Great idea supporting the law breakers !

Lets all organize a rally to support a person stealing, or selling drugs next okay everyone.
We need to stand behind the criminals and show our support.
Let them know its fine to break the laws of the land, and help them justify their ilegal activity.

Yayyyyyyy to all law breaking people.

Since when does the employee tell the employer when they will and won't work?The fact that the city of P.G.issued these guys a permit to block 5th ave makes me sick,tell these guys to get there asses to work and to do there jobs and if they don't want to do that FIRE them.
Rock

Yeah, right, fire all the teachers. That would make so much sense. Then we can close all the schools permanently, or at least until next September, when maybe a couple of dozen new teachers have been found. Please, don't be so ridiculous. At least keep suggestions within the bounds of the real world.

I had difficulty understanding Marty's post. You were referring to supporting the lawbreaker Gordon Campbell, right?

Most Parent complaints want glorified baby sitters to justify and say stupid things.

Teachers walk with their own children as well.

Why don't you recognize this is what motivates a lot of parents who complain. For them it's not about education.

I wonder what it would be like if a sector of society could produce laws as will nilly as the Campbell governement does? As it does by changing things so if they are not content with the response, they chaneg the law so it can go their way. They have their own Government agenda.

The LIberal motto is, "We the Government" and not, "We the People."

The government declared teaching an essential service. That was their first step in the "bargaining" process. The next step was an injunction to make the strike illegal, and put an end to all further arguments (or so they thought!)
Teaching is not an essential service, and it definitely is not a baby sitting service (although many people regard it as such).
Teachers should have the right to legally strike just as any other union has.
The present court ruling is a result of a contrived set of rules aimed at controlling one group of workers.

Ammonra ,I was talking about the CUPE guys.

Why are leftists so hell bent on damaging the economy? Didn't the NDP do enough already?
Public support will slip away quickly once this starts affecting more non-combatants.

My apologies for not making it clear, Rock. My comments were actually in reference to the post by Gíñø, who recommended firing all the teachers.

united we stand and divided we fall. if the unions are not there to protect the working people, who will? business is there to satisfy it's own wants not the needs of the people. if business really had the best interest of the people at heart then why do we need unions? why are unions becoming stronger; not out of greed but because of need.

I think it is naïve to think that the unions are not looking out for their best interests . It comes down to money, the more that the unions membership makes the more that the unions can charge for dues. The more members that the repective union signs up the more revenue that is being generated. Unions are increasingly run like big business so that they can thrive. The Steelworkers did not become a large multinational because of need, it was a savvy business plan that afforded the opportunity to expand while increasing their coffers. The OSSTF (Ontario Secondary School) is one of the most powerful unions in North America able impact the TSE with their pension fund investing. Unions have a role and an impact but don’t tell me that it is a purely idelogical need of the collective. They have adapted to be financial powerhouses with an accompanying bureaucracy that needs to be satiated.

Unions are not the big behemoths pgpercy appears to think. They are also not primarily driven by the desire to accrue money, that would appear to be the prerogative of multi-national corporations. Of course unions represent the best interests of their members, that is their function, and if they did not the members would bring them into line very, very quickly. That does not mean, however, that member representatives are blind to the realities of life and the need for wider perspectives. Teachers are an example of that, their perspective includes a wish to negotiate class size reductions which would benefit students, even though it would require a trade-off for less pay.

Life is not stark black and white, it includes many shades of grey. Union negotiations involve matters from many perspectives not just pay rates, and not just matters which solely benefit the union's members. They also represent their members on matters over which there are concerns for non-monetary reasons, safety, for instance, or workload. Where concerns like that are important to their members, unions will include them in collective bargaining, and not just in the public sector.

It is interesting that you picked on the Steelworkers to criticise financially, because I understand from one of their members who is a personal friend, that they are one of North America's most frugal unions, with an almost cheap approach to spending money. You chose one of the worst examples possible to illustrate your attack.

As to pension fund investments, you should realise that unions are very careful with their members' money. They are very well aware of the impact poor investments would have. That is why unions hire very competent and experienced investment specialists to manage their funds. Often they agree to quite conservative strategies due to their concern about their members' money as they do in BC, where union representatives sit on boards controlling public sector pension investments. Why criticise them for this? After all, if it were Investor's Syndicate you would probably be full of fulsome praise.

Yes Rock-right on.
The person who writes the paycheque should be up in arms when an employee just decides he or she is entitled to a day off to support another union.
When did they acquire the right to say when they will be on the job, and when they won't???
Fire them. The unions are only there to protect these militant dead beats.
Good workers and good employees do not require the protection of a union.
Looks like a lot of these unionized workers rely on a union to protect them, when they can walk off a job and leave their duties to be taken care of by management.
Employers better quit kissing butt-or the unions will get right back into running this province.
And what classification does this permit issued by the city allowing streets to be blocked off come under???
Guess anything is possible????

OK, so let's fire all the CUPE workers from the City. I'm sure the few management and exempt staff can do all the work for a few days. After that, I wouldn't drink the water. Who do you think keeps it clean? Shades of Walkerton. Then, when the sewer system starts to back up and raw sewage floats down the Fraser to Quesnel, who will stop that? Since Quesnel gets its water from the Fraser, this raw sewage may contaminate their supply, so will you brilliant guys pay the damages that Quesnel then sues Prince George to get because of the salmonella/E.coli outbreak there. And, when the potholes in PG get to be every five feet on 15th Ave, will you guys go out and fill them in? I presume you guys will be the ones making sure all the traffic lights work at all controlled intersections, eh? If there are some accidents, because there are no City employees to fix them, will you guys compensate the families? Will you also pay the arbitration costs for the thousands of wrongful dismissal grievances that will be fired, or will the taxpayer be lumbered with that. Your idea, you pay!

Do you get my drift? You can't take people off the street to do those things. Get a grip. The penalty has to fit the offence. One day off, lose some pay. That's realistic. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valour. It may also explain why you guys aren't city managers!

Sounds like their jobs are pretty important to our health and well being, scary to think they have the right to "walk off" the job simply by deciding to do so, and for longer than one day.

Ammonra, don't be silly. Of course the city will function just fine with out a CUPE worker within a hundred miles. Lots of businesses can easily do the job of maintaining a city, particularly a union run system that is technologically challenged. You obviously are ill informed about the capabilities of small business. They innovate and create, unions don't. You obviously didn't realize the traffic lights in PG are looked after by a small local business, not some one on the government payroll. Unions are only important for the ideologically pure. To the rest of us unions are just a nasty joke.

So, YamaDooPolCat, I was wrong in a specific, but my points still stand. Ther are many services provided by the City which require expertise not easily available. Sure, eventually replacements would be found, but it could be some time and meanwhile services would deteriorate, and for what. So you and those like you can smirk over having stuck it to those pinko unionists? Give me a break. As I said, "Discretion is the better part of valour", and the whole of the rest of Prince George does not have to suffer because you have a problem with democratic political demonstrations you do not agree with.

Ammonra that's terrible - "Discretion is the better part of valour, so we does not have to suffer." Is that what unionism is all about to you? Surely you don't mean that, perhaps you got carried away like with the traffic lights thing and unions aren't really all that bad?

Gypsy,I believe they used a parade permit in order to block the street for their rally.I'm glad we share some of the same veiws,so lets just remember that when it comes time to elect a mayor,one of the front runners wreaks of NDP.
Rock

1.2 million active and retired members for the Steelworkers ammonra, I would say that that is a behemoth. Your point of your one friend – member of the corporate board? -that indicates that the Steelworkers are parsimonious validates my argument. The union is maximizing their interests. If your one personal friend is not happy, they have the capacity to affect a change. Look for another union that will look out for the best interest of the collective rather than the bottom line for the union. So in fact your validation determines that the Steelworkers are the best example for illustrating the corporate focus of the modern unions, thank you.
I am not criticizing them for maximizing their own interests, it is a fundamental privilege of capitalism. It is just something that we have to realize is behind aspects of their agenda.

The idea that this strike is in anyway an exercise in democracy is pure union BS. To equate the two diminishes the many wars fought for democracy. I can just see the union film clip of private Ryan storming the beaches of Normandy, screaming to his troops, "Lets take this beach in the name of unions everywhere for the right to a negotiated work environment" Here's the drill ammonra. There are employers and employees. This is certainly news to you, but its not a 50-50 relationship. Someone has to be the boss, and in this case it is a our elected government. Equating this job action to the civil rights movement, like many of the law breakers do, only demeans that movement. If this has to boil down to government Vs the federation of labour war, bring it on. Ask the NHL hockey players what its like to pick a losing battle.