A4 - Wednesday, November 30, 1983 - North Shore News Strictly personal by Bob Hunter REGARDLESS of what BCGEU organizers say, there were quite a few miserable civil servants out on the picket lines during the recent trouble who considered themselves, with justification, to be mere involuntary kamikazes. For some of them, it was a cruelly ironic situation. I’m referring, of course, to those younger government workers who were having to go on strike for the right to be fired first, instead of their senior administrators. In its demand for province- wide bumping rights similar to those found in unionized private seclor agreements, the BCGEU really stuck it to its younger members. Civil servants with only a few years’ seniority were hav- ing to hit the bricks in order to win the ‘‘right’ for people above them tn the hierarchy to make sure that, when the axe falls, 1t falls on the heads of the newcomers instead of the entrenched bureaucrats. For these workers, the picket line stretched between a rock and a hard, cold place. But such are the twists of modern unionism as it ap- plies to the public sector. it still boggles my mind, | must admit, how anyone can demand tenure and yet still expect to have the right to strike. il ever tnere was a point where the labor move- ment outreached its historical mission to redress the ex- cesses of capitalism, it was‘ the day civil servants were told they could have their cake and eat it too. The mght to strike for a tenured government employee means security for Seniority screw-ups the worker with absolutely no security for the employer, i.e., thee and me and our agent, the government. I’ve been involved in a cou- ple of strikes in my time. |! know what it feels lke to have wet, freezing feet and a soggy picket sign slung around your neck. In both cases, the strikes were disasters. I didn’t agree with them, but when | voiced my objections at union meetings I was shouted down and told quite plainly to get into lock step. The first umon meeting | ever attended came as a shock. For years I had been Sitting at the press table, wat- ching politicians bungle the job of running a municipality or city or province, thinking to myself: How do_ these turkeys manage to. screw things up every time? Is it something congenital? Now here were my peers, my co-workers, my _ col- leagues, united in solidarity, screwing things up just as thoroughly as the politicians I held in such contempt. Was it possible? It sure was. I couldn’t heip noticing that even when there wasn’t a strike on, the union had a i ing effect on the office where I worked. Probably because the normal -Channels for promotion were effectively closed — ambition and drive weren't enough, you had to grow old to move upward — an awful lot of ehergy went into agitating and griping and playing chicken with management. It wasn’t a very creative ar exciting environment. So when my wife was ask- ed last year to join a union, | told her not to bother. As it turned out, the union got in where she worked and she had to join. A contract was negotiated by some ap- pointed reps who decided vehind ciosed doors tnal, among other things, seniority should be determined on a department by department basis. — ; My wife, who had worked 17 years at the company, had taken a few months off at one stage, which meant, under the terms of this bril- lant contract worked out by Se we Pers NEWS phot Eric Eggerteon CAPILANO COLLEGE student union representative Marc Rovner brought a smile to the face of the college's United Way coordinator Doug Lobtew when he presented him with $350. The moncy was raised at a student's Hallowe en soctal. Record rainfall threatens bridge REC ORI) BREARING, tain fallinthe Vancouver areca has sescrely damaged 4a loot Drudge coossing Lvan Crock soomuch that rt tnay col lagysc North Van © tty Counc was told Monday Counctl voted unantarous ly to spend up to $6 O00 bo ropa the bridge Alan walects after Caty BPtveltages wieekcd oa bE agineer heavy sand wooden trestle core of the the Oridge s forming one of comnetrete piers. bridge unstable | The leaving the somewhat bridge described by Phillips as a two span con crcte structure of a perina nent mature near the Lynn Creek water intake will be part of a proposed regional wilderness park (The tov onnencodedd by prant bh WAS Pe. vorursdy comamedh ote odd source up boynn Valley Kiooat Rae Labe | PPtvabbages would keep the bridge tntact tre bem ated at the watict sar othe orepans unal oa further dewiston 14 made on the proposed park he ashded that the ¢ try would be hatte if the bridge and ollapsed injured oa pedestiian POSITIVE RESULTS Pa bt oth SOLD 7% BAY VIEW SOLD 4610 WILL OWCREEK SOLD ‘panters oe Puervend Mrecmagt eaothusastte Oech atione Vormetcd & ereasteaal areal WNease oa one at 138 t Marine Orive DO. BRENT EILERS BELL REALTY West Van QBO 5654 (HO) 9Pb TBAT CO) the union, she was now junior to a guy who’d only been there for the last five years. When it came to trim her department, guess who got the axe? Moreover, she couldn’t be rotated to another department because people who’d been there only a month were already more “‘senior’’ than her, and a labor agreement was a labor agreement. If the tide of unionism ap- pears to have peaked, even to have began to ebb, union bungling and union excesses, especially in the public sec- tor, are as much to blame as anything. 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