How to say NO to a union

A few days ago two very polite, smart and argumentative grad students wanted to unionize me through a card-check. As research associates and the like do not have union representation they are, allegedly, well underpaid compared to other universities. Forming a collective bargaining unit is, therefore, obviously in our interests.

Well, not really.

If grad students doing research go on strike our next semestral review will simply conclude we haven't made any progress. We'd be expelled from McGill in no time following that.

When a union is formed, everyone will have to join upon being admitted as a grad researcher. I will not sign off someone else's freedom to choose.

Whether you are a member or resign from the union, you still have to pay the dues. Apparently because even without voting in a union ballot, you still enjoy the union's services (the eventual pay raise). I will not steal my colleagues' future earnings.

Card-check is a vile system that presents employers with a fait accompli and leaves ordinary workers vulnerable to abuse, bullying and harm by not-so-scrupulous union thugs. The sooner it is ruled illegal the world over the better. I, for one, will not participate in a system designed with good intentions and used to oppress and bully the innocent.

Gains from union action are illusory. TA's striked and got a pay raise. The following semester a lot of $2000 TA-ships were split into two separate $1000 ones. Over the following two semesters I still believe AGSEM cost me $2000. I never forgive money debts I did not incur voluntarily.

Your card is more likely to be signed in other seas. I am about to be out. Unlike some Liberal leaders, I do not leave my colleagues farewell poison pills. Thanks for asking.

Local jobs for local people - with a strike to boot

As well as opportunities, economic crises tend to bring out the worst in a nation too. Look no further than the UK, whose public opinion has always been permeated with suspicion toward foreign workers (sorry Brits). A wave of solidarity strikes is sweeping the nation as workers at the Total Lindsey refinery cross their arms to protest a sub-contractor who uses its own (Italian) workforce.

Demanding that local workforce be sourced for local jobs is everyone's sacrosanct right, and I am not one to argue against this principle. However, the sub-contractor uses its workforce because it's trained to specification and has been known to the employer for longer. Furthermore, concerns about cheap labor are moot as UK law would prohibit paying anyone below minimum wage.

The simple truth is that British workers, and the contractors employing them, have priced themselves out of the contract. The Italian firm has a proven track record of excellence and offered the best price. Why SHOULDN'T Total choose their services?

Why should a multinational company put British workers first (as they demand) when an Italian company can do the same job cheaper and better, all within the confines of British law? The workers' frustration is legitimate, but there's nothing illegal in what Total has done. Foreign workers have helped Britain become the vibrant economy it was. Skilled immigration has filled the voids left by a crumbling education system.

And today, when trouble bites, all British workers can do is demand those who helped the country to be kicked out, discriminated, gratuitously humiliated without even saying "thanks" or "sorry". Ignorant protectionism and blind nationalism are ugly beasts. A sad state of affairs indeed.

The bumpy road to economic liberty

A very humorous piece by the Globe and Mail, which could also be titled "Lessons from Dion". No, I haven't become a Steffi fan, but am referring to the G&M wandering from the topic of the Celine Dion visit to France and the economic reforms tabled by France's finance minister. The lesson can be summarized by the closing line:

Ms. Lagarde's challenge is persuading more French that a workhorse like Celine didn't get the bling by punching out after 35 hours.

The French labour laws and general mentality have stuck the country in a rut. Regulatory hurdles (lessons about which India should have well taught) force the flagship retailer Carrefour into expansion abroad rather than in the home country, while the President himself meddles with the economy by espousing a view of development as a function solely of factory work. It is outdated and counterproductive. A country without factories can have a blossoming economy through the services sector. A bank, a software engineering consultancy or a services centre are as good as a factory in creating wealth.

One of the reforms involves exempting small businesses from the bureaucracy by requiring only a statement of activity from them. Where's the catch?

In Ms. Lagarde's own words: "Someone who wants to sell flowers, design websites or give singing lessons will have only one document to fill out to declare their activity." That is, as long as that voice coach doesn't earn more than €27,000 ($42,750). At that point, the state's tentacles start squeezing again.

27K in Europe is a very small amount. If we include the taxes in the calculation the overall scope of the legislation is merely symbolic, because no-one can live on THAT income alone. Therefore this law would apply for small businesses that are part of a multi-job life, for those struggling to keep their lives free from the state's regulations and the labour unions' stranglehold. Opposition to such a symbolic move denotes granitic staleness in the French approach to work and economic growth in general.

Liberty is definitely coming to France. But it is excruciatingly slow. Maybe, though, this is the right path: the last time they went through sweeping change guillotiners had to work overtime. A 35 hour week surely wouldn't have sufficed!

How to wreck Ontario

That's the title the Ontario job strategy concocted by labour unions should bear. (CBC)

A new provincial job strategy focused on green industries and unionization of low-wage jobs could play a major role in replacing Ontario's disappearing manufacturing jobs, says a new report by local anti-poverty and labour groups.

Imposing MORE costs on Ontario consumers (that's what a Liberal environmental policy is anyway), ripping out their purchasing power, transmitting some of the causes of the manufacturing sector illnesses on other provincial jobs will only deepen the plight of some of the province's already suffering areas. The labour advocacy groups are trying to capitalize on the hardship of manufacturing workersby aiming to expand their influence and slip their tentacles into more areas of the job market.

NEVER!

What contempt they hold us in!

I feel for Torontonians, caught up in the midst of a fight none of them ever had fault in provoking. The recent actions by the TTC unions trascends the shocking, let alone the wrong.

The CBC, who I'd expect to attempt distortions of reporting in favor of the unions reported, instead, the exact actions and the exact words of the union leaders. Wildcat strikes are an affront to common sense and general sense of duty, but justifying a surprise walkout with these words is frightening:

Union leader Bob Kinnear said giving longer notice would expose workers "to the dangers of assaults from angry and irrational members of the public."

"We have a legal responsibility to protect the safety of our members, and so does the TTC," he said.

Personally I feel offended, as a member of the public, that someone else deems me irrational and angry because a service I would come to expect if I lived in Toronto is suddenly denied to me without any warning. Be I on a date, on business, on a pub crawl or any other activity requiring transport the trade unions would leave me stranded and defenceless. It wouldn't help if I were drunk or broke either when the subway doors were suddenly slammed in my face.

The public is rational, and them getting angry is a legitimate reaction to the strikers' outrageous behavior. Needless to say violence is out of the question, so Mr Kinnear assuming those angels of his constituents would be attacked by angry hoards of assatanated passengers is further proof of the deep and utter contempt in which trade unions hold those outside them.

Throughout many countries trade unions have morphed from defenders of the dignity of labour to the last bastions of privilege and defence against competition and fairness. Whether they may have a point or not (they might well have), the Toronto Transit workers have no right to hold the whole city hostage. Their latest actions deprive their cause of any residual legitimacy they might have had, and immediate mass dismissal would be the mildest reprisal for their acts.

During the London Underground strike that forced the city into a standstill there was a campaign for all shops and enterprises to deny service to the transport union leader for making everyone's life so miserable. Torontonians should do the same too.

Make a sign like the one at the top and place it on the front door of their shop, pub, restaurant, anything. Just to show Bob Kinnear what an angry public can do to make his life as miserable as he makes theirs.

Italian business just got a little free-er

Italy's antitrust watchdog ruled today that it is not OK for local municipalities to impose compulsory closing days on commercial enterprises (i.e. shops). The ruling came after a complaint against the Rome municipality, which fined shopkeepers who opened up on Easter Monday.

This precedent will allow anyone owning a shop to be open anytime they wish, be it a working day or a Sunday, without the constraint of town bureaucrats gagging business supposedly in the interest of the workers, who need in the mind of these statist wonks to be shielded from the (by default) exploitative owner and greedy capitalist.

Reactions range from relief (consumers) to outright condemnation, with the Archbishop of Pompei even calling it an "attack against God", while others point the finger against consumerism, spout unionist drivel or attempt to sound academic about changing society and shops as social space. They are so full of bull!

The very essence of free enterprise in a capitalist society is being able to do business how one wishes to. A little bastion of socialism and nonsense has fallen in Italy. Sadly there's still way to go before I can call my home country a truly economically and socially free nation.