Things become a lot less irratating when you realize even your tiny nissan can go over the curb and onto school property.

Though really these protesters acted so immature I can't see why I'd want to treat them with respect (of course I understand the concept of a vocal minority, but still).

Are they legally allow to block an exit like that? If they can block like that, I'm hoping I can legally "move" their traffic cones.

Originally Posted by collinbf

Undergrad TAs make 22. Grade TAs make 39.40.

I know. I believe the main reason for the strike was because of grad TAs, but I'm not sure. I figured "over $22 an hour" covers everyone.

Originally Posted by Jman.

Though really these protesters acted so immature I can't see why I'd want to treat them with respect (of course I understand the concept of a vocal minority, but still).

Are they legally allow to block an exit like that? If they can block like that, I'm hoping I can legally "move" their traffic cones.

What happened that was immature?

Stalling cars for longer if people were rowdy about it, I don't understand why others had to wait a full ten minutes for one car to pass just because the guy in front of them flipped the protesters the bird.

In general I don't understand what the students did to the protesters that they have to stall them, it's like a nonviolent, temporary hostage situation and it's very disrespectful to commuters as they're essentially being punished for absolutely no reason.

Though on the flip side, I don't understand why the protesting even worked at all considering there's a very level, low curb/median that leads directly to the bus stop area that only I and a few others drove over.

Originally Posted by jajas

Their jobs are needed and important to the university and they know that they can blackmail the university to give them more money. That's what this is about. It's not about having a secure job. There is enough jobs for everyone. But as I already said, they are greedy and want to get more for less.

Not really. If they were that needed and important, the strike would actually be causing Mac issues. Its still functioning almost the same as it was before, with slightly less food options. The issue is that anyone can do the same jobs, and many would for much lower money. That's why the unions resort to blocking traffic to cause an inconvenience, their absence isn't enough to force the school to do anything.

Originally Posted by RyanC

Easy to say that in a position of privilege.

My mom went through shit with one of her employers and if it wasn't for her union rep, she wouldn't have any way of fixing her situation..

This is more of an issue though, it deals with general job security.. I can't say I understand the situation 100%, but I realize the necessity of unionism, especially for large groups of individuals who otherwise have no way of protecting their interests.

Originally Posted by burforbt

Unions have a duty to protect the interests of their effective members. The problem begins when a union protects the bottom of the barrel (just ask teachers, and educational assistants). To better a profession or work environment you can't let your worst employees hide behind a union, in order to protect their job. No accountability, with security is a inefficient construct.

I was going to reply to both of these with the same story, so this seemed easiest.

I used to work at a grocery store, and the co-worker who was always scheduled to work with me did absolutely nothing. Ever. So I was constantly forced to pick up his slack. The store owner and manager both wanted to fire the guy, but the union protected him. And unfortunately, the owner couldn't afford to hire another pay a third person to work that department. I ended up quitting that job because of how much extra work I needed to do. I've had incompetent coworkers in non-unionised jobs as well, but they generally didn't last long.

My brother (who later ended up working in the same department) told me the guy got fired after he was caught selling drugs outside the store, so I guess it has a somewhat happy ending

---------------------------

And on an unrelated note, today as I was walking past the protesters I overheard one bitching about the MSU keeping the Phoenix open and weakening their position. I guess he was a bit confused about which on-campus restaurant the MSU actually ran, but I still found it funny.

I initially misread this thread and thought it was titled "Imagine a World without Unicorns"

Originally Posted by djRAIN

I initially misread this thread and thought it was titled "Imagine a World without Unicorns"

What a sad world that would be...

oh wait.

Originally Posted by djRAIN

I initially misread this thread and thought it was titled "Imagine a World without Unicorns"

I wouldn't want to live in that world.

Originally Posted by jajas

You just said it yourself "....give them what they want". Unfortunately life is not about what you want, its about what you deserve.

Sure, what they deserve. I just used the word "want" erroneously. But yes, the university should give the workers what they deserve. And there wouldn't be this strike/road blocks/inconveniences if the university stepped it up!

Originally Posted by jajas

No that does not scare me because there is need to full time engineers because if they fu/ck up the fault goes to the engineer and not the company whereas if they hire students the fault is going to be on the company because a student doesn't have his P. Eng yet.
I am talking about jobs that even a chimp can do. Not anyone can do engineering.

BEFORE YOU TRY TO MAKE A STUPID POINT GET YOUR FACTS RIGHT.

So yeah I am not worried about that. There is always need for engineers in society.

Yeah.. your point isn't exactly valid. You can easily replace many full time engineering jobs with engineering co-op students if you hire on a by-project basis, and I know that there are many companies that do in fact do this. My older brother is a 4th year Mechatronics Eng. student over at Waterloo where they alternate between 4 months of school and 4 months of co-op. I can easily call him up and get the names of 6 companies that don't put more full-time engineers on the pay-roll because they hire co-op students instead. In this time he has gotten several dozen patents and has produced 7 products and 3 critical circuit boards for various companies. Point in case is that there are many reliable co-op students who can perform at levels equal to or greater than industry professionals who will cost a lot less. Companies could easily replace many more jobs with co-op students and if your logic of "Companies should abandon experience in favor of cheaper labour" holds true then they very well should be replacing these jobs.

And where on earth are you getting this fact that if something goes wrong all blame is placed on an engineer rather than the company if they are full-time, but that this is not the case for part-time workers? That is an absolutely flawed view point. If anything goes wrong in either case the company is partially to blame for employing an incompetent worker. When something goes wrong you'll get fired regardless of whether you are full-time or not. The only difference is it will be harder for the full-time employee to find an engineering job elsewhere. Furthermore, any damages caused by a worker are going to have to be covered by the company. If an engineer makes a mistake that causes many millions of damage the company fires him and pays for it out of their own pockets, they don't charge him millions of dollars in damages.

-insert imperial Britain, Germany and/or Russia-

Cool.

I'd like to first preface my opinion on unions with the fact that I am an Economics student, I understand and, for the most part agree, with free market economics, at least as it was prescribed by classical liberals.

I would like to stress that, in my opinion, unions are a perfect manifestation of optimal free market economics. When a single employer is able to negotiate employment contracts with thousands of individual workers, there is information asymmetry. In this situation, the worker does not know how much his/her labour profits the employer, while the employer does. By isolating the worker from his/her peers, the employer holds all the bargaining power, allowing them to discriminate and extract every bit of surplus the worker would get from employment. Not only is this situation undoubtedly unfair, but any econ student can tell you that information asymmetry leads to economic inefficiency.

What a union does, is it turns an agreement between one employer and thousands of individuals, into what is essentially an agreement between one employer and one labourer. Again going back to classical economics, an optimal equilibrium occurs when a price or wage is agreed upon by both parties seeking to maximize their surplus. The existence of a union does absolutely nothing to eliminate this efficient economic method of two parties agreeing to a contract. Just like an employer has the right refuse to offer wages they believe are higher than the value of the labour, labour has the right to refuse wages they believe are lower than the value of their work.

Inherent in capitalism is the fact that employers will always be less numerous, and hence more organised, than labour. All a union does is bring labour into a fair bargaining position with emplyers, and should therefore be a perfectly legitimate way for free individuals to organize and enter into a mutually agreeable, and economically efficient, contract.

And that view is much more in line with what unions used to do.*

However, current strikes have moved from "you can't function without us, so if we leave you're more likely to give us a better deal" to "you can't function if we stand in front of your business blocking traffic". There's also issues whenever people are forced to join a union in order to hold a job, like what will likely happen to me when I graduate.




*I do realize that early unions often used intimidation and violence to keep others from working, but in those days they also had to deal with companies that would hire thugs to strike break. It doesn't justify their past actions, but it explains them. Today unions have no excuses for acting in that manner.

How long have you guys been made to idle in your cars? On Friday I left the line after 15 minutes because it wasn't moving at all so I'd already missed my only important class that day.

If this keeps going we need to start to protest the protesters. The differences between McMaster and the union are not our problem, should not be making some of us late for, or completely missing our classes, and should definitely not be making me get out of bed at 5:30 am for an 8:30 class. I'll just park my car in the line and walk. If everyone were to do that, the police would have reason to intervene because it would be affecting regular citizens of Hamilton to have so many of their streets blocked by a big line of parked cars. Just because they're striking and purposely making everyone's commute suck doesn't mean we should have to put up with it - it wasn't our problem but if they keep going like this they are definitely making it ours.

Whats to stop a car from hopping the curb and just driving in to park? Is there a law against this?

Either way, if one of the people at the entrance tries to engage me, I'll tell him off.