$52,000? Sweet! Can't wait

$52,000? Sweet!
Can't wait for the superclass workers paradise to arrive, when all the party members have nice state jobs, pensions at 55, and a dacha on the islands. Well stocked stores for the members and empty shelves for everyone else.

2 questions for Frances

First, dear, what is your income? A cheeky question, I know, but important to know who's talking.

Second, do you think working families ought to be able to get a home for their families as a reward for their work?

It doesn't seem unreasonable to me, but I'd like your opinion on ot.

Average wage in BC

According to the BC government website
"The average hourly wage for all workers in B.C. in February 2011 was $23.16" So someone working full time for the average wage would make a little over $48,000 per year. I'm sure the average wage will go up with the raise in the minimum wage. So I don't believe that $52,000 for a union worker is an exorbitant wage. I would love to see a wage distribution chart for BC and see how the government calculated the average wage.

good article

and where would you rather be: Sweden which is 90% unionized or the U.S. which is 10% unionized?

Without unions we'ld all be working in the saltmines 7 days a week at 50 cents an hour. The rights that unions fought for benefit all workers: maternity leave, sick days, vacations days, overtime.

The last thing average folks need is a race to the bottom.

52,000 means nothing

What would have meant something would have been an honest accounting of a BCGEU members "total compensation" not just wages.
Wages don't even begin to tell the whole story.
Total compensation would have included benefits, vacation and the biggest payout of all - pensions. Defined Benefit pensions.
So add those up, then compare to the "average" BC worker and a very different story will emerge.
Very different.

1. It really is important to

1. It really is important to get the facts straight on these matters, to avoid ignorant attacks. Would be nice if someone produced a table (which could be trotted out every time the issue comes up) with such items as MEDIAN wages (by Public employees, all BC employees, whatever); Total tax burden (not just income tax) as percent of income for folks at the 10th, 50th and 10th and 99th decile; median family incomes before & after tax; clear accounting for what benefits are included/excluded from the measures used, etc etc.

2. It is also important to get the "framing" right. "Fair wage" is an excellent line -- but let's ensure it's definition is backed up by clear stats so the critics have a harder time disparaging it.

phunny, I thought the canary was here in BC all along

"Christy Clark's Great Leap Backward:
How the Education Minister mistakenly roused teachers from their apolitical slumber.

Every few years governments hand the British Columbia Teachers Federation a gift. They manufacture a crisis, which serves to rouse teachers from their apolitical slumber and causes them to renew their commitment to their union. The BCTF was sorely in need of such a gift, reeling from the impact of essential services legislation, contract stripping and the general marginalizing that has been the fate of all unions in the Liberal New Era."
By Kit Krieger, 16 Dec 2003, TheTyee.ca

http://thetyee.ca/Views/2003/12/16/Christy_Clarks_Great_Leap_Backward/

Almost on topic

I've been chortling over this one ever since I read it a few weeks ago. Schumpeter, the neoclassical economics columnist for The Economist notes in the February 24th issue that a new index of business freedom and competitiveness has been unveiled (March 1st) to evaluate competitive environments for entrepreneurship - the Global Entrepreneurship and Development Index (Acs & Autio).

Might you think that the US would be on top? Perhaps, but you'd be wrong. The most free country for entrepreneurship is (get ready Dorothy) Denmark. Followed by Canada, and then the US. And rounding out the top ten are Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Netherlands. Schumpeter notes without any surprise whatsoever "Four of the five Nordic countries are in the top ten. This suggests that it is possible to combine crackling enterprise with a big welfare state."

And the paragons of free-market bestiality?
- U.K. - 14th
- Singapore - 15th
- Hong Kong - 23rd
- Chile - 26th

When The Economist says you're doing something wrong, perhaps it's time to listen.

Time to wake up, now Governer Walker!

for those with access behind the firewall, see:
http://www.economist.com/node/18227144?story_id=18227144

Good article Mr Walker

"We have an income inequality and a tax fairness problem."

Exactly. The top 3.8% of the population of Canada controls 66.6% of the wealth according to the latest figures from the CCPA's national office.

If you don't want to "tax the rich" or "punish success" or any of the other silly soundbites people that don't know what they're talking about like to use, then you've already lost the battle.

Canada is not a country where wealth is somewhat fairly distributed, its a country where our resources have been squandered to enrich a tiny segment of the population.

The people who demonize a public sector worker for making $52,000 a year are the same ones who didn't mind the Liberals giving away billions in forests, railroads and rivers to party supporters.

Taxes have increased in BC for most while those with the most have seen their taxes decline. This has caused deficits and even more taxes on the poor and middle class.

Over the last 30 years workers have seen their real incomes decline yet our resources have been plundered as never before. Unemployment is high and wages are low yet we send work overseas.

Assuming current trends continue we will eventually become a country full of desperately poor people living on top of one of the world's richest land masses.

The system is failing us and the attacks on public sector workers are a sympton of that. We turn on each other as the pie becomes smaller rather than on those that have already eaten most of it.

Well said, Frank

The entirety of your last comment is clear and precise. I find your summary to be words that we, the 96.2% on the bottom, best heed. We know those spoiled brats on the top are not into sharing. They must be made to share.

"The system is failing us and the attacks on public sector workers are a sympton of that. We turn on each other as the pie becomes smaller rather than on those that have already eaten most of it."

The Truth Shall Set You Free

If one can't even get that simple fact right, then the entire article must be flawed.

BC marginal personal income tax rates:

$0 to $36,146 - 5.06%
Over $100,787 - 14.70%

http://www.sbr.gov.bc.ca/individuals/income_taxes/personal_income_tax/tax_rates/2011.htm

Luke

He said "total tax rate", your response ignores that and talks only about income taxes.

The Liberals have been reducing income taxes while increasing other taxes, fees, premiums, rates, tolls and so on. That's not news to anyone here nor I bet is it news to Mr Walker.

All of those other increases fall under the term "total tax rate".

So to use your logic, one could say that if you're unable to grasp that simple distinction then any counter-argument you make is obviously flawed.

Frank

Using your analogy, then the richest 1% of Manitobans and Nova Scotians also now benefit from a lower total tax rate than the poorest 10 per cent of Manitoban and Nova Scotian
residents.

And that's under NDP governments!

Luke

Is that true? If it is then let's see a link to the stats so I can compare their total tax rates before and after NDP governments were elected.

What do they want?

We read that the union leaders claim that public workers actually earn less than their private sector colleagues but the union wants to retain the status quo, including their collective bargaining rights. I wonder why. If indeed the public workers are earning less one would think that the workers would perhaps want to enter the private sphere, go non-union and earn more.

Is it ideology, or is it something else?

To bring up the argument that raising taxes for the, so called, 'rich' and the corporations will solve the problems, is just more of the the old song that is sung inside the box. Yet, the singers of this song tell us they have the facts and their system pays employees less.

When we read clips like this from supporters of more-taxes-for-the-rich we understand better:

"The reality is that if the rich left the prices of houses would fall which would increase the standard of living for the rest of the population.

If the rich left and took their companies with them it would be a great day because the market and resources that made them rich would still be here and new companies would quickly appear and pay our increased tax rates which would again benefit all." Frank.

I guess that's what many in Africa thought would happen after the rich colonials would leave. A few decades back Africa was richer than Asia, then the rich colonials left and aid was given and now Africa is the poorest continent and people cry for more aid to be sent. One classic case is Hyundai sending a gift of hundreds of soccer balls, which promptly put the Kenyan soccer-ball company out of business.

The Wisconsin story is extensive and complicated but simply taxing the rich, as those that live to divide society with negative class-driven ideology do may be wrong.

Here's a story:
http://gazettextra.com/news/2009/may/31/where-are-wisconsin-business-incentives/

Ex-NDPer Reynolds makes a good point this week too:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/commentary/neil-reynolds/theres-only-one-tax-rate-that-works-zero-per-cent/article1942967/

The main purpose of the

The main purpose of the present "globally competitive" economic theory is the race to the bottom for the majority and free stealing rights for the few.

We have a Swiss community around here, where the guys go back to Switzerland to work for a few weeks, so they can afford to live in Canada.

Our partner, a master mechanic, goes back for 6 weeks and makes $16,000. he can't even dream about making here, in his own shop on our land.

The people and workers in Canada and the states were doing very well until the 70s, when the present criminal "laissez faire" economic theory that ruled the 19th century was forced on us, again, by the rulers and their pimp governments, but people still haven't woken up to the shafting ??????

This is the most ridiculous part.

Ed Deak.

r'man

Your logic is funny. You believe that if gov't employees weren't unionized the government would pay them more? If so, then why would gov't supporters attack unions?

After all, according to your logic the gov't would have to pay them more if they weren't unionized so you, and they, must have a different reason for attacking them all the time. What is it? Ideology?

As for Reynolds, he's not an NDPer. But if you want to read ex-right winger Rafe Mair you can come to the Tyee.

Thanks for quoting me, too bad you're immune to my logic and facts.

Africa, and South America, are excellent examples of what happens when resources are given away in the hopes that some wealth will trickle down. It doesn't. In the meantime we use their resources and skim off their best educated people. Africans need control over their own resources, need the wealth spent on education to stay in-country and they need good responsible government. When they have that I'm sure they'll be fine.

Which is why over 10 countries in Latin America have moved to the Left and you have their leaders declaring capitalism is not the answer and that it is in fact the source of the problem.

Again, anyone who thinks a country should tax the poor to support the rich will be left with a very poor country and a very rich elite. 2/3 of the wealth in the hands of less than 4% of the population. No wonder they don't want anyone to talk about class warfare.

The Wisconsin story is extensive and complicated but simply taxing the rich, as those that live to divide society with negative class-driven ideology do may be wrong.

oops

The last paragraph isn't mine, its a quote from r'man's post.

Pretty simple road

Group A Less than 4% of the population. Control 66.6% of the wealth.

Group B 96% of the population. Control 33.3% of the wealth.

Right-wing economics : Tax group B more, tax group A less, move more work and wealth out of the country. Exploit every resource and increase the population to more than we can sustain.

Left-wing economics : Tax group A more, tax group B less, keep work and wealth where the land and people are and recognize limits to what our resources can support.

The right-wing lives in a fantasy land of their own creation where even the most basic logic gets turned on its head and they all chant in unison that the poor must support the rich.

Rome Is Coming Down I...

The right wing is, of course, going to weep and wail everywhere, but this has been coming on for a very long time... since at least the early 80s. And it is going to spread very quickly.

Those who brought down the Social Democratic State of Capitalism, and brought us "Lean and Mean Capitalism" in its place, have themselves been the authors of what is about to happen. The problem is going to be, of course, how to bring on board and effect the lives, working conditions, right to decent pensions and "good" living standards of the ENTIRE working class... top to bottom.

One thing one can say about the American people, as some distinct from Canadians, is when they do finally move, they aren't shy. They do know how to fight. And will when its clear that push has come to shove back time. I'm not surprised that, despite all the same weaknesses and shortcomings of their trade union movement as we have, they have taken the lead here.

For which "unorganized" workers and the poor themselves MUST accept some responsibility for what they do and don't, and their own outcomes. It is not JUST existing "organized" workers who have responsibility for them here. Though "organized workers" do owe them solidarity, assistance, and attempting to speak up for them, not just themselves. You fail that, you can expect the poor and unorganized to turn against and oppose you. BUT... YOU GET FROM CAPITALISM, WHAT YOU ARE PREPARED TO WRING OUT OF THEM AND FIGHT FOR. PERIOD.

You want a decent life for raising families, having holidays and pensions, and a vibrant small business community? You are not going to have any of it earning minimum wage or less than $52,000 per year in today's economy realities.

Society can't afford it? First, bullshit. Take it from the tax cuts and exorbitant, obscene share that goes to the top 1% and the ruling class super wealthy.Which is the real reason for the poverty in the first place.

They'll stop investing in the economy and take it offshore, along with their plant, factories and equipment? Then "Democratize" it. Take it over in "the public interest"... with no less vigour than the rights of the working class have been abrogated, the poor driven to the wall, collective agreements broken, and strikes broken by back to work legislation.

continued next post...

Rome Is Coming Down II...

From previous post...

Boink 'em. (I know, it lacks the same intensity of feeling. 8-D lol It's time this neoconservative/fascist period of capitalism was brought to an end anyway. It's time "democracy" was finally brought into the economy FOR ALL.

It's just going to take organizing ALL WORKING PEOPLE, organized and unorganized, and mounting a fight, on the streets, in our workplaces, and within and against the existing bullshit institutions of parliament and capitalism itself to do it.

This is about, and has to be about, more than a relatively small trade union movement. You absent yourself from the fight however, you will absent yourself from being part of the end solution.

Rome is about to be challenged by "the barbarian hordes". With luck, we'll be the generation of barbaians that finally brings it down. :-)

Jerry
http://coyotetimesca.blogspot.com/

More Tweaking...

"Left-wing economics : Tax group A more, tax group B less, keep work and wealth where the land and people are and recognize limits to what our resources can support." Frank.

Nyahh...Sounds to me, like more "tweaking" of an inherently unfair class arrangement by the social democratic right, actually. :-) About the same as the Liberal's would propose... though maybe not do anymore than you folks.

Still, I guess, better than nothing and about what one should expect... from social dem/liberals. 8-D lol

I don't know how old most

I don't know how old most people are on this blog, but the present exploitation couldn't have been imagined in the postwar years, until about the 70s. when the present garbage economic theory started taking over the universities, resulting in the biggest crime wave in history.

What amuses me more and more, every day, is the sordid fact that the origins of the present crime wave are not the self appointed elites, and their pimp "conservative" political servants, but our universities that have been taken over and used for the scriptural justification of global exploitation and mass murder, in the name of "economics" .

What the hell is going on with people? Why this stubborn silence and reluctance to question the origins of crimes and do something about them ? Hitler's racial theories, Stalinist dialectics and Mao's Cultural Revolution are no longer being taught as "sciences" to be used against humanity, why is the unquestioned teaching of neoclassical market economics still going on, while millions go downhill, are destroyed and starve to death in the fraudulent names of "globalization" and "wealth creation"

Ed Deak.

By comparison...

“We read that the union leaders claim that public workers actually earn less than their private sector colleagues”

What public sector unions clam this? In the one I know best, the relationship lies in a slightly different configuration of wages and benefits, but it generally comes out pretty evenly. Then sometimes private companies will give you crazy sign-on bonuses and Cadillacs for living in a place where everything else than your job sucks, such as California or Saudi Arabia. So, it’s pretty much six in one and a half-dozen in the other, and no one I have ever heard claims otherwise.

“Is it ideology, or is it something else?”

I would say something else. In the public sector area, there are, just as in private companies, some little pockets of cronyism and favoritism. But the perception at any rate is that in interpersonal relations, rules are or at least have a hope of being, more strictly followed and enforced than they are in many private sector settings with no unions. Monetary benefits only come up at bargaining time and are certainly important, but it is the day-to-day joy in or hatred of coming to work, that really shapes it for you. I would take a bet that most workers, public or private, would take some cut in order to remove from their daily sphere a coworker of supervisor, who is ‘in their face’ or ‘on their case’ every day of their lives. Dignity is not negotiable. Maybe that is what you are looking for.

When you start comparing to European countries, Denmark included, you are still dealing with a generation there, who have received a quality education that many North Americans never even dream of. I am not talking about some kind of intellectual snobbism here, maybe just the opposite. The colossal mistake of not allowing academic streaming here, in the name of some phoney ‘equality’, really lowers the quality for everyone, compelling many to waste years in school working towards a pre-set uniform goal that really does not suit many students, who would benefit far more from apprenticeships and other vocational training. So, without getting too philosophical, let me just say that in Denmark, you would not run into somebody in Third-year University, who had no grasp on logarithmic functions. That shortfall would have been either remedied or weeded out. As I said, this is not necessarily true for today’s students, for things have been falling apart ‘over there’ as well, due to the same misguided political correctness we choke on here.

and another thing

But I am not surprised to hear of the greater freedom for entrepreneurship. Truth is, there is greater freedom for everything except movement and gun-ownership. Look up the World Values Survey and see the multifaceted differences in culture and politics and how they interplay. You cannot cherry-pick for comparison, but must take the whole picture into consideration.

By the way, N.F.S. Grundtvig, Denmark’s great reformer of whom you can read in the book The Land of the Living by Steven Borish, had a couple of lines of poetry saying that ‘We have come far in freedom, when few have too much and even fewer have too little’. Danes do not view this as quaint history, but as a living message and words to obey. Without understanding that, you won’t understand much of Denmark and what it does.

For Ed Deak: When you can't find any other explanation for human behaviour, try fear. People are paralysed. They see very well that "..millions go downhill, are destroyed and starve to death in the fraudulent names of "globalization" and "wealth creation"", and everyone is hoping that he or she will not be on the wrong side of that equation. They're all afraid that if they start beating the bushes, the beasts will take notice, and will come and get them. If only they were stubborn instead of terrified! Maybe some things would change...

Exile on Main Street

Rod Stewart left Britain for Los Angeles in 1975 because 84% of his income was going in tax. There were many others.

In various versions of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, the rock star Hotblack Desiato is reported as "spending a year dead for tax reasons".

Left-wing economics: Tax success to the point of punishment and end incentives so that everybody works only minimally. Discourage business investments unless they can be highly taxed on any success, thereby ensuring investments go elsewhere. Raise taxes on imports inviting retaliation, restrict exports of any any raw materials hoping that manufacturing can be set up and if not, start up and subsidize government owned manufacturing companies that will inevitably undercut any in the private sector. Expand the public sector into all businesses so that ideology drives the economy rather than market forces or entrepreneurial spirit, thereby gaining full control over society and centralizing all power in the offices of the ruling party.

Dorothy

It's in the article above:
"The fact is Wisconsin public sector workers are paid less than private sector workers, according to the Economist."

good times

"Tax success"

Yes, the alternative is to tax failure and that doesn't pay the light bill.

"end incentives so that everybody works only minimally"

And this would be a bad thing how? I see no reason for people to work beyond what they need to.

"Discourage business investments unless they can be highly taxed on any success, thereby ensuring investments go elsewhere."

Yet you're in favour of business going elsewhere which is why you support things like free trade. What free trade is is the de-linking of markets from production. So naturally one will produce where the cost is cheapest. Get raw materials from Canada, make the product overseas and sell it back to the same unemployed Canadians. That describes right-wing economics to a "T".

"Raise taxes on imports"

If we can make it here, sure.

"restrict exports of any any raw materials hoping that manufacturing can be set up and if not, start up and subsidize government owned manufacturing companies that will inevitably undercut any in the private sector"

You're arguing with yourself again. There aren't any in the domestic private sector, that's the point. Why export raw materials and import the finished products when we have massive unemployment? All you're doing is exporting wealth and jobs. But again, that's right-wing economics. Makes no sense.

"Expand the public sector into all businesses so that ideology drives the economy rather than market forces or entrepreneurial spirit"

One man's market forces and "spirit" is another man's ideology. Ideology is being forced onto those that don't want it under the guise of "there is no alternative".

"thereby gaining full control over society and centralizing all power in the offices of the ruling party"

Sounds like the Campbell and Harper governments all right. Harper and Campbell were both anti-democrats that concentrated power in their own hands.

Dorothy.... I'll be 84 next

Dorothy.... I'll be 84 next month and have seen so many changes, corrupt ruling systems, dictators, fall within my own lifetime that I can't even count them.

There are tremendous changes coming, with their signs and first steps already visible all over the world.

As one of the millions of microscopic underground viruses chewing at its foundations, I've spent 45 years on bringing down the Soviets.

I can assure you, the present crime wave is coming to an end and that, for all practical purposes, capitalism is dead, not by outside forces, but because it is destroying itself by its own hand, as all dictatorships in history have. They've all gone and go that fatal last step too far.

I can only hope that not too many innocent millions will suffer when it crumbles, as usually is the case with the fall with all corrupt systems.

The question is, who has the brains to pick up the pieces and help humanity survive when the fall comes ?

Ed Deak.

Time To Move On...

"I can assure you, the present crime wave is coming to an end and that, for all practical purposes, capitalism is dead, not by outside forces, but because it is destroying itself by its own hand, as all dictatorships in history have. They've all gone and go that fatal last step too far.

I can only hope that not too many innocent millions will suffer when it crumbles, as usually is the case with the fall with all corrupt systems." Ed Deak

Amen, Ed.

My "hope" is, and I concede it is only a hope, the the mass of the people will find it within themselves, not some bullshit "vanguard" that is but the precursor to a new ruling class arrangement, to finally organize and control themselves, their world, their economy AND their natural environment. Real, fully rounded, integrated into all aspects of life "democracy"... not this ritual bullshit, genuflect to the Queen, shadow ruling class "adviser" cabinet to Prime Ministers, manipulated by corrupt lobbyists, authoritarian workplaces, dictatorship for four years, kiss ass excuse/substitute for real democracy.

What do I think is really going to happen. Who the frig knows? But i do hope... if necessary, over a yet longer pull of history.

Capitalism has failed... in all its "free market", Fascist and Soviet incarnations. It really is finally time to move on. And like Deak say, they brought it down on themselves, even their voices that you can hear in here.

Frank

""end incentives so that everybody works only minimally"

And this would be a bad thing how? I see no reason for people to work beyond what they need to."

Need to? What if people want to work more? I know a guy that had clothing shops in a previously high-taxed European nation. He liked his work. He grew the business to six stores, his taxes went up and up as he made more money and employed more people. He told me he was closing five shops, reducing his overall earnings but keeping the same after-tax money because he would then be in a lower tax bracket. I guess he was then only working as much as lefties like you deem he needed to. Staff were fired and the economy shrank.

"Yet you're in favour of business going elsewhere which is why you support things like free trade."

Yes, I do. If Africans can make things cheaper then why not let them and buy from them? Instead"

"Raise taxes on imports"

If we can make it here, sure."

So you would raise taxes on those imports, thereby subsidizing local manufacturing. That's what we have in many areas right now, so we don't buy from Africa we send aid instead and they don't have work. That's what killed the sugar industry in Haiti. Subsidized sugar growing and high import taxes in the US means selling subsidized sugar to Haiti cheaper than they can produce it themselves. Again, we send aid instead.

Trimbo:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4209956.stm

"Trade and economic growth are the only sustainable way for developing countries to escape poverty … we will put maximum effort into achieving an ambitious, pro-development global trade deal."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/17/election-international-aid-policies

The wealth of cities

Jane Jacobs, the noted city planner whose essay on the causes and definitions of dark ages was so incisive, also wrote on its opposite, the prosperity of cities.

According to her, the way to a general prosperity is the replacement of imports wherever possible with local products, even at a higher price. This results in he creation of real jobs, in a local economy in which all the money possible remains out of the hands of people who live in any way that permits them to remove that money from the local circulation.

The cut to taxes for the wealthy was advertised to create jobs by making more money available for investment locally, but in reality it only benefitted the international set, and resulted in huge exports of local sweat and hope to offshore places where slave and wage slave rates remove that money from not only our own economy, but also from the economies of the places to which it goes, since all profit is retained by owners, and none by workers who would circulate it.

Result- No prosperity for anybody, except a very small group of owners who do not circulate any significant part of it Since their living expenses are such a small percentage of income, compared to workers who might retain at best ten or fifteen percent of income and would circulate the rest immediately. The ony beneficiaries are luxury goods and services providers, most of which are themselves international, and therefore also not contributors to local prosperity to any great extent..

The main purpose of any

The main purpose of any family, country, or society is the protection, which means the subsidizing, the wellbeing of its members.

The Canadian people have been doing very well and had higher living and health, educational etc. standards before we had the racket of the "free trade" and WTO fraud, import duties, taxes and tariffs.

Now the word "protectionism" has become dirty, unless it is going for weapons, while the country and the citizens are being sold off to "foreign investors", we need like holes in our heads, except for the purpose of giving lucrative directorships to shithead politicians.

Ed Deak.

An article to assuage

And tha'ts ok Darryl. But the facts are that public sector workers historically traded wages in exchange for security, flexability and retirement.

The public sector was affordable by the nation because not only did individuals pay higher taxes, but corporations certainly did.

Deregulation of capital, improvements in transportation, free trade agreements with developing nations and the flight of private capital investment in an industrial economy has flown the coop.

The fact is that per capita public sector workers by and large earn much more than private sector workers. There just aren't tens of thousands of jobs in the forest industry, fishing and mining anymore. Our province does not have an industry of durable goods production like Ontario.

The real standard of living in the private sector is immensely diminished. Yet, when teachers, nurses or other public sector workers are in difficult negotiations or on a picket line it is private sector workers who are asked to pressure the government in reaching settlements.

Frankly, there are not many private sector workplaces that will allow an employee to retire with a fully indexed pension at 55. And with survival rates at close to eighty years old now, and the ability of those former public sector workers (no mandatory retirement) to pick up private sector work there is an uneven playing field.

Darryl, instead of just putting out a piece and putting the best face on the situation as you can, the public sector unions should be proactive in pressing government to be more robust in supporting a private sector tax base. Where families in the private sector have a chance to earn a decent living and get out the door with a pension at 65. This will do more to protect your sector than simply burying your head in the sand.

r'man

"What if people want to work more? "

Simple, let them.

"Staff were fired and the economy shrank."

Sure it did, I guess people stopped wearing clothes in that area. Just like before he opened his shops.

"Yes, I do. If Africans can make things cheaper then why not let them and buy from them?"

Because it means our resources going to Africa, our employment going to Africa. Africa would have the advantage of our markets with none of the responsibilities to our environment or workers. Its a recipe for disaster, evidence widely available.

"So you would raise taxes on those imports, thereby subsidizing local manufacturing. That's what we have in many areas right now, so we don't buy from Africa we send aid instead and they don't have work. That's what killed the sugar industry in Haiti. Subsidized sugar growing and high import taxes in the US means selling subsidized sugar to Haiti cheaper than they can produce it themselves. Again, we send aid instead."

That's very strained logic, again, a simple answer would be, don't send aid. There, now the Africans can use their own workers and resources to supply their own market and we can do the same. You can thank me for working that out.

"Trade and economic growth are the only sustainable way for developing countries to escape poverty"

Wrong. Its not sustainable and all it will do is impoverish other nations. Developing countries need to control their own economies, their own resources for their own markets. That is the path to escaping poverty. The recipe of free-trade zones, privatization, exploited workers, foreign ownership of resources and emigration of the educated has produced poverty.

Francis

Blaming public sector workers for the lack of opportunity in the private sector is burying your head in the sand.

Put the blame where it belongs, on government and the policies that concentrates wealth in the hands of as few people as possible.

Bolivia

In Bolivia, a country with one of the largest oil reserves in Latin America had the worst poverty on the continent. Resources such as oil, telecommunications, mining and electricity were in the hands of the few.

Eva Morales, elected in 2005, nationalized it all, driving out the Right-wing elites. What happened? Did the country suffer?

In 2002 Bolivia’s GDP was $9 billion and its growth rate was 2.5%, less than the inflation rate.

In 2008 Bolivia recorded the highest growth in the region (6.1%) and by 2010 its GDP had doubled.
And most importantly the wealth isn't just flowing to a few white families, more of the wealth is going into the hands of the people and access to healthcare and education is better.

Enough BS!

Perhaps Ed is correct, that many of the posters here do not remember the days, when a tradesman made a good living in Canada?

I worked as a machinist during the sixties, and had a wife who did not work, but looked after our three kids at home.

On my wages alone we bought and paid for a good house in seven years, all the while owning two cars, and able to afford vacations!

Now you smart-asses, show me any tradesman who can equal that today!

So quit talking about how well we are doing, because we suck, thanks to the way you guys voted all along!

Corruption as a cause of poverty

I really want to point out a couple of items from the newspapers.

When the North Africans recently began their populist movement, it was revealed over and over again that accounts of hundreds of millions or billions of dollars existed in control of local criminal heads of state. Always in other, safer countries. Always the proceeds of looting the local economy, and accepting bribes from international interests for allowing them to loot it.

When the sons of Saddam were killed by the American military in Iraq, there was present at the site a large box containing $650 million in US currency. The Americans were so completely aware of this box that when a few thousand were swiped by the soldiers who did the assassination, it was immediately detected, and the soldiers prosecuted for theft. This detailed knowledge indicates that the Americans must have assembled the currency and handed it to the Hussien brothers themselves.

In a small country, especially one with a history of previous poverty, overcome by temporary resource money, such as oil producing nations like Canada, this looting deprives the country of all hope of parlaying the resource income into a future economy based on skills, education, social programs, new technologies or anything else.

When the resources run out, we're all of us totally dogfucked again. Unless we can recover those billions as proceeds of crime, and rededicate them to actually building a sustainable new economy to be going on with.

Frank

Clearly you only think according to some old rules of dogma.

I wasn't blaming the public sector, but noting that the balance has shifted. Now the public sector probably supports the economy of the private sector.

If that works for all of us groovy. But I do think we need to do what you suggest, put blame on government, and funny how government is represented by public sector unions.

Maybe some of their senior managers in environment, natural resources, skills and development and other federal and provincial ministries can help us poor private sector folks out a bit with polices that work for all of us.

The public sector regardless of blame needs to understand that without a proper and just balanced economy the public sector is no longer sustainable. Its a fact. So get your head out of the sand Brother.

Stupid garbage. Outsourcing

Stupid garbage. Outsourcing doesn't "save" anything, just transfers the real cost on others, who lose. The real cost of a product or service is always the same, the difference is who pays ? Ed Deak.
===============================================
From: News, BCH Corporate
Sent: 2011, March 17 5:00 PM
To: DL - BCHALL - ALL BC HYDRO EMPLOYEES
Subject: A Message from Executive Vice-President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer Charles Reid Regarding the Accenture Agreement

Some employees may have heard about a news release issued by COPE this afternoon regarding the Accenture agreement. This news release contained misleading information and we would like to take this opportunity to clarify a few facts:

· There are no plans to break up BC Hydro.

· Our business structure is designed to provide the best possible value to our ratepayers and we have no plans to change it. Any suggestion otherwise is misleading as we are in ongoing discussions on the restructuring of our Accenture agreement, not the business structure of BC Hydro as a whole.

· The continued use of outsourcing will help reduce future customer rate increases by reducing BC Hydro’s operating costs.

· As the Accenture/BC Hydro agreement comes to term, structured discussions with Accenture are underway. It would be premature to speculate on the outcome of these discussions at this time except to say we look forward to achieving the best possible value and service for our customers.

Our 2003 agreement with Accenture to outsource non-core functions and allow for a greater focus on the generation and delivery of electricity has been successful. By 2013, the outsourcing will have exceeded expectations and saved customers more than $250 million.

· BC Hydro is committed to finding cost savings to pass on to our customers to help keep rates among the lowest in North America, and to do so, we must look at every area of our operations to find efficiencies and the optimal working model.

Frank

""What if people want to work more? "

Simple, let them."

Yes Frank, I thank you for working that out. What you conveniently forget in your brilliant put-downs is that then your guys and their so-called 'progressive tax ideas' march in and demand that they exact a proportionally larger pound of flesh in the form of escalated, rather than constant, taxes. This destroys incentive for those that do decide to work more.

Your system works fine for stopping exploitation of employees but it also stifles people that enjoy their work so much that are more productive and make more money. Then you guys say that they are the rich and they should be punished - or get out.

"If the rich left and took their companies with them it would be a great day..." Frank.

frances

"Clearly you only think according to some old rules of dogma."

At least I think, which is one better than you apparently judging by your last post which demonstrates a lack of understanding of our system.

"and funny how government is represented by public sector unions."

No it isn't, its represented by the representatives the people voted for in the last election. Unions don't set government policy, the cabinet made up of government MLAs does.

Governments pass laws, unions don't.

"The public sector regardless of blame needs to understand that without a proper and just balanced economy the public sector is no longer sustainable. Its a fact. So get your head out of the sand Brother."

The people in the public sector do their jobs, they don't write policy in the evenings before bed. If you think we can no longer afford teachers, nurses, police and so on then perhaps the government should be working on that.

Dear Frances

I think your main premise is flawed.

The public sector does in fact have many of the qualities you list, security, stability, pensions and so forth, but these things were built in purposely, not traded for by the workers.

A stable, professional public service is the only part of democratic government that allows successive elected parties to continue to run the country without major upheavals.

Without the built in stable and independent public service every election would bring about a total disruption of the functioning infrastructure that makes the country work. Chaos would ensue every time.

The union environment, the pensions, the living wage, all these are essentially bribes to persuade the public service employees to stay, and not defect to the private sector whenever they see a better paycheck float by.

An essential strategy for continuity. Not an illicit perk that the nation can only afford because of the efforts of heroic private sector bah blah blah, as you seem to think.

Frank - Bolivia

You better do your homework next time. ;)

- the removal of the goverment subsidy on fuel saw gas prices jump nearly 70-percent, sparking mass demonstrations;

- Overnight, bus and taxi fares doubled, food prices soared, and panic buying caused long lines for disappearing staples at state-run markets.

- The enforcement of strict price controls on food staples has also backfired. Instead of reducing farm exports as they intended, farmers planted less crops and a shortage has developed;

- News reporters have found several members of Morales’ political party, Movement to Socialism (MAS), hoarding stockpiles of food, causing more unpopularity;

- Inflation in Bolivia has shot up 8.4-percent over the last year ending in January;

- The government predicts a deficit of US$870 million, which is high by regional standards;

- Morales now has support of only 32% of the population. Only his core base of Beringian-country folk back him at this point;

- Morales has little to fear from the formal opposition, which is in exile due to legal harassment;

What a mess! Tryin' to clean that mess up will be akin to turning clam chowder back into its original ingredients. lol

r'man

Since you like my quote so much I'll post it myself for you.

"If the rich left and took their companies with them it would be a great day..." Frank.

Let your guy work as often as he wants, no one will care.

But to get really really rich he will need a friend in government that can supply him with a revenue stream or a public resource for a song. That's the path he'll want to take. Work will never pay as much as living off the work of others will.

Frank

The people who work for the government, work in the ministries that manage our natural resources, education and training, financial sectors, environment and health are all government workers, by and large represented by NUPGE, BCGEU, CUPE etc. They have significant influence on our lives though deriving and administering policy.

Their work is no more valuable than that of a cleaner in St Pauls Hospital, but they have significantly more ability to make real contribution. As governments change the bureaucracy remains the same. When a new Minister is appointed he or she is briefed and influenced by the public sector workers And maybe by the sheer weight of the strength in numbers the public sector union should step up to the plate for us all instead of waiting till its too late like it became in Wisconsin.

Now, back to your peaceful day. I have to return to work.

Luke

You forgot to post the source of your information.

By the way, I'm still waiting for your source that the NDP in Manitoba and Nova Scotia increased taxes on the poor and lowered them on the rich so that the poorest 10% now pay a higher rate than the top 10% unlike before the NDP took power in those provinces.

I assume you have the links to back up that assertion?

Also, you still haven't produced any data disproving what Mr Walker said in the article in spite of claiming data was available.

So, show us your "homework", please.

My Bolivia stats

2002 data here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Bolivia

latest data here

http://www.indexmundi.com/bolivia/economy_profile.html

subjective analyis here

http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/monitor/latin-american-revolution-v

a quote from the last link

"Morales has used the increased revenues generated by nationalization to give the people free health care and education. “When speaking about the democratic revolution that Bolivia is undergoing,” said Gonzalez, “let’s first address the issue of health care. We have witnessed a change, a revolutionary change, in terms of the new policies that our President has implemented, especially that which concerns the redistribution of revenue produced from resources such as hydrocarbons among the various municipalities in the country so that these can be invested in health care and education programs.”

The provision of public health care and education has reduced Bolivia’s infant mortality rate from 54 per 1,000 babies to 50, and wiped out illiteracy. Both achievements have been attained with the help of Cuban doctors and teachers. Before Morales came to power, Bolivia had the highest illiteracy rate in South America, at 45%. This has been eradicated in only four years. The government has built 545 health care facilities, performed free vision operations for 425,000 people, constructed 269 school buildings, and increased teachers’ salaries by 30%."

frances

"the public sector union should step up to the plate for us all instead of waiting till its too late like it became in Wisconsin."

How did it become too late in Wisconsin? The governor demonstrated in his recorded phone call with a caller he thought was one of his financial backers that there was no crisis, he manufactured it.

The Wisconsin governor was not forced to bust unions by the budget, it was because his ideology called for it and his financial backers demanded it.

The source of your link was

The source of your link was politifi.com?

Oh please.

Now I see why you were shy about posting the source, why not just quote Rush Limbaugh directly?

At least use a source where if they said it was going to get dark at night a few people might believe them without checking a second source.

The agenda?

"we have only just begun to figure out how to bring about the reduction in living standards that will be necessary to create a sustainable balance"

a quote from Steven Pearlstein, business columnist for the Washington Post, the context is here :

"Regular readers of this column are no doubt familiar with my favorite gambit, which is to spy the common thread in several of the day's seemingly disparate events - the "it's really all one story" ploy. Using this approach, the political badgering in the Badger State is no different from the budget crises in Ohio, New York and California and the looming shutdown of the federal government in Washington. All of them are manifestations of the meta-reality of a country that for years had been living beyond its means. Now, even three years after reality came crashing down, we have only just begun to figure out how to bring about the reduction in living standards that will be necessary to create a sustainable balance. Will the pain come in the form of prolonged high unemployment? Or wage and salary cuts? Or reduction in the value of homes and financial assets? Or loss of ownership of American companies? Or price inflation? Or higher taxes? Or reductions in government services and benefits?

The right answer, of course, is "all of the above." The hole we dug for ourselves was so deep and so wide that we'll need all of them to get us out of it. The central political, economic and social challenge of the next decade will be to decide how we are going to apportion the adjustment among these various channels, and among the various classes and sectors and regions of the country, without tanking the economy or breaking the bonds that hold our society and our democracy together."

full article here :

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/22/AR2011022207620.html

Frank

Many thanks to you, Frank. You are very adept at juggling 3 and more hardline neo-liberals all at once with little or no effort. I am always impressed with your intellect (as I am with a number of other posters here). But, it's not just intellect that is important: a person needs compassion too. You show compassion and patience in attempting to educate those who continually come here to define greed as good. You know, the ones who purposely come here to manipulate facts and tell half-truths to make themselves almost believeable in a schoozie, friendly kind of way. They are the worst! Yet, you are patient with them. I applaud you, Frank!

I can't understand how those who are not among the 3.8% of British Columbians controlling 2/3 the resources want to take power and money away from others who are within the 96.2% of us who have to share the remainging 1/3 resources. How can they have become so brainwashed and/or gotten so stupid? It is as though they actually believe Sarah Palin or Rush Limbaugh! You and I know that there are plenty of resources for everyone in BC if we share. Those in the 3.8% don't belong here at all, they already own the Fraser Institute and the MSM, etc..

Public Sector:
Of the many people I know in the Public Sector, I know very few in BC's public sector that are not working as hard as they can. Come Friday afternoons, they are bagged! Many of them are on the verge and beyond of burnout. Workloads are constantly changed and increased while staffs are downsized. One of the wealthiest provinces and we have the smallest public sector! We also have rising unemployment and rising debt because secondary and tertiary industry jobs related to our natural resources have been outsourced. What a crock of neoliberal-BC Liberal feces we have been served!

ahem, Francis...

"Their work is no more valuable than that of a cleaner in St Pauls Hospital, but they have significantly more ability to make real contribution."

This is indicative of an outworn worldview - you see, hospital cleaners know that their jobs can literally be life and death. Yep, they are pretty important, and they make a real contribution. Just like most other workers, whether they pave roads, empty garbage, care for children and the elderly - this is the real work of the province, the stuff that lets life go on. Clearly you haven't been reading the Tyee enough to understand the loonies and nutbars that have had the ear of the Liberal government for so long... yes, these people that you probably couldn't bear to have for dinner are the ones advising the government on the best ways to enable the status quo.

The amazing thing is that those hospital cleaners you don't think so much of, and all those others, keep on doing their best and working for the common good. What a concept.

Replies to several posters

Thank you, R’man, but so it is the article writer, who makes this claim for all public sector unions in Wisconsin, not, as it was said in the post, a claim made by unions themselves. At least there is no indication thereof.

“Yes, I do. If Africans can make things cheaper then why not let them and buy from them? Instead”

To me, it would depend on why they can make it cheaper. If the quality is comparable, and the competitiveness is achieved by shafting the workers, then I don’t see the merit, and I think we are doing wrong by buying their stuff, since we’re only perpetuating comparative misery. Try to read the file on ‘dieoff’ here, and see that it could apply to the work-market if we totally give up any protection of the guy next door:

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/3246/201102stmatthewisland.png

“..there are not many private sector workplaces that will allow an employee to retire with a fully indexed pension at 55”

Nor are there ‘many’ public sector UNIONS that will. The best one that I am aware of, the Municipal superannuation, for my union membership is a defined benefit pension, but you only get the full pension 'early' if your age and years of service adds up to 90 years, and rather than being ‘fully indexed’, it has a declaration of intent to follow inflation as far as possible, but it is being stressed that full indexing is by no means a guarantee.

I think that some people may be confused between ‘public service employees’, such as outright government workers and aides and MLA’s and that sort of people, and then ‘public sector union workers’, which are such people as paramedics and nurses and allied health care professionals. The latter group does not get anything gold-plated, but merely adequate, or so we hope.

Replies to several posters, part 2

Ed, I am hoping we can avoid the big crash by taking our allegiance to consumerism away gradually, but maybe this is a pipe dream. I think there are people at ground level, who can piece it together, but we have no guarantee that they will be the ones to survive if things get truly ugly. That is my greatest worry.

I am not your equal in years, but I can still remember that when my hubby and I hit these shores back in the early seventies, we could, on two minimum-wage full-time jobs, by living frugally, SAVE UP EVERY MONTH. The minimum wage at that time was $ 2.50 as far as I recall. Things have certainly gotten worse.

R’man again: I cannot follow your logic on high-producing workers! Is it that they love their job and work like gangbusters and then the higher earnings are incidental? This is what you say in one paragraph. But then you also say that if the financial reward gets nicked, it will ‘destroy the incentive’. Doesn’t compute with me. I DO love my job, and if I can live on my salary, I don’t draw the line where it stops paying in any minute terms, but gladly go the extra mile. I think the people you describe are weasels who lay claim to an integrity and motivation they don’t really posses. Sorry.

R'man

"Rod Stewart left Britain for Los Angeles in 1975 because 84% of his income was going in tax. There were many others."

Rod Stewart is a talentless entertainer with a bad attitude whose wealth came about due to monopoly restrictions on trade and entrepreneurship artificially created to privilege record companies (and Rod himself, after the fact). He's the epitome of the old Cheech & Chong song Earache My Eye "AH-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA! I only know three chords! But I own apartment buildings and shopping centres!"

How is it the fashion industry can do just fine - and create a market 20 times the size of the music industry with far more entrepreneurship and creativity - while the music industry needs a big bully to help it collect its allowance every week?

http://www.ted.com/talks/johanna_blakley_lessons_from_fashion_s_free_culture.html

Francis

" The fact is that per capita public sector workers by and large earn much more than private sector workers. There just aren't tens of thousands of jobs in the forest industry, fishing and mining anymore."

I'm not sure you've got that quite right. If you mean total workforce of public sector as a percentage of the economy compared to private sector, that's been dropping in BC from 22% of jobs in 1981 to 17% of total jobs in 2008. Incidentally, BC, at 89 public-sector jobs per 1000 population, is lower than anyone else in Canada, including Ontario with its economies of scale, and Alberta, with its innate drive to drown government in a bathtub.

http://tiny.cc/j385j

However, I believe you are correct when you point out that there are fewer skilled trades jobs in BC than decades ago. However, there are more skilled knowledge and managerial jobs in BC than decades ago. Whether the numbers balance out, I'm not sure, and I'm not going to take the time to locate that now.

But, apples to apples (not oranges) you find private-sector electricians with comparable qualifications make much more in the private sector than in the public. VGH's head electrician gets a $500 bonus on top of his $64,000 salary for holding the annual operating permit for the facility. BC Sugar's head electrician gets $87,000 for the same. Same with nearly any trade, and even working your way down the skill list through construction, you'll find that substantially true.

https://trade.britishcolumbia.ca/Invest/Pages/BusinessCosts.aspx

Only relatively unskilled labour finds public sector wages rising above the private sector - housekeeper/janitorial, clerk/reception, and traditionally female occupations - and that's due to a concerted effort by unions to raise those wages at the expense of gains in other areas such as trades.

Most trades in my hospitals are happy earning 25-45% less than private sector wages, and they've chosen not to exercise "their right of unrestricted free-agency" to prove it.

Hospital accounting departments calculate accrued-benefit totals at 26% of wages paid. That is probably comparable to other branches of government, and not far off the private sector whose average is 21%, likely due to fewer annual vacation days.

Part II - public-sector pensions

"Frankly, there are not many private sector workplaces that will allow an employee to retire with a fully indexed pension at 55."

Nor will you find that in the public sector. The Municipal Pension Plan allows unrestricted retirements only at 57 years 9 months last year, with a projected change to 58 years 2 months next year. The plan is fully funded by contributions 46% by employee and 54% by employer. BC Teachers Plan allows unrestricted retirements only at 58/6 and will move above 59 years next year.

Defined benefit plans are required by law to actuarially support their members according to sound investment principles, and a large (private-sector) industry has arisen to support them in that (Beutel Goodman and others). The business is competitive, and there's no freebie on the taxpayer's dime. And the indexing you speak of was paid for with reduced wages, equal contributions by the employer as in the private sector, and sound investment principles, as carried out by the private sector.

some differences

I can only speak for my company pension. Defined Contribution. "Magic number" (age + years of service)= 85 when you can begin drawing funds. No indexing period and you have to chose an annuity from a life insurance company.
Your choice - there is X amount of money in your fund and there will be no more coming. So do you want a larger monthly payout for a shorter amount of time, or a smaller monthly payout over a longer period of time, because once its gone, its gone and your SOL.
And most private sector workers don't even have that.

There's no such thing as

There's no such thing as "cheaper", only who pays the full costs.

And I mean real, physical costs and not imaginary monetary figures.

We get products made in other countries and continents at lower monetary prices, because the deregulated money creation powers have inflated our local living costs, whereas in other countries people can survive on $1 or 3/day.

Back in the mid 50s we could survive on .75 cents hourly minimum wages, because we paid $35/month rent and our food costs for 2 were under $20/wk.

In 1955 the highest paid union workers were electricians and carpenters at around $2.20/hr and there were bungalows advertised in Burnaby for $1,400.

If we still had the same living costs, we could also make products at Chinese prices, but the duty and purpose of an economy is to supply people with the necessities of life, which means that their incomes must reflect and cover their living costs.

"Cheap imports" from low monetary cost countries are not only stupid, but criminal, as they destroy the logical purpose of economics and the environment with unnecessary waste of resources and pollution caused by long distance transport.

Ed Deak.

The Endless Roundy-Round I...

I do understand the desire of folks, steeped in the status quo parliamentary system, to whom it is the be all and end all, to debate the minutia of pensions, benefits and wages with the adherents to the ruling class tradition here, such as rman etc. It does become a bit of a tail chasing discussion though, because neither side is ever going to convince the other.

It's a more hardcore reality actually at work here... That interest which can muster the most power (defined along a number of battle lines), and is prepared to put up the harder and more unrelenting fight wins. It's the underlying operative reality of class relations within "the system. It's not really so much logic... each side having its own... though there is certainly objective logic... and that is it's an ongoing, now you see it, now you don't, class war.

From my working class interest perspective, all working people are entitled to "good" incomes which allow them to actually "live", have leisure time and holidays, secure the necessities and some of the luxuries that a time and level of social and economic development can afford, have access to good medical care, decent homes, AND, when they're old and/or broken, "good" pensions. These are reasonable working class expectations... to me.

From the perspective of the ruling class that owns and controls the means of production and distribution however, for all the blather to the contrary, it is THEIR lifestyle expectations and bottom line that is primary, and only thereafter what their "blessed" free market, or more accurately "casino capitalism" indicates is "the MINIMUM" they must pay to put boots on the factory or store floor. (Which is what really underlies all this off-shore out-sourcing of late globalized capitalism... paying the MINIMUM.)

We have diametrically opposed interests. Both can't have their way and be satisfied. (Though we came close, ignoring the poverty and inequities that still existed, during the brief period of the Social Democratic State, or Welfare State Capitalism. Which was actually pretty close to the old Soviet model of capitalism. If we ignore the "democracy deficit" of the latter.)

So this endless roundy-round that goes on between Left (and here for the sake of reducing argument, we'll include Social Dems :-), and the Right, in my view, is all really moot and quite pointless.

continued next post...

The Endless Roundy-Round II

From previous post...

As Ruling Order adherents, they are not going to surrender their wealth and power hold on the economy for any, to them, bullshit notions of "fairness" or "equality". They don't have to. The recent Welfare State attempted to do that through regulation and State interferences, and they came to see where that was going... which is why they, through the Liberals and Conservatives (and I would argue, often the NDP) have been busily dismantling it ever since the early 80s. Socialism for the capitalist class is one thing, but the working class was actually getting in on socialism and starting to live the good life too. Game over. They decide to take their ball and bat, and go home. What was the point of being rich?

On the other hand, the Social Democratic or Welfare State of Capitalism, which I say there is NO going back to (for another time), has had one positive and lasting effect on the working class. It raised their expectations over what seemed only possible in the depths of the 1930s, and there is no going back there... even though that is precisely where this new Conservative/Fascist State is bound for with them.

Which is why this nickles and dimes discussion, in my view, is really pointless at the end of the day. It is NOT a hoisted pinkies parliamentary resolvable issue. While those liberals and social dems who just can't make the break will certainly doubtless pursue that course anyway, and the more power to them, but at its beating heart it is really all about a "power struggle" between the ruling class and its adherents on the one side, and the great mass of the working class on the other. Plain and simple. (Welll, relatively. :-) lol

And if working class folks really want this bullshit resolved finally, once and for all, then as this shapes up, they had better be prepared and organized to take it to a place where the capitalist system is no more... fini. Kaput.

On the other hand, if you just want to resolve it for now, and leave it to a future generation to fight all over again another time... you might really want to follow the liberals and social dems (NDP) back to simply rebuilding the old Welfare State of Capitalism. Which will repeat itself in an endless cycle, until one side or the other finally and conclusively wins...

Dorothy

"shafting the workers, ". Who decides that workers overseas are being shafted? Europeans living in Canada all nice a warm? Canadians living in Geneva, all nice and well fed?

I remember years ago seeing a feature on women in Viet-Nam sorting coal by hand. They were earning a pittance but were happy in work as they clambered over the piles of coal barefoot. They really didn't want the coming machinery and automation because they liked their work and would become redundant. It made us think hard. Who are we, sitting in our comfort to decide for them? To us their existence is primitive and cruel but should we cry outrage and put them out of work? There are millions of similar examples, too many to adopt.

As for your question about the hard worker; say someone carves sculptures and sells them. They love what do for a living, so they do it seven days a week, they like their work. They start to earn lots of money. Under a system that shouts 'tax the rich' they proportionally earn less and less as they enter higher tax brackets because they have worked more and more, because they like to.

If their net gain is 'x' when they work four days a week, their net earnings become 'x - y' (y being the higher proportion of taxes due when there is a progressive escalating tax system). Why should they be penalized for working 'harder' or more than the so-called 'normal' five days a week?

There are many examples of this. Not all rich people a overpaid fat-cats in banks.

The so called "rich" working

The so called "rich" working more ? How incredibly stupid can one get?

As an artist and the designer and maker of custom furniture I've spent literally thousands of hours in the company, offices, boardrooms and homes of the rich and super powerful, listening to their talk, conversations and phone calls.

Some were decent people in their private lives, until it came to business and money, but some were disgusting garbage, planning to steal and destroy others.

Going way back in time, there was one guy by the name of Williamson, the head of the Vancouver branch a large, international company, sitting behind his large desk, made in my shop, with absolutely nothing on it except a phone and some gimmicks.

I was installing something one day, when he called the then head of the BC Electric, Dal Grauer, demanding that he fire some poor two bit phone operator, because she wasn't "respectful" enough to him when he called about something, even after he told her "who he was". I did some work in their home and his wife was of the same kind.

I could tell hundreds of such stories about those "hard working" jerks. Like the one who pulled out a big roll banknotes when I presented my bill and wanted me to toss a coin for double or nothing. I didn't and had to wait a month to get paid, going into overdraft to pay my guys.

I could have made a fortune with painting their portraits, but never had the slightest wish to glorify their disgusting characters.

Making furniture for them was one thing, but keeping their memory alive for hundreds of years no money could pay for. I remained poor, but at least never made my hands dirty with their glorification.

Betting on the stock and money markets and conspiring how to steal their employees and the public blind is sure hard work in the minds of all true blue "conservatives"

What has the head of the Royal Bank done for "hard work" in 08 to take home $42. or 45 million, while cutting the hours and wages of their employees ?

Ed Deak

Be Happy!

"I remember years ago seeing a feature on women in Viet-Nam sorting coal by hand. They were earning a pittance but were happy in work as they clambered over the piles of coal barefoot." rman

And you see folks, here is the rub of it. It's all just a matter of attitude and relativity. Just accept it, and let Casino Capitalism's "free market" sort it out, in the beauty of its precision, if brutal logic.

Content yourself with working barefoot and being happy... in your blissful ignorance. Or say, "Screw you, wingnut", and sort it out for yourself... and for them.

I remember when they were happily bombing the shit out of these same essential folks... "back to the Stone Age," as they used to say.

Well they did just about that, though they lost in the end... and now, as they are struggling to crawl themselves out from under the bombed out rubble that imperialist capitalism left them, they are using them as cheap labour in their new found postwar happiness. And those little people in black pyjamas, another term they used for Vietnamese, a happy, happy, happy to be exploited in their Stone Age reality!!!

Mangez de la merde, you nasty, unrealistic little man.

Harper

If Harper ever gets a majority government the time for arguments and discussions will be over. He'll bring on some of the harshest legislation ever witnessed in Canada against the average working people.

In Wisconsin governor Walker is supported by the billionaire Koch brothers who control a lot of their economy. In Canada Harper is supported by the billionaire oil companies. Both men are far right wing Conservatives with the same agenda. Support the rich and destroy the middle class which will give full control of the country to a select few.

It's time to google Fascism. We are now in a period in history where we are witnessing the rise of Fascism once again and just like the people in Germany before WW11, we aren't doing enough to stop it.

r'man

First, we both I'm sure know people who want to put in those extra hours. Volunteer for overtime at a job or work extra hours in a self-employed capacity. I did it myself whenever the opportunity was there. And I do recall at my first job working a long weekend at double time and a half and getting highly taxed on it.

There's again a simply answer for that, raise the basic personal exemption and move the brackets upward.

Income from work is never going to make you "rich" unless you fall into a pit of lucky charms like a Bill Gates (who certainly didn't work hard for very long, I remember quite well when DOS arrived on the scene and replaced CP/M).

To get to be one of those among the lucky 3.8% that controls 66.6% of the wealth you need to do something else besides work overtime. At some point being extremely wealthy means you stopped profiting from your own labour and started profiting from someone else's.

So if you want a highly motivated individual with no family to benefit from his long hours then why does your side tax him at a rate that's less than people who are far wealthier, and who don't work?

It is after all the Right that is raising taxes on lower and middle income people and decreasing them on those at the top who make more money by noon on January 2nd than most people make all year. And its certainly not because they work really really hard for the first 4 hours of the year.

By all means let's have a debate about taxation where we look to reward work. Because its not something the Right appears interested in from what I can see. Instead they want to reward wealth and punish work.

As for your Vietnamese women working with coal, no one wants to deprive them of anything. But if it means they put Canadian coal workers out of work then we have a problem.

I will flog the dead horse again...

Jerry Munro makes the point that all workers should earn a good living, and Ed Deak makes the point that economies exist to serve people (not simply the wealthy) and many other good points made here, and I still want to ask the question, why do we allow the few to dictate the terms for the rest of us? Part of the answer, at least, lies in the idea that we have internalized their idea of hierarchy; that the 'better' and the 'more talented' make more money. I don't really want to quarrel with the idea that a doctor ought to be worth more than a cleaner. (Well, I do, but I am not going there.) The point is, that obviously the doctor cannot do her work without the work of the cleaner...the nurse, the technicians...No hospital would exist longer than a day without cleaners, because at that point it would become more dangerous than helpful. But we continue to buy into the concept that some are more essential than others, and we allow the few to keep the hierarchy of status alive - I guess, maybe in the hope that one day we might aspire to a 'better' status.

Every worker deserves a livlihood that allows her/him to house, feed, and clothe themselves with dignity. That certainly includes the public sector - and my word of advice here would be to stop buying into the idea that the others - the workers who serve you at Starbucks or Tim Hortons, the people that clean your workplace, the people that empty your garbage are somehow less deserving of a decent wage than you are. When you support and condone that kind of inequality for the 'less skilled' (makes me laugh, you have to be incredibly skilled to survive a job at Timmy's) then ...well, as the saying goes, one day they will come for you.

R/M old man....

From all that you've posted here, you are obviously in favour of a flat-rate tax system. So it looks as though you & I actually have something in common.

I dunno, R'man

"They were earning a pittance but were happy in work as they clambered over the piles of coal barefoot. They really didn't want the coming machinery and automation because they liked their work and would become redundant."

I think you're anthropomorphizing, and if you remember the program you saw accurately, so was the program. I've little doubt the women you viewed were happier to be earning money despite the nature of the work than they would be earning no money. That doesn't mean the work recognized their talents or abilities or fulfilled them in any way. Perhaps they would have been better off operating a food cart or caring for elders, except those opportunities were not open to them for a variety of reasons. So I would have you look again at your judgment about their relative happiness. Don't forget, Buddhist culture teaches you to be happy no matter your circumstances. It's also exceedingly impolite to show any expression other than samma-sati or serenity and polite remembrance to strangers, and the camera certainly counts as a stranger.

I woulnd't put much stock in movies of Jewish concentration camp prisoners smiling for the old German newsreels either.

"Who decides that workers overseas are being shafted? Europeans living in Canada all nice a warm? Canadians living in Geneva, all nice and well fed?"

The people who should ask the question most cogently are the people who have the most. Just like the Bible says in the parable of the talents, "to he whom much is given, much is expected." If you're not considering the plight of the poor Vietnamese coal-pickers, with your education, skill and opportunity, then who is?

"As for your question about the hard worker; say someone carves sculptures and sells them. They love what do for a living, so they do it seven days a week, they like their work."

Don't you just love these simplistic examples? You should know the world doesn't work that way. "No man is an island, alone until himself...." If I were to be simplistic right back, I would ask whether the artist's kids are growing up without a father figure, thereby becoming less of a contribution to society so this artist can indulge in his talent for making art (and money). Or whether his art is less about the uniqueness of art and more about the commercial aspects of making money with a talent, which it seems is much more your question. I don't mean to say artists don't care about money, but money's the secondary consderation. Except in simplistic examples. If you want to debate that further, I'm game.

zalm

Unfortunately, those who lean "right" cannot debate EXCEPT through the use of simplistic examples (witness nearly all of the rants of the Tea Party, et al).

Then, when they have the chance to implement what they preach, they invariably find that simplicity doesn't work all that well (witness California & Arizona). Or I should say, it works well enough for them - but not for the public at large.

Dear Jerry

Merci, je vien de manger.

Don't know if you've ever been to India or the Philippines and seen the many street beggars but I found it to be seriously heart wrenching. Believe it or not. What can one do? The instinct is to say that something should be done to help these people. How can you? Is it your responsibility to tell others what to do? Are you sure that your ideas are superior to theirs? Should you drop everything to help, a-la Teresa? Should you give away all your money to a charity? Should you try and adopt some? Should you boycott the country that allows this? Should you work at home and lobbying for more immigration? Should you write letters to the ILO? It's impossible to not care. At least those women in Vietnam were not being sold into human trafficking.

Rick, I'm not surprised.

Zalm, I know an artist that makes incredibly wonderful fine crafted pieces of the absolute highest quality. His children are grown and productive adults. He doesn't bother about selling any of his works but if he were to he could be very well off. He could be a rich fat cat.

The bankers and wall street

The bankers and wall street types are the problem. Why are not more of them in handcuffs instead of blaming the working bloke? I also see our Low Wage conservative Dear Leader General Secretary of Canada err Harperland has Federal workers brace for possible job cuts http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/03/18/government-job-cuts.html

We are going to continue to see the attack on working people by low wage cons in Canada and USA. This is just the beginning. Klein and Campbell already did a number when they were premiers of AB and BC. Long before Gordo and Ralphie that other low wage creep Regan with air traffic controllers and yet the 'sheeple' aka people still vote for these clowns that dislike anyone but the corporate backers making a descent living...

$52,000? Sweet!

$52,000? Sweet!
=========

That really is not much, I was making that at the Canfor mill in 98. But then not the overpriced housing costs where I was living like here on the coa$t...

Hierarchies

"But we continue to buy into the concept that some are more essential than others, and we allow the few to keep the hierarchy of status alive - I guess, maybe in the hope that one day we might aspire to a 'better' status." vivianlea doubt.

First, an excellent set of comments.

But there is another thing that goes on here as well, once we buy into this notion of economic, ruling, worker and other hierarchies, including international relations between countries. It gets carried over as well into pretty much all areas of social and economic life... including relations between men and women. Systems of hierarchies, including class, within human societies, is the big open sore in the fabric that just won't heal... despite all legal and other efforts. They are abrasive to the peace and good order of all human societies.

Another historical period is being provoked and shaped, actually by the neoconservatives/fascists themselves, as is about to see another assault on classes and other hierarchies within society.

R/M old man....

Not at all! But is it your "right" to continue the regime of extreme poverty by purchasing the products, not from the people who actually produce these products, but from the owners of the means of production in collusion with the local governments?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_diamond

Zalm is correct, and you keep reaffirming his insistance that you are being simplistic.

Right down Santa Claus Lane

“..How can they have become so brainwashed and/or gotten so stupid? It is as though they actually believe Sarah Palin or Rush Limbaugh!”

Not hard to understand. It’s been seen before. Do you suppose most of the hatred and destruction of the ‘Kristallnacht’ was directed at the 2.8 %ers, or do you think it was mostly directed at the little shopkeepers just one notch about the angry workers in standard of living (maybe even below some)?

Do you recall that on 9/11, not the one where CIA did Salvador Alllende in, but the one where the trade towers fell, that even if there was ‘no fly’ in power, members of the Bin Laden family were secreted safely out of the US ON AIRPLANES; I mean, you wonder; there were lots of service personnel dealing with those escape planes, weren’t there? You kind of wonder none of them were taking any precipitate action - while a hapless ‘commoner’ of one city, who happened to wear a turban (he was Sikh) was ripped to pieces by an enraged mob?

So, the little people go for the targets they dare, to act out their anger. It’s a sad thing, but pretty universal. Sad because only by some alliance between the middle class, including the ‘intelligentsia’, and the more numerous working class can there really be effective change. It was this kind of alliance that propelled the French Revolution and this kind of alliance that powered the raise of the co-op movement in Europe in the post-world war II years, which so greatly helped the economy of Denmark and Britain among others.

If the 2.8 %ers can get the hate of themselves mis-directed at the middle class, higher AND lower, they’ve got it made. Shame that we are so damn obliging. Behaviorists claim we have it in our genes to be believing, because there was a selective advantage on believing one’s elders, when they told you ‘stay way from those berries’, or ‘don’t go into those woods’. We are here again faced with the task of questioning our own evolution. Can we do it?

“..at its beating heart it is really all about a "power struggle" between the ruling class and its adherents on the one side, and the great mass of the working class on the other.”

So, this is again not this simple. We can only work for something ‘coming up the middle’ of that lineup of opposing armies and take the game away. This would be my plan. The hard part is selling it. As I have said before, those who built the edifice are the only ones who can take it down, and by the reverse process.

Reduce, reuse, recycle, and create. Build a new model that makes the one you wish to remove obsolete. It’s really that simple. But ‘simple’ doesn’t translate into ‘easy’. I’m talking action.

Realistic, now you truly creep me out!

“…women in Viet-Nam sorting coal by hand. They were earning a pittance but were happy in work as they clambered over the piles of coal barefoot. They really didn't want the coming machinery and automation because they liked their work and would become redundant.”

Are you talking about people or chimps? You really could have fooled me! You are one notch away from the abominable ‘noble savage’, who graciously accepted a string of beads in return for being ripped off of his birthright. Pal, there is just as much ‘judgment’ in your viewpoint as there is in mine. For me, it is a given that I will not be a participant, at least not voluntarily, in maintaining anyone in a ‘primitive and cruel’ way of life, as I understand it. Beginning to guess how ‘they see it’ is a slippery slope, leading easily to incredibly self-serving relativistic claptrap. Once we have decided we will not be a party to misery for anyone on the globe, as we understand it, then we can talk about what else to do. I would suggest starting with getting the population pyramids into better shapes. These dire predictions of ‘one out of every five or three children born here or there will starve to death if we do not DO something', well I suggest we work towards not having them born. Planned Parenthood works in all those places and will take donations. And then maybe I would suggest that we have some of the poor women scrappers schooled to run the machinery that would take their country's wealth out of the ground more effectively and threaten to make them obsolete. Surely you're not believing that would be an impossibility..?

“…If their net gain is 'x' when they work four days a week, their net earnings become 'x - y' (y being the higher proportion of taxes due when there is a progressive escalating tax system). Why should they be penalized for working 'harder' or more than the so-called 'normal' five days a week?”

Doesn’t compute. If the artist loves his job as I understand it, the progressive taxation is not a penalty, but an irrelevancy. Do you really not see it? Loving one’s job makes the reward INCIDENTAL, just as top marks in school are for a student who loves learning. This should not be perceived as justifying the exploitation of such people to the point of hardship. But that's not what we're discussing here either.

I can only conclude that you must have never received the grace of working at something that really took your passion. You should try it if you do nothing else. It makes the fine computations appear as gritty as they truly are.

Unions have done this to themselves

I read a recent article in the nytimes (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/nyregion/13homes.html) about abuses in group homes for the disabled. The article describes how unions have repeatedly stepped in to protect employees who have been found abusing those in their care. Some of these employees ended up with only suspensions and one describes how he looks forward to his pension.

This is just one case where unions have stepped in not to protect a workers rights to a fair wage and deserving benefits but to protect a minority that shouldn't be protected.

The battle over teachers in the US is the same issue, and in Canada as well. Why should bad teachers be protected against firing? Why do they deserve pensions? What is the logic of this? Unions are directly culpable in this and by protecting their "weakest" (most abusive or undeserving or poorest performers) they build a wall around themselves that takes away the best workers claims and the clients (students, parents, etc) right to act on infractions.

I think people are just getting sick of hearing about these cases. For Wisconsin to take away bargaining rights is a huge deal and I'm not saying this will turn out to be a good decision, but I think that the actions of unions are at least partially responsible for the current backlash.

marina

Being in a union doesn't prevent anyone from being charged with a crime. So if a worker commits a crime he goes to jail regardless of whether he's in a union or not.

Perhaps you're saying that because of what a worker did in an old folks home that all workers deserve to have their rights stripped away? If not, why not, since you're advocating that its okay for union workers to have their rights stripped away because of what one worker did.

And also, why not blame the company involved? They employed this person, they didn't supervise him yet they're the ones that profited by saying they would care for the victim.

By the way, is it only workers that commit crimes or have crimes ever been committed by employers and investors too? Should we also strip those groups of their rights?

Frank, please don't do that..

This has, so far, been a discussion where there has been disagreement, even profound disagreement, but people have been in the business of posing arguments and information to defend their position. This includes R'man. I have not generally seen him fall into getting personal or throwing dirt on anyone, so, even if you think his viewpoints stink, then please tell us why you think so instead of just expressing diffuse anger and resentment or sking him to leave. I must admit to having some regard for the man, not because I agree with most of what he professes, but I have always found him a good sparring partner, who has helped me greatly sharpen my own argument, and, frank, answer me this: Would YOU ever have told me where I could get a can-opener made in Canada?? Just asking!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle...

"As I have said before, those who built the edifice are the only ones who can take it down, and by the reverse process.

Reduce, reuse, recycle, and create. Build a new model that makes the one you wish to remove obsolete. It’s really that simple. But ‘simple’ doesn’t translate into ‘easy’. I’m talking action." dorothy.

I'm not exactly sure what you are saying here, but "I think" what you are saying is, that if we do these threes things, that in itself over multi-billions of people will resolve all the problems of the planet.

I find that I quite often agree with you Dorothy, and other times I just, let's say disagree and leave it at that. First of all, it wasn't of course the ruling class who "built the edifice". It was pretty much slaves and more modern wage slaves that did that. They merely owned and controlled the economy, and of course, the product of the labour of the slaves, and reaped the cash profits and lifestyles of the rich and famous therefrom.

To suggest, looking at the entire "edifice" of the ruling class socio-economic order, and seriously saying with a straight face to the effected masses, that in order to clean up the degradation of the natural environment, and to resolve the issues of poverty, war and class, all you have to do is reduce, reuse and recycle... is, for want of some more respectful response, simply laughable.

(Indeed, it is mostly the illiterate and impoverished masses of the world, picking through garbage, who clean it up and reuse it by eating it or wearing it, or building homes out of it now.)

Anyway Dorothy, only let me say more, that I think it is yourself who is being "simplistic", added up "naive" yourself. Sorry. (Though I do certainly think you are, in your intentions at least, a "progressive" woman. I really do.)

It's just that you remind me of my Social Democratic friends, and are looking for a way out of the current morass without conflict, by being nice, if not to everyone (certainly not me :-), and securing the agreement of the ruling class, who are the main beneficiaries from the growing, environmental, economic and political "messes" of the world. They lack incentive, at least outside platitudes, and exploitive casino capitalism concern for the "chimps" of the world, as you so accurately described it.

There was a mature woman with a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead, and when she was right, she was very, very right, but when she was wrong, she was, I think, horridly so. :-)

Outside of that, love and peace to you... and for my kind of folks, revolution. :-)

And I'm serious, sometimes I think you are just spot on. It's just that the objectivity of your analyses, sometimes, gets "tainted" by a desire to simply be a "do-gooder". You'd be better overall, in just my own view, if you'd be a little more cynical and hard-assed. (And there are, unfortunately, plenty of good reasons for both.)

Ed Deak - Royal Bank

This is what I perceive as the problem these days where those at the top take all the cake at the expense of those under them. The $45M is earned on the backs of their employees. The Ford CEO was awarded a $46M stock bonus while 1300 employees had been laid off and another plant to be closed down. Compare that to the JAL CEO who took a cut in pay so that they would not lay off employees. During the peak of the recent downturn Samsung management did not get any bonuses and had cuts in pay if any in order not to lay off any of their employees...

Dear Frank

I guess you misunderstood me, I apologize if I wasn't clear. When did I say that all workers should have their rights stripped away because of one worker? What I said is that union reps have repeatedly stepped in to defend employees that should have been fired. These cases end up in the news and have made unions look extremely bad in certain sectors. Some unions (and please, I did not mean every union in the world) have acted in a way that makes their purpose seem less about protecting the rights of the workers they represent and more about making the role of the employer ever more difficult. And others, probably what most people have experience with, do nothing but maintain the status quo for their workers. The purpose of unions as originally conceived is quickly losing ground.

Are you saying that because an employer hired an employee that turned out to be incompetent, they should be obliged to retain that employee until their pension kicks in?

And I am all for holding managers, companies and investors accountable. It is unfortunate that our society doesn't have the mechanisms to accomplish this task.

marina

"When did I say that all workers should have their rights stripped away because of one worker?"

You said in the post titled "Unions have done this to themselves" that union workers deserve to have their rights stripped away. I simply asked why stop at union workers, why not say all workers should have their rights stripped away if some workers commit crimes?

"What I said is that union reps have repeatedly stepped in to defend employees that should have been fired."

That's the job of the union reps. Defending workers is why unions exist. Even with unions a company can eventually get an employee fired if they wish. Just look at how Canada Post is run nowadays. If there's just cause you can fire a unionized employee.

In the article you linked to from the NY Times it lists a number of terrible occurrences and I agree such people should not be working there. The thing is, the article accepts the state position that its the fault of unions. But I fail to see that. After all, the guy that sexually assaulted a senior woman was a supervisor. He may or may not have even been in the union, I doubt he was yet that was the first reason offered as to why this person wasn't fired. Well, how about charged with a crime? Is the NY Times trying to say that if you're in a union you can sexually assault people and you're immune from the law? Since when?

As you say, articles like this make unions look bad, but at some point facts and logic have to be applied and you have to wonder if perhaps there's a political slant to the article?

"Are you saying that because an employer hired an employee that turned out to be incompetent, they should be obliged to retain that employee until their pension kicks in?"

No, and based on anecdotal evidence I have yet to see a union protect a person an employer really wanted fired. It may take longer than it would if there was no union but it'll happen eventually. I have a cousin who's a supervisor and he loves to tell me about union employees he's fired. Its not the most difficult thing to do and I know he thinks of it as a sport.

"And I am all for holding managers, companies and investors accountable"

Unfortunately in our society investors aren't accountable and companies are too rarely. And as the NY Times article says, even supervisors seem to be able to get away with a lot. Perhaps that guy had a relative or friend that protected him? Because again, I doubt he was even in the union.

"Systems of hierarchies,

"Systems of hierarchies, including class, within human societies, is the big open sore in the fabric that just won't heal... " Yes, Jerry - and it is that very sore that needs to heal. The revolution begins in the hearts and minds of people, and it can only truly be a revolution if it is felt there.

I don't want to speak for Dorothy, but she has begun to flesh out something that is at the crux of our society - and that you, also have mentioned - the idea of wage slavery, which is what working is when you don't truly love your job. Now I have had the good fortune to work at some jobs where I looked forward to going to the job, and invested all of myself in that place.One of those jobs paid $15/hour for 25 hours a week - I could barely feed myself, but I made a difference in my community, and it energized me. All aound me I see boomers asking "Is this all there is?" because they settled for the secure job over what they loved, or they became parents because it was the accepted thing, not because they yearned to be parents so deeply, and because they settled for buying crap instead of a rich and vibrant community life. It is the story of our times, is it not? If only they had had the guts to say: I will do what I love. If some of the women had said: I don't want to try to be a parent while working full-time, or maybe: I don't want to be a parent, period. Everywhere you go you find indifferent people merely marking time, and all the life has been sucked out of our society. On the other hand, if someone really wanted to be a mother, in a more egalitarian society she could do so without fear of losing a means of support (job or husband. Do you think restaurant servers, for example, will find a job open for them on return from maternity leave?) There is an incredible waste of talent in this culture, and an array of offices and stores and workplaces of all sorts where people are unhappy in their work, and it shows. Where people value the pay and the perks, because it is the only consolation for doing something that bores and dispirits... More than anything, we need people to understand that all work has value - a famous doctor (whose name I cannot remember, eek!) once said that regular garbage pick-up was the greatest medical advancement of the last century. I don't think he was far wrong, so why do we persist in deciding that those who pick up garbage are worth less pay than, say, an executive assistant? We need people to decide to do what they love, or at the very least what they feel good about doing, because it is healthy for them and for all of us, and perhaps the very future of our civilization depends upon it.

So for me, this is where the revolution begins.

Wage slavery?

Not according to Realisticman.

"Zalm, I know an artist that makes incredibly wonderful fine crafted pieces of the absolute highest quality. His children are grown and productive adults. He doesn't bother about selling any of his works but if he were to he could be very well off. He could be a rich fat cat."

Doesn't want to "sell the kids" eh? Doesn't that make him an artist, who happens to have his priorities right? As opposed to a commercial sculptor, say, who earns a living by scuplting unique pieces to earn cash? There is a difference, you know.

Why don't we talk about hockey players or something? I think it would be a lot easier for you to make your point. It would certainly be a lot easier for me to demolish it.

unions

Unions would most like;y not exist if workers were treated fairly, worked safely and paid decent wages. When they are forced to do their work at gun point, then it is time to unite.

With or without the qualifier...1

"..all you have to do is reduce, reuse and recycle... is, for want of some more respectful response, simply laughable."

"..the objectivity of your analyses, sometimes, gets "tainted" by a desire to simply be a "do-gooder". You'd be better overall, in just my own view, if you'd be a little more cynical and hard-assed."

Actually,I have not omitted the qualifier that this was how to do it IF we wanted to not have blood running in the streets. The 'if' is not mine to decide, as I do not have that kind of power. I AM NOT and never was in the business of telling others what to do, but merely of telling them what to do if they wish for A,B, or C.

Laughable? I don't know...Are you denying that the mess we're in now really took shape with consumerism as the propellant? Did the first number of people who gave up fashioning their own buttons or knitting their own socks, and instead bought factory-made, know they were making a choice that would, in time, re-shape their
world in such a profound way? likely not; I am inclined to believe they would have thought the purchase of a few goods in return for cash as an Earth-shattering idea to be, well, laughable. Yet I understand that one 'do-gooder' effort has had the power to wreck an entire profitable industry, as in making Canadian seal products unsellable in Europe, merely through a determined hammering at attitudes until they gave way.

I will grant you that you do not know me personally, or you would know just how hard I struggle with not turning entirely cynical as it is. I try to remember that irresponsible spouting of ideology and hard-ass posturing into a general environment can shape people such as the UNA bomber and Timothy McVeigh, wasted lives of relatively intelligent and certainly passionate youths, who might have become progressive and useful members of their community, given better guidance in the form of somebody qualified with whom to discuss the respective books they were both inspired by. I am not under the illusion that I speak here only to a few well-educated and bookish individuals with great discerning power. I think we must consider the possibility that what we write here may well be read by scores and scores of people who never write a word themselves, and who may be quite 'receptive' to what they read. Such people may heed our message better than we intend, if we keep shouting that there will sharp lye to scurvy heads, and 'fighting' is needed. Think about it. The pen IS mightier than the sword.

With or without the qualifier...2

What I am trying to inspire people to do is question. Question the fantastic multitude of 'what you can get'. Question whether it is meaningful to them to 'get' any of it. It was lack of that kind of questioning that sold the World over one billion Barbie dolls since 1957. Would the World be better or worse off without them? For the beastly things, probably far better; for the environmental cost of this nullity, no question. For the income re-distribution, this is what we're talking about! You cannot begin to imagine how much of a landslide it would create, just to have people see the sense in critical questioning before handing over their consumer dollar! I could name entire industries that get fat on my fellow citizens, but who have not gotten a penny of my money in decades, or ever, and I don't think my life sucks in comparison. Actually, I sleep better than most. I'm quite on the same page as Ed Deak there, although I have not managed to carry the principles as far as that estimable gentleman.

I am not in the belief that this is ALL that must be done. The real challenge is in formulating a way of life that is sustainable without wild swings as we have had up till now. Cybernetics must be applied in this in a far better way than what we have managed so far, in a less one-eyed way. We must certainly rewrite our concept of what 'progress' means.

Does it HAVE to get bloody? I think not. But you had better believe I would espouse that if it were the only option left. I just don't agree that it is, by a long shot. If we are stepping into a new era, as so many claim, I think it may be one asking us to override what evolution has made us, evolve by another method, renew ourselves in a not-before-seen way. Blood in the streets would just be what we've always done. I happen to believe it's not good enough any more...The old God gained the wisdom he sought, but he paid with an eye and went on one-eyed. Now I believe we must seek a new God, one still possessed of stereoscopic vision. I am speaking metaphorically here, of course.

Givning it my best shot...

"Are you saying that because an employer hired an employee that turned out to be incompetent, they should be obliged to retain that employee until their pension kicks in?"

Yes, for the time being. But the reason is not quite that simple. There is a serious deficit in discernment in the hiring processes of many public as well as private companies. Many employers, despite all the newfangled 'testing' and smart-ass 'behavioral-based' interview techniques, manage to hire an astounding number of lemons who seriously think one job can be as good as another, and it's getting out with the paycheck in your hot little hand that counts - and he size of that paycheck, of course.

The truth is, employers don't care if they can just fire them again, although they may never get around to it, nor certainly to ever admitting they made a mistake in the hiring. Heaven forfend. The problem, with which unions and their reps get stuck, is to see good workers having to pick up the slack after these misfits, eventually getting demoralized and resentful, causing interpersonal conflict and grievances. Such a situation can keep winding its way through 'progressive discipline' which is seldom carried through effectively by the employer, so that it is the slow death of being trampled by geese that rules. All of it is foisted on those serious workers, who never did anything to deserve it. I imagine, and many union reps with me, that the only way to help the employers to greater wisdom in this is to push the negative and make it truly difficult for them to unload ill-chosen people. Maybe then they will, eventually, exercise greater care in whom they initially hire, so we can look forward to less painful conditions. It has in fact been seen to work in a few cases.

Another part of this whole scenario, and where the 'lemons' come from is that so many get discharged from the School system ill-prepared for the working life. They often come apathetic, having had the stuffing beaten out of them, afraid of even trying, or just plain afraid. We need to send our youth into the working world stronger than we now send them. This society is a sick puppy. We must acquire some veterinary skills, and fast. One of the crucial 'check-points', and where industry leaders ought to take on an educational role, is in hiring for the entry-level jobs. If there is feedback to schools, it is not enough, or not good enough, or educators are not listening.

system does not work for all workers

Sometimes the best way to fix a problem is to get the old system out of the way entirely. Unfortunately the reality is that most people on this planet do not have union protection. That does not mean that they don't need or deserve it. What it means is that the current system is only working for a very small minority of people, and that it needs a serious overhaul so that it works for everyone who is employed as anything other than management or professional. Certainly that means a huge organization, but what of it? Corporations are huge, and workers will need a huge organization to cope with that hugeness. Sweden has a single labour union that encompasses everyone from waitresses to teachers, why not spread that idea? I don't think that propping up the old system is the best way to go. Let it die and let the upswell of discontent create a new and better system. Instead of fighting over whether or not to protect the rights of govt workers, why not put our heads together to figure out a bigger and better solution that will galvanize support from the world of employees? An international union that focuses on human rights, decent working conditions, child care, livable wages. Then maybe the infighting will stop and we can aim our energies towards the corporations that profit from and exploit divisions in labour groups.

Are you talking about something like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_International

As you can see, this has been tried before, and so there is at least a course of study to undertake into why this effort did not manage to carry out its goals.

Otherwise, the only issue I have with your idea is that you describe it in very sweeping, but also very non-specific ways. I agree that union protection is desirable for all, but there is a mechanism to achieve that, as in certification. What you cannot do is browbeat people beset by inertia or the preference of independence to join a union. Then you would be no better than other kinds of oppressors. I am not understanding why simple certification under the existing system is not worth trying, as I can assure those who would balk at the complexity of that option, that mounting a full-scale revolution is no less complex and taxing. You seem to be talking about it as if one pushes a button, and some sort of weird perpetuum mobile will be started and do its work without further effort having to be expended...

Canadian unions ARE organized into bigger, nation-wide super-unions, CLC and NUPGE, as well as, through these, having a voice in ILO. There is no need to 'prop up' organized labor in Canada, only for those who want to get on board getting themselves a ticket.