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Surveillance caught 10 Montreal city workers goofing around for 81 of the 90 hours they were supposed to be filling potholes.

Staff instructed by a Montreal city official to observe the group said the union employees managed to fill just 10 potholes in the 90 hours they were watched.

The rest of the time, employees hung around in restaurants, doing their banking and driving around -- all on city time.

"It makes no sense to me that we can fill one pothole in ten hours, it's unacceptable. They're paid for 90 hours, they should work 90 hours," said Ville-Marie borough Mayor Benoit Labonte.

One local media outlet sent out its own crew to see how long it takes to fill the craters that make driving on Montreal streets a dangerous, and often expensive activity. They managed to fill 25 in one hour, 250 times more productive than the city workers.

Potholes are serious business to Montreal motorists fed up with mechanics' bills to fix their cars' suspension, axles and brakes that often left damaged after hitting a pothole. Several citizens have even sued city hall for their vehicles' repair costs.

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It may not be accurate to suggest union membership is the root problem.

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Would anyone try this if they weren't backed by a union?

As it is, the link suggests "disciplinary action" of an undisclosed nature.

A non-unionized employee making $20+ an hour, and found goldbricking for 80 hours wouldn't be facing nebulous "disciplinary action" -- they'd already be looking for a new job, and possibly facing theft charges.

This is where unions could choose to do a little PR for themselves and very promptly issue a statement condemning this and assuring the public that the workers in question are no longer union members.

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Originally posted by Mr. Magoo:
This is where unions could choose to do a little PR for themselves and very promptly issue a statement condemning this and assuring the public that the workers in question are no longer union members.

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Originally posted by Steve:
Where is management in all of this? Working hard, one presumes?

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You know what else would be great?

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Every person in Canada has a right to a lawyer if accused of a crime.

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Originally posted by Mr. Magoo:
[QBThis is where unions could choose to do a little PR for themselves and very promptly issue a statement condemning this and assuring the public that the workers in question are no longer union members.

Or, they could go to bat for these workers and reinforce the public's perception of unions as bullies whose mandate is to keep lazy people working for big dollars at the expense of the public purse.[/QB]

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Legally the union has to "go to bat" for the workers or at the very least not come out in public against the workers. It's called "duty of fair representation".

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Originally posted by Mr. Magoo:

Every person in Canada has a right to a lawyer if accused of a crime.

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I think you missed the point, Magoo. It is not the union's job to discipline it's members. That is management's job. It is the union's job to ensure that disciplinary action undertaken by management is in accordance with the collective agreement. Contrary to popular opinion, collective agreements do not give union workers the right to run personal errands on work time.

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It's called "duty of fair representation".

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Fair enough. And you're saying that no matter what a member does, the union is legally obligated to either support them, or at least not criticize them?

Sounds like a crappy law, for the union. Legally forced to look like they side with slackers.

ed'd to add:

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Contrary to popular opinion, collective agreements do not give union workers the right to run personal errands on work time.

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That's what I'm saying. This sort of thing is where that popular opinion comes from.

[ 13 February 2006: Message edited by: Mr. Magoo ]

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Originally posted by Mr. Magoo:

Fair enough. And you're saying that no matter what a member does, the union is legally obligated to either support them, or at least not criticize them?

Sounds like a crappy law, for the union. Legally forced to look like they side with slackers.

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Not obliged to support them, necessarily, but the union cannot act arbitrarily in its representation (the wording varies from province to province but is fairly consistent). As generally interpreted, the union has to at least look at the situation and ensure that management acted in keeping with the collective agreement and arbitral caselaw - for instance if these guys were fired, but arbitrations generally ruled that a three-day suspension was warranted (I'm just pulling these penalties out of the air - I have no idea what arbitrations actually say on this subject), a union failing to at least attempt to get the termination reduced to the hypothetical three-day suspension could well be a failure to represent. Or, if the discipline breached the Collective Agreement, the union would have to follow up on that too.

Further, I think coming out against their own members would probably give rise to a duty of fair representation complaint (how can the union be relied upon to represent the members fairly when it's publicly condemned them?) - not to mention starting a political sh*tstorm within union ranks.

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Fair enough. And you're saying that no matter what a member does, the union is legally obligated to either support them, or at least not criticize them?

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Originally posted by Mr. Magoo:

Fair enough. And you're saying that no matter what a member does, the union is legally obligated to either support them, or at least not criticize them?

Sounds like a crappy law, for the union. Legally forced to look like they side with slackers.

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It's more like they need to follow a process. This page gives a run down of it.

It's kind of the same as defence lawyers. They may know their client did the crime, they may think the client should go to jail, but they have to do their best to defend the client.
The law is there to protect union members from discrimination. Lets say you are a anti-union guy at your work place. Then one day you are fired for coming in late. This is your first time being late and you have a clean file. This firing would go against most contacts, as it's not that big of a deal and you have a clean record and you weren't given a warning. But the union doesn't like you so it doesn't file a grievance. If that happens, you can go to the labour realtions board and file a "duty of fair representation" complaint.

code:

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Originally posted by Mr. Magoo:

That's what I'm saying. This sort of thing is where that popular opinion comes from.

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And popular opinion is always so right. Will it be front page news when these workers get disciplined? No. Because that doesn't fit the myth that union workers are lazy.

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a union failing to at least attempt to get the termination reduced to the hypothetical three-day suspension could well be a failure to represent.

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That seems fair, I suppose.

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Originally posted by Mr. Magoo:

Mind you, I'm betting that if the discipline for something like this were indeed a three day suspension, there'd have been a union behind that at some point too. Hard to imagine management saying "Oh, if you totally don't do the work and fleece us for the pay, we'll give you a three day holiday without pay, then it's back on the public teat!".

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Probably - it wouldn't have gone to arbitration otherwise. Mind you when all's said and done, it's the arbitrator who makes the decision.

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That's pretty much the case Mr. Magoo.

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Originally posted by Mr. Magoo:

Well, I'll file this under "things I learned on babble" then.

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One drawback from this is that unions will insist on defending the contractual rights of even their laziest members.

But it is not impossible to fire a lazy unionized worker. Just like in the wider society, it is possible to catch criminals without stripping everyone of their civil rights.

You go through steps, you follow procedures, and you are diligent about it if you seriously want to get rid of someone.

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You know what else would be great? The next time we hear of someone being accused of committing a particularly heinous crime, if the Law Society would hold a press release condemning that person and instructing that no lawyer will be allowed to defend them. That would really be good PR for lawyers.

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Didn't Doris...I mean Stockwell Day get into hot water over writing a letter to a lawyer about this kind of thing?

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I think you missed the point, Magoo. It is not the union's job to discipline it's members. That is management's job. It is the union's job to ensure that disciplinary action undertaken by management is in accordance with the collective agreement. Contrary to popular opinion, collective agreements do not give union workers the right to run personal errands on work time.

Every time I hear one of these stories I always wonder why management (or the apparent lack of same) is given such a free ride.

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Exactly. If a union member is goofing off and not doing their job, it's because the employer isn't doing theirs.

BTW, speaking of goofing-off, I wonder how many babblers are posting on work time eh?

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That's pretty much the case Mr. Magoo. You should see some of the grievances I've seen in my careeer...some of them would make your head spin. But they are obliged to do it, and to be fair, sometimes the union rep isn't really all that happy about having to do it either.

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Yeah...been in that situation too. When I'm in front of management, had to defend the member to the hilt....but outside away from management when no-one's around, I've chewed members out and told them they were being absolute assholes.

I recall one particular member who was really bad...but a particularly incompetent management kept screwing up the disciplinary action so that we'd always beat it...and the member kept getting away with it.

You almost felt like telling management what they had to do to fire the guy...but that would be like the defense attorney telling the prosecution in a criminal case how to do their job.

And the real drag in defending folks like this? They're usually the folks who bitch the loudest that the union isn't doing anything for them.

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DFR's are a mixed bag. They do give an avenue for union members who feel the union hasn't given them a fair shake. At the same time unions sometimes feel compelled to pursue cases that perhaps don't warrant pursuing.

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My experience has been that most DFR complaints that are filed with labour relations boards are bullshit. Usually a member who files a DFR complaint is just pissed off that they lost their grievance.

Unions don't have to take every case, and each Union has a procedure for deciding on the merits of a case. In my local, we will file even the crappiest case if the worker asks us to, however we will not proceed to arbitration with bad facts and a negative legal opinion. The worker can appeal to the grievance review committee, elected from the rank and file, and if they say go then it's a go, but if they shitcan it then it's gone.

Union's generally in my experience follow a 5% rule. 5% of the members eat up 90% of the resources. The lazy worker also sucks the life and resources out of unions.

Sometimes it is a matter of whether you have enough materials to do the job. In the past on construction sites that were cost plus (that's were a company gets its costs plus a percentage of those costs as profit) I've seen many workers standing around because they didn't have enough building materials to work steady. The companies made a fortune on those jobs and anyone driving by would think they were all lazy union workers.

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Union's generally in my experience follow a 5% rule. 5% of the members eat up 90% of the resources. The lazy worker also sucks the life and resources out of unions.

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A couple of decades ago, I recall one time listening to one of my members in one of the highest paid classifications in my bargaining unit whining to me because his manager wouldn't pad his overtime anymore.

This at a time when we were busy mobilizing our membership around contract negotiations...and most of the members were relatively low paid and worked their asses off.

The guy had tied himself to a particular manager...and they'd had a falling out. Somehow the union was supposed to "rescue" him.

There may be some who are 'born' that way. However, in my experience, lazy workers are made that way. Most workers, new to a job, come in there and want to work hard, earn respect, and possibly climb the ladder. A bad manager, getting screwed on the occasional paycheck, excessive negative reinforcement, and once in a while having a supervisor take all the credit for some kind of accomplishment are all things that foster resentment and bitterness among the workers and soon you have a crew who are standing around watching potholes erode.