Thursday, November 19, 2009

Unions: For the people or Force the people?

Unions were once an essential system to protect the "little people" from the potential monopolization and injustices caused by major organizations. However, in recent years it seems to me that the balance of power is shifting. No longer is our democratic society empowered by these groups but instead there have been, recently, many instances of exploitation of the public for the purpose of the personal gain of these union members. The two major examples that come to mind are the TTC strike and the CUPE 3909 strike at York university.


For those of you who are not Torontonian, the TTC stands for the Toronto Transit Commission, it is the main transit system in the Toronto area. According to the TTC website they serve: "about 1.5 million riders every weekday. The TTC is the third largest public transit system in North America servicing some 4.5 million people in the Greater Toronto Area, with a network of subways, streetcars, buses, and a specialized service, Wheel-Trans, for people who require accessible transportation." The TTC went on strike in April of 2009. A union who is able to manipulate the transit system can be dangerous. With no way to get to work, school or any other place in the city, everyone is pretty much at their mercy. TTC employees make on average about 60-100k a year and yet they were striking due to low wages. LOW WAGES? Are you serious? They brought the entire city to a standstill, elderly people and children missed their doctor's appointments, students were late or didn't even show up for exams, workers were late for or weren't able to make meetings all because they were unsatisfied with their 60k a year salary for driving a bus?

Personally, it offends me that I had to rack up about $20k worth of debt in University and still was unable to find employment in my field, let alone any that matches that salary and therefore am stuck doing a customer service job with a bachelors degree with honours (that might as well be used as toilet paper) in psychology and english and these employees (who most of them do not have anything past a high school degree) are getting paid up to 100k a year. Is life unfair or is life unfair? Why didn't someone tell us in high school to stop waisting our time and go drive a bus.

The second prime example of exploitation by a union is the teacher's assistants and graduate Assistants union (CUPE 3903) at York university. These union members went on strike due, again, to low wages and "too much work" mind you TAs and GA's are only employed 10 hours a week and most of the year they work less than that, they do not have to attend the lecture classes given by the Professors and basically only work when it comes to grading assignments or exams. I believe they were getting paid about $1200 a month or so which is not bad for 40 hours a month of work. They were looking for approximately an 11% increase in their wages (this during a time of recession). In addition, they wanted their own tuition fees waved (as some of them were graduate students). Personally I have no problem with TAs and GAs and I believe they should be paid fairly, however, you loose my sympathy when I am forced out of school for 3 months. That is 3 months I paid for, 3 months I will never get back, 3 months of lost learning. We almost lost our entire year. My graduating year was in jeopardy because a union decided it was more important for a few hundred people to get paid a couple dollars more than to have thousands of students lose their time and money. How can these unions be allowed to do this? I had a hard time understanding why us students were expected to sit idly by and watch our education and money go down the drain because of a few unhappy teaching assistants. And where was our government during all this? Remember them? the ones who are suppose to protect us and assure our rights and liberties. Why didn't they intervene? Some students began protesting the strike, holding demonstrations infront of the legislature and contacting numerous MPs for their support, however, all but one (Peter Shurman) showed no interest in helping the students. The fear of losing union votes overtook any concern for the well being of university students, thereby allowing the union to abuse their power to the fullest extent.

Unions were set up to give a voice to the powerless but not to give them an iron fist. I am tired of being manipulated by these unions, maybe we should rethink the freedoms we allow them. If they are too great a nuisance to the public they're doing more harm than they are good. Critics of my editorial will undoubtedly say that unions had no other option but to strike because other forms of negotiation were inneficient. To those critics I say: that is ridiculous! These unions did not use their striking as a last resort but as a first means of attack. It was strategical and although they may have had some negotiations beforehand they did not use the full extent of their negotiating tools (such as mediators and the like) to come to an agreement until long after the strike began (especially in the case of CUPE 3903). Luckily our government did intervene when it came to the TTC strike, then again there was no way they were going to win favour with the public had they let that strike continue any longer than it did (only 2 days). In essence that strike was dealt with promptly because it affected a majority of their voters. Unlike the CUPE 3903 strike that affected students who are not known to be very active voters.

Finally, the message of these union strikes came across quite clearly to me, basically they can do whatever they wish and get away with it (most of the time). A lesson that has been passed on to subsequent unions (for example the recent city strike that left mountains of garbage on the sides of our beautiful streets). I only wish that these union members be held accountable and not be treated like by the government like a spoiled child's who displays disruptive public tantrums until their demands are met. Maybe you agree with me and maybe you don't but I am certain that I am not alone in feeling this way and I urge those who agree with me to make noise so that unions can trample on the population no more.

1 comment:

  1. This is a great article. I support unions in developing countries especially where there are few workers rights laws but I question their utility in developed countries that have extensive workers rights laws and boards to protect employees. I think they have done more bad than good

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