Nick
February 5, 2012 / 19:35

That's not gravy, that's practical and necessary for the citizens of Toronto.

Rick C in Oakville
February 5, 2012 / 20:43

I would call it a good strategic move, the $20,000 would be saved the first day of the strike/lockout with the wages not paid. The unions are having the tables turned on them this time around, and they don't like it.

Rob
February 6, 2012 / 11:27

There needs to be balance between unions and businesses. It seems in the 90's the union got extremely fat and now it seems we're shifting in the other direction using tough times are public pressure to break unions down. My father owns a non union electrical company so I have always been aware the negative impact that unions could have. In the case of the electrical union the inability to hire who you want, the difficulty in getting workers to work extra and having pay a bum the same salary as a hard worker.

That being said, government and corporations have to take some responsibility opposed to putting all the blame on "fat" unions. A friend of mine worked for an American automaker on the assembly line. He told me that the suits wanted quantity over quality...they wanted a certain amount of cars produced at any cost. My friend told me that they would send cars missing parts through, cars that were incomplete in many ways were sold to customers. As we've seen a few years ago, American automakers took great hits in large part because their cars were terrible in comparison to foreign ones. Now their employee's are losing their pensions because of the fault of management. Yes, assembly line workers shouldn't be making that much money...but that wasn't the reason for decline of the American car.
Unions don't need to be destroyed just refined to hold workers more accountable. There should always be risk of losing their jobs if they underperform regularly with mortgaging the government/business to get rid of them.

They also don't need to be blamed 100% of the current financial trouble when many of them can be attributed to mismanagement.
Let's not forget that governments/corporations want to pay their employee's as little as possible and will say anything to increase their profits. That is why all our products are built in China in buildings with suicide nets around them. Governments/Corporations don't give much shit about the little guy.

What do I know though, just a $15 an hour non union worker ;)

Irvine
February 6, 2012 / 11:48

Sorry but it is not the concept of unions but their execution and the hostility of management to unions (in North America).

Germany is a country thats in better fiscal and economic shape than the rest of the western world. When you consider it literally absorbed a 2nd world country (East Germany) it makes it feat even more amazing. It has no natural resources either. It is heavily unionized. Sweden is much the same. Union rates in Sweden are in the 90% range yet the country has stable finances and is a leader in technology. Germany is the same an is a leader in renewable energy

Difference is in those countries unions and management work together. In North America its a pissing match of he said she said. Thats why we fail.

Cheryl
February 6, 2012 / 16:51

Well, I'm not a union lover. I can say that much. Strikes hurt the public. I know there was a long one in 2009, but this one would have been a lot worse as it would affect snow clearing and no snow clearing could mean harder for people such as delivery trucks to get around. Let's just hope it gets accepted. Go Habs.

Romy
February 7, 2012 / 07:44

Excellent summation by Irvine.

Icarus
February 7, 2012 / 08:57

...and a vacuous opinion piece unsupported by facts from Cheryl.

Liz
February 7, 2012 / 09:45

Icarus echoes the sentiment of a great many of us.

Cambo
February 7, 2012 / 13:16

Well said, Irvine. Exactly the problem here.