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Helsing posted:I think you're conflating undergraduate student unions and the actual accredited union that represents graduate students and (in some cases) contract faculty. You're right, they're separate entities. The way I understand it is that the CUPE chapter I'm referring to is primarily run by current graduate students (they're paid) with the aid of 2-3 full time staffers. If it was run by a bunch of undergrads, it would be an absolute shitshow. It was eye opening. I recognize the importance of unions - but I couldn't believe the tedium, the amount of inane bickering, and the sense of utter pointlessness of the whole operation. Mind you, I'm basing this off of a single meeting for our CUPE which was at the time 'in crisis', so what do I know. flakeloaf posted:The student union at Carleton voted to stop supporting cystic fibrosis charities because that's a disease of white men. Goddamn velvet milkman fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Mar 23, 2016 |
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Mar 23, 2016 21:42
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Trees and Squids posted:You're right, they're separate entities. The way I understand it is that the CUPE chapter I'm referring to is primarily run by current graduate students (they're paid) with the aid of 2-3 full time staffers. If it was run by a bunch of undergrads, it would be an absolute shitshow. This wasn't, by any chance, CUPE 3902 or CUPE 3903 during last year's double strike, was it? Because yes that was a huge poo poo show and nobody involved ended up looking very good. Cultural Imperial posted:this is what the CANADIAN FEDERATION OF STUDENTS is for u guys Where else are we going to find the farm team for NDP back benchers?
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Mar 23, 2016 21:50
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I don't know how CUPE is set up but if you don't like your local leadership you vote them out. Congrats on going to a single meeting.
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Mar 23, 2016 21:52
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RBC posted:I don't know how CUPE is set up but if you don't like your local leadership you vote them out. Congrats on going to a single meeting. I went to a meeting, of a group of people, in a large institution, and there was disagreement! And impropriety! I was SHOCKED 
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Mar 23, 2016 21:54
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Helsing posted:
This is a huge truth bomb and my biggest personal gripe with the NDP. Especially the ONDP.
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Mar 23, 2016 21:56
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RBC posted:I don't know how CUPE is set up but if you don't like your local leadership you vote them out. Congrats on going to a single meeting. Oh I didn't realize it was that easy thanks
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Mar 23, 2016 21:56
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vyelkin posted:Student union elections are a huge scam. At Toronto turnout was regularly under 20% with a very heavy incumbency bias, so as long as you could get on the ticket for the group that had been running the place for the last decade you just won yourself a $40,000/year job with very little oversight. We had to effectively overthrow the TA union leadership at Concordia because they were just electing their buddies in business/engineering to bolster their CV while not bothering to show up for negotiations with university. When they presented the contract that was essentially dictated to the union by the university, MA students were going to be hit with a $10/hour paycut.
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Mar 23, 2016 21:58
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Student unions are such messy things. Perhaps we should cede all decisionmaking to a group of benevolent elites, or perhaps a single person, appointed by the university President, who would surely make the right decisions in everyone's best interest, in a swift and efficient manner.
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Mar 23, 2016 21:58
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Helsing posted:Where else are we going to find the farm team for NDP back benchers? The Concordia Student Union had to sue the CFS to get out of it. Hoo boy was that a shitshow.
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Mar 23, 2016 22:00
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flakeloaf posted:The student union at Carleton voted to stop supporting cystic fibrosis charities because that's a disease of white men. As a current student at Carleton, I can tell you that the campus unions drive more people away from voting with their obnoxious hallway campaigns. Constantly harassing people trying to get to class is an easy way to breed contempt for whatever you're trying to vote on. Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 22:04 on Mar 23, 2016 |
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Mar 23, 2016 22:02
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I think people are getting confused about student unions and worker unions that represent employees that also happen to be students. The later is an actual union. The first is.. not.
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Mar 23, 2016 22:02
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RBC posted:I think people are getting confused about student unions and worker unions that represent employees that also happen to be students. Agreed. Grad student and TA unions are essential and both the universities I've attended have had good ones who fought for their members and won concessions (even if they had to be pushed into it by the membership at U of T). Undergraduate student unions, on the other hand, well, yeah.
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Mar 23, 2016 22:04
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The worst thing I've ever seen an undergrad student government do would be the president buying a TV with union funds and then leaving it in her dorm room instead of the common room where it was supposed to go. The worst thing I've ever seen a TA / contract faculty union do (other than allegations about possibly covering up sexual harassment stuff) was starting a full scale civil war in the middle of an already contentious strike.
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Mar 23, 2016 22:06
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Graduate student/TA unions are dysfunctional pretty much by construction. Their membership has a very wide range of interests; a master's student TAing a course in the last year of their degree just wants to collect their meager stipend and doesn't care at all about rocking the boat, whereas a 7th year Ph.D. student is looking for continued funding even though they should have graduated years ago. Their leadership is disproportionately drawn from the humanities, which alienates students from other disciplines. Students making good progress towards their degrees with good funding situations generally don't care about the union, whereas mediocre, poorly-funded students who are reaching the time limits for their graduate program tend to be overrepresented. Rather than looking for more money (something at least the whole union could probably agree on), they tend to push for expensive benefits that only help a small fraction of their mostly mid 20s-early 30s member base. They are awful at coordinating in general. Because of all of this they tend not to be able to achieve much for their members. The membership of most unions (even faculty unions, for example) have their incentives much more closely aligned, and that makes a big difference.
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Mar 23, 2016 22:08
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I was in a different province during the whole York strike. Sounds like there's some pretty crazy stories from that mess. If you want to see tone deaf I highly recommend you read the PR releases from a full-time faculty union when they're threatening to strike.
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Mar 23, 2016 22:09
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I can imagine a union made up of a revolving supply of contract and casual workers isn't going to be the strongest.
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Mar 23, 2016 22:10
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Nippising was on strike for weeks and nobody cared. I would have thought that the future labour leaders of tomorrow would know what a sympathy strike is. Trying to halt tuition hikes here and preventing pay cuts for TAs there isn't working. If the student unions in town weren't so concerned with the cultural implications of yoga maybe something could get done.
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Mar 23, 2016 22:14
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There's also the more basic issue that without some kind of socialist or social democratic orientation, labour unions are just another interest group fighting for their piece of pie, and inevitably increasing the size of their slice requires someone else to have less. This is how you end up with teachers and firefighters and nurses giving tens of millions of dollars to support the Liberal Party of Ontario. It does not help that many of the people who still vaguely mouth off the old platitudes and shibboleths about the working class and solidarity are either out of touch or have really grating personalities, thus making the entire idea of collective struggle seem like little more than an excuse for some granola munching bearded weirdo to talk at you for whatever amount of time it requires to come up with a socially acceptable exit from the conversation.
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Mar 23, 2016 22:15
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[Toronto Coun. John] Filion, who spent many years in a football pool with Ford, said his friend “just never got to be who he was or who he would have wanted to be. Filion believes Ford would have been happier if he’d never run for mayor, maybe even if he’d never been a politician at all. “The poor guy just never got to be who he was or who he would have wanted to be,” Filion said. “He could have had a really happy life being the guy who ran the sporting goods store and making sure all the kids had hockey helmets that fit properly, or selling somebody their first football. He could have been your nice next door neighbour that you flipped burgers with and watched Sunday afternoon football with. He would have been a totally content guy having that simple life. He didn’t need to be mayor. He didn’t want to be mayor. ” 
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Mar 23, 2016 22:16
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Helsing posted:There's also the more basic issue that without some kind of socialist or social democratic orientation, labour unions are just another interest group fighting for their piece of pie, and inevitably increasing the size of their slice requires someone else to have less. This is how you end up with teachers and firefighters and nurses giving tens of millions of dollars to support the Liberal Party of Ontario. That "someone else" is management. You know, all those people that are paid much more than you are. Improving working conditions in one industry generally helps all workers.
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Mar 23, 2016 22:21
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It's a nice thought if you ignore all his domestic incidents and drunk driving antics. To me the moment that made me most sympathetic for Ford was that impromptu press conference that his mom and sister gave (the same sister who was later taped smoking crack with him). They basically said, and I'm barely paraphrasing here, that "Rob is fine, he just needs to lose some weight." Probably one of the most irresponsible displays of parenting / being a supportive sibling that I have ever witnessed in the public realm. Ford was visibly killing himself in front of the entire city and his family was enabling him. Between that and having Doug for a big brother, it's much easier to understand how Ford ended up the way that he did.
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Mar 23, 2016 22:23
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The last meeting of one of the Ottawa U unions accomplished nothing more than agreeing to not use gender specific language. They were not able to determine what to use instead, but "Comrade" was a frontrunner. I wish I made this up.
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Mar 23, 2016 22:25
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RBC posted:That "someone else" is management. You know, all those people that are paid much more than you are. Improving working conditions in one industry generally helps all workers. Except that most unions are concentrated in the public sector where labour costs can be absorbed through program cuts, user fee increases and public asset sales, all of which are currently being used by the same Liberal government that just cut a deal with the teachers unions. I'm both a union member and a pretty hardcore leftie, even by the standards of this thread, but a frank discussion of left wing strategy cannot leave out the problems with the contemporary labour "movement" (I hate to even call it that) or ignore the ways in which unions can actually really set the "cause" back through their behavior.
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Mar 23, 2016 22:27
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Helsing posted:Except that most unions are concentrated in the public sector where labour costs can be absorbed through program cuts, user fee increases and public asset sales, all of which are currently being used by the same Liberal government that just cut a deal with the teachers unions. I guess the problem is that unions are no longer (if they ever were) incubators for social change and revolution. The idea that they'd be the driving force to bring about a more social democratic, or even socialist, form of government seems long gone with the way capitalist economies have changed and evolved even if no-war-but-class-war types cling to that myth.
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Mar 23, 2016 22:31
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Helsing posted:Except that most unions are concentrated in the public sector where labour costs can be absorbed through program cuts, user fee increases and public asset sales, all of which are currently being used by the same Liberal government that just cut a deal with the teachers unions. I think the problem with the contemporary labour movement is perspectives such as this that just dismiss past militant tactics of large scale union action. Management can do what it wants to budget. It's not the union members fault. Public sector unions do not control the government. Far from it. If they want to sell off assets, then people have to stand together and oppose them for that. Not blame the employees.
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Mar 23, 2016 22:33
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Dreylad posted:I guess the problem is that unions are no longer (if they ever were) incubators for social change and revolution. The idea that they'd be the driving force to bring about a more social democratic, or even socialist, form of government seems long gone with the way capitalist economies have changed and evolved even if no-war-but-class-war types cling to that myth. I strongly disagree. I think capital has just been extremely successful at defeating and dismantling organized actions. People want this stuff to be easy, it's not. Strikes aren't easy, militant action isn't easy, it's easier to say to yourself "oh that wouldn't accomplish anything anyway." We have legal means to organize in numbers, and bring corporations to listen to demands, and nobody wants to use it anymore. People have been convinced it's not effective.
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Mar 23, 2016 22:39
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Speaking of not having a legal way to organize, sounds like more doctor cuts incoming.quote:Health Minister Eric Hoskins says "out of control billing" by some Ontario doctors is leaving less money for home care and other vital services. http://m.thespec.com/news-story/6403336-ontario-doctors-billing-out-of-control-health-minister
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Mar 23, 2016 22:44
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The worst thing to happen to unions was getting legitimized and regulated. It removed all their teeth by controlling what they are allowed to do. See: every high profile strike in the last 5 years where they just got legislated back to work. No meaningful change will occur from within the legal framework because it is designed very specifically to prevent that.
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Mar 23, 2016 22:48
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I think it's a PR battle as well. Look at how quickly parents turn on striking teacher's unions, or how the automakers union was blamed for their own demise. In the 70's something like 60% or more of Canadians had unions and pensions. Look at us now.
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Mar 23, 2016 22:55
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The entire left has a PR problem and labour is just one component of that. Here's a good Wednesday afternoon listen on just that topic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4UfGZOPJjE
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Mar 23, 2016 23:00
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PR wasn't created so that leftists could one day use it to advance their cause. Of course leftists have a "PR problem", that's by design.
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Mar 23, 2016 23:12
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Dreylad posted:I guess the problem is that unions are no longer (if they ever were) incubators for social change and revolution. The idea that they'd be the driving force to bring about a more social democratic, or even socialist, form of government seems long gone with the way capitalist economies have changed and evolved even if no-war-but-class-war types cling to that myth. In particular, many of today's most powerful unions (or at least their elected leaders) have every incentive to accommodate themselves to the system. The Ontario Liberals have been really good at picking the strongest unions, giving them very narrowly targeted concessions, and then shutting out the rest of the labour movement. I could make a larger effort post later on how the double whammy of Bob Rae and Mike Harris really destroyed any solidarity in the labour movement if anyone is interested in hearing more about this. RBC posted:I think the problem with the contemporary labour movement is perspectives such as this that just dismiss past militant tactics of large scale union action. I don't know why you're accusing me of dismissing militant tactics, either in the past or the present. If anything I'd like to see more militancy. And I think your own perspective ignores the extent to which unions restrain militancy. The representatives of organized labour are typically among the most conservative and cautious voices at any anti-globalization demo, they're often the most conservative voices in social democratic parties, and public sector and construction unions are some of the most important contributors to the ongoing electoral fortunes of the Ontario Liberal Party, which isn't exactly a friend to labour or the working class. Unions are a highly useful tool but their limitations need to be recognized alongside their strengths. Have you ever been involved in a strike that wasn't actually supported by your unions central bureaucracy? Have you ever been at an NDP convention and watched the union guys acting as informal whips for the party bureaucracy? Seeing that kind of poo poo didn't make me anti-union, but it did give me a deeper appreciation of why many people, including many on the left, are so skeptical about organized labour. And they have good reason to be much of the time. RBC posted:I strongly disagree. I think capital has just been extremely successful at defeating and dismantling organized actions. People want this stuff to be easy, it's not. Strikes aren't easy, militant action isn't easy, it's easier to say to yourself "oh that wouldn't accomplish anything anyway." I used to think this way, and I suppose I'd say I still do feel this way to a large degree, but the more you read the history of the last 40 years the more you realize that it isn't this simple. People didn't just give up on striking or labour militancy because they forgot how effective these things are. There were a series of brutal struggles between labour and capital throughout North America and the result was an almost total defeat for labour. My post history in every CanPol thread going back years is riddled with invocations of the power of the labour movement and the necessity of integrating labour into any future leftist coalition or movement. But there has to be some kind of recognition of what went wrong in the past, and what continues to go wrong in the present. Just as the left cannot afford to ignore organized labour, it also can't afford to ignore the very real flaws in Canadian labour unions.
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Mar 23, 2016 23:20
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Helsing posted:In particular, many of today's most powerful unions (or at least their elected leaders) have every incentive to accommodate themselves to the system. The Ontario Liberals have been really good at picking the strongest unions, giving them very narrowly targeted concessions, and then shutting out the rest of the labour movement. I could make a larger effort post later on how the double whammy of Bob Rae and Mike Harris really destroyed any solidarity in the labour movement if anyone is interested in hearing more about this. I'd love to read it, when you have the time. quote:My post history in every CanPol thread going back years is riddled with invocations of the power of the labour movement and the necessity of integrating labour into any future leftist coalition or movement. But there has to be some kind of recognition of what went wrong in the past, and what continues to go wrong in the present. Just as the left cannot afford to ignore organized labour, it also can't afford to ignore the very real flaws in Canadian labour unions. I think there are lessons to be learned in the way the student protests in Quebec spurred 200,000 person protests and galvanized much of the population into action against the government. Of course it helped that the government was baited into overreacting to what were at first pretty modest protests over a dispute concerning involvement in talks over tuition costing. If you ask me to pinpoint those lessons though, I'm not sure I'd be able to. Frosted Flake posted:I think it's a PR battle as well. Look at how quickly parents turn on striking teacher's unions, or how the automakers union was blamed for their own demise. In the 70's something like 60% or more of Canadians had unions and pensions. Look at us now. I don't know if the unions took the blame during the recent collapse, but there's a book on the subject (Industrial Sunset by Steven High) that argues that Canadian unions and auto plants (High only looks at those in the Golden Horseshoe, mind) survived the same collapse that hit the American Rust Belt because the unions were able to invoke Canadian nationalism in order to galvanize public and political support. only really started taking big hits in the 90s and 00s, at least from what I've read. In this case I think they won the PR campaign to save their plants and jobs, while their American counterparts failed because they had no centralized leadership or organization. Dreylad fucked around with this message at 23:27 on Mar 23, 2016 |
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Mar 23, 2016 23:23
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It was the barely-legal boobs that got Anglo media's attention. I'd like to hear about Rae and Harris. How could labour back the people who gave us Rae Days.
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Mar 23, 2016 23:29
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The Canadian auto workers actually split with the Americans over those strategic debates regarding how to respond to the changing industrial landscape. Though it should also be mentioned that Canadian businesses have never been as rabidly anti-union as American businesses. Canada in general is like the USA with safety wheels, knee and elbow pads and a helmet. We don't have that killer instinct that the yankees do. That national softness seems to mean our unions are stronger but our elites are also more secure -- we get higher union density but Conrad Black will never be prosecuted in Canada. The Quebecois, to their credit, seem to buck this trend, which is why it'd be such a tragedy if we ever let them escape our toxic national marriage.
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Mar 23, 2016 23:31
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THC posted:PR wasn't created so that leftists could one day use it to advance their cause. Of course leftists have a "PR problem", that's by design. It couldn't hurt you to actually watch the video rather than arguing semantics because you don't like me.
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Mar 24, 2016 00:04
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He comes not to praise Rob Ford, but to bury him
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Mar 24, 2016 00:06
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Haha wow, I opened this article and just scrolled down a bit to see what kind of article it was and this is what I landed on quote:“If you are not doing needles and you are not gay, you won’t get AIDS probably. That’s bottom line.” That was Rob Ford in 2006, voting against anti-AIDS education programs. When it was pointed out to him that the demographic where HIV infection was growing most quickly was heterosexual women, he responded by saying, “How are women getting it? Maybe they are sleeping with bisexual men.” That was the man in a nutshell: it didn’t matter what the actual facts were. He knew his own mind, and prioritized it over anything that might contradict it, no matter the facts.
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Mar 24, 2016 00:19
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yeah it's a pretty vicious write up from a guy who wasn't a fan for years. Literally, during the original election he called Ford "Flounder" and it shows.
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Mar 24, 2016 00:27
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It's fine; death shouldn't shield someone from criticism.
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