Your thoughts on workers going on strikes....

[psimonl]

I know it is different from a country to another.....

This is my story...

As a teacher, our Union is out of an agreament for the past couple of months with our employee who is by the way the province of Quebec. Yes, teachers in Quebec are State employees.

Anyway, today was a strike day, only one day, and I was supposed to go manifesting downtown for our union.

When on strike, we don't get pay (lost of 250.00$/day).

I didn't go because the points they argue on don't really apply to me....

But I still feel bad about not showing up.

Out of 50 000 teachers, 30 000 showed up.

I had the minding:"I'm not paid, I won't go and work on my yard".

You must know that usually, in our country, when a Union go on strike, people don't lose Salary because the Union pays for lost revenues, but mine, even though they haven't been on strikes for the past 10 YEARS, they didn't keept any money for a situation like this.... And I have to pay 30.00$ a week to them...

I don't know how I must feel or act....

I don't really feel at eas with this situation.....

Simon

BTW: It's the first time in my life I am on strike. Obliged to....

[Markous]

Being a Union Steamfitter for the past 10 years myself my opinion is somewhat biased :rolleyes: but IMO it really depends on the service that is provided by those on strike.

United we bargin, Divided we beg :D

[HotSoup]

Well, I think it depends. Some union leaderships are corrupt and basically are a for-profit business...

Quebec teachers Union is pretty powerful. 30k out of 50k going on Strike is impressive. BTW, hello from Montreal as well. May I ask what school you teach at? I'm planning on perhaps pursuing a career in education as well!

Generally I'm of the idea that if your union is on strike, and even if it doesn't directly affect you, you should take part, because one time it might affect you, and you'll want the support as well. Its unfortunate that you are losing your pay for the day, but I'm sure the strike action was well-thought out, as teachers don't generally strike very long because they don't want to inhibit their students from learning.

I don;t really know where I was going with this, but I know teachers in Quebec are underpaid compared to every other province, and we have many fantastic teachers. We also have teachers working harder, as our classrooms are over-loaded. Students have access to less and less of their teachers.

[jzmtl]

Depends on the situation I suppose. I didn't go to school in Montreal so I don't know the classroom condition, but from what I hear what the teachers ask is not unreasonable.

The Ottawa transit worker union on the other hand are down right ridiculous when they strike asking for even more pay, ability to choose own work hour (so they can rack up overtime pay) etc. And there's the autoworker's union...

[ChrisR]

In the case of teachers it's slightly unusual because you're paid from public taxes but I really think the union has to watch out because if they ask for more money at a time when the government needs to pay back massive debts and taxes are already going to go up to pay for that then they risk serious alienation from the general public. I don't know the history of your dispute in Montreal but I'd say you should certainly strike if you feel that you are being treated unfairly, when compared to other similar public-sector workers. But think of the wider picture and don't support strike action if you feel that the union is just self-aggrandizing and making unfair demands.

Since the recession there's been a big increase in UK unions (especially transport unions) calling strikes for better conditions or higher pay and, while I'd defend their right to strike to beat injustice, it really upsets me to see people on good salaries asking for +5% while many ordinary people are being laid off or having pay freezes and cuts, just so their businesses can survive the hard times.

Just my 2c :rolleyes:

[skcusloa]

$250 A DAY! I'd eat excrement sandwiches all day and smile for that much. I don't know what they could be doing to 30,000 people to make them that upset. I'm a skilled laborer, I fix cars, everything from squeeks and rattles, check engine lights, to installing engines and transmissions. Most I have ever made is $900 in a week and I think I worked 6 days, that's after taxes. It sounds like I need to move to canada. Your money is worth more than ours now too...

[tonydahose]

i am all for unions but it is a bad time to strike...if i were in charge of any union i would try to get a tiny raise if possible, keep health care at the same rate and only sign maybe a 2-3 year contract and hopefully the economy will be better by then but alas, i am not in charge of anything..lol..it is probably for the better :D .

[flipe8]

It's ok not to agree with every issue your union is presenting, but there are mostly likley issues you hold as important that are of no interest to other members of your union. You have to present a united front or failure is pretty much a given. You're not likely to turn down any benefits your union succeeds in getting for you just because they don't apply to you, are you? Our local has walked on picket lines for other unions on strike and we're not allowed to strike, but I believe in showing support when it's needed.
I feel strikes should be the last thing a union resorts to, but there are times when they're forced into a corner with few , if any, options.
Support your union when it asks you for that support.

[jimbo@stn24]

It's ok not to agree with every issue your union is presenting, but there are mostly likley issues you hold as important that are of no interest to other members of your union. You have to present a united front or failure is pretty much a given. You're not likely to turn down any benefits your union succeeds in getting for you just because they don't apply to you, are you? Our local has walked on picket lines for other unions on strike and we're not allowed to strike, but I believe in showing support when it's needed.
I feel strikes should be the last thing a union resorts to, but there are times when they're forced into a corner with few , if any, options.
Support your union when it asks you for that support.

Well said flipe. It's going to be an ugly bargain for us coming up and most of the issues the company is making an issue of, is chicken feed, especially when you consider the fantastic profits of the energy sector. Our oil company would like to win even more wage concessions despite posting 1.2 billion in earnings during the first 1/4 of 2010. Somehow when I pay my heating bill, I don't think I need to chip in an extra grand here and there to help float the outfit and shoot for 1.3 in profit next quarter for the privledge of working.

Before anyone thinks they need to take a run at me, our union isn't asking for anything more than our old contract, and the marginal increase won by the national bargaining commmitee last fall, and agreed to by most other oil outfits (which isn't even the cost of living).

[yablanowitz]

I live in a state with right to work laws for a reason. When the union says "Strike!" you just have to remember that while you are out there on the picket line, you can be replaced by a button that doesn't work either.

I personally feel that a century ago unions served a need. Today they serve a greed. I had to laugh when a former Union carpenter was telling me how he was making $27.00 an hour (back in the 80's that was a lot) until all the work dried up. Duh. When you have to pay that kind of money for someone with that little skill (they guy was dumber than a bag of hammers), you can't afford to build.

$250 a day? I'd have to work 14 hours a day to pull that kind of money, assuming my boss would let me. Do you have any idea what it would take to get me to go on strike if I was making that much? I don't. I'd tell the union to buzz off. And since we have the right to work here, I could get away with it.

[jimbo@stn24]

I live in a state with right to work laws for a reason.

$250 a day? I'd have to work 14 hours a day to pull that kind of money, assuming my boss would let me. Do you have any idea what it would take to get me to go on strike if I was making that much? I don't. I'd tell the union to buzz off. And since we have the right to work here, I could get away with it.

Yab you have a point. However, in Canada, $250 buys a different amount of goods than $250 in America. Where I live there is no shortage of examples of Canucks buying far more in America than in Canada with the same dollars.

You seem like the kind of man that does a good job. What happens when someone can do your job for 75% of what you charge? And then the next individual undercuts that price by some percentage? How low can you go and still live and afford the niceities of living, such as buying knives?

Wouldn't be much fun living would it if the lowest price is what determines the quality of life. And that is what drives my age old maxim,

"No one chisels me on payday, there's no reason I need to chisel you out of fair pay". To me fair pay allows me to buy a modest house and take my family on a vacation and afford a few nice things for them and to educate them properly. I'm not asking for much.

[flash900]

Do you like your pay and benefits?

How do you think you got them? Because someone thought you're cute? Or because you're a member of a union that fought and won a decent pay and benefits.

Your union has a legal obligation to support you.

And if you are a union member, you have an obligation to support it, your brothers and sisters -- and yourself.

Good luck -- and best wishes!

[psimonl]

Some of your toughts really made me thinking...

As for the 250.00$ a day, it's true, but I only get to work 9 months a year. That means for a day, I get a 1.25 work day cut.

And yes, my 250.00, as an exemple, can only buy a Mili and a D4 in a brick and mortar store. Or 2 regular winter tires for my 2010 Toyota. Or 1 week of groceries for 2. That means 350.00 give or take for my family of 4.

as for my position on the Union, well, I kinda should'have go. I know we, here in Quebec, are over taxed under paid, but we made choices as a society. When my boy came to birth, his mother had the ability to have 2 years off to take care of him with only a small money cut. If a member of my familly get sick, I know we won't have to worry about hospital bills. If we loose our jobs, we won't have to sell our house, If we go get some special pills prescribed by the doctor, we know we will be reimbursed.... I could go on...

No, all these don,t come from my Union, but my Union exist because of the choices we made.


Feel free to add more thoughts because they really help me thinking about this situation....

Simon

[yablanowitz]

Yab you have a point. However, in Canada, $250 buys a different amount of goods than $250 in America. Where I live there is no shortage of examples of Canucks buying far more in America than in Canada with the same dollars.

You seem like the kind of man that does a good job. What happens when someone can do your job for 75% of what you charge? And then the next individual undercuts that price by some percentage? How low can you go and still live and afford the niceities of living, such as buying knives?

Wouldn't be much fun living would it if the lowest price is what determines the quality of life. And that is what drives my age old maxim,

"No one chisels me on payday, there's no reason I need to chisel you out of fair pay". To me fair pay allows me to buy a modest house and take my family on a vacation and afford a few nice things for them and to educate them properly. I'm not asking for much.

When I find someone who can do my job as well as I can for 75% of what I get paid, I'll hire him myself. I'm not too worried there. My job is work. Real work. Creeping socialism has seen to it that people willing to do real work are a vanishing breed. And if I wasn't as good as I am, I wouldn't be making near as much as I am. No union negotiated that for me, I got in there and made my boss want to pay me more to keep me around by being very good at what I do. That is where I get irked at the whole union concept. Where is the incentive to excell? Why should the employer care about an individual worker if the union saddles him with a dozen mediocre workers for every good one? Especially if union rules require that he pay all those workers the same whether they are outstanding, average or incompetent.

When the concept of unions came about, they were desperately needed. In this age of instant global communication, I seriously doubt those kind of conditions could even occur today, let alone persist long enough to become a general problem. Today it seems every time I hear about some union workers going on strike, they are already making two or three times what I do, and they're whining because it isn't enough.

I can afford a few niceties because I do without others. I live within my means. My new car is a 1995 model with just over 130,000 miles on it. Sure it's beat up and ugly, but it runs and it's paid for. Other people here wouldn't be caught dead driving it, but they usually have to plan their budget for months to buy a $200 knife. I can do that on a whim if the mood takes me.

[Sequimite]

Just wanted to say that I have a number of friends who teach. Those I know at the high school level have Masters degrees (a six or seven year investment) and they all work incredibly long hours, albeit for 9 months a year, and are involved in continuing their own training year 'round. As a businessman, I've hired a number of teachers for office management positions, where they were able to use their skills to make more money than they could teaching. For the hours they put in $50,000 a year ($250 a day for 9 months) is not an exorbitant amount IMO.

[sarguy]

Depending on what the issues were that caused the strike, I can understand not wishing to participate. Whether you ought to go and support your work-mates, I guess it depends on an assessment of how these issues might affect you in the long run. If for some reason, the union is not covering your lost wages, even tho they are obliged to, I would rather do more constructive things with my time than provide free pr to an organization I'm paying to be my advocate.

I get the idea of banding together for to ensure "fair" pay and benefits. However, I cannot stand the use of unions for influence peddling and political gain. There are some businesses in this region that ended up failing because the union demanded more than the business could support, and my observations were that the unrest was caused by people looking to justify their continued existence, not people looking out for the best interest of the workers.
When I was a corrections officer we were union, but the union rep was so apathetic and crooked, we fired the union and made a guild. Not only did it keep our dues local, but it made a lot of us who didn't agree with union "endorsements" of political players whom we opposed rather happy.

As always, just my two cents. YMMV. Hug the family and have fun working in your yard.

[flash900]

My union (a unit of the Newspaper Guild and the Communications Workers of America) is democratically run. We abide by what our members want.

As for so-called influence peddling, we don't contribute to individual candidates.

I'm one of the members who convinced us years ago to stop contributing.

Now, I believe we need to start again. Courtesy of the Supreme Court, big business can throw an unlimited amount of cash at any elected official who dares to oppose them.

I've never been very political, but it's clear that workers need someone to stand up for us.

[*Cho*]

You must know that usually, in our country, when a Union go on strike, people don't lose Salary because the Union pays for lost revenues, but mine, even though they haven't been on strikes for the past 10 YEARS, they didn't keept any money for a situation like this.... And I have to pay 30.00$ a week to them...

in BC our teachers have striked a lot because the Prov. Government is always cutting their budgets and hand cuffing them. Education and Essential Services are always the first budgets slashed. The Prov. Government has done some pretty shady stuff in the past such as stating there isn't enough money in the budget to give to Education yet found enough to give themselves raises. Also in BC the teachers who strike only make $50 a day of strike pay. If you don't strike, you don't get paid. As for not losing salary I do not think that is very accurate. My mom is a teacher so I will have to ask her about that.

I am neither Pro or Con for unions and strikes. It really depends on the reasoning and the motives behind the strikes. The reason BC teachers continuously strike is because 1) Class size limits continue to grow which make it extremely hard to provide children with a strone education since the larger the class the less individual time a teacher can spend with the students, 2) Special need assitances are being let go all the time which greatly affects the learning ability of children suffering from learning deficits who require a lot more attention and personalized learning plans, 3) An increase in wages to match the growning standard of living costs.

Similar to Nursing, a part of a teachers job is advocacy. Specifically advocating for those who can't properly advocate for themselves. In this case that would be children. Advocating for ones own rights and the rights of others is the only reason to strike in my opinion.

The government doesn't give a crap about cutting education funds because 1) they can afford to send their children to better private schools in order to get a fuller education and 2) by the time these kids grow up to take the reins they'll be long retired.

Unions can be good and unions can bad, it really depends on who is running them and how corrupt they are. Do they miss-manage funds due to ignorance or are they only there to benefit themselves. Or is the union leader doing a terrific job and actually protecting everyone's rights...this makes or breaks the union.

As for your specific situation, if you support what they are trying to do you should support the cause. If you don't support the cause that is totally fine in my opinion too. If you don't support it you can always try to produce the changes you feel are more beneficial. It is kinda like voting, you vote for the prime minster / president you want but if that person doesn't win you can still push for the changes you feel are necessary to be implemented.

[*Cho*]

If you are a union member, you have an obligation to support it, your brothers and sisters -- and yourself.

Good luck -- and best wishes!

No offense but that statement is semi bunk. A person might feel pressured to support the union but there is no obligation specifically to the union. If there is any obligation it is to support what is best for the union members as a whole even if that goes against what the union is pushing for.

Not all unions work the way they should and not all unions work they way they did. As numerous people have stated, myself included, a lot of unions have grown corrupt or become miss-managed along their life span. To support this would not benefit anyone in the long run.

To support something because you are told to is the action of a stupid person / sheep. To critical think about issues and evaluate your own values/morals in regards to these issues is what people should do. If you find you do not support the issues then that creates room for change and improvement. At the very least it should open up a dialogue. If you find that you already support the issue at least you'll have a legitimate rational for doing so.

[flash900]

No offense but that statement is semi bunk. A person might feel pressured to support the union but there is no obligation specifically to the union. If there is any obligation it is to support what is best for the union members as a whole even if that goes against what the union is pushing for.

Not all unions work the way they should and not all unions work they way they did. As numerous people have stated, myself included, a lot of unions have grown corrupt or become miss-managed along their life span. To support this would not benefit anyone in the long run.

To support something because you are told to is the action of a stupid person / sheep. To critical think about issues and evaluate your own values/morals in regards to these issues is what people should do. If you find you do not support the issues then that creates room for change and improvement. At the very least it should open up a dialogue. If you find that you already support the issue at least you'll have a legitimate rational for doing so.

In a democratically-run union such as the one I belong to, members have many chances to express opinions, run for office and make changes.

I've served on our executive board; I doubt there's anyone who would accuse me of failing to think critically, of doing something because I was told to, or of being a sheep.

I've had many disagreements with our leadership, including a recent contract in which our members voted to take pay cuts from new owners who are profitable and say they expect to be more so.

That hurts. But, in the end, I am better off by far with union representation than without.

I previously worked at a non-union company. No matter how long you've been employed, workers there can be fired for any reason -- or none at all.

The company made millions and bragged (privately, of course) about its cheap workers. They wouldn't buy enough chairs for all the employees to sit on. I saw one employee ask for a raise, and the boss gave him one -- after taking it away from someone he had already given one to, but who he apparently didn't like as much.

The many benefits that I still have are due to my brothers and sisters who came before me and who fought for those rights.

After much critical thinking, I will continue to support them, my colleagues -- and myself.

If that seems like bunk to you, I guess I'll just have to live with that.