Edward Keenan argues that it’s “annoying” that unionized workers complain about eroding wages and benefits during an economic crisis. (“Striking out,” Notebook, June 25.) But why should workers suffer for a crisis they didn’t create? The fact that some city workers enjoy benefits that so many of us desperately want doesn’t warrant attacks based on the weak argument that they should be happy with what they have, or happy with even less. We all deserve good jobs. Now is not the time to champion a race to the bottom, where low wages and job insecurity reign. Rather, the current wave of labour unrest — contingent faculty at York University, city workers, LCBO workers, Globe and Mail journalists, to list a few — should be a call-to-arms to the fight against precarious employment. Capitalism undergoes crises constantly. The current moment can’t be an excuse to plunge more workers into precarity.  Nicole Cohen

Maybe instead of childishly sulking and wishing the workers ill, private-sector workers should ask their employers why exactly they make less for the same job. Maybe they should demand more. Overworked, financially stressed employees won’t solve the recession. But lifting honest people out of working poverty? That just might. Ann McDougall

The gist of Keenan’s thesis: “Why can’t we all just learn to get along by working for less?” Governments are bailing out corporations on the backs of workers and CUPE workers are saying NO. Striking is the only real option to confront this assault. Ted Turner

WOW! What a great article. Many thanks. Helen Hansen

Good piece. A quibble: “...work stoppages are a completely ineffective — in fact self-destructive — bargaining tool for public sector unions,” Keenan writes. The stoppages are effective insofar as they send the whole process to arbitration (as you mentioned), where the union usually ends up ahead of the employer.  Shudder via eyeweekly.com

Chatted up a city worker at the LCBO last night and even he couldn’t get behind his union. He’d only just joined the public sector, and therefore hadn’t built up $30,000 in unpaid sick leave like his more senior counterparts, but still... he’s one of them! If the union is relying only on our empathy towards soon-to-be pensioners, sorry but it’s already been spent elsewhere. I’m with the city on this one, if only in protest of the union’s colossally stupid timing.  Heather McCall via eyeweekly.com


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