Tag Archives: war on unions

WorkLife: There’s Power in Youth and Unions Working Together

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May 16, 2014    By Gabriel Bako    http://policyfix.ca

While the labour landscape has changed dramatically in Canada in the last 58 years, the legal framework has not. The labour relations framework that we use today in Canada was implemented in 1944 with PC-1003, and the Rand Formula in 1946. The models were based on the Wagner Act of 1935 that was implemented in the United States which gave important legal rights to organized workers. PC-1003 gives legal rights to unions to collectively bargain, represent, and organize workers and the Rand Formula gives the provisions for automatic dues check-offs.

It’s clear that these pieces of legislation are necessary to the viability of the labour movement, however there needs to be some updates. In 1944 organizing was radically different from today, as was the labour landscape. Industrial and manufacturing sectors are shrinking and today the largest employment growth is in the retail/service sector, accounting for 11.5 percent of all employment in Canada in 2011.  These new jobs are mainly precarious and non-union, with fast food and mall jobs becoming more common. They usually pay minimum wage, lack stable hours, and provide few or no benefits. Even union retail/service workplaces jobs are becoming increasingly precarious. The push from non-union competitors sets the tone for how union retail/service workplaces operate their business. In today’s unionized retail/service sectors the employers intentionally hire young workers with the knowledge they aren’t well informed about their workplace rights. In addition, even in unionized retail/service workplaces the opportunity of full-time hours or even a guarantee of set hours is unlikely.

Unions are trying to organize the precarious non-unionized sector, but at the same time they’re finding it increasingly difficult just to protect their current members. Whether union or non-union, the retail/service sector is precarious, and this push comes from neoliberal policies that have become more normalized and mainstream in recent years.

The push from corporate elites to undermine labour legislation has resulted in the weakening of card-check legislation and automatic certifications, attempts to enact so called right to work, attacks on the Rand Formula, and more recently the assault on unions through attempts to impose onerous financial reporting regulations on unions and restrictions on their social justice activities.

This assault on workers is making it increasingly difficult for unions to expand into areas where they need to gain ground. For example, the growing retail sector is characterized by high-turnover and the ability to jump between workplaces, making it difficult for unions to organize. However if we want a healthy and sustainable labour movement we must find new ways to connect with the many young people who work in this sector.

Unions are realizing that they must organize these workers; it is critical for the viability of unions, but also for the workers. Despite the reality that Monday to Friday 9-5 jobs are a distant memory, unions can still achieve better scheduling provisions, fair wage increases, respect and dignity, benefits, and the right for workers to have a democratic, participatory role in their workplaces. Youth want to organize, and the unions want to organize them, but the labour relations framework doesn’t allow for this to happen effectively with the changes brought on through increases in retail/service jobs.

In today’s society young people want to take collective action against all kinds of injustice but are often doing this in non-traditional ways that are grassroots and association based; such as community coalitions, worker cooperatives, and employee associations, rather than through formalized structures such as unions. The problem is that under the current labour relations framework, these grassroots and association based structures don’t have any legal rights in terms of the employment relationship. Under these systems employees cannot formally negotiate collective agreements, and they can’t access grievance and arbitration procedures. Therefore unionization is still the best option for achieving workplace rights.

While unions want to have more inclusivity and broader representation they haven’t been able to work out some of the internal barriers that allow for this to occur. Their often hierarchal structures don’t always reflect the diversity of the labour market today. This allows for things to remain status quo, and active young people who would like to give voice to change aren’t always given the opportunity.

Unions must recognize that in order to work they must allow youth to take on participatory roles in all aspects of the union – organizing drives, negotiations, advisory and executive boards, and even take on staff positions. Unions must begin to reflect the workforce they’re looking to organize. There are some unions doing this, and it’s creating positive changes. Yet the biggest change that needs to occur is that young people and unions must come together to find ways for a new organizing model that is successful; perhaps the Wagner model isn’t it.

The challenge is great. The legislative changes required to give the labour movement the tools it needs to organize increasing numbers of precarious youth will only come about with a substantial sea change in our political landscape. Before this will happen, more youth must become engaged in politics and in the labour movement, and labour must increasingly reach out to youth.

Gabriel Bako is major in the Labour Studies Department at the University of Manitoba and a member of  UFCW 832.

We Can Beat The Right And Win The Fight At Canada Post

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http://www.socialistproject.ca    December 19, 2013

Doug Nesbitt and David Bush

The decision by Canada Post to end home-delivery, increase postage and eliminate approximately 10,000 jobs is, in our opinion, an egregious assault on public services in Canada. If this plan goes through it will weaken the union movement, put a key federal public service on the path to privatization, and land another neoliberal blow against social solidarity.

Since the economic crisis of 2008, Canada has seen an unprecedented assault on workers and public services to pay for the crisis and re-establish the profitability of the banks and the corporations. In the process, the rich are getting richer, public services are no longer being starved of funds but structurally undermined, while private and public sector jobs that provide any chance at a decent living are being squeezed out of existence for the vast majority. Those who are fortunate enough to be in a union are under the gun from federal and provincial government legislation, assaults on pensions and benefits, and devastating plant closures which impoverish entire towns, counties and regions.

But all is not lost. We can turn this around. We believe that there is a real possibility to build a movement spanning Canada and Quebec to stop these attacks, and even build the power to make positive transformations to our postal system. There are four key reasons why we don’t think this isn’t just wishful thinking.

CUPW

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) is on the left of the trade union movement and they have a long history of militancy. CUPW’s membership extends into almost every single community in the country. Unlike the federal public service, which is regionally uneven in its representation (most members are concentrated in Ottawa), and the transport workers unions which are organizationally fragmented between many unions and companies, CUPW is well situated to engage in a national fight-back campaign.

A number of urban CUPW locals still exercise a degree of rank-and-file shopfloor militancy that includes the use of wildcats, slowdowns and work-to-rule.

In 2011, the rotating strike/lockout required the union to organize actively its members in a way that they hadn’t done for a decade. Before that strike/lockout many of the 50,000 CUPW members had never walked a line (when was the last strike/lockout?). The lessons learned in 2011 about state power, duplicitous management, collective solidarity and community outreach were important for the unions’ current ability to build the fighting force and increased militancy needed to counter these changes. Obviously, it is an open question whether CUPW can ratchet up its confidence, militancy and creativity amongst its own members. The conditions are there for them to do so. Those of us who aren’t postal workers should be ready to support the posties in our workplaces and communities.

The Experience of 2011

In 2011, activists from across the country independently and sometimes in loose coordination with each other organized a solidarity campaign in support of the postal workers. For example, in Halifax activists put on multiple rallies, went door-to-door to thousands of residences, developed an extensive poster campaign, crafted accessible literature and designed a website for other activists across the country to access and use those materials. Other similar groups were independently active, such as the People4Posties in Ottawa, which occupied Tory MP riding offices with CUPW members. Meanwhile, campus-based labour unions, student unions in Quebec and English Canada and Students Against Israeli Apartheid joined forces to create Students4Posties.

These experiences are not entirely lost, and the social and organizational links created still exist in many places. The infrastructure of solidarity can be revived and initiated where it doesn’t exist.

These experiences and networks preceded Occupy, the Quebec student strike and Idle No More. Occupy has placed questions of class power and wealth inequality, democratic control of society, and alternatives to capitalism in the public sphere. The Quebec student strike has challenged us to think about thankless but strategic organizing in a concrete way, while opening up questions about the purpose of public institutions. Idle No More has delegitimized the federal government in fundamental ways and educated many on how to be allies in action, instead of just words. Last but not least, all three movements have pushed municipal, provincial, and federal governments to expose glaringly their anti-democratic interests and reliance on legal and police repression in defence of the status quo and the interests of profit accumulation.

In short, we are better situated than in the spring of 2011 to build a national movement around the Canada Post cuts.

Public Opposition to the Federal Government

Beyond the engagement of radicals, young people and community movements, the wider Canadian public has begun to demonstrate a willingness to side against the Harper government (and other governments too) on cuts to the social safety net, legislative assaults on labour, and environmental deregulation.

The layoffs and attacks on workers such as at Electro-Motive Diesel and the closures of the Heinz and Kellogg’s plants in southern Ontario, Bill 22 against BC teachers, and Bill 115 against Ontario teachers, have all stirred public dissent. A fledgling boycott movement emerged around the EMD lockout and closure – a boycott movement that was more shunted than supported by the labour movement, and ultimately sunk by the Canadian Auto Workers’ closure agreement). Heinz workers in Leamington are actively discussing the question of workers’ cooperatives in a region ravaged by plant closures. The BC and Ontario teachers struggles of 2012 saw thousands of students in dozens of high schools walkout against the government bills and in solidarity with teachers. These walkouts helped disarm a good portion of the media-generated anti-union backlash.

In the first year of the Harper majority government in 2011, many Canadians were shocked by the avalanche of actual and threatened back-to-work legislation against postal workers, Air Canada service workers, flight attendants, ground crew and pilots, and CP rail engineers. By March 2012 when Air Canada ground crew wildcatted at Pearson (with actions spreading to Vancouver, Montreal and Quebec City), and the following month when Air Canada pilots organized a “sick-out” independent of their union, a media-generated backlash was noticeably absent.

Organized labour is being forced to come to terms with the legislative assault at both the federal and provincial levels in Canada. The catalogue of attacks on working people is long and stark: the restrictive and repressive changes to EI (Employment Insurance); the expansion of the highly exploitative and potentially racially divisive Temporary Foreign Worker program; the ongoing resistance to CPP reform; and the punitive anti-union Bills C-377 and C-525, and C-4 with their respective arbitrary rules on finance to harass unions, obstacles to union organizing and dramatic rollback of federal health and safety regulation.

The moves in the direction of ‘right-to-work’ legislation taken in Saskatchewan are being followed closely by the hard right in the Conservative Party. In Ontario, right-to-work is a key campaign proposal from Conservative Leader Tim Hudak, and is indirectly influencing the Ontario Liberal minority government. A prospect of a Conservative election victory is generating activity in some provincial unions, labour councils and locals. Many realize the necessity of a province-wide movement against right-to-work. So far this has not coalesced.

Even if still tentative, public opposition to the economic, environmental and legislative agenda of the federal government is ripe terrain for the left to engage the public on an issue that literally affects the majority of Canadians. An August 2013 poll commissioned by CUPW found that 69 per cent of Canadians opposed Canada Post privatization. Moreover, 63 per cent support an expansion of Canada Post services, including financial services like postal banking as a public alternative to the banks.

The Scope of the Canada Post Struggle

The cuts to Canada Post will affect every community in Canada; meaning opposition has the potential to be built in every community. Over five million Canadians are going to lose home delivery. Everyone is going to be paying more for worse service. CUPW pensions are going to be attacked. This will put all pensions at further risk, and this should open up room for widening the campaign for the expansion of the CPP. CUPW is advancing postal banking as an alternative source of revenue, and it could play a particularly important role of facilitating the savings and banking services for rural working-class Canadians. It is also possible to imagine postal offices across the country as sites for providing Service Canada (as the post office is often the only federal government building in small towns).

These four factors provide favourable – indeed, necessary – conditions for a fightback. Door-to-door postal delivery is already seen in a favourable light, and people simply don’t like the idea of having to pay more for a crappier service.

The Left in Struggle

Beyond the battle at Canada Post there is a bigger political calculation at work. We must look at the broader balance of forces and see this struggle as an opportunity for the Left. The Left in Canada is weak, fractured and directionless (apart from the promise of Quebec Solidaire). This type of campaign, win or lose, can contribute to organizing the Left and empower the broader working-class. It even opens up the possibility of fracturing the allegiances of small employers (who will be hurt by Canada Post cuts) to anti-union, anti-worker, anti-democratic organizations such as the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (one of the key sources of neoliberal ideology in Canada and support for the Conservative agenda).

The nature of the postal system means that the type of solidarity campaign that can and should be developed is one that involves door-to-door canvassing. Canvassing is educational in two senses. It means entering into discussions with neighbours and strangers. This in and of itself is an educational process in learning how to listen to people, how to frame arguments effectively, and how to conduct ourselves with the humility often lacking in the largely insulated and often sectarian Left. It also trains the Left as organizers, as individuals and as an organized force, who can then go and train to empower others.

Canvassing goes beyond engaging in a conversation, listening to people’s views and grievances, and explaining what’s going on at Canada Post. It allows us to ask people to put a sign in their window, mailbox, or door. It is by no means a radical act. But it is an act of social solidarity and can only be positive for postal workers themselves. Having a petition and sign-up sheet on hand can also quickly develop into a network of contacts that can then be invited to organizing meetings, educationals, canvassing, and actions. We must remember that building popular support for CUPW and saving home delivery in no way ensures that the right won’t push ahead with its cuts or privatization agenda. When the Royal Mail was privatized by the hard right Conservative government of David Cameron in Britain, over two-thirds of people still supported it remaining public. We need to be building a wider organizational capacity to back up any militant steps that CUPW might take with large numbers of people ready to take actions in support.

These efforts can be coordinated with CUPW members and labour activists in their local unions and labour councils. The posters in the community and social media can also be seen as signs of support to be revisited and flyered for upcoming actions and demonstrations. But we need to make sure we can move beyond just inviting people via Facebook or posters. The campaign should be seen as empowering – listening, informing and providing avenues for action need to be built into each aspect of this fightback. Every act should build further possibilities for mobilization and organization.

What is ‘political’ about this? Part of it lies in struggling to preserve a specific public service from further privatization and striking at neoliberalism. But the answer also lies in the attempt itself. This campaign allows already existing organizations to build up their own membership and engage the public in a way that promotes the idea that public services aren’t about profit. Think of it as throwing matches on the ground, who knows what will catch fire?

Where the left isn’t organized, a campaign like this can begin to lay the groundwork for developing positive relationships and open up possibilities for new coalitions and organizations with some staying power. The task won’t be easy and will require a serious engagement with existing left institutions that are often dismissed as inadequate to the task at hand. However, as we claim, the moment provides a real opportunity that ought not be dismissed out of an all-too-common left-wing fatalism. Labour councils, union locals, student activist groups and left-wing student unions are all self-evident coalition partners with experience and resources which can also attract more people if they’re engaged openly in a campaign.

In many parts of the country the only organized left is the NDP riding associations which attract left-wing and labour activists who are more often than not firmly to the left of the party’s elected representatives. Plenty of riding associations are dormant in between election cycles, but with canvassing experience, community mapping skills, and connections to local activist and social justice organizations, committed left-wing NDP members can bring substantial assets to any popular left-initiated coalition in defence of Canada Post.

We need to build structures and committed left organizations that are able to engage in strategic long-term campaigns. Strategically using a nationwide battle to save a public service is a wonderful entry point to start to win people and activists over to working and developing politics together.

But won’t this just be social democratic? The fight for strategic reforms is not reformism. Reformism entails the belief that capitalism can somehow be made just within the given social and power relations in our society. This we believe is an absolute falsehood. The only way to fight for justice, housing, food, etc., for all is to replace capitalism.

In this conjuncture, we must begin by organizing for strategic reforms. There is of course an ever-present danger that this could be co-opted by social democrats, but so what? The NDP would have been forced to adopt better positions and have to develop policies that restores, reorganizes and expands postal service. A victory for collective social services! We would have won a reform but also have grown organizational capacities, sharpened our politics and been part of a mass lesson in collective power. If we simply cede this fight to narrow reform campaigns, than we will miss an opportunity to connect radical politics to the most relevant issues of the day for the working classes in a big way.

In Halifax the lessons drawn from the postal support campaign were important in understanding the need for collective organization and the necessity for strategic campaigns that force the left to organize to its right.

We can win this. The frontal assault on our public services by Harper’s Conservatives and the hard right provides an opening. Through the coordinated efforts between, the Left, the broader labour movement, and CUPW, we can re-write the script and bog the right wing agenda down in defending the destruction of a still popular service. We can, if we are strategic and diligent, grow our movements and politics along the way.

This requires that we act fast. The inability of the Left to provide alternatives and movements to counter the capitalist agenda means that the public is often resigned – including the NDP, and especially the Liberals – to the fact before these policies even take effect. The Left itself suffers from this same fatalism. The neoliberal agenda relies on this psychological effect, that the objective conditions make it impossible to fight against the inevitable. This can be overcome, not just with good ideas, but with strategic organizing as well. The longer we wait before actively fighting these changes the greater the risk that the campaign will encounter entrenched pessimism on the issue.

This is an opportunity to deepen labour and community ties, grow explicitly leftwing movements, train and deepen the political and strategic skills of activists, connect left wing activists across the country, campaign on an issue that effect millions of Canadians, and deal the right a defeat.

We can do this!

Please visit the supportpostalworkers.wordpress.com for materials and information on how you can get involved. Also you can follow @supportposties on twitter for updates. •

Doug Nesbitt and David Bush are co-editors of rankandfile.ca.

Georgetti: The Tories Attack on the Middle Class Should Worry You

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Ken GeorgettiKen Georgetti    President, Canadian Labour Congress

12/04/2013   http://www.huffingtonpost.ca

The Conservative government is engaged in a campaign to distract their supporters from a series of Senate scandals and cover ups. The Conservative fundraising machine believes that if it feeds its base a constant diet of someone to dislike, the donation cheques will keep rolling in. Workers and their unions are their current targets with a long list of legislation designed to keep their base happy.

The Conservative government’s recent volleys against workers and their unions will only serve to undercut the well-being and security of middle-class families in Canada if they succeed in pushing through their anti-union legislation. The Globe and Mail said as much in a recent series of articles on growing inequality in Canada — “declining unionization has contributed to wage inequality.”

Canada’s labour movement is not just about decent jobs, it’s about a better life for everyone. Unions have worked to protect good jobs, make workplaces safer, fought for paid vacation time, public health insurance and the Canada Pension Plan. When union members stand up for fairness everyone benefits — whether you belong to a union or not.

Canadians will see through the government’s attempts to divide people against one another. At one end of the legislative spectrum, the government uses giant omnibus bills to throw everything but the kitchen sink into one piece of legislation. The current budget bill runs to 308 pages and in the fine print it makes sudden and dramatic changes to the Canada Labour Code. One of those changes would place workers’ lives at risk by eroding their right to refuse dangerous work.

Other amendments to federal labour laws would erode workers’ constitutional right to bargain collectively by letting the government unilaterally, without negotiation, change the rules for bargaining with their employees. To add insult to injury, witnesses to the parliamentary committee studying the bill who would speak out against the changes were deliberately scheduled to testify after the deadline for the committee to make amendments passed.

What is the government really trying to fix here? We know that well over 99 per cent of all collectively bargained contracts in Canada result in an agreement rather than a strike or lockout. There was no consultation with any of the parties affected by this proposed legislation, and changing the rules without consultation and negotiation is simply heavy-handed and unfair. Given the Supreme Court of Canada will soon rule on very similar legislation introduced by the Saskatchewan government, the ideological cousins of this government, it’s also premature.

At the other end of the legislative spectrum, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) is offending parliamentary tradition by using its influence to introduce Private Member’s Bills and to force their passage. That is what happened with Bill C-377, an unconstitutional piece of legislation that will force labour organizations (but no one else) to undertake costly and time consuming reporting of even the most minute of financial transactions.

Bill C-377 was supposedly the initiative of backbench Conservative MP Russ Hiebert but we know that special interest groups met frequently with the PMO, including the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff Nigel Wright, and the PMO exerted pressure in order for the bill to pass.

The senate found Bill C-377 to be so offensive that it was sent back to the House of Commons in June with numerous amendments. But then the Prime Minister shut down Parliament and Bill C-377 is now going to be sent to the senate all over again. Bill C-377 is ideologically-motivated and aimed at wasting union members’ money and it is not needed. Our members already have access to financial information about the unions to which they belong.

Bill C-525, another Private Member’s Bill put forward by a Conservative MP, would make it nearly impossible for workers in the federally-regulated sector to join a union. The bill would consider workers who don’t bother to vote in a certification vote as casting “no” ballots on having a union. That’s not democratic — giving those who don’t vote control over those who do. If those rules applied to electing MPs, Parliament would be empty. One set of rules for Conservatives and a different set for workers — that’s unfair.

Finally, the recent Conservative Party convention in Calgary passed a number of aggressively anti-worker resolutions. One of them would allow some workers to stop paying union dues but still receive all the benefits that the union negotiates – all at the expense of their coworkers who do pay their dues. Leave it to ethically-challenged Conservatives, counselling people that it’s okay to dine and dash at a restaurant while leaving others at your table to pay the bill. That’s unfair and it’s a recipe for conflict and disruption in the workplace.

This government puts its extreme ideology ahead of all other considerations, but Canadians see these bullying tactics for what they are. The CLC and its affiliates ran a television advertising campaign during October and November 2013. We talked directly to Canadians about the positive role that the labour movement plays in our society. The response to our campaign has been overwhelmingly positive from both union members and the public at large. That response and our polling shows that we are on the side of the vast majority of Canadians. They will support a labour movement that works in the interest of fairness for everyone.

Ken Georgetti is president of the 3.3 million member Canadian Labour Congress.

War of words continues in FortisBC lockout, union says company saving $7 Million in wages

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by Bruce Fuhr on 01 Dec 2013 http://thenelsondaily.com

Members of the IBEW say FortisBC should pass on savings due to the lockout back to customers. — The Nelson Daily file photo

Members of the IBEW say FortisBC should pass on savings due to the lockout back to customers. — The Nelson Daily file photo

The war of word continues to be exchanged between the two sides in the labour dispute at FortisBC.

The locked out International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers 213 said in press release FortisBC has saved $7 Million from not paying wages and should not be granted an increase to raise rates by the BC Utilities Commission.

“Considering FortisBC has saved millions of dollars from not paying its locked out workers, these rate increases do not seem fair or right,” said Rod Russell, Assistant Business Manager of IBEW Local 213.

“FortisBC should not be profiting from locking out its workers, especially since its billing customers for services they are not receiving.”

The IBEW Local 213 said in an October 18 submission to the BC Utilities Commission FortisBC outlined its five year plan to raise rates by 3.3%, 3.6%, 3.6%, 3.6% and 3.6%; through compounding these increases will make FortisBC rates 19% higher than they are now.

However, speaking on behalf of FortisBC, Director of Communications Joyce Wagenaar said, although labour costs have decreased, there have been increases in other areas such as “such as management and exempt staff covering work usually done by IBEW employees and legal costs.” 

“We’ve provided these updates to the BCUC as part of our annual rate setting process,” Wagenaar told The Nelson Daily.

“As part of this rate setting process, we provided a five-year plan to the BCUC that anticipates electricity rate increases of 17.7 per cent over five years. “

“These increases are required to make necessary investments in the electrical system and to address rising costs,” Wagenaar added.

“This plan does not factor in BC Hydro increases or the addition of any major projects, which are taken into account during the annual rate setting process.”

FortisBC managers have been performing the work of unionized workers since the company locked out IBEW Local 213 June 26.

More than 200 employees (all with FortisBC Electric) that includes electricians, linemen, millwrights, meter readers and office staff have been affected by the lockout that stretches from Princeton to Creston and up through the Okanagan Valley to Winfield.

FortisBC and IBEW Local 213 have been without a contract since January 31, 2013.

Russell said FortisBC is doing a less than perfect job servicing customers during the lockout.

Not only are customers getting less services from management staff, they are paying the same monthly costs as FortisBC estimates electricity consumption through the dispute instead of reading meters to obtain the correct charge.

“A lot of people are struggling to pay their electricity bills and that’s including FortisBC’s own locked out workers,” Russell explained.

“But not only has FortisBC locked them out in the cold and deprived them of a paycheque, it’s raising their bills too.

“We do not know how FortisBC intends to correct customer billing given they have their two tiered rate structure and have not been reading meters consistently.”

Waganeer disputes the union claims saying the company has been following the Essential Services Order won by the IBEW through application to the B.C. Labour Relations Board, which restricts company managers from reading customer meters,

“Since June 26, we have been estimating customers’ electricity use,” said Waganeer.

“Our estimates are based on historical usage at their address.”

Waganeersaid for new customers without any historical information, FortisBC uses a comparison based on the region where they live.

“Since September, our ability to read meters has increased but we are assessing and prioritizing based on the limited resources we have available to fulfill these duties,” Waganeer said.

“At any time, if customers feel that their bill does not reflect their use, or that energy use has changed, please call our contact center at 1-866-436-7847.”

Russell said the IBEW Local 213 has been contacted directly by customers asking if the union would lead a class action suit to recover these funds. 

IBEW Local 213 is looking into a class action suit feeling FortisBC should ensure customers are not overbilled. 

The lockout entered its sixth month last week.

No new talks are planned as the sides are spending more time at the B.C. Labour Board than at the negotiating table.

The last labour dispute at the power company was in 2001.

The job action in 2001 lasted almost four months.

An 80th Anniversary Message from Campbell Newman – Welcome to Germany 1933

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November 16, 2013     http://archiebutterfly.wordpress.com

NOTE: Campbell Kevin Thomas Newman is an Australian politician and the 38th and current Premier of Queensland since 26 March 2012. His government in Queensland’s parliament passed a contentious industrial relation law on November 27, 2913 “but Queensland Council of Unions (QCU) president John Battams says the government’s urgency and lack of consultation has been breathtaking” and “the legislation is designed to instil fear in public servants and strip them of their workplace rights.”, according to ninemsn.

“They will have no rights whatsoever, the government will have total control over them,” he told AAP.

The following is a satirical comment on the passing of the contentious legislation, that the author believes bears a striking resemblance to Nazi Germany 1933.

With the Harper government and provincial governments in Canada declaring war on unions, the comment is thought provoking and sobering. Cheers.

 

When the great man Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933 one of the first things on his agenda was taking out the pinko commies and destroying the unions. He figured it would shut up any dissent and please his rich donors, and he was right. 80 years ago he gave the nod to the boys in black and brown and in shades of our boys in Mappoon they went in and smashed up all the trade union offices in the country, arrested all the union officials and made quite a few of them disappear if you know what I mean. And good riddance to them too. If only we had the same luxury we would fix this joint in a blink.

After they’d sorted the union bosses the Nazi state took over the role of looking after the interests of the working class, and a bloody good job they did too. They sorted out the gays and the gypsies and the Jehovah’s Witnesses (shut up JP) and the Jews and everyone else  they didn’t like or who didn’t vote for them. And it worked – the economy was booming, business was making money, confidence was high. And then those bloody lefties Churchill and Roosevelt got involved and stuffed the whole thing up. Idiots.

But don’t you worry about that because Hitler knew what the go was and so does Can Do Campbell Newman, and we’ve decided to mark the 80th anniversary of the attack on unions by launching our very own barrage on the unions here in Nazi Queensland. Yes my loyal subjects, we’ve just introduced a bill into State Parliament that crushes the unions with the stroke of a pen. We’ve seen off the bikies and now wer’re going to see of those Labor loving fat cat bastards (What’s that? I earn 5 times as much as a union boss? Manassa Mauler – grab that man, throw a leather jacket on him and send him to the star chamber).

Yes Queensland rejoice, because no budding Labor hack union official or fat cat boss will ever again set foot in your workplace to bother you with nonsense about fair wages and conditions, or collective agreements, or strike action ever again because just like Uncle Adolf we’ve taken over the role of looking after the working class, and have we got some good news for you.

First off, you don’t have to worry about whether you’re going to Straddy at Xmas this year or saving your holidays to visit mum in Thargomindah in July, because your employer’s going to decide for you when you take your leave. Yep, you just sit back and concentrate on the job at hand and your boss will give you a fortnight’s notice and off on holidays you’ll go. It’ll take all the worry out of your hands and I bet that’s a bloody relief. And if it’s not, well I am sure you all appreciate that the boss pays the wages so unless you want us to stamp a Mongol tattoo on your forehead I’m sure you’ll simply do as you are told.

We’ve cut the red-tape around redundancy payments and made them easier for you to understand by simply trimming away the fat. Now you’ll have less money to count when we ask you to pursue a different career path, and because you’re getting paid less you’ll pay less tax, and no-one likes to pay tax. And if anyone tries to tell you your redundancy pay is less than the Fair Work Act minimum standard, well you just tell them that we do things differently up here and ask them if they are bloody two-headed Tasmanian or something.

You see up  here we’re smarter than the average wombat, and Queenslanders know that if you’ve been bludging on the public purse for 9 years in the Department of Transport then you deserve to get 3 weeks less pay than you used to, and this productivity improvement will mean that instead of sitting around watching daytime TV for three months youll get off your ass and find another job. And that’s what public service redundancies are about – jobs, jobs, jobs.

And speaking of jobs, we hear that they’re looking for cleaners at the airport so take the tip and join the job queue outside Qantas at 4 o’clock tomorrow morning. They’re running 3 month unpaid job trials to assess your suitability so bring a mop and your own cleaning products.

And in the future don’t bother to go looking for help from those slugs who bludge off your union fees, because we’ve made it illegal for your boss to consult with Vicious Lawless Associations about workplace changes or involve them in any way in the decision-making process. Shoot, we’ve made it illegal for your boss to even tell the unionbastards that they are going to make any changes, and the whippersnapper will have your employer up against the wall if the jelly-legged cowards even try to slip the union any documents or information about the jobs they plan to cut.

Employment security’s also out the window. We can’t run this state properly if people aren’t running around in fear so it’s now illegal to mention job security in awards, contracts or agreements. It’s also illegal to talk about contracting out your jobs or services – that’s the bosses prerogative and they can do whatever the hell they like, and if your job is outsourced to Sri Lanka well you should be happy that you’re contributing to the war on terror and the evil axis, because we have to give the soldiers something to do when the’re not raping the wives or killing the kids of suspected terrorists don’t we?

We were working on a plan to send the union bosses over to Columbo just so the troops can keep their hand in, but we’ve hit a snag because they keep banging on about turning our boats back, but I’ll talk to Scotty and I’m sure he’ll work something out. We’ll let you know at the weekly briefing if we feel like it, otherwise we’ll just let you know that for reasons of national security we can’t let you know and I’m sure you won’t mind because you’re sick of hearing about brown bastards in boats anyway.

We’ve also taken the red tape off restrictions to when you can and can’t work and because we know you’re keen to put in 24/7 rostering will now be your bosses sole decision, just like it should be, and if you can’t work Tuesday nights because you’re a single mum and you can’t get a babysitter then maybe you should have a good hard look at yourself in the mirror at Centrelink in Tweed Heads because there’s no jobs here in Queensland for the likes of you.

And we know you don’t like the red-tape wrapped around the award, minimum conditions and all that crap, so we’re changing them too, and we’ve set it up so that the people who run this bloody state – that’s Jarrod and I – can tell those imbecile industrial commissioners exactly what they can and can’t put in the awards. In fact we’re probably going to write the bloody awards for them, because those buggers are just like the judges and if it’s not written down then they can’t be trusted to interpret the law the way we mean it to be. These bastards get up my nose they just sit their in their ivory towers and nitpick over whether arguing over the meaning of words and suffering up our laws. What a bloody waste of time. is, was, is going to be – they’re bloody bikies so just lock them up you twits.

While we’re on the subject, I’m thinking about cutting the red-tape big-time and getting rid of the law books altogether. We’ll just put our legislation up on Wikipedia, and if any half smart cocaine-snorting bleeding heart lefty lawyer finds a loophole Jarrod can just do an edit on his smartphone and Bob’s your uncle, problem fixed.  And if any of those whineing academic posers on the bench try to make you pay more tax by giving you a pay rise, and let me make it clear more pay for you bludgers is not part of our fiscal strategy, then we’ll edit that out too with one big DELETE because only we get more money, and I’m sure you agree we bloody deserve it for having to put up with you lot.

But I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that we’ve sorted out the problem with the teenage thugs who are on the path to becoming bikies by taking away all their employment rights. If they want to play the selfie-taking, we’re only young once card then these school-based apprentices and trainees, who couldn’t get their noses out of their iphones long enough to understand their rights anyway, can go and kiss my ass and if they’ve got a problem at work well that’s there problem and if they want to get smart about it we’ve got boot camps ready and waiting to sort their punk attitudes out.

And there’s no discrimination anymore in this State unless you’re young, disabled or an apprentice. We’re going to pay that lot less so if you think about it you’re actually getting a relative pay increase without it costing us a cent. How good’s that hey? We tried to cut the pay of these gay-marriage seeking homos too but the problem is that since we took the scalpel to their equal rights laws they’ve been difficult to spot because they’ve taken off their pink jackets and covered up their rainbow tattoos and the limp wristed Leo’s are hiding among normal Queenslanders like Jarrod and Tim and me.

We’ll find them though because I’ve called up the Doctor, the Rabbi and the Right to Life GP to form an advisory panel to the government to sort it out. While they’re up here I’m going to get them to do a review of our funding of Family Planning clinics too because the bloody things cost a fortune and these bloody women just need to keep their legs together and we wouldn’t have a problem would we?

But I digress. Now if like most slack-ass employees your collective agreement includes a whole lot of company policies then we’ve cut the red-tape and made things easier for you to understand by stripping them all out. So now you can forget all that rubbish about your boss feeling you up in lunchroom or making you work 27 shifts in a row being against policy, because Queensland only has one policy these days and that is to screw you down as tight as we can so that we can give more money to business. It’s a good policy and it’s the Reich policy and I’m sure you will agree.

So folks, thanks for coming to listen in your 10 minutes lunch break – yes we did think about cutting lunch out all together to give you the privilege of increasing productivity but then you’d be going to the toilet on the bosses time and we’re not having any of that – now shoot off and shackle yourselves to your desks again because Jarrod and I have got a bunch of badass Bandido’s to worry about and we need to take off to lunch at the Pier to discuss it over a few crabs and coldies.

But just before we go I’d like to take the pleasure of announcing that to mark today’s 80th anniversary law changes we have adopted a new motto for Queensland, and it’s a ripper.

Work Will Set You Free.

And ain’t that the truth. Adolf would be proud of you all.

Now piss off and get back to work!

And don’t fall over the boxes in the doorway on your way out because accident pay’s for bludgers and we’ve made that illegal too.