Garbage Strike - Give Me a Break

[realthing69]

To put this in prespective would any terb members giveup a part of their pay package without a fight?

Sure I took a 10% pay cut.....this meant no more hobbying for me

Nobody in our Toronto office liked it but it potentially meant preventing further layoffs.

At some point the pay cuts will take a toll (if there were more) and at that point it would makes sense to look for another job preferably in a stable industry/environment.

In our company, the executives including the CEO were the first to take the hit before anybody else. They took a 15% pay cut and forgo their bonus and compensations for the year. After 6 months, when that wasn't enough the rest of the employees took the 10% and management took 15% and layoffs.

 

[Toke]

YES we'd be going back that's what the city is trying to do gut a contract. The workers are trying to just hold onto what they have. Your all whinning you don't get sick days maybe you should join a union and negiotate some
I get 24 some get 5 others get 18 and the list goes on. Not every city employee is going to retire at the same time or year, actually I heard lst night that the city has a younger work force not sure what that meant for sure.
Most people I know don';t retire early with there sick days tehy take them with them

Cause that's what they're for.....

Rather than getting fair wages and conditions, their purpose has shifted to over-compensation.

In theory, having sick days is a nice idea, but let's be frank; it's a benefit. More so than health or dental. Having 18 days to be 'sick' is very gracious. Wanting to bank them is just plain greedy.

 

[Mao Tse Tongue]

YES we'd be going back that's what the city is trying to do gut a contract. The workers are trying to just hold onto what they have. Your all whinning you don't get sick days maybe you should join a union and negiotate some

No you see I work for myself so I don't need a union. It's called "keeping myself competitive". I can't stand the union mentality and all that it breeds. I support unions in things like unsafe job conditions and as a stop gap against rapacious capitalism. But I don't support most of what unions do, which is protect laziness and ineptitude and insulate workers from job realities that the rest of the population must grapple with. Sucking on the tit of Daddy Union just makes people hostile to change. No thanks.

 

[buckwheat1]

Train- most people wher eI work tke the sick day sif they are sick there have been occassions when it has been abused nad teh employeer will ask for a dr note which costs $35.00. the employeer asked for it so tehy paid it out of petty cash. Listen I could go to my dr right now and say I'm under greta stress at work and home can i have anote for 2 weeks of and dr would give it to me and employeer cannot say one word but then again I'm a worker I have over 300 sick days banked. YES I do come to work

 

[Mao Tse Tongue]

Train- most people wher eI work tke the sick day sif they are sick there have been occassions when it has been abused nad teh employeer will ask for a dr note which costs $35.00. the employeer asked for it so tehy paid it out of petty cash. Listen I could go to my dr right now and say I'm under greta stress at work and home can i have anote for 2 weeks of and dr would give it to me and employeer cannot say one word but then again I'm a worker I have over 300 sick days banked. YES I do come to work

Dude you need to go back to school for writing and editing. Maybe some "retraining" is in order.

 

[realthing69]

No you see I work for myself so I don't need a union. It's called "keeping myself competitive". I can't stand the union mentality and all that it breeds. I support unions in things like unsafe job conditions and as a stop gap against rapacious capitalism. But I don't support most of what unions do, which is protect laziness and ineptitude and insulate workers from job realities that the rest of the population must grapple with. Sucking on the tit of Daddy Union just makes people hostile to change. No thanks.

I agree with Mao...it's too bad that a small handful of "lazy" members gives a bad image to the rest of the hard working members. It's like a "bad seed" infecting the entire group. The small handful take sick days as vacation, the others see this happening so "Hey, that's not fair, so I'll do that too". Thus management/union reps. decide to create an incentive to prevent this from happening.

 

[oldjones]

This singular statement is indicative of how what the basic problem is. Some people somewhere along the line have lost the basic ability to reason. This is perhaps the dumbest statement that I've seen in this whole debate.

This is an example of union sickness squared. In effect you should be paid for your work and on top of that you should be paid extra for showing up. How twisted is that?

Do you honestly think that the outrageous sick day allowance hasn't collectively raised the total labour cost to the city by 4% over the basic average of 5 or 6 paid sick days that most people get?

I've reduced the sputtering, no-content stuff in size. It's just silly invective that contributes zero.

Think it out: Sick or not it's an unworked day. Banked or taken it's the same unworked day, so it costs the employer the same. So "…the outrageous sick day allowance" is no more expensive than sick days taken by real sick people. And sick days do get taken, even "…the basic average of 5 or 6 paid sick days that most people get"—unsupported assertion that doesn't apply to any of the industries I've worked in] whether people are sick or not. That's why banking of sick days was popular in management circles, no filling in with OT guys at the last minute and no increased cost.

Trouble is, like your buddies in GM management, city white collars weren't competent to do the elementary math and put aside the funds to cover the banked days they'd contracted to pay for. So now they're bleating "Unfunded liability!" as if this was all an ambush, and hoodwinking gullible types into going along with the "it's all the unions' fault" party line.

So here's my answer to your simplistic question. Whether or not most people get 5or 6 days sick leave w/ pay, then what has raised the total labour cost above that is giving city workers 18 days. But we might as well claim everyone gets a month and trumpet lower city costs. Your initial number's entirely notional and arbitrary.

So you can talk about that, and spare our ire-addled brain the arithmetic of bankable days. What is fair sick leave, when will we all get it and how will we deal with employer-employee deals that contract for better? And when one side is trying to welch?

But any way it's diced up, the reality is supposedly competent and very well paid management negociators put their best case forward years ago and signed a contract with this stuff in it. Then they didn't fund what they'd agreed to pay. And now they're saying the workers must give those things up, because of their incompetence.

And the reason-challenged, and envious are buying that malarkey.

 

[blackrock13]

When someone uses term like 'gutting contracts' and 'we fought hard for this and we're not giving it up' I only see selfishness and a tendency for exaggeration.

Nobodies gutting a contract. They're changing some parts. How many pages is the contract written on? How many paragraphs are in the contract? How many points are not being changed. Nobody is 'gutting ' anything. You just get tagged by some people as a union mouthpiece who doesn't think for himself.

Telling people you won't give anything back just tells people you're out for yourself. To hell with others who gave up somethings; hours, wages benefits, and the like to keep working.
Ken Lawenza of the CAW sounded so stupid when he uttered those words because everybody knew he'd have to eat them really soon AND he did. I heard Mr Moist, the CUPE national president say the same thing. Maybe he should brush his teeth

If I want this and that, why don't I join a union. Well, tell me why union membership and a part of the workforce has gone steadily down? I don't have the numbers but someone does. The union are desperately trying to keep up numbers by canvassing work forces they wouldn't think of years ago.

I was a member of one of the 'biggies' years back and learned that the union is your buddy as long as your paying dues. If you're not, you're fly dust. They do nothing for the out of work person. Way too many unions base their existence on confrontation and far too often where there is none, they make some. People are seeing their true colours and they are being as less relevant to todays business world. Adaptation in today's business is not more important than ever and adapting is not what union do well.

 

[buckwheat1]

gutting a contract - both sides have agreed the city has over 100 pages of concessions, that's called gutting any way you look at it. Contracts can be anywhere from 5 -100 pages depending on the industry.

 

[blackrock13]

No you see I work for myself so I don't need a union. It's called "keeping myself competitive". I can't stand the union mentality and all that it breeds. I support unions in things like unsafe job conditions and as a stop gap against rapacious capitalism. But I don't support most of what unions do, which is protect laziness and ineptitude and insulate workers from job realities that the rest of the population must grapple with. Sucking on the tit of Daddy Union just makes people hostile to change. No thanks.

Holy smoke MTT, mark this day on you calender. I agree with you 100%.

I too am self-employed. If I do good work, I keep working, the money comes in and I pay my bills. That's my job security. I have my own medical and disability plans and the money spent have been paid back in full the couple of times I've claimed over many years.

If I screw up, it's my responsibility and maybe won 't be be working for that client soon. I go elsewhere. I've been doing this long enough so I must be doing something right.

Again I agree with you.

 

[blackrock13]

Train- most people wher eI work tke the sick day sif they are sick there have been occassions when it has been abused nad teh employeer will ask for a dr note which costs $35.00. the employeer asked for it so tehy paid it out of petty cash. Listen I could go to my dr right now and say I'm under greta stress at work and home can i have anote for 2 weeks of and dr would give it to me and employeer cannot say one word but then again I'm a worker I have over 300 sick days banked. YES I do come to work

Maybe he needs less time on his 'crackberry' or needs to breath more slowly.

 

[thewalker]

No you see I work for myself so I don't need a union. It's called "keeping myself competitive". I can't stand the union mentality and all that it breeds. I support unions in things like unsafe job conditions and as a stop gap against rapacious capitalism. But I don't support most of what unions do, which is protect laziness and ineptitude and insulate workers from job realities that the rest of the population must grapple with. Sucking on the tit of Daddy Union just makes people hostile to change. No thanks.

I totally agree with that, I worked at the U of T library system while going to school, and the CUPE full-timers there were some of the fattest, whiniest, laziest, useless slobs I've ever seen who thought they were entitled to everything in return for nothing.

 

[healer677]

Last night I put out my little green bin and my gigantic blue bin and at 8 am the trucks came -POOF -garbage gone. Thank God I live in Etobicoke, but I do feel bad for the taxpaying public in Toronto being held hostage by these unions.

 

[buckwheat1]

thats management NO protection your choice, these are union works and they need prtectiona s one can see now

 

[guelph]

Sure I took a 10% pay cut.....this meant no more hobbying for me

Nobody in our Toronto office liked it but it potentially meant preventing further layoffs.

At some point the pay cuts will take a toll (if there were more) and at that point it would makes sense to look for another job preferably in a stable industry/environment.

In our company, the executives including the CEO were the first to take the hit before anybody else. They took a 15% pay cut and forgo their bonus and compensations for the year. After 6 months, when that wasn't enough the rest of the employees took the 10% and management took 15% and layoffs.

In your case Executives lead the way.

Could I ask you is this a permanent cut? What will happen when things turn around?

 

[Toke]

But I don't support most of what unions do, which is protect laziness and ineptitude and insulate workers from job realities that the rest of the population must grapple with.

This is why I state that I dislike unions. The feeling of entitlement that the workers get because 'Big Daddy' is in the back ready with litigation should their bosses actually ask them to do something, poisons the punch. I believe that everyone is entitled to work and fair pay, but when it gets to the point of laziness, fiend illness, and the other.....

Not to say that every union member is like that. But would it be wrong to assume that the 'hard workers' are somewhat looked down upon because the 'lazies' feel that they're being made to look bad? Unions are great as long as the vast majority of the workers don't abuse the system/contract in place. Sadly this is not the case and therefore every member must suffer. However, it's those who don't abuse the system that will have a better chance (actually it's not a chance; it's work ethic) to keep their jobs in light of not being protected.

I'm not a huge fan of a Capitalist system, but does anyone but me find it funny that in such a system, which is fueled by competition, many faucets of society are not. Not to get too far off topic, but with all the 'babying' being done through unions, and government support, isn't that kinda anit-capitalist?

 

[blackrock13]

gutting a contract - both sides have agreed the city has over 100 pages of concessions, that's called gutting any way you look at it. Contracts can be anywhere from 5 -100 pages depending on the industry.

A 100 pages of concessions? I'd like to know is that 2 concessions that take a 100 pages to explain or a couple of thousands that are one liners/no brainers. Curious minds want to know.

Just to answer my own earlier question, union membership in Canada for all civilian workers amounts to approximately 26 % and it's been at that number the last 10 years (the length of the survey), read stagnant. The top 10 unions in the country account for approximately 55% of the total union membership. That's a lot of power in very few leaders hands.; Moist and Lawenza are two of those leaders If being in a union is so great why the stagnation in numbers.

 

[buckwheat1]

TOKE- you state that most union workers are lazy so lets look at some, teachers, policemen, firemen, these are just a few of the public employees that belong to a union or association. There are also some lawyers ect and many otheres I call tehm lazy!!!

 

[Nefari]

Actually, I changed my mind. I think having uneducated, fat slobs making 50K+++ is good for the economy.

 

[blackrock13]

TOKE- you state that most union workers are lazy so lets look at some, teachers, policemen, firemen, these are just a few of the public employees that belong to a union or association. There are also some lawyers ect and many otheres I call tehm lazy!!!

I may regret this someday, but Buckwheat you're right. Toke went of the rail when he said most, I'll stand by him and say 'way too many' are,and they're too damn hard to get rid of.