[BeaverFever]

$1:

but the artical sounded to me like the Union was wanting things to stay the same. No major incresse or raises.

Plus, the Union made major concessions in each of the last 2 rounds of bargaining....after going without pay for a significant amount of time to boot (1 year in the Hamilton plant). Does the employer have to go for the nuclear option on every single round? Can't they let workers catch their breath and find their feet for a minute before swinging the hammer again?

[OnTheIce]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Plus, the Union made major concessions in each of the last 2 rounds of bargaining....after going without pay for a significant amount of time to boot (1 year in the Hamilton plant). Does the employer have to go for the nuclear option on every single round? Can't they let workers catch their breath and find their feet for a minute before swinging the hammer again?

Would the workers rather have a job or not?

It's not "nuclear" for companies to try to dig themselves out of the red, it's something you have to do as a business. You can't sit back, incur debt for years just to give employees breathing room.

You have to do what's best for the company to keep it afloat.

Unions and companies have to drop the 'Us vs. Them' battles and work together.

[BeaverFever]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Plus, the Union made major concessions in each of the last 2 rounds of bargaining....after going without pay for a significant amount of time to boot (1 year in the Hamilton plant). Does the employer have to go for the nuclear option on every single round? Can't they let workers catch their breath and find their feet for a minute before swinging the hammer again?

Would the workers rather have a job or not?

It's not "nuclear" for companies to try to dig themselves out of the red, it's something you have to do as a business. You can't sit back, incur debt for years just to give employees breathing room.

You have to do what's best for the company to keep it afloat.

Unions and companies have to drop the 'Us vs. Them' battles and work together.

You seem to not understand that there is a bargaining process, whereby the various terms and conditions of work are discussed one by one at a bargaining table. You seem to think employers with Collective Bargaining Units are in the right to simply unilaterally dictate "take it or leave it" terms at the start of the contract window and the Union is solely to blame if they don't take it. The lock-out or strike should only occur when the bargaining process has been underway and the talks break down beyond the point where an independent mediator or arbitrator can not find compromise. In this case, US Steel went straight for the lock-out yet again, so yes, it's the nuclear option.

I agree that the adversarial structure of North American industrial relations isn't ideal - look at European and Scandinavian models for example, which seem to work much better (those "socialists"!). But you have to admit that the Union's refusal to capitulate over and over to a company's continuous unilateral concession demands under threat of the harshest option available isn't the "Union refusing to work together".

[Zipperfish]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

bootlegga bootlegga:

That might be true if a government inspector hadn't ordered the building closed the day before the collapse, but it was the garment companies who ordered their workers to come in.

National Geographic speaks to this issue far better than do any of the politically correct news outlets like CNN:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... se-world/#

It's a very long article but the sum of it speaks to corruption in the building inspections and certifications processes.

Supposedly it was not built to code. So who was the inspector who looked the other way?

Supposedly the top floors were built without permits (permits that probably just disappeared from a file cabinet in the inspection office the same day of the collapse). So who was the inspector who looked the other way?

I'll guaran-damn-tee you the local authorities knew all about this and while the inspection records and permits may have conveniently disappeared I'd bet a year's pay that the tax records tell a different story altogether.

You know that the taxes were assessed based on what was built and those tax records are going to refer to the missing inspections and permits for sure because while the Bangladeshis are corrupt they're just as bureaucratic as the Indians.

That's why this assertion that no one in the government knew anything about this is sheer hogwash. The owner of that building didn't do jack sh*t without paying off permits and inspections because that's just not the way things roll there.

True, but if the workers had a united voice they could have stood up to the owners. No one was looking out for them. A union would allow them to look out for themselves.

[BartSimpson]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

True, but if the workers had a united voice they could have stood up to the owners. No one was looking out for them. A union would allow them to look out for themselves.

You're treating the Bangladeshis as if they live somewhere in the GTA and would be responsible union members just like your friends in Canada.

Except that these are totally different people who live in a totally different paradigm than you do.

If they had a union the union boss would be cutting deal with members to short their dues, the boss would be ripping off the pension fund, and etc.

In short, the union would just add another layer of corruption to the existing layers of corruption.

Funny, you have no problems saying that the USA should recognize that people around the world don't all want to be like the USA (and I agree with you on that) yet you're projecting Canadian values and perceptions all over the Bangladeshis.

A union is not going to solve their problems. Unless their broader cultural problems are resolved then simply adding a union to the mix won't fix anything because the people running said union will be just as corrupt as everyone else.

[Thanos]

The government over there would probably send in troops to crush the union when the owners called in some favours. By the time the fighting and rioting was over they'd end up with a death toll about twenty times higher than the one that resulted from the building collapse. Given the social structure in such places there's probably more sympathy for the dead in North America than there is in Bangladesh.

[BartSimpson]

Thanos Thanos:

The government over there would probably send in troops to crush the union when the owners called in some favours. By the time the fighting and rioting was over they'd end up with a death toll about twenty times higher than the one that resulted from the building collapse. Given the social structure in such places there's probably more sympathy for the dead in North America than there is in Bangladesh.

Exactly. No doubt most of the people in the immediate area of the disaster just want it cleaned up so they can get back to what they were doing and they're probably wondering why so many foreigners give a damn anyway.

[fifeboy]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Thanos Thanos:

The government over there would probably send in troops to crush the union when the owners called in some favours. By the time the fighting and rioting was over they'd end up with a death toll about twenty times higher than the one that resulted from the building collapse. Given the social structure in such places there's probably more sympathy for the dead in North America than there is in Bangladesh.

Exactly. No doubt most of the people in the immediate area of the disaster just want it cleaned up so they can get back to what they were doing and they're probably wondering why so many foreigners give a damn anyway.

Marked on calender: 26 April, 2013: Bart and Thanos agree on something. Check

[Thanos]

Life remains cheap in most parts of the world. What things like the fertilizer plant explosion in Texas show us is that it's an unending fight to make sure that cold-blooded attitude doesn't take root again in our part of the planet. By and large we've succeeded but there's always a chance to backslide if too many monied interests keep trying to push the government away from it's regulatory safety role.

[OnTheIce]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

You seem to not understand that there is a bargaining process, whereby the various terms and conditions of work are discussed one by one at a bargaining table. You seem to think employers with Collective Bargaining Units are in the right to simply unilaterally dictate "take it or leave it" terms at the start of the contract window and the Union is solely to blame if they don't take it. The lock-out or strike should only occur when the bargaining process has been underway and the talks break down beyond the point where an independent mediator or arbitrator can not find compromise. In this case, US Steel went straight for the lock-out yet again, so yes, it's the nuclear option.

I fully understand there's a bargaining process but the bargaining process has to take one very important thing into account before it begins and during.

Reality.

You cannot bargain without knowing what you have to bargain with. Going into a negotiation with a company that's losing money and expecting a raise makes no sense at all. It's not realistic.

Your argument could be turned around much the same on the workers. They can't just come to the table expecting a raise.

[BartSimpson]

fifeboy fifeboy:

Marked on calender: 26 April, 2013: Bart and Thanos agree on something. Check

Ooops, I think we may have cracked the Seventh Seal with that.

[stratos]

fifeboy fifeboy:

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Thanos Thanos:

The government over there would probably send in troops to crush the union when the owners called in some favours. By the time the fighting and rioting was over they'd end up with a death toll about twenty times higher than the one that resulted from the building collapse. Given the social structure in such places there's probably more sympathy for the dead in North America than there is in Bangladesh.

Exactly. No doubt most of the people in the immediate area of the disaster just want it cleaned up so they can get back to what they were doing and they're probably wondering why so many foreigners give a damn anyway.

Marked on calender: 26 April, 2013: Bart and Thanos agree on something. Check