Idiot unions in Toronto

[Devils'Advocate]

Originally Posted by valo403

Right, the situation would just continue on as is because neither party would be fired. This isn't an argument for a union, it's an argument against negligent hiring.

Untrue. I had a case here where one of my own employees was accused of harassment. Apparently he had been leaving flowers and chocolates for a girl that had clearly told him that she was not interested. I spoke with the guy and I put it in no uncertain terms that if he did not cease with the inappropriate behaviour that I had no problems putting him up for disciplinary action. He had threatened to get his union rep, but I had already spoken with my steward and he assured me that I was putting things the right way and that the union wouldn't get involved at this point. If we got to the disciplinary action, he would be allowed a rep to ensure that it wasn't aggregious, but simply making it known that we wouldn't put up with his behaviour didn't require their involvement. He assured me that the union was as much against this type of harassment as I was.

So while there was no direct union action needed in the above case, there is a true case study on the PIPSC web site documenting a case they had where someone was being harassed and the steward organized the complaint process against the harasser and the manager that allowed the harassment to go on.

So I think your claim that under a union the harassment would have continued is wrong. I've lived the case.

An unfortunate situation no doubt, but picking out extreme examples doesn't really prove anything. A non-union environment may grant the employer the ability to be insensitive, but it also grants plenty of employees the ability to be lazy leeches. For every example of someone not getting protection that a union could have provided I can throw out an example of a union protecting someone who doesn't deserve any protection.

I'll certainly agree that the union unfairly protects lazy leeches. If I could there are certainly a few people around here I would like to toss out onto the street. However, when push comes to shove, I prefer working in an environment where everyone is protected than nobody. I've seen far too many good people get shafted by bad management. If that means I have to watch over a few peoples shoulders to make sure they are not playing solitaire, then so be it.

There's legal recourse in non-union settings as well, it's not as if you were left with no options. Even under a union review standard there would have to be pretty blatant evidence that the person selected completely lacked the necessary qualifications. If an argument could be made that he lacked in certain areas but was better in others it becomes an issue of managerial discretion. If you're arguing that a union should be able to overturn the discretional decisions of a company I think you've just supported the stance that unions are encumbrances.

The union can't directly overturn the decisions made by management, but they should be able to guide a complainant through the process to grieve a wrongful action (ie promoting the girl with the short skirt over the one that actually knows how to do the job). I would need my fingers and toes to count the people that I've known to grieve being unfairly dismissed from a competitive process and were later found to be qualified.

-=-=-=-

Like I said in another thread, if there were any other effective means to protect employee rights from the abuses of power that I've seen to be prevelant in the private sector, then I may well still be in the private sector. But I've just seen way to many a-hole managers get away with crap and good people are hurt.

[Devils'Advocate]

Originally Posted by ken0042

No, what I was saying is that how you described how the union would have handled the situation; it didn't seem to be any better. As somebody else mentioned; I'm curious as to how long ago this happened. Because it would seem to me that current attitudes/policies towards harassment would have taken care of this.

This incident took place in 2001. So only eight years ago. So not the 1960s. And the company did have a policy against this type of harassment... they just didn't enforce it. Keeping that contract and not bothering to find a replacement for the harasser were more important than following their own guidelines. You seem to vest a lot of trust into management that I just haven't seen. "Upper management are good people... they would never go against internal company policy". You need some way of holding their feet to the fire.

[Devils'Advocate]

Originally Posted by puckhog

My problem with unions is that they don't seem to value hard work; advancing within a union is often more about seniority than effort or quality of work. In fact, from what I've heard, it often happens that union members are actually discouraged from hard work in order not to make the other members look bad. I'm by no means saying this is always the case, but how could anyone possibly defend this attitude?

From what I've heard, most police think black people are scum. I'm not saying all police are bad, but how could anyone defend the police for thinking that? What is this? "How often do you beat your wife?" day?

I can tell you right now that your premise is flat out wrong for the two unions that I have been a part of in my life. My steward has personally come up to me and said "I saw that project you guys put in last month. It looks really good. You guys did a bang up job on it." Stuff that MANAGEMENT should have been saying I got from the union rep. Now, I am quite sure that this guy was saying this as a fellow employee and not on behalf of the union, but it is consistant with the attitudes that I have found within my union. There is a strong desire to see the membership excel on behalf of the employer (and in turn provide a benefit to the taxpayer). Maybe this isn't true of all unions, and probably not even true for all public servant unions, but to claim that "unions don't seem to value hard work" is wrong as it is clear to me that there are those that do.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

This incident took place in 2001. So only eight years ago. So not the 1960s. And the company did have a policy against this type of harassment... they just didn't enforce it. Keeping that contract and not bothering to find a replacement for the harasser were more important than following their own guidelines. You seem to vest a lot of trust into management that I just haven't seen. "Upper management are good people... they would never go against internal company policy". You need some way of holding their feet to the fire.

And in the real world, this girl sues the hell out of the company for both sexual harrassment and wrongful termination, wins a large settlement, and the company starts to take a much more serious stance regarding its own harrassment policies.

Either that, or she was too f'ing stupid to talk to a lawyer.

Or, your example involves a high degree of fabrication.

Your example hardly proves that unions serve a benefit to society.

[CaptainCrunch]

I'm inclined to agree with Resolute (not on the fabrication part) but there's nothing in those scenarios that isn't covered by at the very least labor standards, and at the very worst the labor laws across Canada that a good lawyer can help with.

[jammies]

I don't get all the hate for unions; there are unions that abuse the system, certainly, but there are also unions that understand that the worker does best in cooperation with management. I have no problem with saying a SPECIFIC union is poorly run or makes its company uncompetitive when this is true, but a blanket statement that all unions are evil is just ideology dressed up as argument.

Unions originated in the fight against unethical and illegal business practices, and wherever such practices go on - and they still do (hello Walmart!) - the right to unionize must be preserved. Unions are not always about protecting the jobs of the inefficient and the overpaid, they can also be a way of redressing the imbalance between the power of people and that of corporations, especially in an age where globally distributed corporations feel that they are above the laws of mere nations. Don't be surprised to see the rise of unions in nations like India for the same reasons they rose in the West - first workers are happy just to have a job, then once having a job is no longer a novelty, they start wanting to be treated as human beings and not just part of a process of production.

For every example of how unions have destroyed a company, there are 10 examples of how a company destroyed itself. Unions can - like any other human institution - grow irrelevant and self-absorbed to the point that they initiate their own demise, but singling out examples of this and using it as "proof" that unions are useless relics of a bygone age is naive at best. You might as well point at the demise of Enron and Worldcom and say that proves that the time for corporations has passed.

[Hack&Lube]

A lot of issues regarding management firing people and them being taken advantage of...Instead of union help, I think they could actually have great cases in terms of a wrongful dismissal (or being constructively dismissed) lawsuit.

But I have to admit, they is a benefit to union support or union legal teams working for you, and it is less trouble on your resume and you don't burn as many bridges (but for many of those stories I've read in this thread, those bridges are already burnt beyond no return).

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by jammies

I don't get all the hate for unions; there are unions that abuse the system, certainly, but there are also unions that understand that the worker does best in cooperation with management. I have no problem with saying a SPECIFIC union is poorly run or makes its company uncompetitive when this is true, but a blanket statement that all unions are evil is just ideology dressed up as argument.

sure Jammies I can pick up what your putting down, however I think that its high time that the Unions are examined with the same kind of eye towards regulation and business practices as every corporation is. Right now there's a huge lack of equity when it comes to how companies can deal with employees, deal with the initial moves by the union to get certified(seeding and fishing), how unions can tip the scale in terms of business practices (provide funding for union companies bidding on contracts to make it more difficult for non union companies to get business footholds).

Maybe, however you would have to agree that the way businesses deal with their employees is far more regulated due to labor standards and human rights boards and labour laws.

Originally Posted by jammies

Unions originated in the fight against unethical and illegal business practices, and wherever such practices go on - and they still do (hello Walmart!) - the right to unionize must be preserved. Unions are not always about protecting the jobs of the inefficient and the overpaid, they can also be a way of redressing the imbalance between the power of people and that of corporations, especially in an age where globally distributed corporations feel that they are above the laws of mere nations. Don't be surprised to see the rise of unions in nations like India for the same reasons they rose in the West - first workers are happy just to have a job, then once having a job is no longer a novelty, they start wanting to be treated as human beings and not just part of a process of production.

Maybe, however you would have to agree that the way businesses deal with their employees is far more regulated due to labor standards and human rights boards and labour laws. You also have to look at management training practices and education, it fairly rare that you see employees mistreated or exploited like you used to because there are so many avenues that don't require unions to get these issues solved.

I mean sure, Labour Unions would probably be a positive thing in countries like India or China as an example because they lag far behind first world nations in terms of worker and human rights. but I fail to see where they really pay off in terms of worker management relations here, in fact Unions do a fairly effective job of poisoning that environment and creating a worker versus management environmnet.

Originally Posted by jammies

For every example of how unions have destroyed a company, there are 10 examples of how a company destroyed itself. Unions can - like any other human institution - grow irrelevant and self-absorbed to the point that they initiate their own demise, but singling out examples of this and using it as "proof" that unions are useless relics of a bygone age is naive at best. You might as well point at the demise of Enron and Worldcom and say that proves that the time for corporations has passed.

Sure and look what happened to Enron and Worldcom, they were prosecuted because of the combined efforts of whistle blowers and strong investigation. If Enron or Worldcom were unions, because there's no openess requirements, they would still be in business because there's no oversight into how they operate and additionally they have the most effective lobby group in the world so any investigation would be stiffled at a government level.

As for the Walmart thing, there have been so many reports on how they treat their people and pay their people that its only the truly desparate that really go to work for them on a worker level and they're well aware of how things are handled if they do their due dilligence.

Beyond that, the message that Unions have put out especially recently is that they don't want to build a relationship with the companies that they're infiltrated and won't try to build a mutual working relationship until the company either threatens to or does pull the plug. How is that helping the worker?

[GreenTeaFrapp]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

As for the Walmart thing, there have been so many reports on how they treat their people and pay their people that its only the truly desparate that really go to work for them on a worker level and they're well aware of how things are handled if they do their due dilligence.

The problem with that is that Walmart doesn't just operate in big cities. They love to go into small towns, setup shop on the outskirts and kill a good portion of the local retailers. The only jobs in town might be working for Walmart.

[CaptainCrunch]

Fair enough. But thats more of an aspect of free enterprise then worker rights.

[Devils'Advocate]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I'm inclined to agree with Resolute (not on the fabrication part) but there's nothing in those scenarios that isn't covered by at the very least labor standards, and at the very worst the labor laws across Canada that a good lawyer can help with.

Right. A girl in student loan debt trying to get a start is going to go out and get a good lawyer.

Labour standards, laws, policies.... all require that the individual grieved needs to register the complaint and take it out of their own time and resources to fight against the big lawyers the company is going to throw at them. It's a long drawn out expensive process. It's a much easier process when you have the backing of all the other workers on your side.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

Right. A girl in student loan debt trying to get a start is going to go out and get a good lawyer.

Labour standards, laws, policies.... all require that the individual grieved needs to register the complaint and take it out of their own time and resources to fight against the big lawyers the company is going to throw at them. It's a long drawn out expensive process. It's a much easier process when you have the backing of all the other workers on your side.

She could have retained a lawyer who was willing to take a precentage of the legal judgement as fees for his or her service. A brief conversation and some discovery would have determined if the case was worth fighting.

[Resolute 14]

The part you are choosing to miss, DA, is that if your story is anywhere CLOSE to accurate, the company's lawyers would be telling their clients: "settle, now."

And that is why, frankly, I distrust the veracity of the example.

[Devils'Advocate]

I don't know what I could do to convince you. You're free to believe whatever you want, but I can tell you that it did happen. It has been 8 years so the details are fuzzy so whether the guy had 10 or 15 years experience in the software I'm not sure... I just know that the company needed his experience years to be compliant. But the crux of the story is completely true.

What makes me think that she didn't pursue any legal recourse (lawsuit, labour board grievance) was because I wasn't contacted. I think I would have been asked to be a witness given the number of times I had to chase this guy out of her office.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by GreenTeaFrapp

The problem with that is that Walmart doesn't just operate in big cities. They love to go into small towns, setup shop on the outskirts and kill a good portion of the local retailers. The only jobs in town might be working for Walmart.

Yeah, yeah....that is what everyone said would happen in Pincher Creek when Walmart came here.

Instead, every 'other' business in town is doing pretty darn well because we're getting people here all the way from Fernie.

[GreenTeaFrapp]

I guess the garbage strike in Toronto is still on since CNN was covering it yesterday. I'm sure that's going to do great things for Toronto's tourism industry when the city is being shown as swamped with garbage on national US tv.

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Fair enough. But thats more of an aspect of free enterprise then worker rights.

I don't think 'free enterprise' accounts well for overly large and powerful companies like Walmart, Microsoft, etc etc.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by GreenTeaFrapp

I guess the garbage strike in Toronto is still on since CNN was covering it yesterday. I'm sure that's going to do great things for Toronto's tourism industry when the city is being shown as swamped with garbage on national US tv.

The other news story from this is people are fighting to not allow the city to apply chemicals to these temporary garbage piles to keep rodents and other pests at bay.

This could get very, very ugly.

[LChoy]

How is the public not massively against the union for turning their city into a dump? I can't believe the public opinion of the union is that high, yet the strike is still going on

[Resolute 14]

Because unions and union members are too self-centred to care about public support.

Speaking of public support, calling citizens who try to maintain their own neighbourhoods scabs isn't a good way to win it:

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/663812