Unions are supposed to protect employees from abusive management, and that’s all very well and good. But who protects employees from their unions?
Blue-collar workers intent on disrupting snow-clearing operations Monday night intimidated colleagues into refusing their work assignments, Quebec’s Essential Services Council heard yesterday.
Assignment foreman Gerard Poissant of the Sud-Ouest borough said that as he went from worker to worker, others would call out in the background: “The others refused, the others refused.” And Poissant testified that a union delegate followed him around, saying: “This isn’t union advice I’m giving you, but were it me, I would refuse.”
The stress was so intense that two employees who had been prepared to take out the machines assigned to them booked off sick, he said.
In one case, the worker had already agreed to go out. But with the intimidation, he returned the keys, trembling, and announced he was going home, Poissant said.
Another blue-collar worker, a woman, badly wanted to work, and even told her colleagues that she desperately needed the money, he said.
“The others kept saying, ‘The others refused.’ She started crying and shaking,” and at 9 p.m., she, too, booked off sick, Poissant said.
Unions have so much power under Quebec law that it’s hard for employees to avoid caving under the pressure. And all too often, union leaders don’t actually have the best interests of their members in mind; instead, they’re out for their own political gains or personal victories. Employees in unionized fields have no choice but to be members, pay their dues, and toe the line… even if they disagree. And in cases like this one, where the Blue Collars are on an illegal work stoppage, it seems not even court injunctions can protect workers who actually want to do their jobs.
The system is broken. It needs to be fixed. Fast.
The irony is that once the government dares try to limit the union’s powers, all hell breaks loose with massive protest against..the government.
Days after the this icy sidealk issue I see Jean Lapierre (the ex-union leader, not the Fed. minister) bleating that what the population has suffered is insignificant compared to the hardship union members endure from management. Perhaps Mr. Lapierre would like to experience the “pleasure” of a broken hip: I’m quie willing to administer the shot.