Keeping it Real…

22 responses so far ↓

• 1 islandpapa // Mar 7, 2012 at 12:31 am

  Thanks Harv,
  Never had to organize a union but sure appreciate the folks who came before me.

• 2 Merv Adey // Mar 7, 2012 at 1:55 am

  Well said sir. Stridency doesn’t help from any side…..yet if there is no incentive to reach agreement for the governement, how can the process ever be fair? Binding arbitration should be a given.

• 3 Scotty on Denman // Mar 7, 2012 at 3:21 am

  I can relate to your mixture of idealism and pragmatism when it comes to unions, Harvey. Even though I haven’t belonged to a union for many years, I haven’t forgotten why they’re necessary, especially the meat-and-potatoes issues like fair pay, job security and safety. I recall, too, sometimes there has to be an ideological battle, but it still has to come out of the meat-and-potatoes. I don’t like what the government is doing to the teachers. It seems unfair to me that the teachers bring pragmatic, meat-and-potato issues to the table, ones that benefit students, as well, only to have the government shut them down over purely neo-right ideology that ultimately hurts students. Besides, it’s a lousy example to set for kids on how to settle disputes. Some of the stuff I read on line, attributable to PAB, I suspect, is the most hateful, over-the-top propaganda I’ve ever heard. Now, I’ll admit to a bit of bias here because many of the women in my family are or were teachers, by all accounts excellent and dearly loved by their students. When I hear that hateful tripe, man, I’d just like to punch somebody. The downside of anonymous posting, I guess.

  I understand opinions differ. First I ever heard of unions was when my parents, both of whom worked for CBC, were debating which was better, IATSE or ACTRA. I was just a kid, didn’t think much of it. Got a job on the green chain in Port Alberni then down to Franklin River and a good lesson in high ideological warfare. And not just between the union and management, either. Ever been chucked down the stairs by some of your “brothers” ’cause you voted the wrong way? Or how about two goons plopping down on either side of you and whispering that they’ll snap your arm off if you vote to ratify a contract offer they don’t like? I have. But, hey, there’s good people and there’s bad where ever you go. Still, there’s no denying the benefits we got from our union: when I started on the chain, base rate was $5.06 an hour; two contracts later it was nearly triple that. IWA Local 1-85, super radical, flying pickets could pop up anywhere, anytime, over practically nothing. Remember “NO PIE, NO WORK” which shut down thousands of workers in the then-biggest sawmill complex in the world, and in five or six logging divisions, too, all because there was no pie, as per the Master Agreement, at Franklin Camp one morning. In 81 we went out for 15% (!) and got it; only thing was a few thousand of us also got a sandwich wrapped in a road map. After three or four years there were so many empty store fronts in Port Alburnout (as we called it) the fire marshall ordered them demolished. You can still see that today. Nowhere else was punished with such an extensive shut down. It was real ideological warfare and it really hurt a lot of people.

  Then there’s paramedics who get paid $2 an hour to be on call in case you get hurt and need help in a hurry. I’ll disclose another bias: for a few years now my buddy Del and I have been performing at various “lefty” functions (he recites poetry, workers’ poetry I guess you could call it, while I sing a few old workers’ nuggets and play my beat up axe, Joe Hill, Ginger Goodwin et al.) There was a picket sign from the last paramedics’ strike (with no job action allowed!) in front of our community ambulance station for so long the sun has faded it to almost illegible. But will still put it up on stage with us and remind everyone what it’s about (we pack every place we go so don’t worry, paramedics aren’t forgotten.) It just blows me away, though, how the right-wingers made them out to be the greediest, most selfish parasites in the world. Imagine! Nurses, too. Man, I’d like to hear what they’d have to say when it’s them on the gurney. Bet they’d turn up hypocrites.

  I’ve heard the very same vitriol from the government, too.

  This is the downside of ideological warfare. Unions are just vehicles to bargain fair contracts for their members. Sometimes they have to fight fire with fire, but they’re really about meat and potatoes. I suppose it might be a lot to ask the neo-right hate mongers to go have a look at themselves in the mirror next time they call down the most caring, self sacrificing workers in our society.

• 4 Barry // Mar 7, 2012 at 3:48 am

  I had a friend who was both very right wing and worked for the federal gov’t. He was the type who though Trudeau was handing us over to the Russians.

  When approached on the topic, he said “I’ve worked union and I’ve worked non-union. I prefer working union.”

• 5 Bob // Mar 7, 2012 at 4:25 am

  I’ve always felt the same way as you did. I enjoyed my job and was never a clock watcher and most of the time things went very well but I did deal with a couple of very oppressive bosses over the years and I was glad we were union.

  My brother is a paramedic and when I see how they’re treated I’m also glad we had a strong union. Like Barry’s friend I’m very right wing about most things but I believe in fairness and a responsible union means a level playing field.

• 6 Mo // Mar 7, 2012 at 7:24 am

  “We should ALL stand with those facing those dictators … whether we are union members or not.”

  absolutely!!

  If you don’t fight for your rights they’ll grind you to a pulp.

• 7 MaggieZad // Mar 7, 2012 at 2:42 pm

  This was actually written by an MLA – his first name is Don for those who want to know (Liberal no less) when he was a teacher (My how they change when they get power):

  “Currently I am teaching four different classes with the following composition: socials 11 with 33 students and one IEP; socials 11 with 30 students and four IEPs; socials 11 with 34 students with four IEPs; and military history with 31 students and nine IEPs.”

  “I endeavour to be a good teacher. I try to create a positive learning environment to create relationships with my students, be available outside of class time and effectively teach the courses in a meaningful manner. This semester I have 128 students and 18 IEPs in total. This does not include my advisory group, with whom I meet once a month and try and assist their progress through the school year.”

  “My concern is that I do not know just how effective I will be as an educator this year. With large classes, management becomes a bigger issue, and more time is spent trying to get the students on task rather than teaching content and skills. I find it difficult to create positive relationships with my classes when there are so many students of varying needs and issues. It stretches one’s ability to have students reach their full potential when you can spend so little time with each individual.”

  “I will do my best to work with the students and give them the skills and knowledge they will need to be successful in my classes. My concern is that I may not have the ability to be as effective a teacher as I have been in the past. There’s only so much time one can spend marking (an additional three more students add 10 percent more marking load on a teacher per class), prepping, doing the paperwork, making the phone calls, answering the e-mails and learning new programs like BCeSIS. If I continue to teach classes of this size and composition, I do not see how the system will get 18 more years of service from me. I would eventually break or stop caring, and then it would be time for me to move on.”

• 8 kwm // Mar 7, 2012 at 2:47 pm

  Hi Harv,
  Thanks, as always, for your grounded and experienced realism and common sense in a time when this is such a rarity. I was shocked when CBC welcomes Tony Parsons into the fold as I had heard about him as Vice President and ‘thought’ the CBC was so different from the corporate media but the more I learn about CBC Vancouver, the more I see that he is probably a perfect fit. Anyway, thanks for keeping it real.

  (Response: I was never told WHY my little chit-chats with Tony before or after my stories ended, whether it had anything to do with him at all. When I raised it with my Assignment Editor after about a year, he denied “anythnig was up” ..but it never changed. I do know Tony was VERY upset when, as union spokesman, I was asked about him crossing our picket line as soon as the strike began and I told the media I was quite surprised, because he had told co-workers (including me) he had informed the company he would not cross….then he did, first day! By the way, election nights were quite funny: there I was on location, and there he was anchoring in studio, so he would do the hand-off “Now at NDP headuarters, here’s Harvey…” and I would do my little bit, then he would say “Thank you, Harvey …and now at Liberal headquarters….” But, apart from one just after we all returned to work, that was it. They took Chapple and I off the air for three months and that was it: NO chit chats back and forth with me for the next 8 years til I retired. LOL! But I have slept VERY WELL, knowing how the union has ever since helped srtaff there get better wages and protection on the job. h.o)

• 9 mariner // Mar 7, 2012 at 3:03 pm

  Let us not forget the hardships and work of the union members of a hundred years ago. Without their work, NONE OF THE PUBLIC would be enjoying the high standard of living we now have (or had). If it had been left up to the employers, we would still be working for pennies an hour and have no benefits.

  The unions were also instrumental in worker safety issues and regulations – along with fair pay for a days work.

  This BC Liberal government is intent on nothing but trying to claw back what the unions have accomplished over the years – for their corporate backers. The BC Liberals are not a government but more a corporate sabotage entity – concentrating on anything that works well for the public at large – total privatization (greed creed) being the end goal.

  The unions deserve all the support they can get and more. It is obvious that the teachers care about the children – the BC Liberal government doesn’t and is happy to make them all suffer for ideological reasons.

  OK – off soap box for now.

  Thanks

• 10 D. M. Johnston // Mar 7, 2012 at 4:11 pm

  Unions exist because we have very poor labour law and governments who think improving labour law is tantamount to dictatorship, yet they allow prestige unions and associations, such as doctors and lawyers to exist, with almost impunity.

  Strong labour law would make unions less effective, because the “state” would protect workers.

  In BC and Canada today, we need strong unions because our labour laws are so terribly weak and large corporations are running roughshod over the common folk.

• 11 Richard // Mar 7, 2012 at 4:55 pm

  Bang on Harvey. All the Unionized workers want is the opportunity to bargain collectively and for the government to respect that process. When the government refuses to accept any form of binding arbitration and defers everything to the legislative fiat it destroys any sense of fair play.

  Our only hope is a change in government come May 2013 or with any luck a little sooner than that.

  (Response: I think we all recognize there are certain essential services …but in those cases, thec answer is real negotiation …not net zero, as living costs and government imposed taxes, fees, charges, tolls continue to rise and rise…. or mediation or binding arbitration…not just dictatorial legislation doing away with the employees’ rights. Especially while giving huge profitable corporations tax breaks after tax breaks. h.o.)

• 12 John Hosie // Mar 7, 2012 at 5:52 pm

  Harv,
  Its alonely spot sometimes when your a union activist. You can or will never satisfy all the members due their variety of needs and wants. But for the collective good, we perservere and plod through the waste land of mediated and arbital issues to try and gain some form of order and fairness.

  I remember well, my grandfather dave, telling me stories of the nanaimo coal mines, where when someone was killed underground, they’d be put off to the side of the track in the shaft and brought up at shift change !
  I believe as well that if employersd treated ALL workers fairly, we may not need specialty labour groups to represent and protect its members ?

  Unfortunately, here in B.C. we have never had that luxury ? Thats why I choose to work with my members, and support them as required, my grandfather was blackballed from the island mines as an organizer and was forced onto a train to go work in the midwest USA. for three years, I really don’t think we ‘re far from that one, just a more high tech covert form ? But I could be wrong, well said Harv !

  (Response: Again, I say that if you have a good employer, who pays fair wages, rewards hard work, shares the success and has good working conditions, you don’t need a union …and all the constraints and limits that can bring. But in today’s economy, too many companies …including some making millions upon millions in profit …treat their workers like crap, pay poorly, don’t give benefits or even full hours: to hell with those…they should be unionized and it should be made easier,and not so scary, to do that! h.o)

• 13 Henri // Mar 7, 2012 at 7:14 pm

  Did you work with Rob Malcolm?
  Going by the below site story he got royally screwed.
  I Used to enjoy him and Mckeachie

  http://www.bcradiohistory.com/Biographies/RobertMalcolm.htm

  (Response: Yes, I worked at BCTV same timer that Rob was there. In fact there were 41 people let go before we organized and before we got certification, I believe another 12 were cut …for each and every one of them and their families a terrible traumatic experience, esp in light of the fact they had helped build a highly successful profitable company. But by cutting and slashing and leaving a trail of blood in the process, the new rulers were able to pump the share value from $16 to $34, making hundreds of millions for the shareholders by selling off to new owners, who stepped up the “do more with less” techniques (including closing the Ottawa bureau) to recoup costs. The rest is history…and not a very glorious one for the old BCTV. And I shudder to think what working conditions the newsroom people would be facing had we NOT unionized…including those (some very HIGHLY paid) who opposed the union! h.o)

• 14 13 // Mar 8, 2012 at 3:47 am

  Harvey, I have been a union member since 1973. All private sector. I served as president of Brotherhood of Railway Airline and Steamship clerks, a shop steward at the Teamsters and a steward at the CAW. I was a strong supporter of the NDP both provincial and federal until the late 1990s. It was then that the provincial NDP started to move to the left center and after much soul searching I moved right. Far to the right.

  The teachers and all other public sector union members dont know how well off they are. There are many private sector union members that do not make big money and do not have big pensions and great benefits. Teamster pensioners have watched their monthly benefits shrink bit by bit since 2008.
  Two things all but destroyed private sector unions. Deregulation in the mid 80s followed by rampant imigration of cheap labor. I have stood for weeks trying to organize non union truckers. Many speak little or no english and have no understanding of what a union does.The Federal government and the ports across Canada are very happy to have a cheap non union work force. On one organizing drive I asked a driver what he was making. He responded $1000.00.
  I said $1000 per day ( in 2005 this was an average wage for a trucker that owner his own rig)( Today that has dropped to $500 even though fuel has gone up) He said no no it was $1000 per month. All port truckers work a minimum of 10 hrs per day many work 12 to 14. So this man was getting less than $10 per hour. It wasnt to long ago on the news I heard the federal minister of imigration state boldly that Canada was in desperate need of unskilled workers. We need thousands of truckers. Well after driving truck for almost 40 years I was saddened to find out I am unskilled.
  Anyway I guess where Im going with this is the public sector union people have had it pretty good at tax payers expense for a long time. Many make good money without much investment in education or equipment. Some hospital workers and many city workers do not need a lot of education. Janitors and labourers for example. Yet they make good wages with great benefits. The teachers and the doctors etc are well paid with even better benefits so I have little sympathy for their plight. Many Canadians would be very happy to have jobs in the public sector under current conditions.

  (Response: I agree public sector workers have better wages and benefits than many of us in the private sector. I earned more than a teacher friend of mine: yet my pension was $14,000 a year less when we both retired, and the gap has grown, because he gets c.o.l.a. and I don’t; he also gets lower group-cost medical, dental coverage, and I get no such benefits … not a penny raise or any benefits from the day I retired.. But that’s no reason to deny teachers at a negotiated or arbitrated new contract. Dictatorship-imposed and court-enforced undemocratically legislated wages and working conditions have no place in BC …or Canada. h.o)

• 15 Jason // Mar 8, 2012 at 2:45 pm

  You pretty much summarized what I have been saying for years when debating the BCAS strike and hearing all the public uneducated anti-union rhetoric being tossed around: if employers simply treated their employees with fairness, courtesy, and respect – there would be absolutely no need for unions in the workplace. Unions could be wiped out if employers changed their mentality from thinking of their employees of a hassle instead of the actual truth, that they are they’re #1 asset.

  (Response: Of course, unions have a role to play too: stop making outrageous demands for ridiculously high wage or benefit increaseswhen companies or governments are in trouble financially …like asking for several days off when ANYONE you know (Geez!) is sick or dies etc. etc. h.o)

• 16 kwm // Mar 8, 2012 at 3:41 pm

  I agree that two wrongs don’t make a right. Denying a fair process and reasonable outcome to one group is not justification to do the same to another. Similarly, paying ever-increasing ‘executive’ and ‘bureaucratic’ leaders salaries and benefits to retain ‘the best’ and in accordance with rates of pay for CEOs is equally ludicrous. Norm Farrell’s blog has many outrageous examples of non net zero entitlement. Shocking in the extreme.

• 17 Vic // Mar 9, 2012 at 5:00 am

  falcon claims fiscal discipline then I read the following over at Laila’s blog!

  We are very fortunate to have bloggers like Harvey O, Rafe, Norm Farrel, Laila and the late B.C. Mary.

  http://lailayuile.com/2012/03/08/government-credit-card-purchases-show-everything-but-fiscal-discipline/#comments

• 18 JM // Mar 11, 2012 at 1:25 am

  Hey Harvey, I would just add one more addition to your column.

  This government is so arrogant and full of itself (their still riding the Olympics ego wave) as well as Mr. Campbell’s plan has been carried forward to where we are today. My wife works in the school system as a Special ED TA (Teamsters Union) and I feel so strongly about this issue with the teachers legislation (and I’m the furthest thing from a union supporter) that I am considering canvassing for anyone other than the Liberals next election…they are going down.

• 19 Kreditanstalt // Mar 18, 2012 at 4:25 pm

  It’s the principle of the thing. Who owns the companies?

  Why should what’s “fair” have any role in labour-capital negotiations? Should similar wages really be expected for similar work in similar industries? How can wages (an benefits, and pensions, etc.) be determined without regard to profitability – as the latter is defined by the owners of the business? [There is no such thing as "excess profit"!!]

  We have workers claiming more because others get it. Because it’s “fair”. Because they “need” X amount of dollars to support their present lifestyles. Because employers are somehow, perversely IMO, to be made responsible for workers “keeping up with inflation”. And because of “living wages”, the work is “hard”, they live up north or whatever…

  Anything but whether the employees are profitable enough.

  Nobody hires labour as a charity. BCTV, for example, and as with every other employer, belonged to the owners – the shareholders. THEY had the right to any profit, or to a greater profit if it could be generated. The hired help is ancilliary to the needs of the enterprise.

  This is because there is always a shortage of REAL capital, whereas labour is in vast oversupply nearly everywhere – the more unskilled, the more so.

  So it seems to me that collective bargaining and union recognition would not exist in a free, fair and unfettered marketplace. They exist only because the government gun imposes the “right to free collective bargaining”.

  Perhaps employers should have the right to immediately fire all workers refusing to work: when employers are prohibited from operating their own (strikebound) businesses, their capital is tied up and LOST…the workers merely lose the selling of their labour – and indeed can go and sell it elsewhere at any time.

  I’m not saying your working conditions at BCTV were good, amicable or peaceful. The correct response would have been for you guys to quit and seek employment elsewhere, with the wages and working conditions you sought. But government fiat allowing employees to hold the business, the capital, equipment and shareholders hostage cannot be “fair” – or harmonious.

  (Response: The hired help of any successful company are not “ancillary”: they are the essential components that generate the labour that turns ideas into the products that generate the profits. They deserve a fair share of those profits for their labour. And if you check with the most successful companies, they will tell you older, experienced workers are especially valuable because of their knowledge and increased productivity: they should be paid accordingly …especially after putting in 20 or 30 years helping a company advance … not just told if they don’t like it, quit. h.o)

• 20 Kreditanstalt // Mar 18, 2012 at 8:24 pm

  I think you should come clean and state succinctly who is in charge…the employees or the owners. Any middle ground here will tilt the playing field in favour of labour.

  When you say that employees “deserve” a “fair” share – of profits – you imply that hired help is as indispensable as the capital that started the business. And you cannot deny that the disposition of any profits a business generates is the prerogative of the businessowners…

  But labour is usually in oversupply everywhere. Were labour forced to compete, against labour competition in a free market, with free immigration and on the same terms as capital, wages would undoubtedly come down. This in turn would enable more, and more marginal, businesses to start up and provide jobs.

  No one invests or starts a business for the purpose of providing high-paying jobs to labour. They invest their capital, time and energy with the hope of making a profit – the larger the profit commensurate with still obtaining reliable labour and resource inputs, the better. Ideally, any business wants to hire AS LITTLE labour as is necessary – and pay them as little as is possible or acceptable – in order to maximize those profits.

  So I’m having trouble understanding why you think labour (government-protected superfluous or overly expensive workers, at least) are not ancillary to the process.

  When government skews the marketplace with minimum wages, labour -favouring legislation, business taxes, import and export duties, dictating working conditions and threats of court action it makes it a lot harder to start any kind of business.

  Not that the AIMS of such legislation are undesirable! Everyone wants a high standard of living…but mostly without having to be sufficiently productive. The determination of an employee’s salary, working conditions and benefits really depends, ultimately, ONLY on the degree of profitability of the business, doesn’t it?

  No government can change that immutable economic “law”. But western nations’ governments keep trying…and the result is always ever-growing structural unemployment, ever-rising personal and sovereign debt and a dearth of good jobs…

  WHY can’t I hire six or seven unemployed people here in Port Alberni to deliver my firewood at a mutually agreed rate of $5.00/hour?

  Harvey Oberfeld, try as you might, there is NO middle ground on this issue!

• 21 Steppenwolf // Mar 24, 2012 at 7:05 am

  Harvey says a “union when necessary.” The truth is, as history and current affairs everywhere show, unions are ALWAYS necessary and always have been and will be in various ways.

  The historic fact across the globe is that the main way people have won freedoms and higher living standards, as well as enlightenment and socialistic economics to challenge the rule of capitalistic institutions, has been via organizing as labor unions of various kinds.

  There is no better proven more effective way people have achieved the prosperity, awareness, personal liberty and social justice and broader concerns (peace, environment, international cooperation, etc.) then by organizing unions. Unions have proven to be fundamentally vital to building communities–which is what people everywhere have always done to survive and thrive

  As for the “if only employers would treat employees fairly,” the fact is employers don’t treat anyone “fairly” because that’s not what the master servant dictatorial regimen (employer-over-employee, landlord-over-tenant, state-over-people, etc.); says they must be. Rather, they must coercively extract as much capital from the workers who create it via their productive labour in order to gain more share (read: control) of the market (which is also created by working people via their non-profit investment of consumer and tax dollars–that’s who creates the jobs–not bosses or capitalists or even the government).

  And Kreditanstalt is in a way correct. There is no middle ground when it comes to these fundamentals. Either the workers who create all of the wealth for the business democratically own and control it; or it remains under the dictatorial profiteering rule of elite bosses, capital agencies, etc.

  Unions to varying degrees promote more of the latter, which is largely why they are so beneficial

• 22 Fer // May 15, 2012 at 5:36 pm

  The State of Illinois doesn’t respect any uionns. The governor for the last two years has worked to tell the people who work for the state that they would be getting a pay raise this year. After not having any raise for two years in a row..Now he is going to recant those very words he promised. How can anyone take this adminstration seriously if they barter to lessen the burden only to lie about when they are going to honor the contract they signed. Anyone else would have to pay up no one can tell the person they owe money to that they can’t pay this month don’t have the money. All creditors would take back what you owe them for. Amazing all the crap that politicians do to the very people who got them elected. I personally can’t stand anyone who is going to lie right to my face and then slap me on the back to congratulate me for being a good sport and understanding. Again what to do with these types of people they want their 100k pension when the rest of the state will only be able to live month to month. Just my thoughts .enjoy your day!

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