Perhaps most goading is that Canada Post workers expect others to pay for their entitlements while the NDP merrily champions their cause by attempting to drown taxpayers in a sea of red ink and red ideology.
The latest filibuster in parliament over the 2011 Canada Post strike is a glaring example of the ideology that drives the NDP party and how their motivations are destructive to Canada. More than anything the NDP’s recent behavior in the House of Commons lays naked their propensity for advancing special interests over the needs of the majority. Just a few weeks ago Canadians gave the Conservatives a clear mandate by electing a resounding majority to Parliament. The NDP, however, decided to ignore the wishes of Canadians while casting aside the rule of law, fiduciary responsibility and the dignity of the parliamentary process. The nation’s postal service ground to a halt and much-needed back-to-work legislation languished as the NDP talked, and sang, non-stop in the House of Commons in a futile and annoying display of parliamentary delay and filibustering.
So much for the hope of lifting the gridlock that’s atrophied our parliament over the past five years. Rather we’re stuck in a retro-Marxist revolution that’s starting to resemble a tragic proletariat, Soviet-style vaudeville, complete with long winded soliloquies and rousing solidarity songs. The NDP should be more concerned with protecting the rights of all Canadians rather than just the rights of union members. Isn’t that, after all, what our elected officials are supposed to do? Shouldn’t our economy, and getting Canadians and our industries back to work be at the top of everyone’s agenda in Ottawa? Not so according to the NDP since the rights of 48,000 CUPW employees trump the needs of 30 million Canadians, and all other national business should be cast aside until labour demands are assuaged. This is in the best interest of Canadians?
Labour disputes in the Canadian public sector are nothing new. In Canada, since 1965, just in the national postal system there have been 20 work stoppages. Astonishing when you consider that’s a work stoppage almost every two years! Back to work legislation is also nothing new since the Federal government – both Conservative and Liberal - has evoked it 31 times since 1950 across many public sectors, including grain handlers, railway, port and postal workers and air traffic controllers. Canada Post has been ordered back to work several times, most recently in 1997 by the Chretien government. Clearly the Conservatives recent back-to-work order is hardly extraordinary. So have the Federal government’s actions historically been destructive to the public sectors they affected, or to worker rights in Canada? History tells us they have not.
Since its 1965 inception the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) has won increasingly lucrative salaries and benefits through strike action against Canada Post. These inexorable and steady increases have consistently been far in excess of those earned in the private sector. Factor in iron-clad job security for life, lavish benefits, gold-plated pensions and tax-payer backed protection from market forces, one can hardly say the CUPW and its members are hard done by.
Indeed as private sector earnings have remained stagnant for over a decade, and most Canadians are reeling from a languishing, down-sized, outsourced job market, the public sector has flourished as the number of civil servants and their salaries have exploded. Consider CUPW’s latest salary demands which include 9% increases over three years, at a time when Canada Post’s employee pension plan faces an astonishing $3.2B solvency deficit. In other words, over the years the union’s demands – along with management’s spineless concessions - have resulted in liabilities that the company can never hope to repay. Surely the union bosses understand that you can’t kill a thing beyond death. But such is the hubris and lack of discipline that Socialists embrace, where the destruction of companies is preferred over wage and benefit concessions. Perhaps more goading is that CUPW members expect others to pay for their entitlements while the NDP merrily champions their cause while attempting to drown taxpayers in a sea of red ink and red ideology.
So how have unions fared in Canada? Today the average starting postal worker salary is $23 hourly or nearly $48k a year, not accounting for over-time, shift premiums, vacation days, uniform allowances and other myriad and lavish perks as described in the CUPW/Canada Post collective agreement. All one needs to qualify to work as a postal carrier is a high school diploma and physical fitness. Consider these private sector jobs and their average hourly salaries; Retail Sales Clerk ($11), Data Entry Clerk ($15), Bookkeeper ($16), Accounting Clerk ($17), Truck Driver ($19), Plumber and Carpenter ($22), Electrician ($25). In the case of trades including plumbing, carpentry and electricians, the starting salaries for apprentices is just over minimum wage in most jurisdictions, and to earn a “trade ticket” or certification candidates must accumulate thousands of hours of apprenticeship and write many difficult exams. So why does a starting postal worker earn more than a certified plumber and carpenter, given the huge disparity in training, experience and hours on the job that the later requires?
This is another example how government meddling in labour markets rewards mediocrity and punishes hard work and excellence, while creating a privileged class of bureaucrats who feed off the sweat equity of citizens. Wealth distribution, state-owned production and confiscation of private property – all pillars of Marxism – have crept into our society. Hard working Canadians - who can only dream of earning public sector salaries and benefits- are forced to flip the bill while their own wealth, freedoms and liberty are being steadily chipped away.
Canada’s unionization rate of 31.8% of the labour force is more than double the 13.8% in America and Canada’s 75% public sector unionization towers over that of the 40.7% in America. Indeed so high is Canada’s trade union density that our rates are higher than Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Chile, Korea and Mexico. Considering that trade unions purport to look after the “little guy”, why is it that union density is near zero in industries and sectors where the workforce could really benefit from collective bargaining? Why is it that low paying industries such as fast food, bargain retail and sewing machine factories are immune from unionization while most government and public sector industries are unionized? Who is more apt to abuse workers, the sweat shop sewing machine factory or the Federal Government? Can discount retailers be trusted to pay workers a living wage while our university workers and professors need union protection? It would seem that collective bargaining goes to the highest bidder, and unions have found willing co-conspirators within the gilded and hollowed halls of government which is immune to market forces and rationality.
Canadians ought to be very grateful that they have a government in power that is looking after them rather than special interests. The NDP’s recent behavior in Parliament shows us very clearly where their loyalties lie and as unfunded liabilities balloon within the public sector, it is glaring that the NDP – and their union cousins in the public sector – are a clear and present threat to Canada and her citizens. Rather than rewarding workers based on whether they have a union card, we should be rewarding excellence, dedication, education and hard work. We shouldn’t be foisting debt onto our children and grandchildren so the postal workers can enjoy lavish retirements for work that, frankly, any high school kid could do.
