[JJ]

I won't repost it here directly, because it's quite long, but I just wrote a review of a recently-published tell-all expose on the systemic corruption and crooked tactics of the Canadian Federation of Students, Canada's largest student lobby group.

The basic summary is that the CFS is an outfit that exists mostly for its own benefit, and is run something like a pyramid scheme: students at the bottom are forced to pay into it whether they want to or not, while much of the effective control of the organization is held by a very small group of deeply-entrenched "staff" people at the top. In order to keep the gravy train chugging, these staff people conspire to make the CFS as difficult to opt-out of as possible, and engage in all sorts of other shady doings to assert excessively tyrannical control over what is supposed to be a democratically-run organization.

I was just curious if anyone else here has had run-ins with the CFS, or their own student union for that matter (which although smaller in scale, suffer from a lot of the same problems), and if the pessimistic analysis in the CFS report and my review of it rings true.

[BartSimpson]

Students are required to belong to a union in Canada? WTF is with that?

[martin14]

BartSimpson wrote:

Students are required to belong to a union in Canada? WTF is with that?

Not exactly, they are required to pay, not neccessarily to join.


Most unionized shops are like this.

[BartSimpson]

What utter BS. No one should have their education held hostage by a union. That is freaking disgusting.

[JJ]

martin14 wrote:

BartSimpson wrote:

Students are required to belong to a union in Canada? WTF is with that?

Not exactly, they are required to pay, not neccessarily to join.


Most unionized shops are like this.

Well, what does "join" mean? If you go to a CFS-affiliated school you are automatically considered a "member" of the CFS, which is a precondition for fee-paying. Ditto for any lower-level student union at that school, too.

[Quantum_Wizard]

BartSimpson wrote:

What utter BS. No one should have their education held hostage by a union. That is freaking disgusting.

I think students' having to pay membership fee to a Student Union is not that much different (from the student's point of view) from having to pay tuition fee to the University. It's just another fee. While I don't claim that compulsory membership is good, I don't think it's quite as bad as you seem to think.

In practice a lot depends on how the Union is run.

[Psudo]

Mandatory unionization is "just another fee", true. But financial struggles are part of the stereotypical college experience; "just another fee" becomes just another financial strain, and will occasionally even be the difference between attending another semester and dropping out. Making the fee optional gives legitimacy to their claim of democratic operation and (in cases where it makes any difference at all) removes an obstacle to college attendance.

That's without considering how the Union is run at all. And, from the sounds of it, this particular union is run very badly.

Incidentally, it's also a great metaphor for government and taxation. You can't really opt out of citizenship entirely, and yet citizens are required to pay taxes or face jail time (expulsion in the metaphor). You can choose another nation (college), but can you escape the taxes (mandatory union fees)? "Frustration" is the word.

[CKASlacker]

Psudo wrote:

Mandatory unionization is "just another fee", true. But financial struggles are part of the stereotypical college experience; "just another fee" becomes just another financial strain, and will occasionally even be the difference between attending another semester and dropping out. Making the fee optional gives legitimacy to their claim of democratic operation and (in cases where it makes any difference at all) removes an obstacle to college attendance.

In this case Psudo, from what I remember the CFS fee is nominally small, basically insignificant compared to the cost of tuition. But of course, when you multiply a small per student cost * large number of students = large budget for CFS action for student interests (or inaction, in this case).

JJ, I wasn't too involved with student politics back in my day as an undergrad at McMaster, but I do recall having a CFS-membership referendum at some point. I voted against membership, since I didn't like the principal of being forced to join a "union" that I didn't really have any say in, and certainly didn't really know what they did for the student body as a whole.

Edit: I just searched and found that McMaster University defederated from the CFS in 1999 -- so it might have been that vote that I was recalling.

Further Edit: Apparently (according to the CFS web site) Local 39 is the McMaster Graduate Students Association, so the 1999 defederation was (I guess) only for undergrads.

[Psudo]

So it's a nominally small force against college attendance. That doesn't largely change my point; it's still wrong in principle even though it is weak in effect. Like stealing a quarter, or telling a little white lie.

Stealing a quarter * large number of victims = large budget for thievery interests

It's kind of the opposite of the poll tax problem. Poll taxes were rescinded because a nominal fee to vote was inherently preventing an entire class of people from having any political voice. The CFS fee is rather like charging everyone a poll tax whether they actually intend to vote or not. Rather than preventing people from opting in, it mostly prevents people from opting out.

Is it a right not to vote?

[CKASlacker]

Psudo wrote:

So it's a nominally small force against college attendance. That doesn't largely change my point; it's still wrong in principle even though it is weak in effect. Like stealing a quarter, or telling a little white lie.

Stealing a quarter * large number of victims = large budget for thievery interests

According to The University of Guelph Student Newspaper University of Guelph students gave CFS $220,000 CAD last year.

(U of G students just voted overwhelmingly to defederate from CFS).

With a student body of roughly 21,000 students (undergrads + grads) (Wikipedia), that works out to $10.50 or so / student.

As you say trivially small each, but significant together.

What I find even stranger is the obscure and arcane rules the CFS has in place to discourage defederating. Picking polling dates, arbitrarily increasing the the number of students required for quorum, denying referendum requests based on technicalities: (http://takebackyourschool.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/uwo-defederation-petition-also-being-rejected-based-on-simple-technicality/)... seems a very odd organization.

Basically, it seems set up to extricate the money from students as various universities, and then make it nigh impossible for them to ever leave.

When workers wish to de-unionize (as the CFS seems to be set up as a union, it seems a logical metaphor) do they always have to navigate through so many rules and regulations to take a simple vote?

[JJ]

From what I understand, yes, yes they do.

It's quite relevant at the moment in the US, in fact, because one of the things President Obama supposedly wants to do is get rid of referendums as the method of opting-in or out of labor unions in favor of something called "card check," which is more like filling out a magazine subscription form, from what I've heard...