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Letter: Rotating strike action unconscionable

This is forcing many companies, and even some municipal governments, into bankruptcy.
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Canada Post workers walk the picket line as a rotating strike continues in Halifax on Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2018. Union negotiators say there was little progress during the two-and-a-half weeks that a special mediator was assigned to the Canada Post labour dispute. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan

I agree with Ms. Sharon Mansiere, President, Okanagan College Faculty Assn. in her letter to the editor of Nov. 30 when she asserts that postal union CUPW has a constitutional right to strike.

However, their rotating strike action just before Christmas, and during a mail-in, B.C. plebiscite vote on proportional representation seems unconscionable, to the extent that the voting period had to be extended. I barely received my voting package in time to vote in good time. In addition, many will not receive their posted presents in time for Christmas as a result of the rotating strikes which have created a huge backlog of packages for delivery. How many people living on the edge will not receive their pension or retirement cheques in good time, either?

Speaking of constitutional rights, why are so many people required to join a coercive dictatorship (union) in order to work for an otherwise willing employer? Federal governments around the world, in their infinite wisdom, have manufactured artificially low interest rates in a futile effort to stimulate our economy. In the doing, they have massively increased private and public debt, and also reduced the ability of private sector retirement funds of all sorts to invest their funds with returns that cover their distributions to retirees.

This is forcing many companies, and even some municipal governments, into bankruptcy, or near bankruptcy because they cannot cover their defined benefit payments. And yet, government unions such as CUPW have negotiated government (taxpayer) funded pensions with escalation clauses related to cost of living increases and other very juicy benefits.

In light of the above, it becomes clear why our economy is failing at an increasing rate, in large part due to unconscionable union demands and strike activity.

Vern Polotikis