Charter Rights vs. Politic$
The Supreme Court of Canada has reversed an earlier decision and declared that collective bargaining rights are enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
But Gordon Campbell, who tore up agreements with hospital workers in 2002 - after swearing he'd never be the SOB to do such a thing - has since hired 5000 non-union sweepers and cleaners and cooks and bedpan emptiers.
What's a fellow to do?
Let us all watch closely now as the government and the unions are both being called upon to revert to what used to be known as "sweet reasonableness."
Leave us not hold our breath, lest we float to the ceiling and be asked to paint it while we're up there.
2 comments:
I don't know about you, but there's a limit to the amount of taxes I'm willing to pay. I do think that people should be paid a reasonable wage for the work they do but is $20+ per hour "reasonable" or "ridiculously more than reasonable" for cleaning floors?
My fear about this court decision is that the next labour-friendly gov't elected will pay its big supporters, the public sector labour unions BIG BUCKS in the dying days of their term. The next gov't after that will be hamstrung to correct the problem.
With a shrinking percentage of tax paying citizens, where is all the money going to come from in the future? Higher taxes? If so, I'll be exiting this part of the world ... at least as far as the tax man is concerned.
I beleive that both Campbell's government and the unions behaved badly on this one. They could have sat down and hammered out "reasonable" consessions on both sides. Let's hope that the next move will be exactly this.
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