Garbage Strike - Give Me a Break

[realthing69]

How do workers hold an employer hostage when the employer's telling them that's the rate, take it or take a hike? Isn't she making the hostages sign the Pirate's Code or walk the plank? In any case, all I'm suggesting is you're gonna be faced with upward wage pressure pretty fast if you're depending on staffing with people better than their rate—and that was the premise. You'll either lose them and have to operate at less than design, which is how we get to :"you get what you pay for" or you'll have to bargain with them and pay more. Talk nice, get nice, Talk tough, get union.

What you want to do if you choose to offer sickdays is make your workplace desireable to workers. Banking potentially encourages workers to show up, because they collect sickleave at retirement, and you don't have to shuffle their work around when they phone in. Take away banking, and they'll wanna stay home. Treat them like white-collar—is that what you mean by salaried?—and how do you handle abusers? By what rules and standards, and if they differ by collar class, why not just keep the sick days?

It's easy, just design a system that keeps sick people home and encourages well people to show up without creating unfairnesses that encourage people to 'pay themselves'. But when you do, it's gonna be part of employer-employee talks and there'll always be those.

See first paragraph.

I guess "hostage" is too strong a word...

"Walking the plank", "take it or leave it" sounds a bit extreme...the employee is more than welcome to remain with the employer or to quit and get the pay that he/she feels he/she deserves somewhere else. The employee has a choice. In this case, the picketers make it sound like they're forced by society to do these jobs. The "negotiating" tactics being used seems to be, make my employer's life difficult by preventing customers to buy things, suppliers or other employees to come in a do their jobs. Specifically to garbage collection, make the public's life unbearable (garbage piling up) thus in turn putting pressure on government to resolve it quickly. They don't even allow citizens (doing their job) bringing in their own garbage into the garbage site.

Gosh knows what would happen if the city of Toronto decided to go with private garbage collection. I'm pretty sure CUPE wouldn't just sit back and do nothing...

Anyways, getting tired of this topic for now, enjoyed debating with you oldjones!

 

[blackrock13]

Holly cripes!!!

I just heard an interview with the national CUPE president trying to explain the unions position. He calls the sick-day banking a 'severance' for when they retire or leave. 'A whole lot of other people get it' and it's been an excepted clause in the union contract for 'decades'. He said a whole lot of other unions working for the city got stuff including bank days, so why can't we.

He did say stuff I did agree with ie, 'the councillors got 3% so why not us?' If the city councillors gave back their 3% I might think about it., but we know that's not going to happen.

The bankable days are severance, horse shit.

A friend of mine just told me that when Etobicoke was looking for tender for their service, CUPE came in ultra low but Halliday smelled a rat and excepted the Turtle Island contract offer. You think he knew something. Maybe he should run for mayor. Unfortunately too many brown-nosers don't like him because he calls it straight.

 

[buckwheat1]

LCBO gets a deal - no strike

 

[blackrock13]

LCBO gets a deal - no strike

Yah !!!! Now do I take back empties or look for a refund on all the stuff I bought Monday. Well it won't go bad.

 

[someone]

I repeat, you took one word, repeated it 15+ times, and keep beating it like a drum. 'Learn something' is your case is actually the opposite of learning. It's the most daft for of a religious mantra. YOU WANT ME BELIEVE IN THE RELIGION OF YOUR BRAND OF 'NOT HARD SCIENCE'. And then you cast aspersions when a person doesn't agree, or emerges as a product of the system with some notion a sane economics that produces societies you'd actually want to live in.

Again, when you talk something thing you know absolutely nothing about, your opinion is worthless.

I The simple truth is that the overarching brand of economics you adhere to has fallen out of favour. Fallen out of the favour with most governments, even more people (who never much favoured it in the fist place), and with such far left entities as the heads of the IMF. Cling to your religion, beat a drum, and call me a liar. Meanwhile, in the real world your religion is dying. It's dying precisely because of the notion of a neoliberal economics as a 'pure science'. It's dying because of people like you. Like the joke, "Schools run better without children", neoliberal economics (or whatever umbrella term you want) as a 'pure science' works better without humans. (Which was the ultimate failure of communism as well.)

Why do you insist on advertising your ignorance? As I said before, you neither have any idea as to what what the different types of economics are or what “brand” I favour. You just make yourself foolish by continuing lying about knowing either. I don’t know if you really are as ignorant as you claim or if you are just a troll trying to get a reaction.

Boutros-Ghali, "In [the] future, [the IMF] should vary its policy recipes… I want an institution that is more involved not only as a global policeman but as a global witchdoctor." Oddly enough, that is the pragmatic view that repeats. It's a call for context, compassion, and holism. Indeed, in places that practised the above (without the IMF) have actually produced robust growth over the long term AND societies you'd want to live in. It's not that there aren't valuable lessons to be learnt from a 30+ year experiment, it's just that people like you are incapable of learning. You prefer religiosity (the economic segment of neoliberalism as a hard science), casting aspersions, and name calling. So, for the 3rd (and final) time sod off.

Again, you are upset that I pointed out that you lied about your background and instead of facing that you bring up a completely unrelated issue. Given that this issue has nothing to do with our discussion, and given that you have no clue about economics either in general or specifically with regard to my work, I can only conclude that you are a troll, who wants to get a reaction out of me to get even for espousing your ignorance. Get life.

Edit: The regulars (at least those in the politics section who have read more of my posts) know your characterization of my views are bullshit and anyone who has read anything about economics knows your views on it are based on ignorance. Thus, all you are doing with your posts is making yourself look bad (no big deal on an anonymous broad but still there is nothing to gain from doing so). All you will get by continuing is to make yourself look bad.

 

[Mrbig1949]

Well said 'someone' the low tax hands off the wheel style of capitalism always ends up where we are now, in the ditch.

 

[Rockslinger]

If the garbage was going to a private contractor for less money do you think your taxes would go down?

Why don't we try it? Or, are the unions so afraid that it will only prove they are so easily replaceable? All we are saying is "give private contractors a chance".

 

[Rockslinger]

"You get what you pay for". Sure, we Jays fans know exactly what you mean. All we have to do is look at Vernon Wells everyday.

 

[JohnLarue]

CLUB69 - there are laws against it. IF teh garbage was going to a private contractor for less money do you think your taxes would go down? NOWAY they'd just shift that money onto something else

They would not go up, which is the big concern
Every single taxpayer is entitled to get value for their tax dollars & this excessive # of sick days is not good value.

I really do not care for the tactics of waiting for the summer to strike. It is clearly intended to piss off the people these social parasites work for & that is the taxpayer.

WHO WANTS A PARTNERSHIP WITH A GROUP THAT WOULD DO THAT?

They have a job for life paying a premium over comparable private sector work, yet this group wants to bleed the taxpayer dry.

Contract it out & let this greedy group find out what the real world is like

 

[Toke]

Here's my reply:

As with the York Strike, TTC strike, possible LCBO strike, and any other strike; it's the unions that have systematically raised the cost-of-living unproportionate to personal earnings over the years. Example: Cost to move garbage goes up; taxes go up (or something else gets cut); since we now lose some of our personal income (let's say as a TTC driver), we need a raise; cost to ride the TTC goes up; we need more money (as a passenger who has his garbage collected), so we go to our boss and get a raise; cost of groceries has got to go up to cover that too.... See where I'm going?

On the other hand, I believe that anyone whose paycheck is cut by the government (this goes for York since it recieves government funding) should not be able to strike. No, I am not currently part of the union, but if things go the way they appear to be going, I'll soon be a member of the most 'powerful' union in the province; Ontario Teachers. Even knowing this, I am not a union backer. I just think that although they have done many great things in the past to improve working conditions for all, they have run their course and are now just driving up costs beyond what most people can afford. Go ahead. Give the union what they want. Just remind them that we all (including them) will be paying for it two-fold in the very near future.

Check the sig....

P.S. To those who do collect our garbage. I don't care that you may or may not have gotten a shiny education. I appreciate the work you do, but let's all just take this thing into perspective. I don't pretend to be an economic whiz, but it's a simple case of 'personal economic carry-load' and raising the cost of service to the customer on the front end will only bite us all on the back-end.

 

[buckwheat1]

Toke - your union dues to the teachers union ( or one of them) is like malpractice insurance they'll be there if something happens to you, they have the best lawyers ect.

 

[guelph]

So I'm watching the news and if I have this right one of the things the union wants is the ability to bank 18 sick days per year which can be paid out on retirement? .

My understanding that is they have this right now. City wants to take it away.

This may seem excessive now but the deal was made a long time ago and not dealt with properly before this. Some people are very negative about this right now, management and politicians screwed the pooch on this for many years and want to take it away all once, no one will give up a part of thier pay package without a fight.

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

 

[oldjones]

…edit… I just think that although [unions] have done many great things in the past to improve working conditions for all, they have run their course and are now just driving up costs beyond what most people can afford.…edit…

That's the nub of every strike isn't it? We can assume everyone would like to get more for their work or product, in fact it's an axiom of economic theory which would entirely collapse if that weren't true, so that's a given, and no fault to strikers for it.

But there's always someone on the other end of the equation-to-be saying, "Can't afford it" whether they speak for shareholders or taxpayers. Or maybe it's a seller when you're demanding a twofer at that price.

Thing is "can't afford it is not axiomatic; it's an assertion about facts which may or may not be true and needs to be proven if it's to carry any weight.

Otherewise, like the guys who showed up on Monday at transfer stations—no one in the city even gets a pickup until Tuesday— because 'they couldn't keep their garbage a minute longer'—it's just very personal emotional response to not getting your way. Prove the case and even the union members (who also pay taxes and buy goods) will likely see the folly of trading good wages for a pttance of strike-pay.

As for unions having"… done many great things in the past,…[but] they have run their course ": The same could be said of so many institutions all of which we resent paying more for: police, public health commissions, fire departments, democracy, public education, medicare, but a moment's thought convinces that in all those areas there's more to be done and a real danger of losing the gains we've taken decades, even centuries to achieve. And it all costs. As soon as you say, "It's too much!", you owe us an answer to, "How much is too much, and why?"

If you want it at all, from garbage pickup at your door, to the right to govern yourself, you gotta take it all, including the messy bits, and pay the price in dollars and in brain sweat.

 

[oldjones]

My understanding that is they have this right now. City wants to take it away.

This may seem excessive now but the deal was made a long time ago and not dealt with properly before this. Some people are very negative about this right now, management and politicians screwed the pooch on this for many years and want to take it away all once, no one will give up a part of thier pay package without a fight.

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

Whether it'll actually save the city anything is also very dubious. Imagine you're a hardworking city employee who never gets sick, and your truck partner takes the max allowable days w/ pay every year. You don't care because when you get retired/quit/laid off the city's gonna pay you those unused sick days anyway. Your bosses don't care, those unworked days don't cost a penny more than if you'd taken them. In fact they're grateful they didn't have to scramble to find someone else (maybe on OT guy) to take your place when you called in sick.

But now the guys who never had to get the garbage collected have looked at all those banked days, and done the math and announced in the media that they've saved $250mill by taking the banked days away. And your driver still calls in sick and uses all his days. And you do the math: 18 days (rounding to 15's easier) is 3 worked weeks, that's 6% give or take. So buddy's getting the same pay as you for 6% less work. So don't you say what's the point of showing up even though I have a headache, or a runny-nose, or a hangnail? And do I give a FF if my boss hasta call in an OT guy everytime? Or keep a coupla guys on make-work just in case?

My bet is the city will find it's absenteeism rates go up.

My bet is also that the guys who never had to get the trash picked up will discover there was a cap on the banked days, but now that everyone's using them as they come, it's actually costing the city more. But their jobs will have been ensured by making this nice little pickle for even more guys like them to figure out.

Beats honest work.

 

[Mao Tse Tongue]

As for unions having"… done many great things in the past,…[but] they have run their course ": The same could be said of so many institutions all of which we resent paying more for: police, public health commissions, fire departments, democracy, public education, medicare, but a moment's thought convinces that in all those areas there's more to be done and a real danger of losing the gains we've taken decades, even centuries to achieve.

No, all forms of power and influence have a life cycle. Unions went from keeping the capitalist lords from raping workers to protecting workers from change, adaptation and innovation. They no longer function in the way they used to. We gave unions power when they needed it and they were fighting for worker's basic rights. Now they fight to keep jobs and benefits that no others in the free market enjoy for the same class of work. We all know it.

The question of whether it's on par with the other unionized jobs is fair, but it doesn't induce sympathy when ALL of these jobs are overpaid and addicted to benefits that have long passed in private sector jobs. I'd love ONE bankable sick day. That would be great! I'd love to have a job stocking shelves for $18 if I was useless enough to consider such a job.

The unions achieved their goals. I wouldn't argue for going back, but do you really think that's what's going on now? I don't think so. Just tell the public that if we didn't have these union thugs we'd all return to the slave shops of a century ago. Ummm, no...not really.

 

[train]

Whether it'll actually save the city anything is also very dubious. Imagine you're a hardworking city employee who never gets sick, and your truck partner takes the max allowable days w/ pay every year. You don't care because when you get retired/quit/laid off the city's gonna pay you those unused sick days anyway. Your bosses don't care, those unworked days don't cost a penny more than if you'd taken them. In fact they're grateful they didn't have to scramble to find someone else (maybe on OT guy) to take your place when you called in sick.

.

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?

 

[buckwheat1]

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

 

[buckwheat1]

Train I get 24 sick days, maybe they teh city should cut some days back say to 12 but don't gut it

 

[train]

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

Ok so, usuing this logic, you have no right to whine about CEO bonuses because they were all negotiated, right ?

The difference is buckwheat that every City of Toronto taxpayer has earned the right to whine about overpaid city employees because its their nickel that is paying for it. Everyone of them is entitled to complain.

 

[train]

Train I get 24 sick days, maybe they teh city should cut some days back say to 12 but don't gut it

Even 12 is a lot but I would have no problem paying you that if you are really sick. Bring a note from your doctor and, no problem, I'll pay you.

Sick days are sick days. If you want to negotiate retirement benefits call them retirement benefits. If you want to negotiate holidays call them holidays.

And people wonder how they could cut out $20 an hour from GM labour costa without touching wages