Paycheck Protection

I hope it happens, but colour me skeptical. They don't call government jobs "positions" for nothing. Think trench warfare and pillboxes...

Sounds good, and I, like Max, sure hope it happens. It'll take some big balls though.

This is long overdue, and if the government is savvy, they could promote it as protecting workers from the depredations of corrupt and politically ambitious union bosses. "Standing up for the little guy."

And it would be perfectly true.

Maybe a new government (federally or in any province) could pass such a law but I doubt it would hold up in court. In Ontario, a long time ago, a Roman Catholic teacher lost the battle over whether his union dues could be used to support the abortionist NDP against his wishes and he lost leading to today's situation.

Hopefully this goes through. I have a couple of kids and kids-in-law that object to their union dues going to a political party that they do not support. They would be happy about this.

They would also like right to work legislation.

I hope it happens,but I am skeptical. If it does happen,the NDP may transform into a central party.
Those who pay the piper can call the tunes, no pay,no tunes.

I can't wait till this comes in. I am an SGEU member, and I get so upset when I see the union taking my money to pay for the NDP, which I will never support.

Recently, the provincial gov't began a process of 'direct communication' with union members, usually in the form of mailouts and advertising. This was something SGEU had themselves been doing all along. However, SGEU sees this as a threat. In a mailout from SGEU to union members in May, SGEU justified raising union dues to counter gov't advertising, saying:

"As a result of these pressures on your union, delegates to the 2011 annual convention voted in favour of a dues increase from 1.5 to 1.9 per cent of yearly income....This increase will be used to:
- bargain essential services agreements;
- respond to management communications during bargaining;
- pay for legal challenges to protect our right to freedom of association and free collective bargaining;
- increase the amount of public advertising and promotion we do in response to the Brad Wall government's political agenda to privatize public services."

It may sound small, but basically they increased their 'take' by almost 25%. Considering the raise they negotiated for my branch last year, they pretty much sucked half of it away for themselves! And I wonder how much of it actually went to pay raises for Bob Bymoen and his gang at SGEU head office?

And how long will their desire to "...protect our right to freedom of association..." last if some local of SGEU try to de-certify and go over to a group like CLAC last?

SGEU DOESN"T SPEAK FOR ME!!

I would think that Collective Bargaining (legal terms) would be broken if one party was intent on destroying the other, outside of a contract negotiation... The Gov't could/should file to decertify the Union leadership. Both parties must respect the relationship, or it
Fails…

Imagine if the Union representing Ford was actively promoting the takeover of Ford by a rival Company (GM)... They would be long GONE

Union dues is a second level of taxation, when workers realized this, the feds allowed tax credits for union dues payers.
Essentially government funds big labour through the back door.
This has to stop.!

The SDA link goes to a story giving the dramatically different breakdown of public and private sector unionization. A further link to the same source gives chart detail. http://www.fcpp.org/publication.php/3846
Unions are rent seekers that have captured an uncompetitive constituency, in my opinion.

What a bunch of weasels. The reason election law was changed a few years ago was to prevent this sort of unfair fundraising -- to keep wealthy corporations, Unions, etc., from having an unfair advantage in getting their own people elected. To prevent "political monopolies" accessible to only the wealthy or powerful.

So here we have the NDP and the Unions (the supposed representatives of the "Proletariat") finding new ways to weasel around the law to create unfair unequal political monopolies. Orwellian clichés are getting very old and tired, but unfortunately his Animal Farm oxymoron must be quoted to the NDP again:

"All pigs [people] are equal. But some pigs [people] are more equal than others."

On a (Foxworthy) note...

If you think, union dues is a second level of taxation...
You might be, an enemy of socialism!

If you think, your union executive and bureaucracy are overpaid...
You might be, an enemy of socialism!

If you think, union membership, no-matter where you work, should be voluntary...
You might be, an enemy of socialism!

While a union member and certainly not anti-union, as I believe unions have done much to create a middle class in the first place, like any good idea, things can go too far. What the left doesn't seem to get is that "Big Union" is as dangerous a proposition as "big" anything and often worse. There's nothing I resent more than having my dues go to support this stuff, however.

It would be nice to see the provinces implement right-to-work status, like so many (mostly southern) states in the U.S.

Public sector union dues are little more than legalized money laundering and extortion. Union members have no choice (aside from quitting) in having dues forcibly deducted from their paycheck, only to see those dues funding political causes they may not support.

I'll be watching this story with much interest. This is a long overdue development. IMO.

Choosing a career path that can only be obtained by entering a union just to have the union abuse you, why exactly do we have unions?

The courts will toss this out. So suck it up. When corporations and wealthy people are prevented from lobbying or coming up with sneaky ways to influence politics (Hello Fraser Institute, that's when we'll have a level playing field.

And for those union members that are morally outraged about what is done with your dues, attend a meeting once in a while and vote against it. Or quit and go work non-union.

Huh.... go figger, maybe SGEU workers who had the union steal this years wage raise in an effort to battle the saskparty government will be refunded their monies back to May.... maybe not.

.

UNION SHAKEDOWN:
SGEU Raises Union Dues to Wage Political Battle Against Saskatchewan Party

http://www.scribd.com/doc/56023951/UNION-SHAKEDOWN-Sgeu-Raises-Union-Dues-to-Wage-Political-Battle-Against-Saskatchewan-Party

Unions are fine, as long as there are checks in place to ensure they only do what is necessary. As things stand right now, union members have zero options to reduce their union dues and control union spending. Right to work legislation would fix that, by forcing unions to stop taking members for granted.

Seems to me that most unionistas don't even understand that their precious brotherhood is ripping them off.

I highly recommend that payment of union dues be made voluntary. Then you'd see just how much they love their brothers.

Public Service Alliance of Canada or PeeSAC boasting about mobilising for the NDP at the last election. Did the NDP claim this as a taxable benefit?

PeeSAC also boasting about protesting in Wisconsin, and sending a delegation to Honduras, all on union dues.

psac-afpc.com

For the average SGEU member, let's say a package of $50,000, if that worker was to pay .5% union dues, for the things that unions should actuall focus on, and had the .9% paid into the same pension plan they contribute into today, based on the historic returns earned by Captial Pension Plan, (defined contribution) the employee would have appox an additional $63,000 in the fund for his/her retirement, instead of chasing special interest agenda.
Unions are businesses, and the Saskatchewan government is returning the civil service size to the level it was before Calvert administration, appox 10,000 down appox 2000, all through attrition/retirements. That is a huge revenue hit to support the salaries of Big Bob and his cronies and agenda.

As a union member,I agree with a lot of the comments here.

Unions must start realizing that their job,and their ONLY job, is to enhance the working conditions of the ones who pay their way.Anything else is circle-jerking on my dime.

Yes...and one important way they enhance the working conditions is through political action: lobby the government and promote politicians that believe in enhancing working conditions. Who cares if you negotiate a good contract when the government can just come in and change the rules, ie. freeze wages, roll back benefits, etc.

"If we raised resource royalties, just imagine what we could do..."

I forget the exact wording, but that billboard makes me think of all the unintended consequences:
A sharp decrease in resource extraction activity - oil and gas drilling cut in half, potash exploration stopped, plus a possible halt in potash mine construction. This would be an immediate blow to the incomes of thousands of hard-working young people on the drilling rigs, bulldozers, surveying equipment, with an echo in both the provincial and federal government income tax revenues. In a short time, revenue from those INCREASED royalty rates would start to decline as non-investment results in lower production and hence lower total royalty revenue.
Declining population as people go elsewhere for jobs results in further income tax revenue decline and closing of retail and other services, bringing on further contractions.
Not a good result!
So Granny, think again and ring up those idiots at CUPE and SGEU and tell them your grandchildren want to stay and work in Saskatchewan, much as they enjoy visiting their cousins in Alberta.

I say let the unions collect their own dues from their dedicated members.

If they insist that companies and the Government should collect the dues then they should be like the banks and that is charge a fee for every little service. So companies and the Government should charge a fee to the union for every union due they collect for them.

wallyj and iberia are just promoting unions for what they are...mini proletariats.Union members(most of them) are just useful idiots. Notice how no leftard/commie/socialist country has or allows unions,yet they love seeing them in democratic countries.
Bring on the American default!!!!

"Notice how no leftard/commie/socialist country has or allows unions,yet they love seeing them in democratic countries."

WTF?? Are you advocating that Canada become a
"leftard/commie/socialist country", with no unions??

Or are you just insane?

I remember there was an attempt to pass a law like this before. In Ontario, I think, the proposal was to forbid unions from spending dues money on political advertizing. Of course there was opposition to this idea from NDP. I suppose it must not have happened. This new one sounds like a good rule to have. Paycheck protection is a good thing to call it too.

"And for those union members that are morally outraged about what is done with your dues, attend a meeting once in a while and vote against it. Or quit and go work non-union."

This cannot happen in most public sector unions, at least any under the umbrella of the PSAC alliance. The only thing a union member gets to vote on is the current collective agreement and, if he joins the local executive, on who to send to the annual conventions, mostly as observers. In order to be able to vote for anything like dues, you have to become a voting member of the Local, i.e. president, in order to have a vote. Union dues are split between the PSAC and the component - you are not paying dues to one union, you are paying to two.