Canadians think more like Americans than Europeans when it comes to labour unions.
Some 93% of Canadians who responded to a National Post/Global National poll said they feel workers should be able to choose the union that represents them. Nearly two-thirds, or 62%, said removing a union should as easy as voting in one.
Nice sentiments, but no such rights exist here. Canadians only think they do.
Nearly one-third of Canada's workers belong to unions that are entrenched because of laws and court decisions that are as restrictive as Germany's or pre-Thatcher Britain's.
It's all but impossible to unseat unions.
Wonder why? Diane answers some of the following questions:
1. Can you refuse to become a union member? (You may refuse, but can you succeed?) What happened to the fellow who “mounted a Supreme Court of Canada charter challenge on the grounds that a worker's right of assembly or association, contained in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, also guaranteed his right to NOT have to associate or belong to a union.”
2. Can you stop paying dues to your union?
3. Can you stop your union from taxing you and giving money to the political party that keeps the union strong—parties such as the NDP or the Bloc Quebecois?
4. Can you work in construction in PQ without a union card? (For that matter, can a citizen of one of the Maritime provinces go to Quebec and work in a unionized job -– installing cupboards, for example? You jest!)
5. What is there about the politics of the City of Toronto councillors that makes them disallow any but union contractors getting city contracts to do work for the city?
6. What did the Supreme Court of Canada have to say about the situation where a worker did NOT want his dues directed by his union toward the NDP?
7. Can workers replace a union with which they are unhappy with a union of their choosing?
8. Can you be a private contractor—non-unionzed—and get a government contract? After all, you are a citizen and this is your government--isn't it?
Make a guess as to the answers; then read Diane Francis. She is always a good read! Why doesn’t someone ask Diane to run for office? The Canadian Alliance? Are you listening? This gal has a good head on her shoulders. She cuts through the crap!
I have a few questions that I wish she would answer.
1. Will the teachers’ unions protect teachers who express their own views on any subject in their free time or are they supposed to be politically correct and make only Liberal-approved political statements? For example, can a teacher any longer publicly support a traditional Christian position on gay marriage, on gays teaching in Roman Catholic schools and flagrantly displaying their contempt for RC teaching on homosexual practices, on teaching with books that treat same-sex parents as perfectly acceptable and normal?
2. Will the union support teachers who refuse to go along any longer with some currently approved practices in education--practices with which many teachers disagree?--for example, method of reading instruction, formal instruction in spelling and grammar
3. Will it support the teacher who disagrees with what is taught in sex education classes and who does not support certain attitudes that are being discussed with students--attitudes about which reasonable people may disagree--but attitudes which are currently considered healthy in most school systems?
4. What will the union do if a teacher does not want to go out on strike? What if the teacher helps students during a strike?
This is just for starters. Now, you think of a few that you would like to find about your pet union.
Freedom--of speech and of association--are relative in Canada. When I think of JC and the SCOC in Canada, I can only paraphrase Snowball’s line from George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
All Canadians have freedom of association and freedom of speech but some have more freedom than others.
In Animal Farm, Orwell had the pigs rising to the top. In Canada, we do not have pigs rising to the top; we have Liberals -- who are never far from the trough, however. They are not about to curb the power of unions. The Liberals and the NDP are hard to tell apart much of the time, particularly on social policy and social engineering. The unions support the government's pro-union stance.
