Comments on: Revisionist historians deflect from their own record http://civicscene.ca/revisionist-historians-deflect-from-their-own-record Just another WordPress weblog Thu, 11 Mar 2010 10:26:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9 hourly 1 By: Michael Phillips http://civicscene.ca/revisionist-historians-deflect-from-their-own-record/comment-page-1#comment-293 Michael Phillips Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:04:55 +0000 http://civicscene.ca/?p=2009#comment-293 On this one, CityCaucus was right in saying “[f]or years CUPE has wanted to break apart the municipal “union” in Metro Vancouver,”. CUPE will like Meggs' motion and has itself wanted to get rid of the Greater Vancouver Labour Relations Bureau for years, although my impression is also that we should opt out. People should remember that not everything a civic union wants costs money, they also want to avoid a lengthy strike during which they lose millions of dollars in strike pay. They are naturally more in favour of eliminating obstacles and bottlenecks to negotiations than city management (who are less personally vulnerable toward a loss of funds than union management), which is entirely in the public interest as well. ---- "The bureau is a bottleneck," said Paul Faoro, president of CUPE Local 15, which represents inside workers in Vancouver. Speaking to The Tyee on Wednesday at a rally outside city hall, Faoro said the GVRD body was drastically understaffed, with only two staff members available to attend local bargaining sessions across the region's 21 member municipalities. "The bargaining can only happen, given the bureau's mandate, with one of them present, so everything has to wait for their availability. Then, even if an agreement is reached at the table, a two-tier ratification process can slow things down even more. The city ought to re-think its membership. Vancouver puts nearly a million dollars a year into funding the bureau, and it isn't clear that it's getting value for money," Faoro said. http://thetyee.ca/News/2007/07/27/Bottleneck/ On this one, CityCaucus was right in saying “[f]or years CUPE has wanted to break apart the municipal “union” in Metro Vancouver,”. CUPE will like Meggs’ motion and has itself wanted to get rid of the Greater Vancouver Labour Relations Bureau for years, although my impression is also that we should opt out. People should remember that not everything a civic union wants costs money, they also want to avoid a lengthy strike during which they lose millions of dollars in strike pay. They are naturally more in favour of eliminating obstacles and bottlenecks to negotiations than city management (who are less personally vulnerable toward a loss of funds than union management), which is entirely in the public interest as well.

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“The bureau is a bottleneck,” said Paul Faoro, president of CUPE Local 15, which represents inside workers in Vancouver. Speaking to The Tyee on Wednesday at a rally outside city hall, Faoro said the GVRD body was drastically understaffed, with only two staff members available to attend local bargaining sessions across the region’s 21 member municipalities.

“The bargaining can only happen, given the bureau’s mandate, with one of them present, so everything has to wait for their availability. Then, even if an agreement is reached at the table, a two-tier ratification process can slow things down even more. The city ought to re-think its membership. Vancouver puts nearly a million dollars a year into funding the bureau, and it isn’t clear that it’s getting value for money,” Faoro said.

http://thetyee.ca/News/2007/07/27/Bottleneck/

]]> By: A solution to a problem that doesn’t exist « The Exile http://civicscene.ca/revisionist-historians-deflect-from-their-own-record/comment-page-1#comment-283 A solution to a problem that doesn’t exist « The Exile Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:20:16 +0000 http://civicscene.ca/?p=2009#comment-283 [...] Jonathan Ross at anti-CityCaucus takes care of, one might even say eviserates, the accuracy of  both facts and characterization contained within Fountaine’s post. But there is a broader aspect that’s worth mentioning too: Fontaine and his buddies at the Canadian Federation of Independent Business are concerned about a problem that doesn’t exist and their solution will exacerbate a serious problem that does. Labour costs are not out of control in British Columbia. In fact, over the last 25 years the median income has plummeted in this province. This despite the fact GDP has grown. Where did the wealth from this growth go? Well, those in the upper-income brackets – like those represented in the Canadian Federation of Independent Business – have done quite nicely during this time period, thank you very much. One might even they’ve done nicely in a historically unprecedented way. [...] [...] Jonathan Ross at anti-CityCaucus takes care of, one might even say eviserates, the accuracy of  both facts and characterization contained within Fountaine’s post. But there is a broader aspect that’s worth mentioning too: Fontaine and his buddies at the Canadian Federation of Independent Business are concerned about a problem that doesn’t exist and their solution will exacerbate a serious problem that does. Labour costs are not out of control in British Columbia. In fact, over the last 25 years the median income has plummeted in this province. This despite the fact GDP has grown. Where did the wealth from this growth go? Well, those in the upper-income brackets – like those represented in the Canadian Federation of Independent Business – have done quite nicely during this time period, thank you very much. One might even they’ve done nicely in a historically unprecedented way. [...]

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