Unions Are Loosing the PR Battle

During this recession, a great deal of people have lost their jobs. Those fortunate enough have had wages frozen and benefits clawed back, or are stuck working part time for relatively low pay. Retirees, most without private pension plans, have seen their savings dwindle as stocked crashed. Many of them are questioning whether they can afford to maintain their current quality of life. Retired workers are now flooding into the part time market, taking jobs away from younger people, in order to supplement their incomes. Yes, it's tough times for all, unless you happen to belong to a big union. Toronto's city workers have gone on strike over what amounts to whether or not they can bank their 18 annual sick days and cash them in when they retire. Government workers have long operated on a culture of entitlement and believe that regardless of what happens in the outside world, they should be left untouched. Toronto's concessions to maintain labour peace is a large part of what has led to the city's near bankruptcy. Simply put, the city cannot afford to be paying these huge cash bonuses as large numbers of employees start to retire, many of who are eligible to do so at 55 instead of 65. CUPE claims it did not want to go on strike but obviously, I'm not buying this. Oh, it just happens they set their strike deadline at the beginning of Pride Week, an event which brings millions to the city and generates a heck of a lot of garbage. That was a coincidence I'm sure, no extortion here. All it will do is parade the city's incompetence and the union's greed before the world.

There is some backlash against big unionism starting to appear. It has marked a drastic change since the strikes during past economic downturns. Back in the 1930s and 1970s, workers were fighting for fair wages and better job security during bad times. Today, they are seen to be fighting for petty issues, such as the right to cash in sick days, or to grab tax dollars as was the case with the CAW's negotiations with GM and Chrysler. Toronto's CUPE workers are basically fighting over something stupid while at the same time putting people at a huge inconvenience and putting public health at risk by not picking up trash. Even many socialists will have trouble defending this while their non-union brothers are getting thrown through the shredder for no fault of their own as private companies struggle to survive and remain profitable. Most people recognize cut backs during hard times as inevitable. As other pundits have pointed out, unions however, particularly in the public sector, soon see minor perks as becoming inalienable rights. To add insult to injury, Toronto's non-unionized staff have seen major layoffs in order to pay for the perks of the union. In some perverse way, the big unions see this as incentive for more to join their ranks. In reality, it has drastically soured the relationship between unions and the general public. People see them as snivelling, entitled, cry babies. Civil servants are quickly loosing their golden boy status. They need to get their butts back to the bargaining table as soon as possible because they're not going to get the public sympathy that they did in the past. In the end, they look and largely are just as bad as the fat cat managers they're fighting against.