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Trade unions and matters related to unions everywhere

27K views 268 replies 24 participants last post by  groovetube 
#1 ·
Since BigDL is in the process of changing the name of his union thread to "Eh! You're The Troll! No, YOU'RE The Troll, Eh! The Canadian Edition" I am setting up a new union discussion thread.

All union discussions are welcome, for, against or neutral. I am not requesting the discussion be limited to Canada.
 

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#187 ·
Perfect...

Ontario paid $1-million to union for labour peace with high school teachers

Ontario’s Liberal government paid $1-million directly to the province’s high school teachers’ union as part of a deal to defuse one of its most explosive labour disputes, a document obtained by The Globe and Mail reveals.

In addition, the government financed raises for teachers by diverting money from a fund for special programs that help struggling students graduate.
 
#188 ·
Further on the above.

First, it seems that now it was $2.5 million, not just $1 million. Second, a small, tiny piece of accountability seems to have never been issued.

Ontario did not seek receipts for $2.5-million paid to teachers’ unions

Ontario’s Liberal government did not ask to see receipts for the expenses of three teachers’ unions before secretly paying them $2.5-million to cover their costs during contract talks.

Education Minister Liz Sandals admitted on Thursday that there are no itemized accounts of exactly what taxpayers’ money paid for. “You’re asking me if I have receipts and invoices. No, I don’t,”
Ya feel that, Ontario?

Further:

Ms. Sandals also refused on Thursday to say how much the government paid teachers’ unions in contract talks in 2004, 2008 and 2012 to defray their expenses. “I’m not sure that it is useful to go back and rake through the history,” she said.

Premier Kathleen Wynne dodged questions on the subject in the daily Question Period.
M'bold.

Of course it isn't...
 
#189 ·
The latest update on the above? Over $7 million. Nice.

However, the denial continues...

Kelly McParland: Wynne Liberals can’t keep their excuses straight as bill for union payments grows

The effort of Kathleen Wynne’s government to avoid acknowledging the impropriety of its relationship with the teachers’ unions would do credit to a rookie contestant on Dancing with the Stars. It twists, it turns, it ignores, it obfuscates. This is political denial as high art – the Cirque de Soleil has nothing on Ontario’s Liberals.

The performance is necessitated by several factors: the revelation that the Liberals paid millions of dollars to the unions while supposedly negotiating as adversaries; the secrecy surrounding the payments and the growing size as leaks continue; the inability of the government to get its excuses straight as ministers and the premier try out various, sometimes contradictory, explanations; and the reluctance of a government long in the tooth and mired in arrogance to admit to yet another expensive mistake.
Go Liberals!!!
 
#190 ·
Give 'em a raise!!! Throw more money at the problem!!!

Detroit Public Schools: 93% Not Proficient in Reading; 96% Not Proficient in Math

Only 4 percent of Detroit public school eighth graders are proficient or better in math and only 7 percent in reading. This is despite the fact that in the 2011-2012 school year—the latest for which the Department of Education has reported the financial data—the Detroit public schools had “total expenditures” of $18,361 per student and “current expenditures” of $13,330 per student.
 
#193 ·
My tax dollars at work...

Public servants want paid days off to grieve 'spirit friends'

The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) wants its members to be able to take paid grieving days for “aboriginal spirit friends.”

The Educational and Library Science group of the public servant union did not offer an explanation or definition of “aboriginal spirit friend,” but wants the term added to the list of family members workers can take days off to mourn.

Gilles Benoit of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, said he’s never heard the term before.
M'bold.

Further:

“They want 10 days off with pay if an imaginary friend dies,” CTF national director Greg Thomas said in a statement. “These people might as well be working at imaginary jobs.”
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

More:

“Counting weekends, vacations, statutory holidays, sick days, family days and personal days, federal employees can already get between 150 and 165 days off every year with full pay,” Thomas said.
OK, ok. I can hear the screeching already, what with including weekends into the calculation. So, lets' take 104 days/year away from the final numbers: 46-61 days off, every year with full pay.

Now, they want 10 more...
 
#194 ·
#195 ·
From earlier this week.

Canada Post issues 72-hour lockout notice to union

Canada Post workers are bracing to hit the picket lines as early as Friday after the corporation issued a 72-hour lockout notice on Tuesday.
Does anybody even care?

Pretty difficult for me to muster up any feelings of support for a gold-plated pension plan when, as a business owner, I don't have one of my own. That, & the state of the economy, period?

Nope.

Hope it's a long one...
 
#196 ·
Not only does almost no one care, the union is shooting themselves in the head. An extended lockout or strike will only serve to accelerate the realization that Canada Post is nearing obsolescence in the digital age. If the disruption is more than a week, they are just digging their own graves.
 
#197 ·
It will be rough on me if it goes on too long, because I receive much of my income through mail. But that just turns me further against the postal union. Following each strike, mail volume goes down as people find new and more efficient ways to avoid using Canada Post.

Was talking to a Canada Post guy a few months ago, bitching about how new employees won't get his gold-plated pension. I don't know who he thought he was talking to describing this gold-plated benefit as though everyone has it. Asked him why the union didn't offer home delivery three times a week in exchange for getting rid of community boxes. He says daily delivery is sacrosanct and they will fight it to the end. Just unbelievably short-sighted.
 
#199 ·
NLRB: Graduate Students at Private Universities May Unionize

In a blow to private institutions and a boon to their graduate student employees, the National Labor Relations Board ruled Tuesday that graduate research and teaching assistants are entitled to collective bargaining under the National Labor Relations Act.

Graduate student unions at public institutions are common, as students’ collective bargaining status on public campuses is governed by state law. But the NLRB oversees graduate student unions on private campuses. Tuesday’s decision in favor of a graduate student union bid at Columbia University effectively reverses an earlier NLRB ruling against a graduate student union at Brown University, which had been the law of the land since 2004. The decision also overturns a much longer-standing precedent against collective bargaining for externally funded research assistants in the sciences.
 
#201 ·
Obama NLRB Wiped Out 4,500 Years of Legal Precedent

President Barack Obama’s top labor arbiters have overturned a cumulative 4,500 years of legal precedent over the past eight years, according to a new study.

The National Labor Relations Board, an agency that oversees union elections and workplace disputes, has issued numerous new rules that changed longstanding agency practices, as well as issued decisions that overturned decades of precedent.

In all, the board has overturned 91 precedents, wiping out more than 4,000 years of case law—averaging more than 45 years per decision; the agency’s new election rules overturned a combined 454 years of protocol, according to a study from three labor attorneys at the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace and Workplace Policy Institute.
More:

Heather Greenaway, spokeswoman at the Workforce Fairness Institute, said that the NLRB has acted as a “rogue agency” during President Obama’s tenure.

“The Obama-era NLRB will be remembered as an anti-jobs agency that rewarded Big Labor cronies by rolling back years of long-standing precedent,” she said in a statement. “We are hopeful that the incoming administration will reverse the damage caused by the Obama’s labor board by … promoting stable bargaining and economic growth, while also unwinding the damaging and job-killing rules leveled by pro-union bureaucrats.”
M'bold.
 
#202 ·
Good.

SEIU Texas Declares Bankruptcy After Losing Millions to Company

The Texas chapter of one of the nation’s most powerful unions filed for bankruptcy after losing a multi-million dollar lawsuit for its smear campaign against a Houston janitorial company.

A jury ordered Service Employees International Union Texas, also known as SEIU District Five, to pay Professional Janitorial Service of Houston $7.8 million in September for making false claims about the company during a campaign to rally support from workers and local activists.
 
#203 ·
Further on the SEIU.

SEIU Budget Slashed by $90 Million over Union Fears of Trump

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is slashing its organizing budget by $90 million, in a sign that unions fear their message will not resonate during a Trump administration, according to Businessweek.

Breitbart News has reported extensively on the bare knuckles tactics of the SEIU-backed protests that eventually led to Los Angeles and many other large cities across the U.S. adopting some form of $15 minimum wage.

SEIU President Mary Kay Henry stated at the time: “Together, we will continue to fight in the streets until greedy corporations and the politicians who favor them over working people take steps to restore the chance for all American families to get ahead. We will not stop until all work is valued and every community has the chance to thrive.”
M'bold.

Say, wait just a gosh-darned minute...

What about greedy unions? :yikes:
 
#204 ·
Good.

Right to Work Spreads to New England

New Hampshire could become the nation’s 28th right to work state after the GOP-controlled Senate passed a bill banning union membership as a condition of employment.

The right to work bill, which is modeled after legislation passed in more than half of states, prevailed by one vote in New Hampshire’s high chamber, 12-11, on a near-party line vote. If the bill passes the GOP-controlled House of Representatives, New Hampshire could become the first state in New England to adopt right to work.
 
#209 ·
Government Workers Union Spent $20 Million More on Politics than Representing Members

One of the nation's most influential labor unions spent $20 million more on politics than it did representing the interests of its members in 2016, according to its federal labor filing.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) spent $55.3 million on "political activities and lobbying" in 2016 compared to the $36.4 million in expenditures related to "representational activities," such as contract negotiations and grievance managements for its membership, according to its 2016 federal labor filings. Its political spending accounted for more than 27 percent of all its expenditures for the year.
 
#213 ·
School Board Shakeup in Los Angeles

Many of L.A.’s education woes can be traced to its school board and the United Teachers of Los Angeles union, which has controlled the board for years. And that’s why what happened on May 6 is so remarkable. Two reformers—Nick Melvoin, a former inner-city middle school teacher who lost his job due to union-backed seniority rules, and Kelly Gonez, currently a charter school science teacher—were elected to the LAUSD board. Reformers now constitute a majority of the seven-member governing body in America’s second-largest city.
More:

The Los Angeles school district has distinguished itself by poorly educated students, a dubious graduation rate, shrinking enrollment, a serious financial shortfall, and a zealous teachers’ union leader who, more than anything, wants to maintain—and in fact increase—his union’s power, even if it takes a “state crisis” to do so.
It will be interesting to see how this pans out.
 
#214 ·
School Board Shakeup in Los Angeles



More:



It will be interesting to see how this pans out.
Sadly, the U.S. has a dreadful history in governance of public school. In Detroit, and I live right across the river from it, the DPS system is almost $1B in debt.....that's a B. One city and its almost a billion in debt!
 
#216 ·
FeXL, from my perspective the U.S. system is a Marxist dream. Constant supply of low cost, poorly trained and compliant labour. One has to question a system which rewards delusions of adequacy.
 
#217 ·
OK, so, coupla things.

First, article is nearly two years old so bear the timeframe in mind.
Second, could have been posted in a number of threads but the Union one seemed most pertinent.

Mark Zuckerberg's $100 million donation to Newark public schools failed miserably -- here's where it went wrong

In 2010, Mark Zuckerberg donated $US100 million to Newark, New Jersey’s failing public-school system with the intention of turning around the schools in five years.

The goals Zuckerberg set out to achieve — to enact a number of reforms that would make Newark a model city for education reform — are widely seen as a failure, journalist Dale Russakoff told Business Insider.

So where exactly did that $US100 million go if the turnaround was a failure?
More:

The $US100 million from Zuckerberg actually became $US200 million under the agreement other sources would match his contribution. Here’s where that money went:

1. Labour and contract costs: $US89.2 million
M'bold.

Further:

One of the biggest failures in Zuckerberg’s plan to reform Newark schools was the renegotiated teachers’ contracts.
Finally:

Finally, $US20 million of Zuckerberg’s donation went to consultants who took care of management of the projects. While not technically a failure, this contributed to the poor optics of the plan.

Consultants were making $US1000 a day...
M'bold.

Somebody, anybody, please, sign me up for a nice, cushy $1000/day consulting job advising on a social experiment destined to fail from day one...
 
#224 ·
An interesting overview on union pensions backed by a StatsCan report.

Thought your taxes went to hospitals, roads, bridges or other infrastructure? Over 70% goes straight into employee bank accounts. They collect huge salaries then gigantic pensions until the day they die. Pension costs have increased 530% over the past 15 years.
 

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#226 ·
Yep - saw this coming.

Politicians and employers catering to the baby-boomer demographic during heyday consumerism promised generous pensions that depend on (unsustainably) ever-increasing subsequent generations to cover the costs.

I was taught at an early age to, not only expect no 'pension' for myself, but to prepare any off-spring for the burden of covering the costs of these generous pensions.

:-(
 
#231 ·
For all you union haters and union supporters today will be a watershed day as the SCOTUS rules on the Janus case. Public service unions everywhere, and maybe all unions are holding their collective breath I think on this one. If you are not familiar it would be the U.S. equivalent of reminding the Rand Formula.
 
#232 ·
Related:

Dem Senators Rally for Unions as SCOTUS Hears Mandatory-Dues Case

Massachusetts Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D.) and Ed Markey (D.) on Monday spoke at a Boston rally supporting the right of public-sector unions to extract mandatory dues.

These Democrats made the case that the Supreme Court should maintain government agencies’ right to mandate so-called fair share fees, Mass Live reported. They joined with union leaders to fight for the defendant in this case, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Council 31, as the Supreme Court was hearing oral arguments about it.

The senators from the Bay State said the case against mandated fees is a scheme by Republicans’ billionaire donors.
Bold mine.

As opposed to say, Soros, Democrat billionaire donor?

And, if Fauxcahontas is for it, it's probably worth fighting against...
 
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