From: robert@isgtec.com (Robert Osborne)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.canada,can.politics
Subject: Re: Ontario "socialism"
Date: 30 Sep 92 23:49:16 GMT

myhui@bnr.ca (Michael Hui) writes:
> golchowy@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Gerald Olchowy) writes:
> >The NDP found enough money to raise the total Ontario government
> >payroll 15% in their first 2 years, and they raised the traditional
> >level of spending from around 15% of GDP which was fairly constant
> >over 2 decades to 18 or 19% of GDP.  The union members in the
> >civil service were obviously more important than students.
> 
> What salary ranges were raised, and which ones remained constant?
> I believe the top echelons at Ontario Hydro had a salary decrease.
> It's time to pay the working-poor civil service clerk and secretaries
> a fair wage, I say.

But what is your definition of "a fair wage"?  I've certainly never
heard of anybody in the civil service who could be considered
'working-poor'.

Is this a justification of the fact that the NDP considers
"union members in civil service [...] more important than students"?

> >When the Toronto Sun is the only newspaper left in town because the
> >Star is destroyed because it can't hire replacement workers in a
> >strike you might think differently.
> 
> This is only your conjecture. Just as a businessman has the right to
> suddenly close his business entirely and retire, after giving the
> legally required advanced warning to his staff, workers should also
> have the right to shut down a business that mistreats them.

What do you mean by 'mistreats them'?  Labour laws already ensure that
workers can shut down a dangerous workplace.  Slavery, flogging of lazy
workers and child labour have all been outlawed.  Perhaps you mean that
the "businessman" fails to pay the workers what the workers deem
themselves to be worth.  A little different than 'mistreats'.

> It goes both ways, and up to now, it's been one way only; finally, what goes
> around may now come around, to the detriment of the businessman.

I see.  When the businessman (you know the guy who provides the money)
decides to pay a certain amount for the services provided by his
"workers" that's "mistreatment".  When 'the workers' extort more
than that amount from the businessman thats "what goes around,
comes around".

> Workers don't shut down businesses on a whim. Their own jobs and
> families are at stake.

But they can be so short sighted as to extort their place of business
to the point were it is unprofitable.  While it doesn't destroy the
business immediately it certainly kills it eventually.

> Also, workers are workers because they take pride in participating
> in production.

Gaak!  I thought this kind of thinking died with the system that
was based upon it.

Workers work so they get paid.  Taking pride in their work and enjoying
their job is one of the ways they choose their occupatation.

> Those who go to work every day
> hating every single minute on the job is actually a small proportion of
> the total work force.   We do have free movement of people in Canada,
> right? The state certainly does not dictate who should get what job.

Since we have free movement why in the hell do we need further
legislation to protect 'the workers' from a business that mistreats
them?  After all can't they just move on?  I know, I know;  "the workers"
should only move on when they want to find other productions to
participate in. 

Rob.
--
Robert A. Osborne   ...!uunet.ca!isgtec!robert or robert@isgtec.com
Newsgroups: soc.culture.canada