Public Service Strike In Newfoundland

A major public service strike started today. Seeing IÂ’m the only Newf here I guess no one else cares. But no the less itÂ’s a major strike headed my NAPE and CUPE. These unions donÂ’t seem to get it that the Government doesnÂ’t any money to give them. Under the liberal governments the deficit grew to almost 1 Billion. So now the government can either make the cuts they need to, or go bankrupt. IÂ’m with government on this, but I donÂ’t think most people are. The Unions run none stop TV ads about the premier and about him lying about this and that. But its all union propaganda, there Â“leaderÂ” is as much a fool as anyone who would ever see. Untill people realize that the goverment doesnt have an unlimeited amount of money, or they get more professional we will be stuck like this for months.

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How long has it been since the union members have had a raise, Adam. I seem to remember them accepting a freeze or maybe a cut a few years back, but I really don't follow Newfoundland news all that closely. I do know that Danny Millions has a Prowler, though.

I really dont know, but it seems they always got what they wanted under the liberals. So they think they should still get whatever they want. The budjet came out think week too and that had a lot to do with it. My opinion is there was nothing goverment could do, you can give people money if you dont have any. And if we did have money it would not go to the spoiled onion members.

What do u mean by prowler?

It's a little Chrysler factory hot-rod, Adam. Pretty cool cars. He was on the Rick Mercer show a few weeks ago.

I asked about the raise thig because it seems to me that the Newfoundland government employees have been doing without and giving concessions for the last few rounds of talks. I don;t know for sure because I haven't looked it up. It might be a union that has gotten out of hand or it might be a union that's just had enough of getting nothing.

I heard Danny's boy got beaten up in a bar brawl the other night. Danny is, of course, blaming it on the unions. Are things really that ugly out there, or is Williams playing games in an attempt to discredit the strikers?

The unions will not deal, they want a 15% raise over 2 years, all Danny is willing to give them is 8% or 3 years. And the unions wont take that, Leo Pudister is the head of NAPE and well...hes a fool. Newfoundland cannot afourd 15% we just cant. The Liberals ran us into the ground.

His son did get it fairly bad the other night down town, and yes Rev it is that bad, tempers are hot and people are angry (without much reason to be in my opionion). Same kind thing happened when they closed the fishery all those years ago, people want to be aloud to catch the cod untill its exticnt and well, we cant let them do that, and we cant let them bankrupt our province. these people are goingto have to accept that we hae no money, and they union leaders need to stop lieng to the members.

15% over 3 years is outrageous, especially consider the financial situation over there. A 3% or so raise per year is fair IMO, at least it keeps abreast with inflation. A lot of public service folks today have have their wages frozen since the early 90s so they should realize that.

Trust me though as a member of a major union that economic reality just doesn't jive with most union members in this country. :roll:

If, and I still haven't looked it up, but if they have been accepting freezes and cutbacks to benefits since the early 90's, then 15% starts to make sense. If they've been effectively getting poorer for ten years or more, then it would make sense that they are saying they've had enough.

At some point, no matter what your employer's financial situation, you have to start looking out for yourself. Wage erosion in this country has been a very real problem for decades.

Wage erosion? China has slave labor, they have stable wages and lots of work, if your willing to work for 0.06$/hr for 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. Don't like it? They have 200,000 to take your place. In BC we have Nurses with 71$/hr wages how can we justify our wages? We are overpaid. Privatization of all government programs is inevitable, especially if we do not control our collective fiances. The US debt is now 37 Trillion their dollar dropped 30% in worth over the last year and they depend on foreign investment in the dollar to keep it afloat. The banks are in very bad shape and are being kept aloft by foreign investment that is beginning to think gold and yuan's and euro's are better long term investments. That could create a run on the US greenback. If they fold they will take us with them, best to have the house in order before the storm hits.

Well today Danny himself went out to talk to the strikers and there were no union leaders there. Danny told them everything he offered the leaders and majority of strikers wanted to take it to a vote, then later that day Leo (union leader) refused to take it to a vote. Danny said everything he is offering comes off the table on Sunday. The union leaders has personal issues with Danny (for what I donÂ’t know) Danny has always treated his employees with fantastic respect.

That's why I keep asking questions, Adam...because this seems a little more complex than just money. Most strikes are, actually.

We are overpaid because we live in a wealthy country, Scape. If we are going to pay CEOs what they make, then there is no reason that nurses shouldn't be making seventy bucks an hour, especially when you consider what they have to do and the cost of living in BC. What I really worry about is all of the people making less than $10.00 hour and trying to scrape by in our society. If we were to take the money away from the nurses, it would go to the CEOs, not the working poor.

The US will fail eventually, probably sooner than later the way they are going. They've gotten themselves into a situation where they are dependent on others and their present leaders seem hell-bent on pissing those others off at every turn.

They will take us with them too, at least to an extent. What extent depends on us. The closer we tie ourselves to them economically, the more their impending collapse will hurt us. The closer we tie ourselves to them on foreign policy, the less likely we are to receive any goodwill from emerging powers like the EU and China.

This guy, Danny Williams, Premier of Newfieterre, takes himself to Oxford where he works hard, studies hard and obtains a Law Degree. Then, in further pursuit of hopefully bettering himself, he returns to the awful canukistan where he again, works hard, studies hard, and obtains a Law Degree from Dalhousie.

And all you can say is:

Danny Williams is worth closer to $200 Million.

I agree nurses should be paid more. I think teachers should be paid a lot more too, but its the goverment who needs to pay. It all depends on how much money the goverments have. Ontario teachers make more then teachers from Newfoundland for obvoius reasons.

Careful Adam, some of your anti union remarks above could easily be mistaken for those of us eeevil Right Wingers.