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Queen's Park to Vote on "Putting Students First Act"

Posted By: Michelle Rosa · 9/10/2012 5:39:00 AM

Controversial anti-strike legislation that reins in wages and cuts benefits for Ontario teachers will come to a vote early this week.

The minority Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives are teaming up in the legislature to pass the anti-strike bill, which has angered unions and civil libertarians. The Liberals brought back the legislature early to get it passed before Sept. 1, saying the province couldn't afford the rollover of old contracts. However, since the proposed legislation is retroactive to that date, it would claw back any pay hikes or benefits once it becomes law.

The New Democrats, who oppose the bill, say the Liberals wanted to create a crisis in education that they thought would benefit them in two byelections last week.

The Liberals held on to the riding of Vaughan, but came in third in Kitchener-Waterloo, denying them a majority government.

(The Canadian Press)

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  1. Race you to the bottom! posted on 09/10/2012 10:28 PM
    While focusing on the drawbacks (real and percieved) of organized labour, many workers in our society are completely unaware of the benefits we all enjoy in our work force, the rights we now enjoy, which have been fought for, and paid for in blood at times, by union workers in the province and the entire Western world over the last century.

    Consider ending child labour, limiting the length of the work day and the work week, disability benefits, health and safety legislation to protect the lives and bodies of workers, and the increases in pay and standards of living that we have enjoyed in North America since the end of the Second World War. These have been earned in great part by the unionized workers and shared with all. Read a few history books on work conditions in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries and you'll understand why a holiday is in order (Labour Day, people?)

    To limit unions, particularly to allow employees to opt out of unions and allow employers to hire only unionized employees, would be to remove an important (if imperfect) control on the balance of power in our society. It is probably the greatest threat to the middle class in our current times. Though it may sound like it now, I'm not a communist. Union workers who are abusing these securities and rights which have been earned for them should be removed from their unions and workplaces due to the disrepect they show as they flaunt the rights others have struggled to gain. Laziness, bullying and sabotage in workplaces need to be dealt with severely, in a fair and non-arbitrary way.

    Remove unions from society, and we will enter ourselves in a race to the bottom of a very large pile, as working conditions and compensation plummet, along with the standard of living. Stand up for the middle class. Stand up for your rights as an employee.
    1. Richard Collins posted on 09/11/2012 07:41 AM
      @Race you to the bottom! Every benefit you've mentioned is protected now by legislation that no party would dare to touch, as it would be political suicide. As soon as whichever party is in power at the time writes any particular holiday out of existence, all the opposition will need to say to get the votes on their side would be to promise it's reinstatement.

      While it's true that the unions of old fought to bring us those benefits to begin with, that has no bearing at all on what to do about the bloated, corrupt unions of today. Unions today are only interested in acquiring more members, making their union heads richer, and keeping their names in the papers. They don't care a whit about "the little guy" that they pretend to stand up for; just look at the Summer Garbage Strike, or the York Region Transit strike that prevented 40,000 low-income, bus-dependent people from going to work, school, or medical appointments. If anything, they are more corrupt and malevolent than the "big mean corporations" they despise so much.

      We can't keep catering to these criminals out of a misplaced sense of tradition. Think of the unions as a cast on a broken arm: they had a clear purpose back when they were needed, but the arm has healed now and the cast is simply in the way. It's time to cut the cast off, throw it on the fire, and move on with our lives.

      http://www.tinyurl.com/we-can-advance
    2. StuG posted on 09/11/2012 09:50 AM
      @Race you to the bottom! absolutely! hence why it's a constitutional right Canadians have to collective bargaining. I'm not in a union but the anti union bunch i would be safe to bet are probably white angry middle aged people with an agenda. Usually that agenda is a selfish look at society where they feel others especially minorities are somehow not worthy of trying to build a better life for themselves and their families in a expensive city like Toronto and surrounding.
      The old cliche with these people is don't raise my taxes, cut the services i don't use but keep the services i use and don't charge me for more for them!!!
      If we don't have a robust society and economy where people make a good decent wage have good benefits for themselves and family pay their fair share of taxes, be able to buy things to keep the economy robust then who will pay for health care and things like that for when we are all older?
      Always stand up for the middle class. Always stand for what is right and just for the working man and woman.
      Why Canada is a great country built by people coming here to build a better life for themselves and family and share the burden with us all

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