Why I'm glad I immigrated, part N

[jazzfish]

Supreme Court rules Wal-Mart must compensate workers at closed Quebec store: "The store shut down a few months after the 190 workers became the first Wal-Mart employees in North America to be unionized in 2004."

(You may, if you wish, compare and contrast this decision with almost any recent decision by the US Supreme Court.)

Something I've noticed: there are unions in Canada that will actually go on strike. Since I've been here I've noticed: the Post Office, a month after we got here. (Ended badly: the union staged 'rolling strikes' of roughly one spot per day to make a statement while not inconveniencing anyone too much, management responded by locking out *all* postal workers and then blaming it on 'the strike,' and the gov't signed back-to-work legislation.); truckers at the Port of Vancouver, sick of making no money while sitting around waiting for the Port to unload/load. (An agreement was reached; the Port is dragging its feet on implementing its end, and the truckers are making more strike noises.); and BC teachers, currently ongoing.

American individualism is American exceptionalism taken to ridiculous extremes. The idea that helping everyone else get ahead means that everyone else is dragging us down may be the most pernicious I've ever heard. It's certainly up there with "the rich deserve their money" and "work good, pleasure bad."

There's certainly some of that attitude up here, but there's still some leftover pushback against it too. It's nice to see.

Comments

[rbandrews]

I was always under the impression that a strike means something has gone horribly wrong, somewhere: the union and the company should be able to negotiate an agreement before they have to strike.

[okrablossom]

The idea that helping everyone else get ahead means that everyone else is dragging us down may be the most pernicious I've ever heard.

Thank you for stating this so succinctly. It's helping me to think about this.

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

Wow. There are Walmarts with unions there?

The unions in this area get their way by hurting innocent people, not the company/companies they have a beef with, so I'm not really sympathetic. (I've been threatened before and once a grocery store union wouldn't let me into the store to pick up a prescription at the pharmacy, even though I have a chronic condition. It was scary.)

However, on the flip side, I once worked at a company where the manufacturing employees unionized. The company fired them all and, from that day forward, used temps so they wouldn't have to worry about unions. I think that's wrong, too.

[culfinriel.livejournal.com]

I was really pleased to see that the nurses were unionized in BC. Otoh, it didn't help them any when the hospitals decided that they were going to go from 4 weeks a year w/o pay to 6. More specifically, one of the ways they controlled costs, at least in the systems I was working in (which I think are the only two in Vancouver), is closing the hospital operating rooms for 2 weeks in the summer and 2 weeks in the winter. Only emergencies. So anyone who was an operating room nurse got "unpaid vacation". Overall, though, I think it helped the nurses and patients a lot that they were unionized.