[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

Checkmate mother####er!

https://forum.calgarypuck.com/showpo...&postcount=945

Checkmate? It happened just as I said it did. I generally referred to keyboard warriors in a preceding post but you are the one who actually called yourself one. I didn’t call you one directly until you referred to yourself as one because I assumed you identified as one.

All in good fun of course. But to go back to the bolded point you made a couple days ago, what specifically do you want the general population to do to support you?

I already gave you an example of something very practical and impactful that you can do and also gave some reasoning for why it will be helpful. I’ll go into a little bit more detail below.

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

This is why it is so crucial to have the general public supporting Unions. When the government knows voters won’t forgive them for allowing a strike like that to occur and putting tens of thousands of workers at risk of losing their jobs for doing the right thing the government is going to be inclined to avoid doing so or to fix it quickly if they end up in that position. When private businesses know that customers won’t support them if they fire employees for partaking in this type of collective action they are less likely to do so and more likely to put pressure on the government to fix the problem so that their business isn’t affected. Win/win.

When Unions know that voters and customers have their backs they have more leverage to take on these fights with because the lower the risk of job loss the higher the likelihood is that members would be willing to roll the dice.

So if you really want this to happen you’d be best served by starting a public petition stating that the signees will support unions in their fight by committing to not buy products from any businesses that fire employees for supporting this fight and to vote out the UCP if they don’t fix both this problem and the labour code they gutted.

What has for me been incredibly frustrating while reading these posts is the lack of understanding of the longterm financial burden to unions that is being asked for and then hearing them be blamed for not doing enough by people whose historical lack of support for Unions is a big part of the reason why Unions don’t have more resources at their disposal to do what those folks want Unions to do for them now.

By lack of support I don’t mean having to be a Union member. It’s voting for and supporting parties that intentionally make it harder for Unions to do what they are supposed to be able to do and generally not being supportive of workers when they are in labour disputes where it is clear they aren’t being treated fairly by their employers.

It’s great that people finally seem to be starting to understand some of the benefits they can provide to the general public but you have to understand that after decades of few being supportive, members wrongfully being called lazy/entitled, or unions wrongfully being accused of only helping bad employees, there’s going to be some hesitation from unions to believe the public won’t leave them hanging high and dry to rebuild after this fight. Which is frankly probably something the UCP is hoping for.

That’s why it would be helpful to see the public actually take steps to show unions they will support them longterm by demonstrating in some way an actual commitment to refusing to support any unreasonably anti-union businesses and governments. Better legislation will give unions the ability to grow and waste less money on frivolous court challenges while doing so. Businesses fearing public backlash for anti-union tactics will inevitably lead to less money being spent by unions dealing with that nonsense. Both help workers get the help of a Union if they want that, but the added stability also puts unions in a better position to support and represent their members with less resources being spent, which gives them more resources to potentially put into what you’re asking them to do now.

I say this in general terms but talk is cheap. Put yourselves in the shoes of unions for a moment. Would you trust the voting public of Alberta to not vote in another anti-union government without them doing anything of substance to convince you first?

We're trying to tell you that we've got your back. The students are telling you that they've got your back. Of course there is huge risk here and we don't know how it will go. Do I really need to give you the speech from Braveheart?

If you and the majority of the public can do enough to convince Unions across the province that you’ve got their backs I’ll drive you up to the legislature building in Edmonton to give your speech because I’d love to hear it. I’ll even bring you a megaphone.