Please forgive me for my lack in support and compassion. It’s not your fault; rather it is my lack of understanding. If you could please take the time to help me understand, I would be happy to reconsider my current views.
As it stands, I am unable to understand what is so bad about your job. Canadian Postal Workers have:
– 6 weeks vacation
– A full pension
– All weekends and holidays off
– Above average wages compared to the private sector
With that in mind please consider, mail is an important service, yet you have lost significant volume to the wonders of e-mail. Yet while annual sales are dropping, your collective group sees a benefit in asking for more.
Part of my confusion comes from the fact that I have a private sector job, where we have a slightly different reality.
– We do not get automatic raises.
– We are thankful if we get to 3 weeks of vacation, yet most get only 2 (please think of us while you have your extra month of vacation).
– Pension is a combination of CPP and our RRSP’s there are very few pensions left, let alone a full pension.
– Evenings and weeks are just part of the job and if it falls on a holiday, then we miss out.
It seems like we may live in very different worlds. Should you decide to not go back to work, please let me know as there are plenty of us that would be more than happy to work in your poor conditions, with few holidays and low wages, because at the end of the day, it’s an awful lot better than what most of us have.
But like I said before, if you can let me know how a shrinking business can afford wage increases, better pensions, and more time off please let the rest of the country know, as you may have the magic solution to current struggles of the global economy.
Looking forward to hearing from you. —Average Joe Canadian
This article appears in Jun 16-22, 2011.
they have had it way too good for way too long….postal “workers” are a joke
Solidarity Forever:
http://www.funnypictures.net.au/images/tit…
http://www.metronews.ca//toronto/canada/ar…
Interesting article Orgasmatron. Kinda like a “How do you like me now” from the gov’t. Complain and strike because you want more than what you’re currently making? Fine. Go ahead. Now get back to work…oh, and you’re now making less. Shall we keep going? lol It’s sort of like doling out punishment to a mouthy teenager. Keep talking and see what you end up with.
manditory wage increases belong right up there with automatic tipping…. BULL SHIT
Work for it or get a new job that you actually like because there are plenty of people that would trade what they have for a portion of what you Postal (Non) Workers have.
Why are there no comments expressing disgust about the inflated salaries of the CEO, CAO, and President of Canada Post Corporation?
When will the civil war end and reality kick-in?
Canada Post is just another bunch of spoiled union jackholes – most of us don’t have fucking sweet pensions or six fucking weeks vacation to whine about.
I lost all respect for CP back in the late 70s when an old friend of mine, who was a supervisor on Almon St., told me they played fucking floor hockey with parcels.
OP, support the postal workers……sign up for electronic billing, e-statements, and send more emails. If we all work together, we can begin eliminating their jobs.
I will tell you OP what a friend tells me all the time when I say how good they have it.
“The recruitment office is just down the street”
…meaning go apply and stop yammering if you think it is that great and you have it that shitty.
I don’t get the option to strike in my job….but wonder what it would be like.
have you ever heard the expression ‘a canary in a coal mine’..if the feds want to screw the postal workers ,then sometime down the line,you and every poster on the bitch will also be screwed by the feds but even harsher..think about that when your ranting about postal workers.
Every time the postal workers go on strike they show us just how much we don’t need them.
Screw that. EI? = the life 😉
I too fail to see what is so horrible about their jobs.
Their service is slow, and often unreliable, while the cost of stamps etc continues to rise.
They sound like a big bunch of whiners to me.
Canada Post LOCKED OUT THE WORKERS.
Its that simple. How can you legislate someone back to work…when they didn’t stop working…they were locked out of their workplace !
Canada Post is a Government Company owned & operated by the Government of Canada.
So effectively the Government locked them out & now it is going to order them back to work !
If you can’t see the hypocrasy in that you’re fucking blind as well as DENSE ! Or as a good friend of mine once said, “you’re all a fucking waste of food.”
This whole thing is a government run boon doggle & I see no one complaining that those at the top of the Canada Post’s chain of command make $300,000.00 +
If there are cutbacks, why not start at the top, why cut the workers ? Why cut those who live next to you & raise their families in the same surroundings you do. Surely you don’t think those assholes who are incapable of negotiating a deal & who have as a “plan” to lock everyone out & let their government masters legislate them back to work, when they never stopped working, they were locked out of their workplaces… actually deserve a quarter million dollars a year + to do nothing, yet only one other person mentions that here.
You demented sheeple fucking braindead Gov ass kissers, as a member of the herd, you deserve what is happening to you, your loss of rights, your loss of buying power with this inflation climate & you don’t deserve a raise, stay in the hole you’re in & feel warm & cozy as the rich get richer & the working people get shafted, & please tell me, you wise & mighty bitchers….exactly who will be taxed to pay for bus services & schooling, welfare, medical care, old age pensions etc ? when everyones on assistance or a minimum wage job ?
Yet let us keep paying the politicians & their cronies ,these overpaid idiot’s are the bozo’s who have stopped Canada postal workers from working in the first place .
You assholes that don’t get that, deserve to live in Syria, or Saudi Arabia, Somalia or other wonderful countries like that .
yeah joe, you forgot to mention that their vaca time is paid also. but i digress, guess i’ll just have to live in the real world, like the rest of us poor fucks. and work our asses off for whatever we get. either that, or win a major fucking lotto.
I say fuck em. I’ve checked my mail once in the 4 months since I moved to my new apt. Who needs em?
Seriously, eliminate them, we can use the tax cut to pay courier fees whenever we actually need to order something to our door.
I understand where More’s coming from, but fuck that we pay enough taxes in this country and have enough useless things that they are spent on. 6 weeks paid vacay? I think that’s absolutely absurd that we are expected to foot the bill for that. If they wanted to they could work 4 out of those 6 weeks at a normal/temp job or work independantly and add an extra month’s income on to their salary, and still have 2 weeks to kick their feet back. I say and will continue to say fuck em. Nobody writes letters anymore.
Let them come work a non government job or better yet see what it’s like to be unemployed and see if they still think they got it so tough. WTF is a pension?
tommyjules902 said:
“Seriously, eliminate them, we can use the tax cut to pay courier fees whenever we actually need to order something to our door. . . . fuck that we pay enough taxes in this country and have enough useless things that they are spent on. 6 weeks paid vacay? I think that’s absolutely absurd that we are expected to foot the bill for that. “
Your taxes don’t pay for Canada Post. It is a profit-making corporation. In fact, Canada Post Corporation has made a healthy profit in each of the last 16 years.
The government doesn’t pay anything to Canada Post. Actually the revenue flows the other way. Between corporate taxes and dividends, Canada Post has paid the federal government over a billion dollars in the last 16 years. In addition, Canada Post provides some services to the Government of Canada at less than cost.
Here is something else to chew on. The postal workers did not go out on strike. They were conducting legal rotating work stoppages and mail was still being sorted and delivered. I don’t think most people these days understand the mechanics of labour negotiations and how both parties have obligations to fulfill before a union group can legally strike or a company can legally lock them out. In this case, the parties weren’t able to reach a negotiated tentative agreement in the time frame allowed, so the postal workers had the legal right to conduct job action.
Canada Post Corporation locked the workers out, thereby shutting down the entire postal service and setting the stage for the Harper Conservatives to make the claim that the service disruption would harm Canada’s fragile economy, thereby necessitating “back to work” legislation. Aside from the fact that Canada Post is no longer considered an “essential service” in the legal jargon covering these situations, weren’t the Conservatives claiming during the recent election campaign that the economy was in great shape?
The average Canadian wage earner makes over $24/hour. That figure comes from Statistics Canada. That means that the postal workers’ wages are pretty much average compared to other Canadian workers.
If postal workers have paid vacation and a pension plan and benefits, all achieved through decades of negotiated collective agreements, why should others want to see that taken away? It’s understandable that Canada Post Corporation management would take this line, but why should other working Canadians begrudge the postal workers their hard-won wages and benefits?
I think it’s pathetic how some working Canadians who don’t have much in the way of wages and benefits always attack unions and unionized workers. Corporate “group think” has made significant inroads into the psyche of the average Canadian worker. The message is “sit down and shut up and be glad for your crust of bread or else . . . “. The Fraser Institute and other right-wing think tanks have done their job well. Canadian workers have willingly gulped down the corporate kool aid.
If you want to attack someone, target those corporate executives whose compensation has skyrocketed in the last few decades while the workers’ wages have stagnated or gone down.
It’s because of unions that there are even things like minimum wage, a forty hour work week, vacation pay, etc. Show some gratitude.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSHaCzb3yYk…
Bitter old haters.
I think people attack the unions because they’re inconvenienced by strike action and the union people are the most visible. They are there at the gates with the picket signs. I’ve seen images of the picketers but I have not seen the CEO of Canada Post. I didn’t even who the CEO was until very recently.
Most of the rights we have as employees came from union action in the past. At the outset of the industrial revolution, workers worked from sunup to sundown 7 days a week in often deplorable conditions. Sort of like the sweatshops of non-unionized third world countries. There were two groups, the haves and the haves nots. The unions of the early to mid 20th century stood up to the corporate power brokers of the time and helped turn the tide. The result of the gains of the early unions was the creation of the middle class.
With the unions being so much out of favour these days, corporate downsizing and relocation of plants to the third world for cheap, non-union labour,we’re starting to see an erosion of the middle class.
So I don’t mind seeing unions at work but I am concerned with our government legislating this group back at a lower wage than the employers were offering. I think everybody should be concerned.
it’s a funny thing, since this started, i really miss the nice posties i talk to on a daily basis. the world makes me sad these days but then there’s this. bring back the bat^^ http://www.nps.gov/shen/naturescience/imag…
I like how people think CEOs get to be where they are by drawing straws or something.
“I like how people think CEOs get to be where they are by drawing straws or something.”
This.
The comment by More about Canada Post Executives making $300,000+ for doing nothing is beyond stupid. Senior executives (most, anyway) have far more difficult jobs than a goddamn letter sorter and should be paid accordingly. Most of these individuals have worked hard in their positions, proved more than competent, and been rewarded for their efforts. Meanwhile, there is a new story every month about Canada Post letter carriers crying that they won’t do their jobs because their safety is at risk due to having to walk on a gravel road shoulder to put a letter in a rural mailbox.
Unions certainly served a purpose at one point, but now they are the refuge for those that feel entitled to better wages, pensions, and benefits than their duties should be worth on an open market. Unions are bankrupting many organizations in the public and private sector, yet union members don’t seem to care and cry “foul” whenever they don’t get exactly what they want out of contract negotiations. Most blue-collar union workers are expecting outrageous wages, pensions and benefits for doing jobs that 99% of Canadians can do with a couple of weeks training.
The sad thing is, the unions themselves expolit their members’ support to pad the union higher-ups’ salaries, expenses, benefits, etc. The individual union members generally have no idea what the real issues are during contract negotiations – they are just told things that will “fire them up”. I hear uninformed comments everyday from some of my colleagues (that I think are generally great people) who are members of unions about various points in contract negotiations – calling things h”horribly unfair” when tey don’t really understand the issues at all and are just parroting things they’ve heard in union meetings. Union executives profit as much, if not more, from their individual members than do private and government agency executives from those same workers.
My last point, to those like More that will likely call me a Harper “shill” – I have never, and will never, vote for Harper’s Conservatives. I disagree with the vast majority of their policies. However, in this case, I think they were bang-on.
Not only that but as with any company anyone who works can get promoted and with enough promotions, you too can become a CEO or an executive. Admirals and Generals in the military just don’t magically appear, they are promoted throuh their career either from the rank of Private or Officer Cadet or if they have their degree already then as a 2nd Lieutenant or Leiutenant. Or Police or Fire Chiefs. Hell even the Sobeys and Irvings make their offspring work in menial jobs before heading up the chain. The only ones I know of who get executive pay and privleges without experience are politicians. The NDP MPs from Quebec are a prime example.
http://verydemotivational.files.wordpress.…
Esposito,
I’m pissed off at the postal worker’s bitching because they’re throwing away pension, vacation, lovely salaries, etc. FOR MORE, while I bust my ass off at minimum wage without benefits in a dead end job I’m grateful to have.
The Postal Union, like all unions are self-serving. These are not the Wobbelites. There is no revolution or counter-revolution. They are advocates for their own interests (like CEOs and government bodies). They dont care about us non-unionized workers.
Of course it’s not their business to care. But still, to have so much and still complain, comes off as spoiled whining to those who dont have near as much as they have.
I dont see any solution to this problem that wont screw over the strikers or the folks who (still) use the postal service. Budget cuts will never effect the salaries of those in charge of the cutting (in the private + public sectors). The strikers will take the cuts and/or you’ll be seeing increased fees.
And the prospect of paying more (with the little I’m making) doesnt encourage me to root for those who are already making more.
But what can us non-unionized, tax paying schmucks do? Vote?
I see several posts complaining about the salary levels of the average postal worker and the CEO, nobody has asked how much the leader of CUPW makes? Can anyone get this figure?
Union leaders remind me of the old generals of WW1, usually Lord Dogshit of Fartshire, who sent the brave lads over the top to be slaughtered like cattle while they were safely back behind the lines, sipping hooch and smoking cigars. Or like members of the Green Party who blindly paid to run in any election, with about as much chance of getting elected as Kelly has of showing signs of a personality.
I was wondering how long it was going to take the commies to begin ranting at this bitch and I had to scroll down like 15 messages. You guys are getting slow! lol
Perhaps our resident bolshies are “working to rule” in solidarity with the oppressed proletariat in Harper’s 12 year Reich. If Woody Guthrie were alive today his laptop would have a sign on it – “This machine bores fascists”
For the comments about “WHY DON’T YOU GO WORK AT THE POST OFFICE”, it’s not so easy to just work there as there are so many people trying to get those jobs. My friend who works in a Canada Post outlet in a drug store does everything a Canada Post worker would do but gets paid minimum wage and no benefits or pension because he technically is working for the drug store. He knows all of Canada Post’s policies and rules and has applied to work in a post office where he would be an actual Canada Post employee several times, but no dice. He already knows how to do everything and they still won’t take him.
Honestly, neither CUPW or Canada Post is truly infallible in this situation. There are douchebags and valid points on both sides (from what I’ve been able to piece together, at least). At this point, I just want the whole thing to be over with (mostly so people will STFU about it).
Don’t attribute a Cushy postal job for other Fed workers. I’m a building inspector for the federal government and I’m on the go all the time. I earn my wage as do most people in the Federal service. The reality is (with the exception of Canada Post) is that most Canadian Service Departments are under staffed and the people that are there have no choice but to put in over time to the get the work done. That’s the reality of Stephen Harper’s Government.
troodon4,
I agree 100 percent. Many workers in this relatively new age of globalism and so-called free markets have no idea of the essential contribution that organized labour made to the creation of a middle class in the twentieth century.
They also don’t understand how things like a minimum wage, paid vacation, employee benefits and a 40 hour work week came about. Whether one worked in a unionized workplace or not, all workers benefited from gains made by unionized workers.
The passage of time and a few decades of rightist, corporate propaganda have almost erased from the collective memory these once widely acknowledged truths.
In its back-to-work legislation, the Harper government took the unusual step of dictating what the settlement should be, rather than referring the matter to arbitration. This is a thinly-disguised assault on the institution of collective bargaining in this country, not to mention anti-democratic. No surprise there, of course. The world apparently won’t be safe for capitalism until the last union is exterminated.
Without having to leave home, you and I have become pilgrims in an unholy land.
Unions at one time did have a function for safety, hours, coonditions, etc, but now it is out to in the chants of Posties, “Fuck Canada Post Fuck Canada Post”. Well now I guess Canada Post has decided to fuck the Posties. The workers have to learn that they are employees and that without Canada Post, they have no jobs. They are not working in dangerous mines or forest work, or construction work, etc. They do not have to deliver mail where there are dogs outside or sidewalks not shovelled, they have excellent wages and benefits and absolutely nothing out of this strike/lockout or whatever is going to affect any non-union employee. Those days are long past.
That’s right – really we should all be blaming the Fraser Institute and all the other “rightist” propaganda – Blame America too! – but in that same vein of thought, what institute do we attribute your political leanings to Esposito? haha. Oh, and I’ll save you the trouble by stating your popular unionist soundbyte/manifesto du jour for you – “This isn’t a race to the bottom”… right? right??
All of this is happening to protect the other 85% of Canadian workers who don’t belong in a union – right!? hahaha.
It would be funny that people believe that shit, if it weren’t so sad.
But you know what the most shocking thing is in all this? No Tim Bousquet investigative articles or a usual flaming paper bag of horsehit ripping into the evil management of Canada Post and Stephen (Hitler) Harper (complete with cartoon). How strangely quiet.
The flaming bag of horseshit from the Wanker, not Tim.
Your minds have been colonized by a particularly vicious meme – the idea that whatever is good for our corporate masters (in and out of government) must, ipso facto, be good for everyone else, too.
They have invaded your psyche, planted their flag, and now they own your ass and they didn’t even have to fire a shot.
To paraphrase an old expression, it is becoming more clear with each passing year that the rich are indeed getting richer while more and more of us are joining the ranks of the poor.
If economic interests were my only concern, I should be a strong supporter of tax-cutting, pay-your-own-way fiscal conservatives. According to Statistics Canada, my six figure income puts me in the top 3% of tax filers in Canada. I have a long way to go before I join the ranks of the poor.
But I adhere to the old maxim “No civilization without taxation”. I pay my taxes and don’t grumble too much, except when I see my tax money being spent in wasteful ways, like the $50 million that Industry Minister Tony Clement scattered around his riding prior to the G8 conference, building gazebos and buying votes, most of it without proper accounting controls.
I take perverse pleasure in knowing that I pay more tax money into government coffers than dozens of large, profitable corporations. It disturbs me that these same tax-avoiding corporations have far more political influence than an actual living, breathing tax-paying citizen does, but that appears to be the way you “colonized” serfs like it.
Some day you might just wake up and yell out your front door “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” but as likely as not it will be because they upped the minimum wage by 10 cents or started charging you 50 cents extra each year for the mountain of trash that your consumerist lifestyle creates, and all the while you’ll be submitting to anal rape with no word of complaint against the corporate entities doing it, just like the colonized plebs you really are.
I irritates me to have to live among such non-citizens, such surrender monkeys, such a colonized and subjugated race of half-men.
Yeah… well it’s always the ones with the six figure salary who (can afford to) figure the more taxes everyone pays the more “civilized” we will all be… reminds me of our glorious leader, I mean, Finance Minister. Do you get _all_ of your talking points from the big orange book?
Humility is not your short game, is it Farmer Bob? You come perilously close to validating Annie’s queef last week on the subject of secular & non secular religion. And that’s a shame because for some perverse reason I actually like you. More than I like MM at any rate. Throwing around words like “pilgrim” doesn’t do you many favours, especially when you consider the differences between a pilgrim and a tourist. A tourist visits someplace new, with an open mind. Think Fitzroy MacLean in Soviet Central Asia in the 30s, or Rebecca West in the Balkans. They may be irritatingly over-enthusiastic and sometimes ask silly questions but they are, at least, asking and are there to learn.
A pilgrim, on the other hand, knows exactly what they are going to find and are never disappointed. Think Paul Robeson, Walter Duranty, G.B. Shaw, H.G. Wells, Beatrice & Sydney Webb in Stalin’s U.S.S.R. The words “I was wrong” do not come easily to the pilgrim.
Now, fun is fun and since you seem to be having a bad day I’ll not yank your chain any further but I will leave you with this thought. When your side holds power, as it inevitably will, who then will be the true subversives, the real critical thinkers?
Well Commandante since you earn six figures then you won’t mind giving me five of those figures every year now will you or since I’m living the life I like then take those five figures and give it to one street person. Afterall you are for the poor and I’m pretty sure you can get by with around $50,000 a year and the money that the taxman doesn’t take you can give away to the downtrodden personally so you can’t complain where it goes.
Okay settle down everyone and I will answer each of you in turn.
dartmouthy,
We have a progressive income tax system in Canada which means that folks with larger taxable incomes pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes. People who make a lot less than I do pay a lot less in taxes, both in absolute numbers and proportionately. Interestingly, a few studies have shown that the wealthiest Canadians have the lowest taxation rates of all. Go figure. Personally, I don’t think folks at or near the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder should pay any tax at all. I don’t mind paying more into the nation’s social programs and military than others with lower income, as long as it’s spent wisely, because, like Red Green, I believe we’re all in this together.
Father Ivan,
Point taken. However, as outlandish as it might seem, it is my belief that WE are held tightly in the grip of an economic system and school of thought which has all the trappings of a secular religion. The mythology that globalism and “free markets” are the solutions to all of our problems goes unchallenged (except by oddballs like me) across the land. As “free market” capitalism continues on its trajectory of attempted global domination it has become obvious that its fatal flaw (aside from its destructive mode of wealth transfer from poor nations to rich nations) is that any mechanism it may theoretically possess to move humanity towards a sustainable living condition is unlikely to be implemented because the system is geared towards wealth accumulation, which impacts the here and now, and not stewardship, which impacts the unknown future. You need look no further than how some nations are dealing (or not) with green house gas emissions. The rejection of solutions always boils down to an economic argument along the lines of “we can’t afford to do that” or “it will enrich the poor nations at our expense”. Dealing with green house gas emissions does have a cost, but too much money is being made doing things the same old way for there to be any incentive to change it. Preserve a livable planet for unborn generations? This question doesn’t come up in corporate board rooms and if it did the directors would be chastised by the shareholders. Capitalism won’t save the planet. It is congenitally unequipped for the challenge.
Which is not to say that communism, as practiced in the former Soviet Union or currently in China, did or could do any better. These systems were and are as devoted to industrial production and growth, regardless of the environmental consequences, as the capitalist West.
My reference to feeling like a “pilgrim in an unholy land” came from the mouth of Professor Henry Jones, noted classicist, unwilling adventurer and father to a famous archeologist. Like him I feel surrounded by folks whose values are quite at odds with my own.
When my side holds power? I don’t trust power of any political stripe. It just seems to me that, currently, the larger threat to my happy existence is the non-state power of private interests. A relatively few people on this planet are making decisions that affect the rest of us in detrimental ways and most of them are unelected by any democratic process. Personally, I’d prefer smaller scale government all around, with a commensurate restriction on the size and power of nongovernmental entities like corporations. I shade towards the social anarchist tradition in that respect.
Don’t worry about yanking my chain. I’m actually having a pretty good day, even with the time taken out to chastise fellow Bitchers.
Bro Tim,
After the tax man taketh, I think I’ll hang on to my earnings. Oh, I support various charitable causes, but I don’t think you’re one of them.
Now I’ll sit back and wait for MM to toss spitballs my way 😉
your opening line reminded me of the monsieur. do you have dawgs and if so are they whippets^^
painey,
Ouch! No whippets here. One lazy Golden Retriever whose interests are cats, tennis balls and foraging on the kitchen floor while I’m cooking, not necessarily in that order.
you know i like you and i do agree with some of your points. i prefer face to face when discussing things like this… you would enjoy our *staff meetings*. love the retrievers http://ihasahotdog.files.wordpress.com/200…
I know what you mean.
When these internet “discussions” get going it’s too easy to reach for that turn of phrase that you know will drive someone else up the wall.
When all is said and done, I’m pretty harmless and much more congenial in person.
I’d have no problem standing any of those I argue with here a drink – maybe even “He Whose Name Shall Not Be Spoken”.
this is the only “forum” i go to. i don’t do fb but if you know me you can find me. you would fit right in at our summits
Regardless of the outcome in these collective barganings, the truth of the matter is Canada Post is a dying service with little more to do than deliver fliers! The internet is here and they now have scaled down versions of laptops for even the most technically challenged, we’re moving to a paperless society and that’s the cold hard truth!!!! With fax machines, emails, texting, global shared drives and delivery services such as UPS and Purolator … Canada Post’s days (as we know it) are numbered!!!!
http://robsmovievault.files.wordpress.com/…
If memory serves, Professor Jones actually does use the line “The Penis Mightier”…
ajdube, I really don’t see us going completely paperless anytime soon. People have been saying that pretty much ever since computers became commonplace (mid-late-90’s/early 00’s) and we’re nowhere near paperless yet.
Orgasmatron: YOU ARE SO WRONG. Yes they have been saying it for a while, but we have been moving to a paperless system. I don’t get ANY of my bills in the mail anymore, basically I go to the box for flyers. In addition, Canada Post would not have been seeking in the 1990’s to have a $0.05 premium on every email sent, they saw what was coming and they tried to have parliament pass a bill which failed! I know this, I lived in Ottawa at the time. We may not be a paperless society yet, but we’re heading that way and I personally cannot wait for Canada Post and it’s bunch of lazy spoiled workers to be gone!!!!
I like the idea of reverse taxation… independent of income level – the more money that people earn that they are allowed to keep for themselves, the better…
More government, bigger government, is never the answer. It is only an answer to those so feeble-minded and lazy that no other solution is palatable.
“Social programs” are fine as long as there is an alternative – ala Obama’s government option model (that was soundly defeated, unfortunately)… If we had choices in Canada it wouldn’t matter as much who goes on strike. The NSGEU wants to hold out for 18 weeks vacation and a 50% salary raise? That’s fine – have at it – I’m going to my local private hospital instead.
Striking should be illegal in the context of monopolistic service delivery models – simple as that.
A lot of individuals may be going paperless, but businesses still use a metric shit-ton of paper. Believe me, I’m in the IT industry. I know WTF I’m talking about here.
I think paper usage has gone way up since the advent of computers AND printers. Strange but true.
CE – too true. Example, when the Navy went ‘computerized’, paper use more than trippled (storesman told me), turns out that everybody wants a hard copy, since it’s so easy to produce.
Oh, a type-o, don’t white it out, just print the corrected version, again , and again.
Staples and others sell paper by the tons per week and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down.
The back to work chat going on in the House – Dear Darling Commie Jack, please get it through your stunned fucking head, that even though you are the freshly minted leader of the opposition, and the Froggies answer to Rene Levesque (minus the smokes) you came in SECOND, RUNNER UP, BRASS RING so cash your cheque, let the TRUE leaders of Canada, the Conservatives ram through the get your arse back to work legislation, because they WON, CAME IN FIRST, MAJORITY – and let the mail service return to it’s rightful place as junk mail deliveries r us.
This message brought to you by the tavern owners association of NS.
TEACHERS & PILOTS, OR: WHAT IS THE BASIS FOR A JUST WAGE?
The debate between CUPW and the Post Office Corporation over their respective contract demands has been put to rest, whether fairly or not as the case might be, by federal government legislation. Presupposed in the debate, however, is the philosophical question: What constitutes a just wage? Why do some people make more – in some cases much more – than others?
There are two possible answers: (1) Qualifications, however conceived, determine salary. The more qualifications that are required for a job, the higher the salary. But is this the case? Take the salary of the pilot. A poster on this thread is a pilot and makes, by his own admission, a salary in six figures. But what are the qualifications required to become a pilot? In addition to the obvious qualification of having been certified to fly a plane which, after a certain number of hours one supposes becomes routine, the pilot usually has a B.Sc. or a B.E. (Bachelor of Engineering). That is usually it but even if the pilot has post-graduate qualifications they do not factor in his salary. So say academic qualifications up to the Bachelor’s level.
Now take the teacher. In fact, take me. In addition to having been certified as a teacher in Quebec, Alberta and Nova Scotia and after a certain number of hours the mechanics of teaching (but not the art) like piloting become routine, I have a B.A., a B.Ed., an M.Ed., an M.A., and a Ph.D. On the basis of qualifications alone, I would apear to have more qualifications than the pilot but, since I make only a fraction of his salary, it seems that qualifications by themselves are not the determining criterion. Then what is?
(2) The second criterion in determining salary differentials and by extension that of the just wage in general is the nature of the job itself. What, then, is the nature of the pilot’s job that weighs it so disproportionately in respect to the teacher? It is true that the lives of his passengers are in his hands but, for that matter, so are those of the bus driver. While there might be a qualification differential between the two, is the salary discrepancy an accurate reflection of that differential? So why is it that ferrying people from A to B so richly rewarded?
What about the teacher? Teaching concerns both the initiation of the young into the culture (at the elementary level) and, in western societies at least, the cultivation of an autonomous, reflective mind. In other words, the teacher lays the foundation for the future of our society. What could be more important? The decision in respect to the importance of their respective jobs, that of the teacher and that of the pilot, would seem to come down, like that of qualifications, on the side of the teacher. But, of course, it is not the case. Not only is the pilot rewarded more than the teacher, he is done so on such a lavish scale as to beggar belief. But why is this so?
Of course, we live in a materialistic society governed by a utilitarian philosophy but even materialistic utilitarians should be able to see that their material well-being ultimately is traceable to the education of the young. But, then, maybe they can’t.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
Some say an airline pilot is nothing but a glorified bus driver. Both carry people, both travel in crappy weather (but a bus driver has to worry about other traffic, while pilots are usually at different altitudes and have less traffic to deal with).
did you hear that diatribe from the pilot this week. good grief, i’d rather drive or go by boat
It’s supply and demand monsieur. There far fewer qualified airline pilots than school teachers so they are in a better bargaining position for salary negotiation. That would be my take on that issue.
I’d trust our resident pilot in the lefthand seat. I seriously doubt we’d wind up doing a flat trajectory dive at the Coca-Cola headquarters while he recited suras from “Manufacturing Consent” over the intercom. Prolly the worst he’d do is refuse to upgrade me to First Class on the grounds that “we should really be working towards a classless society”
Would I , on the other hand, trust Annie with a class full of kids…?
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_QonjXrwiEbY/TT8t…
love the wart hog critter guy. that is what it is right?
troodon4 – I agree, “supply and demand”, definately a big part of the reason.
Skill, knowledge, and ability must also be taken into account (I’m sure there’s plenty more factors).
I’ll using my last job as an example.
Technical Writer for a Military contractor. $50k/yr, 1 job, fifty-some applicants, I got the job because of my knowledge of military systems, and operational procedures. Turns out I was the only applicant with the required skill set, but alas I lacked the ability to be an office worker 🙁 so I felt compelled to quit.
Lets get back to the 6-figure piolt (not all pilots earn $100,000+), not everybody can be a trans-atlantic pilot, or a fighter pilot, or a SAR pilot, why? Because they lack the ability. For example, if you cannot do the math, you can’t navigate. If you wear glasses (like my nephew), you ca’t be a fighter-pilot. If you don’t have nerves of steel, forget SAR. So the pool of potential pilots is reduced, and we’re back to supply & demand.
Not all teachers earn low wages (annie – if you knew how much I made as a teacher, you’d shit your pants), but in my experience, the best teachers are not in for the money. BTW – the Canadian Education System, needs a severe overhaul and update.
Supply and demand again, proportionately there seems to be more qualified teachers than pilots. Not counting school, I know dozens of teachers, but only a handful of pilots…
TEACHERS & PILOTS, OR: WHAT IS THE BASIS FOR JUST WAGE? (II)
:troondonk4, June 26, 7:50PM – “It’s supply and demand, monsieur.”
Supply and demand, the smooth working of Adam Smith’s economic “invisible hand” is what might be called an “external criterion” which misses the point of the wage differential between the teacher and the pilot.
Yes, there are a lot more teachers than pilots but there are also a lot more classrooms than airplanes so the supply-demand criterion is inoperative in justifying the respective wage differentials on the basis of a simple application of the formula. In addition, the supply-demand ratio can be manipulated to produce either a shortage or a surplus and as such is not intrinsic to the worth of the job itself. For example, say teachers were all required to have a master’s degree minimum before stepping foot in the classroom. Immediately a shortage of teachers would result and, given the operation of the principles of supply/demand, their salaries would skyrocket. Conversely, expand the supply of pilots to say, triple their number, and their wage would decline proportionately. Alternatively still, expand the number of teachers but limit class size, particularly in the upper levels of high school, to no more than eight students each and the teacher-classroom ratio would approximate the current pilot-airplane ratio. Of course, none of these alternatives would be brought about for reasons which have nothing to do with the intrinsic value of the two jobs but even if they were implemented would wage parity result? I don’t think so because the perceived disparity in the worth of teaching and piloting – from the perspective of society at large – is inexplicable in terms of the operation of the principles of supply and demand.
Hugo Phurst (June 27, 11:07AM) – Adds “ability” and a “skill set” in addition to suply and demand but this raises the question as to whether the pilot’s ability and skill set are comparable to those of the teacher. Presumably possession of the “ability” refers to the successful application of the “skill set” but for the pilot the reference is to objectively measurable objects (the functioning of the plane) and performances (successful landings, etc.) while, in the case of the teacher there is no simple check list to assess the teacher who, unlike the pilot, is engaged with animate humans rather than inanimate matter. (The administratively-imposed “success rate” is simply a corruption of the concept of successful teaching. One simply “teaches to the test” and watch the “success-rate” skyrocket and listen to the applause of the administration.)
A final wrinkle in the equation is that, unlike piloting, teaching is not a homogeneous concept. The activity varies not just on an individual basis but also on the level taught. The American philosopher Richard Rorty maintained that the elementary grades were largely a matter of “socialization,” of initiating the young into the mores of society which, for Rorty, may or may not be true. (Rorty was a post-modernist so “truth” or objective validity of the mores was not a factor.) His second phase of education concerned “individuation,” one in which the student came to question the views and values into which he was initiated in the socialization phase. “Instruction” gives way to a dialogical process of “education” properly conceived. The student no longer simply accepts what the teacher says but is beginning to spread his own reflective wings. He is becoming an individual. I mention this by way of pointing out that “teaching” is a heterogeneous concept even in the school itself and as such is extremely difficult to assess in any straightforward way, one which is supposed to lay the foundation for the wage differentials between the pilot and the teacher.
So the question still stands.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
MM, what was your doctoral thesis on?
RSVPS
:Donarious (June 27, 4:42PM)- “MM, what was your doctoral thesis on?”
My doctoral thesis was entitled “Personal Knowledge and Philosophical Analysis in Education.”
The “personal knowledge” component refers to the epistemology of Michael Polanyi, a scientist of Hungarian origin who made breakthroughs in the study of crystallography but who wound up as a professor of philosophy at the University of Durham. Personal knowledge maintains that all our knowledge claims, even those in science, are based upon what he called “tacit knowledge” which perhaps is best illustrated by an example. Say you want to describe the face of your best friend to me. You specify the features of his face in every detail, down to the millimeter. Yet, in spite of all that, I would not be able to recognize him in a crowd on the street while you would do so in an instant. The reason is that you have “tacit” or “personal knowledge” of your friend’s physiognomy while I only have “explicit knowledge,” knowledge based upon empirical measurement. For Polanyi, all knowledge is ultimately based upon such personal knowledge but this does not commit him to a self-refuting relativism since the Polanyian knower asserts his knowledge with “universal intent,” i.e. he claims that his knowledge is objectively true while, at the same time, recognizing that he might be in error. The point is that such personal knowledge is not entirely “specifiable.” I was at a Polanyian conference at Kent State University (Ohio) in the 1990’s and the student guides had a button on their shirts with the saying, “I know more than I can tell.” In Polanyain terms this simply means that his personal knowledge rests upon a tacit foundation, that his knowledge is not entirely “explicitable.” (It was meant as a joke, but it is also an accurate depiction of Poalnyi’s concept of personal knowledge.)
The “philosophical analysis in education” component refers to the British analytical school which maintains that knowledge, to BE knowledge, requires that it be wholly specifiable. In other words, to claim that one has knowledge about anything requires that one be able to explicitly articulate the content of that knowledge claim. However, by means of an internal examination of the claims of three prominent British analytical philosophers in education – R.S. Peters, Paul Hirst, and D.J. O’Connor – I was able to demonstrate that their knowledge claims were not, as they purported them to be, explicitly specifiable but, in fact, were based upon tacit knowing, i.e., based upon “personal knowledge.” (I actually met Peters and Hirst at another conference in London.)
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
An arcadian vignette from Annie’s “Salad Days” at Kent State….
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_oTM4yEhEgtA/S9ki…
RSVPs
: Fr. Ivan (June 29, 7:03AM) – Ah, yes, the Kent State Massacre. At the time I was teaching in Spain at an American school and had first-hand experience of the traumatic effect on the students. If any one incident might be said to have radicalized the American student population against the Vietnam war it would have been the Kent State Massacre in which the American Civil Guard fired live ammunition at their own citizens.
In respect to my reference to the Polanyi Conference at Kent State, I forgot to mention that Michael Polanyi’s son, John Polanyi, was the guest of honour. He was cedrtainly a chip off the old block as he had just won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and is now at the University of Toronto.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
I’ll bet at Kent State class reunions, whenever someone calls “Food Fight”, the old grads sitting next to the National Guard table hit the deck real fast.
http://www.cryptomundo.com/wp-content/them…
RSVPs
Fr. Ivan (June 28, 3:43PM) – Yes, your correction of my “Civil Guard” as opposed to your “National Guard” is correct. The reason, I suppose, is that I lived in Spain during the Franco period when the “Civil Guard” (the “Guardia Civil” pronounced with the Castilian lisp – “la Guardia Thevil”) were the energetic keepers of the peace. With their patent leather hats and carbines over their shoulders – they always walked in twos – one never interfered with the Guardia. Stories about their, um, superior manner abounded. For example, if someone was taking a photo of which the Guardia disapproved, they simply looked at the offender, took the camera, opened it, and spooled out the film out on the ground. You want to object? See what happens.
A friend from BC was staying with us in Barcelona and I took him around to see the sights. As we drove along in my blue Volks (with Quebec plates and a CDN sticker) we saw a soldier standing outside a downtown building. He had the German style helmet, knee-length boots – the army actually goose-stepped while on parade – and looked smart. We stopped. My friend rolled down the window and took a snap. Immediately the guard levelled his rifle and stuck it into the window, and shouted “Alto!”
Keeping the rifle trained on us, he rang a buzzer on the wall and shortly a very smart lieutenant (no, not that one) appeared. His uniform was impeccable, his kid gloves were neatly folded over his belt. He looked at us, and then slowly strolled around the back of the car. Noticing the Quebec plates and the CDN sticker he grimaced in disgust and jerked his head indicating, I suppose, the Spanish equivalent for “fuck off.” We did, and pronto. Nice to be home.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
That sounds like an interesting read, MM. Thank you.