Sent to the CCF on 8Dec2012

I would like your views on the following essay as it may relate to the teachers' strikes that are currently plaguing our province and the legal/constitutional validity of the unions' ability to use collective actions to damage or destroy the property [public school system & the teaching services it provides for the children of these taxpayers.

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What follows is an argument, based on Property Rights, that the teachers unions [and all labour unions for that matter] should have no rights to “negotiate” wages and employment benefits by taking any action that would destroy or damage the legitimate property rights of other parties --- in this case, the publicly-owned, taxpayer-funded school system.

The crux of this argument will show that the so-called  “successes” gained by the teachers’ unions over the past have been “won” using methods that are blatant violations to the property rights of hundreds of thousands of other tax-paying citizens.

To begin, I doubt that many would argue 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. The fact that Canadians place a very high value on the protection of property rights is directly reflected in the elaborate, costly and publicly-funded  institutions that we have created: our police forces, courts, national defense programme, health care system, insurance enterprises, etc .

Common sense tells us that the term “property” can be broken down into three categories: Person, Product and Resources.

Person:  People who have been raised in a free society will instinctively act to protect their most fundamental “property” – their bodies, thoughts and feelings.

Product:   A closely related category to “person” includes the things that one produces – their creations, the outputs of their labor and personal investments.

Resources:  Every human being depends on his/her access to the material resources of the world into which we were born. None of us could survive without food, water, land and sources of energy that are supplied by the earth and sun  ie the life essentials from which we nourish, clothe and shelter ourselves, and so much more.

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

Question 1:  who owns the “job”?  the employee or the employer?

Answer:  the employer creates and funds the job which belongs to the Product property category.

Question 2:  who owns the skills to fulfill the requirements of the job?

Answer: the employ brings both his/her own Person and ability to create the Product desired by the employer.

Question 3: what is the nature of employment?

Answer:  trade.

The employer and employee reach an agreement to trade what they own. In almost all cases, the employer sets the terms of the trade and the employee either accepts these terms or rejects them. Outside of a non-monetary barter arrangement, employees generally trade a number of hours of their dedicated Person and Product-producing capability for an agreed-upon sum of money. This arrangement is frequently documented an a legally-binding employment agreement.

Question4:  who owns the money with which the labor compensation is made?

Answer: obviously, the employer

Question 5: how do employment agreements obtained through collective bargaining differ from those obtained through one-on-one negotiations between individual hiring managers and individual workers?

Answer: one is arrived at through threats and coercion; the other is arrived at voluntarily.

To explain:

In the absence of collective “bargaining”, each individual job candidate completes for jobs based on meeting qualifications requirements that have been determined as the “best fit” acceptance criteria by the employer. The candidates who present the best Person and Product qualifications are generally “short-listed” to become finalists in the job competition. The job is ultimately offered to the top-rated candidate by the employer at which point the management-approved terms of employment [salary, employment benefits, vacation allocations, bonus plans, commission rates, etc] are presented. The candidate can:  accept the terms of employment, reject them or attempt to negotiate them.

After an agreement has been reached, a legally-binding Employment Agreement [EA] is prepared and signed to lock in the agreement which remains binding until future performance reviews determine appropriate modifications to the EA. 

In other words, the EA clearly documents the exchange of property arrangement that has been reached by the parties.

Note that 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.

In the “collective bargaining scenario, the dynamics are quite different. Here’s how….

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 than if a single employer choses not to work. Strikes and “work slowdowns” can result in  long-lasting costs to the business such as: lost profits; 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.

Violations of property rights also 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.  The real costs that can be brought to bear on the business owners due to a strike is no less real than the costs of vandalism or embezzlement.

The size of the damage is often directly related to the scale and duration of the strike. For example, 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 the loss of this one employee is unlikely to inflict significant damages to the value of his property – his business. In most cases, the employer will readily find a replacement. However, how do you replace dozens or even hundreds of workers when union leaders call a strike, even if it were legal to do so? It is self-evident that the nature of such a collective action has much more serious consequences to the business owner(s) than the loss of a single employee over a failed compensation negotiation.

These strike losses are real,  and insurance coverage is not available to cover the.  A strike is a pre-meditated and planned action (ie does not occur by accident or and ‘act of God’). Therefore, the losses are not insurable.

And yet, the union leaders who orchestrate this destruction of personal property are free to do so under our laws. It is hard to imagine, in a civil society that has long traditions of property rights protection and the extensive institutions to enforce them, how the labor movement has been awarded the “right” to destroy the property of others as a form of negotiation.  And they have somehow been able to do this over something  for which they can claim no legitimate property ownership.

They do not own the company Brand and Name recognition  – this belongs to the employer and is an asset that takes years to build up through investments in marketing, market, research, customer service, product quality, customer convenience, competitive strategies, etc .

They do not own the loyal Customer -  these results for repeatedly satisfying each loyal customer time and time again.

They do not own the Capital investments made to “tool up” the business for productivity improvement.

They do not own the Organization, Processes and Systems that were  designed and are employed daily as the bedrock upon which the business stands. 

They do not own the Intellectual Property that provides the company with the ‘raison d’etre’ and competitive edge needed to succeed in its markets. This includes all business Data, Metadata  and Legal documents.

And last, but not least, they do not even own the Job and Employment Agreement that defines the terms of each Job.

They do own, however, their Selves – their individual bodies, skills, knowledge and talents which each uniquely bring to the Job and for which they agreed to trade under the terms outlined in EA.

Question 6: what is a strike or “work slowdown” ?

Answer: union leaders describe it as a "negotiation tactic". I see it for what it really is – blackmail.

And blackmail is a crime no less than embezzlement or vandalism.

There is no crime, however, in employees getting together to discuss ways to remedy workplace issues. Everyone has the right of free association.

Yet, while “collective bargaining” is even considered legal under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, nowhere is it written that it is legal to willfully damage or destroy the property of other citizens as a bi-product of collective bargaining. After all, is our government not considered 'of the people and for the people' - our collective property. And if it is, where is it written that special groups such as unions members  are entitled to a better arrangement that other  "equal" stakeholders in our governments?

Consider how unfair the public sector strikes really are. All taxpayers are forced to pay their taxes [ give up their personal Property]  under threat of legal repercussions. Are taxes owing negotiable? – only in your dreams. Having paid the prescribed tax bills, you  are not even guaranteed delivery of the services for which you are forced to pay! Instead of serving us [the paying ‘customer’], our governments have chosen to side with those we have been forced to pay !!  If this scenario doesn’t describe a mafia-style  ‘blackmail’ offer, I don’t know what else does!

Now, if we could just get a refund on our taxes whenever we have been short-changed by government strikes, this may possibly be considered a “fair” deal. But hell would freeze over before the government would agree to these terms and charge the losses back to the powerful unions and their members.

This issue, and its remedy, should be very straightforward.   Whenever an organized workers' group, and especially those who offer essential services under a monopoly [Note : ALL government services are operated as monopolies] undertakes to carry out any deliberate action that results in any loss to the employer [in this case, consider the employer to be the tax-paying citizen], charges should be laid on everyone who takes part in this crime.

What if a TABOR existed [ Taxpayers' Bill of Rights]?   – one where governments were forced to spend ONLY what they bring in from taxes? Balanced budgets  would be the first rule of government within which all union negotiations MUST legally abide. Since labor makes up the majority of government costs [ ~ 75%] , then reductions in labor costs must comprise  a significant part of the solution in order to balance the books.

In private sector enterprises, employers’ earnings may vary over time due to many societal and economic factors that are beyond their control. The employees of these companies may also see their paychecks and employment circumstances fluctuate due to these market influences. Many of the same economic forces that affect the prosperity of business have also been known to determine varying levels of  government receipts and outlays. I see no reason that public sector employees must be protected from economic circumstances that may dictate financial adjustments to mitigate against violating the terms a TABOR.

I was taught that it is best to “live within your means” …. I am simply asking that all public servants be prepared  to accept the same financial risks and consequences as the rest of the working population in Canada. 

Unfortunately, this may be a naiive dream. Since the politically powerful labor movement in Canada’s public sector has been successful at achieving what I like to refer to as a BABOR [Blackmailers' Bill of ‘Rights’], union leaders have repeated clubbed us with it to extract the current extravagant public sector wage and benefits packages at our expense and financial risk  [much of these gains are debt financed or paid from an inflation-producing monetary policy].

Its beyond me how some some union supporters  can claim that their  “negotiation tactics” can ethically acceptable when they damage or destroy the paid property of others?

I have worked as an IT Recruiter for since 1981 and have successfully placed over 1100 people. In every case, these jobs were filled through one-on-one negotiations between employer and employee within the private sector. If this long-established methods have worked successfully for the ~60% of the Canadian workforce that is not employed in the public sector, then I am certain it can also be successful in the public sector.

Unions may have played a useful role in the distant past, but their role in Canadian civil society is now long past its “best before “ date.  PLEASE … eliminate BABOR and replace it with a TABOR,  and I will never have to write another essay like this one!