[Banff]

PluggyRug PluggyRug:

The rise of outsourcing=screw the unions.

Outsourcing is good but also has its own cost effectiveness problems and eventually has to come to some sort of level playing ground within its competitions. Undercutting the other guy can only go so far before some legislative effect kicks in such as what insurance companies do with creating a minimum as not to destroy an outsourced career or service to less than minimum wage . Outsourcing in todays economy is extremely demanding to those who run their little business and their supplys are expensive with very few breaks or deals .

[PluggyRug]

Banff Banff:

PluggyRug PluggyRug:

The rise of outsourcing=screw the unions.

Outsourcing is good but also has its own cost effectiveness problems and eventually has to come to some sort of level playing ground within its competitions. Undercutting the other guy can only go so far before some legislative effect kicks in such as what insurance companies do with creating a minimum as not to destroy an outsourced career or service to less than minimum wage . Outsourcing in todays economy is extremely demanding to those who run their little business and their supplys are expensive with very few breaks or deals .

Not sure what your saying there Banff, laymans terms would be ok.

Give me a two liner.

[SJ-24]

I'll be honest when I say I didn't read the comment on outsourcing because I'm in a time crunch tonight.

Out sourcing wouldn't be needed if it wasn't for the high union rates. I know from speaking with other business owners that outsourcing is a last resort. If the unions could stand to pay people what their job is truly worth we wouldn't be outsourcing to China and India. Problem is everything seems to think that someone with a highschool education is worth 60 grand a year, not the 25 grand we would like to pay them. Education is the key to a good paying job. Problem is unions don't support middle and high management. They only take money from dumb people....that line should piss off a few people out there.

In the 50's and 60's the unions were actually a good thing, but by the 70's the government has adopted many of the union policies, thus making them no longer something that was needed. The only way the unions could explain their existance was to push for more pay for less work. Today they continue with doign just that. God only knows they haven't done anything else to earn their existance.

If the unions were to all shut down tomorrow Canada would be a better place, however I don't think union employees have the balls to work without one because their work pace is far below the real working man's.

[Banff]

PluggyRug PluggyRug:

Banff Banff:

PluggyRug PluggyRug:

The rise of outsourcing=screw the unions.

Outsourcing is good but also has its own cost effectiveness problems and eventually has to come to some sort of level playing ground within its competitions. Undercutting the other guy can only go so far before some legislative effect kicks in such as what insurance companies do with creating a minimum as not to destroy an outsourced career or service to less than minimum wage . Outsourcing in todays economy is extremely demanding to those who run their little business and their supplys are expensive with very few breaks or deals .

Not sure what your saying there Banff, laymans terms would be ok.

Give me a two liner.

Outsourcing creates higher costs to both the larger business and outsourcing business ...kind of a long route to finally bring the product or service to market .

[SJ-24]

Avro, Avro, Avro....The last time I checked I was taking more courses than any union guy i know, and being from BC I know a lot of them. My education and trades upgrading is constant. Not a single month goes by that I'm not back at a college either here on the island or in Vancouver. I am a tradesman and know what it's like to work. Compare that to my wife's unionized job were the last course she took was behind the backs of the union. They actually told her she couldn't take a course because they feared her employer would take advatage of her skills and get something for free.

Consider this for a second. Why does you automotive factories have all these awards? Is it because if they didn't have a high output and good quality that they would be out of work? Is it because the union recognizes that being a typical union organization would mean closing the plants? I watch the news and see all sorts of factories shutting down. Wait for it, your little slice of $28 an hour work will be gone before long. Seems this economic slowdown is catching up.

Union = Fat Lazy People

[Motorcycleboy]

$1:

Avro
So, it's only high paying union jobs that are getting outsourced? Admit it, you know that's not true.

Why is Toyota (which pays 28 per hour) building another plant here in Ontario and considering another engine plant? Nissan is also shopping around this area for new plant construction and they also will pay high salary.

Why is the unionized plant in my home town of Oshawa is the second highest rated plant in North America for quality and efficientcy?

Exactly Avro. That shit-cans the argument, promoted by many on this site, that free-trade has decimated the Canadian manufacturing sector and turned us into a hub of low-paying, service sector jobs.

$1:

The problem with some unions is they have become corrupt and arrogant and have lost the faith of even their core support which is the least well off.

Some union members are also a joke and shoot themselves in the foot. Most members of GM here vote Tory and the Sun Newspaper (union hating rag) is the reading material of choice. In fact, most members of the local GM union would probally agree with everything you said because they are now well fed comfortable fat cats like yourself and wouldn't know hard work if they bumped into it. Most Cons I know all work towards the same thing....working less.

Once more, we agree. At least on the core of your argument. Union leaders like Buzz Hargrove have never been able to deliver the votes of their members to the NDP because they don't truly represent their member's political beliefs.

That's why Oshawa is Tory blue, despite the best efforts of clowns like Sid Ryan and Buzz.

[SJ-24]

Read this carefully. it explains why Unions and it's employees think they are above the law.

BC Ferries threaten suspensions if sunken ferry workers don't talk

Cindy E. Harnett
CanWest News Service; Victoria Times Colonist


Sunday, June 04, 2006


VICTORIA -- BC Ferries will suspend and possibly terminate a handful of unionized employees who were working on the Queen of the North the night it sank, if they don't take part in the corporation's investigation into the disaster, says ferry corporation CEO David Hahn.

"There is no waiting, it has to be dealt with soon," said Hahn. "Employees who will not co-operate will be suspended without pay and it may lead to dismissal."

The Queen of the North, with 101 people on board, ran into Gil Island, in the Hecate Strait, south of Prince Rupert, B.C., and plunged to the ocean floor on March 22. Two people died.

"Less than four" crew members have refused to answer questions as part of BC Ferries Corp. investigation. Hahn would not confirm whether those people are critical to the investigation, or include two who were in the wheelhouse at the time of the crash.

BC Ferry Marine Workers Union president Jackie Miller said 10 to 12 crew members who were on the Queen of the North that night have been assigned legal counsel and been advised not to speak to BC Ferries.

"We expect that the divisional inquiry will have some very negative results for some of our members because of their adherence to legal counsel's advice not to speak about some of the events," Miller said, adding if BC Ferries disciplines crew members up to and including termination, the union will take some form of action.

"I can tell you that right now," she said. "We don't like threats and these people have been through enough."

Several crew who were on the sinking ferry remain in psychiatric care and on leave, Miller said.

The Transportation Safety Board, Transport Canada, BC Ferries, and the RCMP are investigating the sinking.

Hahn said he's "shocked" the union, which calls itself a "champion of safety," would "walk away from one of the biggest safety issues ever."

"Two people lost their lives, that's the big deal. Everything else is secondary," Hahn said. "They have an obligation to everyone in the province and who rides the ferries and works with BC Ferries to get to the bottom of this."

The Transportation Safety Board has interviewed all of the crew members and has recently re-interviewed some of them. That information is confidential and shared neither with the RCMP nor the corporation.

The board will release a full report making safety recommendations. That's expected to take at least 18 months. If the board's investigation turns up anything critical to public safety, that information will be released immediately in a separate advisory.

Hahn said the TSB report is not enough, and that any possible upgrades to safety or protocol that are needed based on the investigation should be implemented now.

The TSB "will take maybe three years to get that report," Hahn said.

"This is something that must be carried out immediately. This is not about two or three people not testifying, this is about 22 million people who ride the ferry every year."

Meanwhile, the union is expected to announce soon whether it will demand an investigation by the Workers' Compensation Board to study the long-term health and emotional impacts of the ferry sinking.

"We need to monitor these workers for a very long period of time," Miller said, adding the WCB needs to look at whether proper work and communication practices were in place and whether BC Ferries properly ensured against all risks before the ferry sailed.

With the combination of bilge water, sewage and asbestos, "there were a lot of workplace exposures," Miller said. The safety of other vessels should also be investigated, she said.

[email protected]

Victoria Times Colonist

Yes, poor little sailors have been through so much. What are they hiding? Why won't they speak to the remaining investigators and tell them what happened in the wheel house/ bridge that night. Rumours say the two crewmen in the wheel house had been doing drugs. I'm not sure I buy that, but with every moment they continue to hide behind their lawyer, it's another nail in their coffin. This is grounds for dismissal and lets face it, they'll never work on another ship again until the entire truth comes out, good or bad. However, the union continues to guard them...

[MustangJay]

I think its unfair to blame unions for the demise of N. American industry rather it was the idiotic trade politices like NAFTA dreamed up by government and corporate elites who put our workers in direct competition with third-world labour. That's just idiotic and unrealistic. Unions helped build the middle class in this country and their dismantling is leading to a shrinking of the middle class and widing of the rich poor divide. Instead of focusing so much attention on steel, auto, etc we need to start unionize the jobs that are replacing those industries, mostly in the service sector. As bad as it sounds, retail and other such jobs are the fastest growing employment positons in this country so why not make those jobs better paying? Already, companies like Wal-Mart (the largest employer in the U.S. btw) gets its merchandise dirt cheap and hardly passes those savings onto customers, so why not force them to pay decent wages? I think unionizing retail and other service jobs is the only way to save our middle class and ultimately ensure those same companies have a market to sell to. For years corporations have been basing their plans on a dillusion vision of making thing sin the cheapest countries and selling them in the richest countries, which is unrealistic. The global economy is a myth, nothing more, and we need to wake up fast! Its sad that so many Canadians have bought into the corporate rhetoric regarding unions and blame them for the demise of so many jobs. That's simply not true. We need to regain the collective spirit of our grandparents generation or we're going to find ourselves living in a third-world/pre WWII state all over again.

[unionguy]

it is all kind of interesting.

There is a lot of blame on unions for the closing of business, maybe we should look at all the true facts and not the convient facts.

union membership has been in decline but business closures are on the rise with more of them not even connected in anyway with a union.

retirement and medical benifits are decreasing most likely due to decreased union membership.

Unions in Ontario are providing more and more of the training just look at the training centers being built. This is a directly related to the cuts during the PC rule. When the PC cut back the unions picked up the ball and started or increased training.

The unions provide a check and balance, if they did not exist big business would run the government. your comment regarding how much better life would be without unions just shows your ignorance in how things work. Government respond to lobbying, big business lobbies, unions lobbies keeping everything almost equal.


I think you are jealous

[tritium]

With a bigger gap between the rich and working poor there is a place for Unions.

Unions are not the problem, it's our trade policies (NAFTA) that make it easier for big corporations to send jobs overseas.

Unions didn't kill American jobs, NAFTA did.

[Streaker]

When was BC killed? I hadn't heard about that.

[tritium]

Streaker Streaker:

When was BC killed? I hadn't heard about that.

Yeah, BC has a strong economy and a strong Union base. As good economy as Alberta in many aspects.

[Stellar]

Yes, in fact, B.C does have a great economy, and has a high child poverty rate of 20%.
If you look at many of the parental guardians of these children, they work constantly, and still manage to be poor. Suggesting then, to get completely rid of any pro-worker support is just another slap in the face to a massive exploited populace. Unions have their place for the working peoples, if it were not for a union, I would barely be able to afford many important life concerns. For example, I recently had a dentist appointment, which was over $500.00, and relieved a fair amount of pain. In the end, I only had to pay $106.00.

What would I do without any support? I honestly could not tell you, other than nowhere good.

It's fair to point out that it wont hurt to take another perspective on union members demanding a higher wage.
Perhaps its not that the union members are paid too much, but rather, the other non-unionized workers are being paid to little.

The fact is, a Union serves as an amplifier for the voices of labourers. Within the apparatus of a contemporary industrialized society, a minority dominates labour, a bureaucracy dominates the work place, and the corporate empires integrate society, along with the labourers, to the point where the worker has no genuine value other than strictly benefit the institution or the establishment in which it is exploited.

Its wrong to say that most union members are lazy, whiney or ask for too much. It is especially wrong to say that they can topple an economy. Has anyone posed the question: Where does the money that the union members get, end up going to? Well, it trickles into the economy, goes into circulation and accumulates into the hands of business owners. Anyone who could takes a course in economics would realize this. NAFTA, and other such global institutions are indicative of a so called poor economy. Unions being the culprit are in many ways a pro-businesses produced fallacy.

On a personal a note, formulated from a personal experience, no one will convince me that it is "right' to completely get rid of unions, as long as I’m a had worker, and counting on them to live in a world free of unnecessary pain or inconvenience I wont think otherwise.

Regards,
Stellar.

[tritium]

Stellar Stellar:

It's fair to point out that it wont hurt to take another perspective on union members demanding a higher wage.
Perhaps its not that the union members are paid too much, but rather, the other non-unionized workers are being paid to little.

...or a 3rd option, perhaps the coporations are paying the thes CEO's to dam much and not paying enough to it's employees.

point in case: Home Depot CEO Gets $210M Severance for Sucking at Job

The corporations are to interested in share holder opinions to care about the little guy.

I'm strating to wonder if 4 years of an NDP Gov't in Canada would not be a great adjustment for the middle case.