Pickets, PR and inconvenience
Someone tweeted this Windsor Star story on strike strategy and I just had to say something. It’s May Day, after all. I’ll find a way to tweet it later.
I will spare you the click:
A Windsor city councillor claims the union tactic of delaying delivery trucks and even people at hockey games is backfiring because “don’t want to be hit with a blockade or inconvenienced.”
The union president retorts that they’re sorry but they need management to feel pressure to end the strike and they need to people to know what’s going on. Sadly the person goes on to say that they’re not going to be like the mayor by putting ‘spin’ on a website, but that’s my cross to bear.
So what of it?
There are two strikes going on right now (actually, there are lots but these are two I know about). Paramedics in BC and the City of Windsor. Another “strike” by emergency services dispatchers in Montréal was recently settled. Paramedics are on strike, but they’re still working because – and this is hard to argue against – they’re designated an essential service. They’ve been “on strike” for 30 days. No one has truly been inconvenienced. And the paramedics are still getting paid. Their issues remain unsettled, and – if a cabinet minister can say publicly “don’t bother me til after the election – might remain unsettled for some time.
City of Windsor workers have been out 14 days or 17 days, depending on which local they belong to. Apparently their pickets are indeed inconveniencing people.
The Montréal emergency dispatchers – whose essential services legislation allowed them to picket, but only for 20 minutes at a time and only when there were sufficient people to allow all work stations to be staffed – were “on strike” for about two years.
Strikes are like taking off a bandaid. Do it quick and it stings a bit but the pain subsides quickly then you can get on with your life. Take it off slowly and you may feel less discomfort in the instant, but a lot more time elapses before you can get on with things.
People can usually take a little inconvenience in their lives before the backfiring starts. This is only my observation (I field the website feedback for a union so I have some sense of this anyway) but it seems there’s a couple of weeks of grace before “I hope you settle soon” turns universally into “You should all be fired you lazy bastards”.
So I think the Windsor strikers are right to picket inconveniently. This business of not wanting to take on management’s public relations efforts, on the other hand – well I’ll say we agree to disagree. Actually I will say more than that.
Strikes can last a long time when they’re of no consequence but they can also last a long time when one side misjudges the other. We saw this in the OC transpo strike which went on for months in part because the union got clobbered in the media and management smelled blood. They listened to crank-arse radio and thought they were winning. But they misjudged the effect the bad press would have on the resolve of the union members.
So the city hung tight, even though the bus drivers were always going to hang tighter.
It’s true that strikes are settled at the bargaining table, not on TV, and you don’t negotiate the contract with reporters, and all that other stuff, but you do have to wage a public relations battle with their employer. It never occurs to them that unions actually understand and work towards the aspirations of their members and that in turn those members will stick up for the union so they’re going witness the end of the public opinion grace period and break out the champagne.
The longer the union can extend the benefit-of-a-doubt/grace period with the public, the clearer management will be about the need to negotiate.
For the record I should also state that I find the crowd syndrome response to inconvenience aggravating and distressing.
Windsor city workers are asking people to wait a few minutes because the city wants them to sell out their colleagues. They’re saying ‘no’ to an injustice and would like your support or at least a few minutes of patience.
Tamil protestors are delaying traffic because their people are being bombed to bits and they would like the Canadian government to intervene. How does sitting in traffic compare on a scale of human suffering to being machine gunned?
Happy May Day, by the way.
