can expect to see a rush of right wing city administrations toward essentializing transit services any day now. I can hardly wait to trod on my transit worker union brothers! How soon can we expect this to happen?! I'll mark it on my calendar!
Am I complaining about the transit workers' right to strike? No. I am merely suggesting that it's plausible, and not a right wing plot, to consider transit as an essential service.
The hypocrisy is breathtaking. The only reason the issue of "essential service" ever comes up is when someone wants to ban the right to strike for a certain group of workers.
Nobody ever writes articles saying, "Let's declare transit an essential service and keep the transit workers' right to strike."
Nobody ever writes articles saying, "Let's declare transit an essential service and keep the transit workers' right to strike."
Right. Nor does anyone ever write articles saying, "Transit isn't really essential, but let's abolish transit workers' right to strike just for the fun of it."
The articles "they" write are always like the ones written by the very kind and gentle Ashifa Kassam, and some other kind gentle people in this thread.
The conclusion is always the same: "Let's invest lots of money in this very necessary service for poor people and make sure we can get continuous disruption-free service from the buses, subway cars, roads, tracks, maintenance garages, and equipment. And, er, um, oh yeah, the human equipment too."
Jas, to answer your question, as someone against essential service designation for transit workers right now I don't rely on transit for work or visiting family but I do for everything else.
Ten years ago I did rely on the TTC for everything - college, my job, getting anywhere. There was talk of a strike lasting for weeks at least with the TTC a few days before they had a strike (it turned out to be for just one day because the bureaucrats caved) but I supported them fully and made plans to change the way I lived in case the strike were to last.
I had exams coming up and work that was putting me through school but I supported the strike fully and made arrangements with coworkers and friends at school or planned to leave home / get home hours early or late because of walking or other arrangements.
It was a price to pay but I told the TTC drivers when I got on the bus on the days leading up to the strike that they did have support.
I know my attitude would not have changed because, though not with transit, I have changed my life to support other unions that I was not a part of when they went on strike.
They have made my life and continue to make my life better in so many ways that I don't see.
That's fine, Refuge. Really, the only point I originally intended to make is that the loss of transit services for any longer than a few days does affect people's health and safety. At that time in Vancouver I had real problems with walking and I could not a walk more than a few blocks without pain. So walking downtown from West Kitsilano was not an option (and lucky I lived in Kitsilano! What if I lived in Marpole or Richmond or Surrey?) I could ride, but it wasn't comfortable, especially with the crappy bike I had to buy in a hurry (along with hundreds of other people all at the same time) and in the wet, cold, spring weather it inflamed my treeplanters knees, so it was really not good for me to be doing that. But it was my only option for getting downtown at the times of day I needed to, and also to be sure I could get back when I needed to. For other activities I could get rides, but not for work or everyday appointments and errands.
I wasn't blaming the strikers or griping about the strike* but it was a severe challenge for me that stressed me physically and emotionally. And I was someone in reasonably good shape, except for the mysterious inability to walk very far. I do not know (or I don't remember) how others coped. How older, isolated people coped. Some younger people were hitchhiking. Is that a safe activity? So when I hear some people saying "oh well, we just [i]made do[/i]. We sucked it up [and we shut the fuck up]" I get pretty offended. If you can "make do" for 123 days, why don't you just make do permanently? If you can go without transit for four months, why not just get rid of it? Who the fuck needs it? You sure don't, right?
I think that there's an attitude seeping through here that is able-ist and car-centric and people are not acknowledging that.
*actually, no one I knew was griping about the strikers. It was Translink that everyone hated.
Did the freed African American slaves in post-Civil War U.S. enjoy better or worse living condiitons?
Unionist, I am utterly appalled by this rhetorical question, and request a retraction. I assume it was made in error. One one hand, the implication, (as many ultra-right figures are fond of making), that African American people have benefitted by their enslavement is revolting, while the implied parallel between workers and enslaved peoples is merely insulting and minimizes the historical evil of human enslavement. Either way, it feeds into the message of minimizing racialized oppression and is beneath you.
Even now / We are not lost: If you look out at the night / You'll see the colours and the lights seem to say / People are not far away, at least in distance, / And it's only our own dumb resistance / That's making us stay.
Thank you, Makwa. I did point out the inappropriateness of that upthread, but I guess Unionist was too much in a rhetorical frenzy to take notice.
Uh, Makwa, no, I will certainly not apologize. You misunderstood my point entirely, and even though you didn't stop to ask, I will explain it anyway.
My point was that freedom is essential, and slavery is abominable, [b][i]under all circumstances[/i][/b]. We do not even raise the question, "Are the slaves better off before or after liberation?", because that question is repugnant and offensive.
Likewise, we do not ask the disgusting question asked by jas:
Does the fact that they are essential service workers affect the kind of contracts they attain in the end?
In other words, "are they better off once their right to strike has been restricted or removed?"
That is abominable. You can ask jas for an apology if you please, but I don't think this thread is about apologies. This thread is about treating workers and their rights as [b]OPTIONAL[/b], which appears to be perfectly acceptable on this board and in this forum.
Thanks for your intervention.
Unionist's question is a categorical rejection of slavery. Chomsky and other progressives have made similar points. You can only find his comparisson offensive if you choose to have utterly no respect for his position that the right to strike is fundamental.
My point is that to express the analogy in such a blase fashion comes from a place of white privilege and would best be avoided, or if stumbled into inadvertently, would be well taken as a point of awareness. I am disappointed that you cannot empathize with that.
On a more pertinent note, I don't see how asking if a transit labour stoppage causes, "an immediate and serious danger to the health or safety of the public" is inherently anti-labour, at least if we concede that legislative limitations on worker rights are justifiable in such situations. I do agree that phrases such as "holding the public hostage" are anti-worker. In any case, making parallels with enslavement, however obliquely, is reprehensible.
How magnanimous.Unionist's question is a categorical rejection of slavery.
*****
Even now / We are not lost: If you look out at the night / You'll see the colours and the lights seem to say / People are not far away, at least in distance, / And it's only our own dumb resistance / That's making us stay.
Um unionist, your comments are usually thoughtful, but I think you've put your foot in it this time.
I am a health care worker and as such, would have to work under the terms of an essential services agreement in the event that my union should go on strike. Surely it is perfectly reasonable and not in the slightest way anti worker to consider whether the definition of essential be expanded.
Or perhaps you consider me, and nurses, to be "enslaved" because we aren't allowed to strike. Other than the offensiveness of the terminology, bandying about "enslavement" in a casual and diminishing way, your inflated rhetoric in this thread reminds me of the American Objectivists I have wasted time and bandwidth arguing with at a medical discussion board which I sometimes visit. Objectivist medical students have insisted that doctors who work in a single-payer health care system (like ours) are "enslaved."
Makwa: "parallel between workers and enslaved peoples is merely insulting and minimizes the historical evil of human enslavement. Either way, it feeds into the message of minimizing racialized oppression and is beneath you."
You ignored this Unionist. I support you 100%. I think you should edit your post.
In other words, "are they better off once their right to strike has been restricted or removed?"
Actually, since you're attempting to paraphrase what I asked, the question really was: are they any [i]worse[/i] off (even if their right to strike is taken away, which it isn't always) now that they are considered essential service? That was a genuine request for information from anyone who may have some information on that. Does arbitration produce much worse outcomes than strikes? I can certainly see it has the potential to, but is that the reality?
I am a health care worker and as such, would have to work under the terms of an essential services agreement in the event that my union should go on strike.
That's fine and reasonable - read my post above:
The answer given by the law of Canada, and it corresponds to the answer given by the ILO (a tripartite U.N. body of governments, business, and labour), is that you never take that right away unless the strike causes "an immediate and serious danger to the health or safety of the public".
Surely it is perfectly reasonable and not in the slightest way anti worker to consider whether the definition of essential be expanded.
Expanded to what? Something beyond Canadian and international human rights law? It is not "perfectly reasonable" and it is in every way anti-worker, as you can clearly see from the disgusting rabble article where the author accused bus drivers of holding the people [b]"hostage"[/b].
Or perhaps you consider me, and nurses, to be "enslaved" because we aren't allowed to strike. Other than the offensiveness of the terminology, bandying about "enslavement" in a casual and diminishing way,
Ok, please don't lecture me. When a group of workers is told that they must work - that [b]they can't even collectively resign[/b] (DID YOU KNOW THAT???) - that they will be fined or jailed if they don't - you don't like the word "slavery", that will have to be your problem. Sorry if I offended someone.
Karl Marx considered all wage workers as comparable to slaves - I'm only applying the term to those whom the law doesn't allow to go home:
The slave is sold once and for all; the proletarian must sell himself daily and hourly. The individual slave, property of one master, is assured an existence, however miserable it may be, because of the master's interest. The individual proletarian, property as it were of the entire bourgeois class which buys his labor only when someone has need of it, has no secure existence. This existence is assured only to the class as a whole. The slave is outside competition; the proletarian is in it and experiences all its vagaries.
Why are you so anti-worker? You've aired your grievance.
eta: Was responding to jas.
The offensive aspect of your previous reference was not regarding an abstract Marxist conception of slavery, nor towards slavery as a set of historical institutions, but specifically towards African American people and the antebellum period: which I contend, comes from a place of indifference consistent with white privilege, and is worthy of contemplation, and not a sneering, backhanded dismissal. you don't like the word "slavery", that will have to be your problem. Sorry if I offended someone.Karl Marx considered all wage workers as comparable to slaves - I'm only applying the term to those whom the law doesn't allow to go home:
[/quote] Even now / We are not lost: If you look out at the night / You'll see the colours and the lights seem to say / People are not far away, at least in distance, / And it's only our own dumb resistance / That's making us stay.
How magnanimous.Unionist's question is a categorical rejection of slavery.
The point is that it is not "the implication, (as many ultra-right figures are fond of making), that African American people have benefitted by their enslavement"
We'll just have to disagree on this, Makwa. My post, of which you complain, was one of respect and celebration of emancipation from slavery. You misinterpreted it as this:
... the implication, (as many ultra-right figures are fond of making), that African American people have benefitted by their enslavement is revolting,...
On topic, you said:
I don't see how asking if a transit labour stoppage causes, "an immediate and serious danger to the health or safety of the public" is inherently anti-labour...
Really? Had you followed this discussion from the start, or just the news, you would know that it was [b][i]Harper's Labour Minister Rona Ambrose[/i][/b] who used a rare provision of the Code to ask the Canada Industrial Relations Board this precise question. When the CIRB answered (obviously): "Of course not, there's no immediate and serious danger to the health or safety of the public", she then said fine, then we'll have to legislate these people back to work. That never came to pass, because an agreement was reached.
So, maybe the "question" Rona Ambrose asked wasn't "inherently anti-labour". But the question was [b]ANSWERED[/b], and the answer was [b]NO[/b].
For babblers to raise that very same question afterwards, in the Labour forum, for the sole purpose of restricting workers' rights (under the transparent signboard of "essential services"), is enough to make one gag. The fucking law says the busdrivers' right to strike is unrestricted, and our so-called progressives here do not.
Our moderators apparently believe that such a discussion is healthy and appropriate, because they don't think the "Left" (LOL) is united on whether workers have the right to strike. Well, then, let the discussion continue.
Please just edit your post Unionist. I agree with Makwa and it is distracting from the real issue.
Please just edit your post Unionist. I agree with Makwa and it is distracting from the real issue.
Go tell it to a moderator. I'm not editing my post. I said nothing wrong. The only thing distracting from the real issue is Makwa's intervention.
Makwa: "parallel between workers and enslaved peoples is merely insulting and minimizes the historical evil of human enslavement. Either way, it feeds into the message of minimizing racialized oppression and is beneath you."
You ignored this Unionist. I support you 100%. I think you should edit your post.