Let me preface this blog by saying that I have been part of several unions and I hated it. My experiences with unions have left a bad taste in my mouth, so much so that I am very anti-union. I feel that the days of unions are in the past. If you look into the history of unions, it started with mafioso trying to control relations with certain employers. Currently, there are still some unions with ties to the mafioso. I will not get into specifics because I fear retaliation.
The main part of my post today is the fact that it seems that sometimes unions are obviously necessary due to the fact that their employers are so powerful and don’t seem to give a damn about the workers and the impact their indifference has on the common man.
I am talking about unionized government workers. It is painfully obvious that governments don’t care about their citizens, whether it be federal, provincial/state, or local governments. If you were to remove the union from the workers, the government would take advantage of the workers and create a very unsafe/unhealthy situation for the common man. if you look at the fact that the workers of much of the government is unionized and the government(s) do their absolute best to ensure that they make situations for the common man untenable.
In Alberta, we are currently in the midst of a teacher’s strike. The issues at hand are funding for the teachers, support for the teachers, and class sizes. In Alberta we don’t have a government mandate of class sizes. Our class sizes are so large that so many of the students are lost in the cracks.
The government enacted a plan to give parents $30 per student per day to ensure the students aren’t left behind. I’m pretty sure if they did half that, the issue of money wouldn’t be an issue. You could even make the class sizes reasonable, or even optimal with that amount of funding. I know that the government was thinking that it’s just a stop-gap measure, but I think the government could make it work, the best way to do that is to cut costs elsewhere, like the MLA’s and Premiere’s bloated salary.
I do support the teachers in this work stoppage. I believe that our teachers are being given the shaft, they are expected to teach our children with minimal resources. Often, teachers are using their personal funds to meet the needs of their students. While it is commendable, it is not the way things should be. This is our children we’re talking about, do we want to give them minimum or below the minimum (is that even possible, obviously it is, because it’s happening)? People say that they are the future, but I have always believed that children are NOT the future, they are the present, these are people that are currently directing our society right now.
The Alberta government is in the process of using legislation to force the teachers back to work. Is this commendable? Is it ethical? Think about it, it’s one end of the dispute being able to mandate the other side back to work. Where does the government get off thinking that they should be able to dictate the resolution to this dispute without some meaningful debate or at least mediation?
I wish it wouldn’t have come to this. I am certain that everyone wishes that it hadn’t come to this. If the Alberta government does decide to enact legislation to force the teachers back, I hope the ATA and other unions decide that it’s not right and force the government to do the right thing and get back to the bargaining table and put the fate of the children first.
Perhaps Albertans should do what the government wants to do and force them to do the right thing. I know that my current reach of readership is not enough to force the government to even wash their hands after pooping let alone force them back to the bargaining table. If you read this and agree with it, you can make it seem like it’s your idea and circulate the idea to let the politicians know that our kids are not the future, they are the now and we need to make them a priority.
Now, do what you do best, send tuck loads of thoughts and prayers, ’cause we know how well that’s worked in the past.