quote:Originally posted by PsyLiam: Programmers supply our electricity now?
Distribute actually. I imagine you'd be surprised at just how centralised and dependent the (Ontario) power distribution system is on computers, CS graduates, and engineers. Control centres need power management systems, power management systems require telecommunications systems. Both are run by people graduating from guess what, CS or engineering.
I'd show you at work tommorow, but I imagine the security guards wouldn't like it.
In any case, I have no doubt power distribution would shut down in a matter of hours if every engineer and CS graduate decided to just pack it in. Unfortunately (or fortunately), the government agrees, hence the laws prohibiting strikes.
Now, this leads to a part that everybody should understand. If one group can threaten to strike, and another cannot, then obviously the playing field is unbalanced. Factor in the fact that fact that power distribution in Ontario is still a monopoly (with no plans to change), then the rules of a free market definitely don't apply. Government regulation does not, a free market make.
Registered: Mar 1999
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Saltah'na
Chinese Canadian, or 75% Commie Bastard.
Member # 33
posted
Pym, so I was overexaggerating.
Other cities pay their garbageman the average which is around $45K/year. Toronto pays theirs $65K/year. And the garbagemen wanted more in the last strike. $45K I can live with. $65K is overkill.
-------------------- "And slowly, you come to realize, it's all as it should be, you can only do so much. If you're game enough, you could place your trust in me. For the love of life, there's a tradeoff, we could lose it all but we'll go down fighting...." - David Sylvian FreeSpace 2, the greatest space sim of all time, now remastered!
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Too bad you don't make the call. Your democratically-elected municipal government (wacko mayor and all) decided that garbagemen were worth $65k. If public sentiment was demanding that they be paid less, it would have been the city's perogative to hold firm. They didn't, and from what I recall of the garbage strike, this was what Joe Taxpayer wanted.
(And I wouldn't cite teachers and journalists who are paid the same as garbagemen as somehow being "victimized" by the union system. They're unionized, too, in most every case. The market has simply set all three as having roughly the same worth to society and there's absolutely nothing unfair about that.)
There's also, to the best of my knowledge, no legislation that prevents anyone from forming a union (speaking in terms of Canada here.) The computer programmers who keep the nuclear reactor's core maintenance software bug-free are more than welcome to form a union, and it would be discriminatory if they couldn't. What they mightn't be able to do is strike. Now, essential services legislation doesn't block unions, it just simply means that instead of striking, you and your employer (usually the government) is forced to submit to a binding arbitration process, and groups that fall under this requirement are fairly narrowly defined by legislation. The RCMP, for instance, operate under a collective contract and are generally quite happy with what they make, but you never see them walking picket lines. You can make the argument that city sanitation should be included under this umbrella, but that's a differnt argument than the one you're making.
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
A union that can't go on strike is a union that has no teeth.
Besides, this entire problem can be circumvented by keeping public works run by the government.
Privatization doesn't work, except on non-essential services. But sometimes even then, unless we're talking about something like Fot's tree trimming example, you're on your way to that dreadful "slippery slope" ethical and moral quagmires are always said to be on...except privatization throws corporate economics into the mix, as well.
The reason why privatization doesn't work is simple: the private sector can't keep the costs down, because they won't put price caps on things. And even if they could, do you believe they would?
The entire idea of privatization comes from the Thatcher years, and Reagonomics. It doesn't matter that every time/place it's been used, its done the *exact opposite* of what they claimed it would do...they're going to use it anyway. It's so ingrained as infallible policy in the West now, that any objection to it's continued implementation is met with derision, and scorn.
Like that crowd of several thousand protesting the G8 in Ecuador. What were they complaining about? To hear Faux News tell the tale, they're practically a bunch of Luddites. No, they're ALMOST Communists. Stupid bastards.
They didn't like the fact that the price of cooking gas had risen by 60 percent virtually overnight. Big Babies. Their version of governmental Energas had gotten privatized due to loan requirements imposed by the World Bank.
So it was that Ecuador, a member of OPEC for chrissakes, had a 60 percent raise in the price of COOKING GAS. Ecuador. More Oil than Texas. For an Ecuadorian to pay that much for cooking gas is equivalent to Americans paying ten dollars for a Mcdonald's Jr. Cheeseburger. It's unthinkable.
But as soon as you privatize a sector that used to have such things as "price caps" and "regulation" you get things like "inflated cost" and "appalling inefficency".
So maybe those beatnik/hippie kids protesting the G8 in Seattle weren't just spoiled white college kids, protesting for lack of anything better to do. Maybe they had a point.
The Brits, back in the day, used to pay less for electricty per unit of population than citizens of the United States did. Dirt cheap, in other words. Then Thatcher came along with her vast dildo of globalization, and now consumers pay 70 percent more per unit than us whiny Americans.
Same thing with the water works in Britain: after privatizing, they pay 60 percent more than the same service in the US, where regulation still holds.
Gas costs 250 percent more there than here.
Yeah, it works to the benefit of the public, all right. Bush is a fucking genius.
Registered: Jan 2001
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posted
The thing is, I live in BC, where we have a publically-owned electricity monopoly that, *gasp,* manages to provide us with some of the cheapest electricity in the world. And yet, our ideologue wankers in government are convinced things will be oh so much better with "market-oriented reform." Right. So we move from a system where power is dirt cheap and any electricity profits get plowed into government coffers to pay for evil things like new roads or health care to the same model that, ahem, failed spectacularly in California, failed spectacularly in Alberta, and is presently failing spectacularly here in Ontario.
The mantra of privatized-is-inherently-better, especially in the face of two decades of empirical evidence to the contrary, is one of Western society's biggest jokes. Only it isn't funny.
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
Registered: Mar 1999
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EdipisReks
Ex-Member
posted
empirical just isn't good enough anymore.
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posted
So you haven't had a physically demanding and dull job ever then, Tahna?
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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Saltah'na
Chinese Canadian, or 75% Commie Bastard.
Member # 33
posted
Oh yes I have. And I know damn well that you get as much as what you work for.
I do find that question to be irrelevant though. And believe me, half the population of Toronto are calling these garbagemen "overpaid wussies". Those same people are criticizing the Union for making these "overpaid wussies", as well as the city for letting the union get away with it.
-------------------- "And slowly, you come to realize, it's all as it should be, you can only do so much. If you're game enough, you could place your trust in me. For the love of life, there's a tradeoff, we could lose it all but we'll go down fighting...." - David Sylvian FreeSpace 2, the greatest space sim of all time, now remastered!
Registered: Mar 1999
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-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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I think I am in the wrong line of work.
Registered: Mar 1999
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Saltah'na
Chinese Canadian, or 75% Commie Bastard.
Member # 33
posted
Warehouse Clerk. Getting items from racks (some large, some small) to be packed. 1 month job. Pay is decent, $9/hour. Warehouse head makes around $48K/year. Around the time I worked for him was when the garbagemen (among others) were threatening strike. He didn't like the idea of Garbagemen making $17K more a year when he does more work than they do. And no, we were not unionized, though no one thought there was a problem with that.
I don't see how any of this is relevant though when there are a lot of other people in Toronto who think the same way.
Daryus, so must I.
-------------------- "And slowly, you come to realize, it's all as it should be, you can only do so much. If you're game enough, you could place your trust in me. For the love of life, there's a tradeoff, we could lose it all but we'll go down fighting...." - David Sylvian FreeSpace 2, the greatest space sim of all time, now remastered!
Registered: Mar 1999
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