Vancouver Garbage Strike

Sportsdude · Jul 27 07 10:52

my mom's in a union.

Ace · Jul 27 07 10:56

Unions keep the rates up... You must understand that it's every employers goal to pay minimum wage. With the cost of living in Vancouver, there's no reason anyone working full time should face living in a cardboard box... And if you think the 'BC Labour Board' is here to fight for your rights, I've got news for you...

P.C. · Jul 27 07 10:56

Well bless her cotton socks.....what can I say. I still think unions suck.....and that those who benefit from them have never fought for their jobs like many others.

Sportsdude · Jul 27 07 11:07

oh my mom's fought for her job. She's a teacher and nobody in society is hated more after politicians then teachers. She's been threatened before by two fighting parents who's kids liked each other but showed it by hitting each other. One of them got suspended the parent got irrate stormed the classroom threatend to sue and have her fired and wanted the other kid arrested. (These were 1st graders). She has 5 autistic kids in her class all the time because she's the most senior teacher and was trained in special education. Kids who wet themselves, roll around on the floor, and attack other kids because they looked at them wrong. Then you've got the parents who want their kids taught algebra in 1st grade. (algebra isn't taught until middle school).
Anyway she had to call the union for the first time in 30 years last year. The two parents started fighting in a 'sit down meeting'. They had to be arrested.

We got word that one of her students a couple years ago tried to drown her sister in a pool and is now in a mental hospital. That's the kind of kids teachers deal with. Yet one political party here swears they're the anti christ most of the time.

I said that earlier Ace, the non union crowd wouldn't have the benefits and wages they do if it wasn't for unions. Corporations and businesses are always afraid of unions because they're spoiled little kids and want to keep the money for themselves. Just look at the CEO's of the world making 10,000 times more then the average worker in their company who works maybe 7 floors below them. So they keep pay and benefits at or better union levels not because they want to keep workers but because they're afraid of the workers getting together and unionizing.

Look at what Walmart does for example. You try to start a union you get fired, they've closed entire stores because all the workers got together and fought for workers rights.

Ace · Jul 27 07 11:17

People just want a 'piece of the pie'... It doesn't matter if you're manning the 7-11, or picking up trash (picking up trash for eight hours straight isn't much fun, I'd imagine), people need to live. In Vancouver, where a dump costs $500,000, $8.00/hour doesn't cut it.
Now, some will argue that you should've attained post-secondary education, but not everyone is University material...
There's no reason that someone working full-time should be living below the poverty line, and unions keep the rates up...

Sportsdude · Jul 27 07 11:28

guy works a 78hr work week in Vancouver.

" Simple arithmetic shows the dizzying shortfalls faced by
low-wage workers, even when the calculations involve B.C.'s
minimum wage of $8 an hour, presently the highest in the country.
At this rate, a 37.5-hour work week brings in an even $300 per
week, gross. That's $15,600 a year, before taxes and
deductions-about $4,700 short of the $20,337 that Statistics
Canada has set as its latest before-tax low-income cutoff (or
poverty line, as most of us know it) for a person living without
dependents in a city of more than half a million. If, however, a
family of three is involved, as in Alam's case, that line is
considerably higher-$31,126-and the deficit balloons to about
$15,500 a year. Thus, even though Alam's efforts entailed a
punishing 78 hours of work a week (a full 100 hours, counting
travel time), and hourly pay from one job that was more than a
dollar above minimum wage, his earnings placed him and his family
a mere $2,300 a year above the poverty line."
[a href="vny!://www.straight.com/article/working-for-a-living"]
vny!://www.straight.com/article/working-for-a-living[/a]

Ace · Jul 27 07 11:29

And remember this, people... When your employer says, "We can't give you a raise, as profit margins are slim."
Nine times out of ten, he's laughing all the way to the bank...

Ace · Jul 27 07 11:31

The money is there! It's just nobody wants to share anymore...

P.C. · Jul 27 07 11:31

Ummm...Ace?....these people are making WAY beyond $8 an hour. They are making the kind of wage that kids who have spent the kind of money to take them through 3 to 5 years of university for careers might hope to make. It's out of whack....due to the unions.

When kids are making $27 an hour to stock shelves in your local supermarket.....there is something drastically wrong.

Sportsdude · Jul 27 07 11:31

[table border="1" cellpadding="2"][tbody][tr][th colspan="6" class="title"]Low-Income Cut-Offs (LICOs), 2001[/th][/tr] [tr][th] [/th][th colspan="5"]Population of Community of Residence[/th][/tr] [tr][th]Family Size[/th][th]500,000 +[/th][th]100,000-499,999[/th][th]30,000-99,999[/th][th]Less than 30,000*[/th][th]Rural[/th][/tr] [tr][th]1[/th][td] $18,841 [/td][td] $16,160 [/td][td] $16,048 [/td][td] $14,933 [/td][td] $13,021[/td][/tr] [tr][th]2[/th][td] $23,551 [/td][td] $20,200 [/td][td] $20,060 [/td][td] $18,666 [/td][td] $16,275 [/td][/tr] [tr][th]3[/th][td] $29,290 [/td][td] $25,123 [/td][td] $24,948 [/td][td] $23,214 [/td][td] $20,242 [/td][/tr] [tr][th]4[/th][td] $35,455 [/td][td] $30,411 [/td][td] $30,200 [/td][td] $28,101 [/td][td] $24,502[/td][/tr] [tr][th]5[/th][td] $39,633[/td][td] $33,995[/td][td] $33,758 [/td][td] $31,412 [/td][td] $27,390 [/td][/tr] [tr][th]6[/th][td] $43,811 [/td][td] $37,579 [/td][td] $37,317 [/td][td] $34,722 [/td][td] $30,278 [/td][/tr] [tr][th]7 +[/th][td] $47,988 [/td][td] $41,163 [/td][td] $40,875 [/td][td] $38,033 [/td][td] $33,166[/td][/tr][/tbody][/table]
that's from 2001.
minimum wage job by yourself won't get you to 18.8k that you would need in Vancouver.

P.C. · Jul 27 07 11:34

SD....what the heck are you reading into that? That's not the kind of wages union people are making. That may be what those jobs are WORTH....but unions drive the wages up for jobs that a chimpanzee could do.....just because.

Sportsdude · Jul 27 07 11:38

currently they make anywhere between 18 and 24 dollars an hour

[a href="vny!://www.gvrd.bc.ca/labour/agreements0002/InOut/VanCupe1004City0002.pdf"]vny!://www.gvrd.bc.ca/labour/agreements0002/InOut/VanCupe1004City0002.pdf[/a]

Ace · Jul 27 07 11:40

"When kids are making $27 an hour to stock shelves in your local supermarket.....there is something drastically wrong."

Those days are finished, P.C. And I agree, in the past some were overpaid to stock shelves...
But if I worked for the City of Vancouver, or any outfit for that matter, I wouldn't pick up peoples trash all day for $8.00/hour. In fact, I wouldn't do it for less than $20/hour... I walked up to a construction site a couple of years ago as a labourer, and they paid me $20.00/hour to stand around for half the day, so there is no way I'd pick up peoples garbage for less, factoring the cost of living in Van...
[table style="table-layout: fixed;" border="0" width="100%"][tbody][tr][td colspan="2" class="smalltext" align="left" width="100%"]
[/td][/tr][/tbody][/table]

Sportsdude · Jul 27 07 11:41

chimps can build buildings, collect the trash, build cars, drive and take care of public transportation lines, fly planes since when?

Sportsdude · Jul 27 07 11:42

if you read the contract on page 55. The guys picking up the trash make 18 to 19 dollars an hour.
nobody makes 27 an hour stocking shelves they make 8hr. And you'd be surprised I could never get a job at the grocery stores here, all the 40/50 somethings who needed a second job to pay the bills got those jobs. Teen unemployment is high in the states and I bet Canada too.

[table border="1" cellpadding="2"][tbody][tr][th colspan="6" class="title"]Before-Tax Low-Income Cut-Offs (LICOs), 2004[/th][/tr] [tr][th] [/th][th colspan="5"]Population of Community of Residence[/th][/tr] [tr][th]Family Size[/th][th]500,000 +[/th][th]100,000-499,999[/th][th]30,000-99,999[/th][th]Less than 30,000*[/th][th]Rural[/th][/tr] [tr][th]1[/th][td] $20,337 [/td][td] $17,515 [/td][td] $17,407 [/td][td] $15,928 [/td][td] $14,000[/td][/tr] [tr][th]2[/th][td] $25,319 [/td][td] $21,804 [/td][td] $21,669 [/td][td] $19,828 [/td][td] $17,429 [/td][/tr] [tr][th]3[/th][td] $31,126 [/td][td] $26,805 [/td][td] $26,639 [/td][td] $24,375 [/td][td] $21,426 [/td][/tr] [tr][th]4[/th][td] $37,791 [/td][td] $32,546 [/td][td] $32,345 [/td][td] $29,596 [/td][td] $26,015[/td][/tr] [tr][th]5[/th][td] $42,862[/td][td] $36,912[/td][td] $36,685 [/td][td] $33,567 [/td][td] $29,505 [/td][/tr] [tr][th]6[/th][td] $48,341 [/td][td] $41,631 [/td][td] $41,375 [/td][td] $37,858 [/td][td] $33,278 [/td][/tr] [tr][th]7 +[/th][td] $53,821 [/td][td] $46,350 [/td][td] $46,065 [/td][td] $42,150 [/td][td] $37,050[/td][/tr][/tbody][/table]