That's right, frankcastle. Apparently booboobear and millhouse don't understand. Let me try to lay it out, briefly and simply.
For starters, lets talk about the meaning of the term "civil servant." A civil servant works in the civil service. The civil service means the various professional branches of government administration. CUPE members are not involved in government administration. They are much farther down the food chain, meeting the public daily and providing services directly; picking up trash, for example, or looking after children at a public day care. They are NOT civil servants.
On to the OMERS bill. Simply, the OMERS bill proposes that workers in tough, dangerous occupations (police and firefighers, serving the public directly, NOT civil servants), should be able to retire earlier with better pension benefits than everybody else. Nice plan, but who's going to pay for it? Now, the pension benefits come from the worker's contributions, as well as profits the pension fund makes from investing the contributions.
Since all the workers throw their money into the same pot, more or less, CUPE wants assurances from the gov't (the 'employer'), that OMERS won't use CUPE members' money to pay for extra pensions for the police. The gov't can't give any assurances, and in fact the new law looks like it might allow for one group of workers to be EXPLOITED by the pension fund.
As if the gov't has some kind of RIGHT to EXPLOIT their employees, or something. What do b-bear and m-house think? Should employers be allowed to exploit and take advantage of the the people working for them? Would you allow your employer to exploit you? CUPE tried to discuss their concerns with the gov't, but the gov't wouldn't listen or pay any attention. With no other option available, CUPE finally said,"we will go on strike if the gov't can't assure us that we won't be exploited by the new gov't law."
To focus on the fact the strike might be illegal is moot; after all, for the gov't to pass a law that allows their employees to be exploited is, broadly speaking, illegal as well. So we see that the gov't was not willing to listen to employee's concerns about being exploited untill they were threatened with a strike.
As for people working at Wal-mart, yes they earn sub-par wages. Wal-mart workers have been forced to work overtime against their will, they work long hours without a break, and some aren't even allowed to go to the bathroom when the need to. As for benefits, people on welfare in Ontario have better dental and medical coverage than Wal-mart workers do. I'll bet they wish they DID have a union. But the last time a Wal-mart store voted for a union, the store got shut down. By the sounds of it, b-bear, you think this is the right way to go. Hey - the clothes at Wal-mart are likely made in sweatshops in China by workers who earn $30-$40 per month. Think about that the next time you shop there.
Finally, if it takes the threat of a massive stike, illegal or not, before the gov't is willing to listen to worker's concerns about being exploited, then that's a pretty good argument in favour of unions, I'd say.
