& - Sunday. September 15. 1991 - Nartn Shore News

Unionism a suspect activity in the 1990s

AT THE outset Jet me say
that Tf am not crazy about
unions.

When | was a feature writer for
the old Star Weekly back in the
‘60s | had to belong to the News-
paper Guild as a condition of
employment, but it never sat easi-
ly with me.

I have always, throughout 46
years in the labor force, preferred
to negotiate on my own.

Solidarity has always been an
empty phrase, in my view, among
people who are not required to
slug it out physically, or in places
of inherent danger.

Unionism was great stuff to get
the children out of the mines back
in the 1800s, but on the whole, a
suspect activity to my mind at the
close of the 1900s.

Also, when a guy { got paired
with for a= golfing round in
Toronto told me, during a city
transit strike, that he was ‘ta mili-
tant bus driver,’ the more bizarre
elements of unionism began to
impact.

So, having said that, 1} invite
you to think what you will, but 1
have a couple of comments I'd
like to make at this time about the
strike of the Public Service Alli-
ance of Canada.

You see, | am dead against their
action. | don’t think they have the
tight to hold to hostage the rest of
us in order to get whatever it is
they want.

For instance: | hold no brief for
shopkeepers particularly, but | do
know that the average shopkeeper
has busted a gut to get his or ber
business going.

The average shopkeeper is in
hock to the bank, works at oa

Sculptor
speaking
at gallery
meeting

NOTED CERAMIST, — sculptor
and teacher, Santo Mignosa is the
scheduled guest speaker at the
Seymour Art Gallery’s Sept. 17
annual general meeting.

Mignosa, who recently moved
to Deep Cove from Calgary where
he was associate professor of art
at the University of Calgary, will
give a slide and ‘ecture  pres-
entation on his work following the
meeting.

Mignosa is an accomplished
sculptor and co-founder of the
Alberta Potter’s Asssociation. He
has taught at the Banff School of
Fine Art, New York State Univer-
sity and in Siracusa, ftaly at the
School of Art.

The meeting gets under way at
7:30 p.m. Seymour Art Gallery is
Yocated in Seycove School, 1204
Caledonia Ave., North Van-
couver.

Brian
Swarbrick

a
SECOND OPINION

furious pace for ridiculously long
hours, plugs away for years some-
times without making a take-home
nickel, wouldn't be able to
remember the last time he had a
full day off, is so plagued by
employees swiping the stuff
they're supposed to be selling that
the activity is known simply as

“shrinkage,” and knows damned
well that no matter what problems
he’s having behind the counter,
he'd better have a big happy smile
on his face even in the presence of
the most difficult’ of customers,
because hey, the customer is
always cight.

So the last thing he needs is a
bunch of striking civil servants
establishing a sign-toting human
wall the purpose of which is to cut
off both him and his customers
from his place of business.

This is what the PSAC strikers
are doing outside the Sinclair
Centre in Vancouver, and proba-
bly a few other places around the
province where government hap-
pens to rub up against private
commerce, and I think the PSAC
action is wrong. wrong, wrong.

Pickets holding up their fellow
citizens at border crossings and
international airports also) make
me mad. Uf there were some real
relationship between the site of
the picketing and the dispute with
management, | could maybe see
it.

But to

maliciously disrupt

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someone else's life — some totally
innocent bystander who may even
be simply a visitor te this countrys
— doesn’t sit well with my con-
ception of fair strike practice.

To halt and impede a fine of
refrigerator trucks for hours and
hours, to take money directly ou
of someone else's pocket to draw
attention to what the unionists
perceive ay their own plight:
wrong, wrong, “rong.

When more than 100,000 civil
servants walk off the job, in fields
as utterly disparate as grain in-
spection and tax collection and
weather forecasting. they are at-
tempting — because they're not
stupid; they have to know the
consequences of their actions —
to make every single Canadian
pay the price of their dispute.
Wow. Some solidarity. With
whom are they solid? Not the rest
of Canada, that’s for sure.

And if they want more money
because they think they're put-
upon, hard-worked, and so on,
they ought to take a long hard
Stare in the mirror.

There’s no job in Canada as

on
sat brush sets,

cushy as the civil service. You can
he inexpressibly lazy, not to men-
uon downright stupid, and it is
practically impossible to get
yourself fired.

An enormous number of the
tasks they perform are redundant,
So are the people performing
those tasks.

When their signs tell me they're
“Needy, not greedy,’’ and only
trying to ‘*Protect our Jobs,’’ |
say they are the most. self-in-
dulgent element of the whole Ca-
nadian labor force.

ff they’re such wonderful Ca-
nadians, why don’t they show us
some real leadership and be the
first segment of the labor force to
tighten their belts for a year or
two?

If they were the first action in a
national groundswell, maybe this
country could face the reality of
our economic condition.

At minimum, if they took truly
affirmative action, we could find
out whether it's them or their
bosses who are driving Canada in-
to bankruptcy.

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