Quote:
Originally Posted by Slava
This is the part of your position that I can't understand. I get that there is a burden when you undertake this kind of action, but the other side of the coin is literally an existential threat to labour. If you can't collectively bargain, and public sector workers are going to be forced back to work with draconian legislation, that has to be far more concerning than the burden of a strike.
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How many public sector agreements are going to be open for bargaining and resolved between now and the next election? I don’t even know the answer to that question but it’s likely not all of them. Even if hypothetically speaking all of the public sector agreements were due for renewal, right now the only presumed risk they currently take is having a contract imposed on them in violation of the charter. No job losses, no fines, litigation costs, etc.
Mind you if the UCP were to ramp up the crazy and start using the notwithstanding clause to pass more bad laws or impose new contracts on groups that aren’t even open for bargaining or something similar to that then I’d agree with you that there’d be a much greater sense of urgency but that isn’t the case right now.
Getting the UCP voted out of office(or recalled out of a majority, which personally I think that’s a pipe dream) eliminates the threat without risking Union locals bankrupting themselves with fines and litigation, or having employees lose their jobs. A Union isn’t going to be able to perform their primary duty which is to represent their members if they can’t afford to pay for a lawyer when they need to.
As a financial advisor do you think it makes more sense for a Union to put themselves into a position where they risk spending(hypothetical numbers) $20million or more of their $40million war chest with no guarantee of getting the outcome they are hoping for only to then need to spend additional money that they may no longer have on PACs when the election roles around, or does it make more sense to spend the smaller amount of money on the PACs and then if those fail to make the change and then go to the extreme options? Keeping in mind the latter option also gives them the ability in the interim to increase their funds and work on getting more support from the public.