The Property Rights View

After reading the pieces [ published in the Letters section of the National Post on Saturday November 10, 2012]  by Paul Moist, CUPE President, and Claude Poirier, CAPE President, I felt an urge to respond to the smug attitudes with which they claim the excessive entitlements that have been unethically bestowed on their union members. I hope that they will forgive me for raining on their parade with an argument that shows that their so-called  “successes” has been acquired by blatant violations to  the property rights of hundreds of thousands of other citizens.

 I doubt that many would argument with me over the statement that property rights, and their protection, are an essential feature of a civil society. Without property rights and the institutions needed to enforce them, the strong could take from the weak with impunity.

People who have been raised in a free society will instinctively act to protect their most fundamental “property” – their bodies, thoughts and feelings. A closely related category of “property” includes the things that they produce – their creations and the outputs of their labor and investments.  Another fundamental claim to “property” is our individual claim to our share of the natural world. None of us could survive without access to the material resources supplied by the earth and sun which are essential to all of us so that we can be fed, clothed, sheltered and much more.

Let’s apply these property concepts to the work place. 

An employee's job is not his/her personal property. The job belongs to the employer. It is created due to increasing demands on the enterprise and can only be authorized by the enterprise owner. The employee, who is approved for the job, accepts the work offered by the employer in exchange for mutually agreeable terms of trade. The employment contract serves to clearly document the remuneration that the employee will receive in exchange  the prescribed products required by the employer from the employee’s creativity and labor. 

In such an employment contract, the employer may entrust the employee with the use of the company’s assets [money, equipment, intellectual property, proven operational procedures, and other employees who have signed similar employment contracts] in order to conduct profitable business for the company. However, they employee should never forget who owns these assets. 

Violations of property rights occur when one party damages, destroys or steals the assets owned by another party. For example, if someone purposefully burned down your home, this action is punishable by laws that were designed to protect your property rights.  When an employee uses his exemplary job performance to negotiate better terms of employment with his employer, he will likely be successful if the job performance warrants it, but unsuccessful if it does not. If the employee choses to leave his job as the result of a failed negotiation, the employer will likely be inconvenienced by this loss but is unlikely to suffer significant losses to the value of his property – his business. In most cases, the employer will find a replacement.  

However, when a group of employees organize to remove their collective labor in a ‘strike’ action, the impact on the employer’s business is likely to be much greater. Strikes can bring long-lasting costs to the business such as: losing customers; paying penalties for not fulfilling the contractual terms that they had signed with their customers; product spoilage and waste; damage to the company reputation and community standing; etc. 

These are real losses to the business owners.  Since a strike is a planned action (ie does not occur by accident or and ‘act of God’) the losses are not insurable. Company owners cannot buy protection from the damages caused by a strike.  

And yet, the union leaders who orchestrate this destruction of personal property are free to do so under our laws. Amazingly, they have been given the “right” to negotiate the terms of something they do not own – the jobs. This needs to stop! 

A strike is described by union leaders as a "negotiation tactic". I see it for what it really is – blackmail. And blackmail is a crime. 

There is no crime, however, in employees getting together to discuss ways to remedy workplace issues. But whenever an organized group of workers takes any action that results in any loss to the employer whatsoever, charges should be laid to everyone who takes part in this crime. 

Regarding the hundreds of thousands of citizens whose property rights have been violated, think of the untold costs to all taxpayers who are given no option but to pay their taxes and, having paid their taxes dutifully, the unionized public sector worker has either used the threat of job action to “negotiate” costlier employment terms or, worse, have reneged on their side of the employment contract by going on strike. 

If we could get a refund on our taxes whenever we are dissatisfied with the public services we receive, this would be a fair arrangement. However, it is a vicious slap on the face to all tax-paying citizens to have to endure these union shenanigans even after we have fulfilled our end of the bargain. 

Gene Balfour

Ontario Libertarian Party,

Thornhill Riding