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The benefits of walking
May. 29th, 2006 10:44 amOne of the many benefits of walking to work is that today's TTC wildcat strike didn't have much of an effect on me. (Okay, I'm sure my lungs might disagree with that.)
Still I can't say I support the union on this one. At the time of collective bargaining, the situation is a bit more debatable. (Although I'm not all that keen on public service strikes even with plenty of warning.) To make this perfectly clear - I'm opposed to the near-instant strike action today. (That the union hasn't shown up to the bargaining table by noon makes me even more annoyed. But my point below still stands.)
But that doesn't mean - unlike pretty much everyone around here - that I'm going to call for all unions to be abolished. After all, for all their problems, there are positive benefits to come from unions. The fact that my teeth are relatively straight and that I got to go to university without bankrupting myself for another two decades is due to my dad's union job. I'm not the only one to have such benefits. And that's leaving out all the health and safety issues, protecting workers from "bottom-line" mentality management.
When companies go bad and do cruel and stupid things - which happens about as often as unions doing stupid things - only those campus kooks would demand we abolish all companies. People might want some new rules in place, but outright abolishment of companies is justly seen as too radical. I'm left-of-centre but I wouldn't call for all corporations to be abolished.
And that's how I feel here. Things need to be changed, yes. But outright abolishment of unions? No. I still think we need cheques and balances in the working world.
Allen
P.S.: I don't need the aggro today, and so I've disabled the comments field. Just glare icily at your monitor instead.
Still I can't say I support the union on this one. At the time of collective bargaining, the situation is a bit more debatable. (Although I'm not all that keen on public service strikes even with plenty of warning.) To make this perfectly clear - I'm opposed to the near-instant strike action today. (That the union hasn't shown up to the bargaining table by noon makes me even more annoyed. But my point below still stands.)
But that doesn't mean - unlike pretty much everyone around here - that I'm going to call for all unions to be abolished. After all, for all their problems, there are positive benefits to come from unions. The fact that my teeth are relatively straight and that I got to go to university without bankrupting myself for another two decades is due to my dad's union job. I'm not the only one to have such benefits. And that's leaving out all the health and safety issues, protecting workers from "bottom-line" mentality management.
When companies go bad and do cruel and stupid things - which happens about as often as unions doing stupid things - only those campus kooks would demand we abolish all companies. People might want some new rules in place, but outright abolishment of companies is justly seen as too radical. I'm left-of-centre but I wouldn't call for all corporations to be abolished.
And that's how I feel here. Things need to be changed, yes. But outright abolishment of unions? No. I still think we need cheques and balances in the working world.
Allen
P.S.: I don't need the aggro today, and so I've disabled the comments field. Just glare icily at your monitor instead.
