Thursday, June 01, 2006
i generally consider myself liberal in my views. i believe if any one group – the right or left is in power too long, it screws things up. for example in france, the left has created a socialist country that doesn't adapt. they have high unemployment and angry members of the right wing are joining nationalist groups and which are openly racist. on the other hand, if the right wing is in power too long, the general people suffer and there are uprisings – the french revolution.
anyways this is related to the illegal transit strike in toronto. the mayor is labour friendly and has fought for fair resolutions for the worker in labour disputes. i believe the mayor's attitude means that labour unions such as thettc's union are holding the public hostage with their demands. i think its time to elect a major who is a hardass on organized labour. after the work stoppage, david miller doesn't even have good rhetoric going. he says – they will try to recoup the costs from the union. oooh scary. if former police chief julian fantino was mayor (he might run), he would come out guns blazing – fire the workers.
i think a mayoral candidate who runs in this november's election with the platform of busting labour could score some major points with the toronto public. in my opinion the ttc employees who cause monday's disruption should all be fired. if i decided to deliberately and illegally cause a disruption that affected 700 000 customers, my employer would fire me. this is the case for most people. this is a moment to reflect on the wisdom that former u.s. president ronald reagan has contributed to how to handle illegal work disruptions.
i do not agree with this ttc strike, because there didnt seem to be motivation behind it. my opinion is that in most cases (clearly there are exceptions: think dofasco and procter and gamble), unions are very necessary for low skilled / unskilled workers. these people need a unified negotiation voice, or else we see what happens - think southern states and their "right to work" laws. it's horrible - for check out the poverty rates. you get companies that will dispose of workers because they can, as well as many other problems. low/semi-skilled work job flexibility and company leverage is very different from what we will encounter as professional workers.
bottom line. these people need unions, BUT a strike should be a very very last resort, after prolonged contract negotiations. This unfort doesn't appear to be the case with the ttc, which is why i don't support their strike. But on the other hand, in the case where people are justly trying to negotiate, I don't mind being inconvenienced if it is their last resort.
furthermore, firing large groups of people has very large repurcussions and communities pretty much never recover. this is akin to what happened when detroit and buffalo (etc) were "phased out" in deindustrialization, in favour of cheap non unionized labour in the south.
anyways that's long enough for me...
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