🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <slrn4ieadh.6vh.fche@elastic.elastic.org>, fche@elastic.elastic.org says...
>
>In article <4fpas7$qts@kryten.awinc.com>, the jen thing wrote:
>>[...]
>> >If you are not free to 'not join' then you are not free.
>> 
>> Can't be bothered, eh?  Or just don't think you can win on
>> promoting your ideas to your fellow workers?  
>
>It's not a matter of majority or popularity.  It's a matter of
>individual rights.  A worker should not depend on the gracious
>agreement of his colleagues to work any particular way.

It is not the gracious agreement of his colleagues to work.
There is a contract signed between the employer and the bargaining
agent for the employees which set the rules and conditions of work.
If one of those agreed on conditions between the employer and the 
employees is dues check off - which is in line with the Rand decision,
then it is an agreement, a contract, a binding and legal contract
between the employer and the union.  You are not either until you
start to work there.  If adhering to the agreement is part of the
terms and conditions of employment, and you don't like them, then 
go to an employer who is not bound by a legal contract to 
certain terms and conditions of employment beyond those in the
employment standards code. 

You have no standing under the contract before you are employed there.
What bloody business is it of your what any given business agrees to
in a contract with its employees.  You aren't an employee and you
aren't the employer in question.  If you don't like the terms and
conditions of employment don't apply, not accept a job if you don't
want to abide with the terms of a legal contract.

Is this so difficult for you to understand?  If you discount the
public service the unionization rate is less than 25% in this 
country.  That leaves you lots of employers to work for who are not
legally bound by a collective agreement which they signed.

If you work under a collective agreement then you receive benefits
under the agreement and the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that
you must pay union dues.  If you have a religious objection, you 
can have you dues redirected.  

This has been challenged in courts over the years, and every time
the decision comes down in favour of supporting the Rand decision and
dues check off as determined by the individual agreements.

As I have said repeatedly, the Alberta government, hardly a bastion
of labour-friendly legislators, has put a report saying there is no
economic benefit to be derived from RTW and that they agree with the
principles of workplace democracy and support the current union
membership arrangements.

Are you suggesting that lawyers be allowed to practice without
joining the bar association and paying their fees?  Are you suggesting
that doctors be allowed to practice without being members of the
medical association and paying their fees?  Don't those poor doctors and
lawyers deserve the chance to be free too?

Or could it be that there is benefit these individuals derive from the
association and so they pay into supporting the organizational structure
that gives them benefits.

Again, I have to ask - why is it you object to paying for the benefits
that are received through a collective agreement - it would seem to me that
this is exactly the sort of user-pay scheme you would support.