Early yesterday afternoon while working away in my Windsor office, a fax arrived. The fax, sent courtesy of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB), was short and to the point.
In a nutshell, Catherine Swift, the CFIB President said she was "angry" and "WE ARE FED UP AND ARE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE". All of this, of course, referring to the 15-week-old CUPE strike against the City of Windsor taxpayers.
The CFIB President wants us to sign a form and send it to Premier McGuinty, who is to then legislate an end to this strike via arbitration. This arbitration would have limits, of course. The arbitrator would render a settlement according to what taxpayers could afford. Oh boy!
First, let me say that I think Catherine Swift does a very good job. Now, let me say that I don't agree with her proposal. For starters, we expect too little out of our politicians already, especially municipal politicians: think City Council member Halberstadt. They were elected to do a job which includes budgets and managing employees. If we start chopping this up, the grateful taxpayer will never know whom to hold accountable. This is a difficult enough problem now.
Secondly, no legislation will ever be constructed with an acceptable clause regarding ability to pay. How could it--who would validate a formula against every possible economic circumstance? It would be open-ended and we would be right back were we started, with arbitrators deciding. As far as I know anyway, no one in this strike other than CUPE is up for an arbitrator deciding.
No Catherine, there is no Santa Clause, who will come and solve this difficult problem for us. This is something the Windsor City Council will have to do in the full light of day. And they will have to wear the results. In truth, that is how it should be. It's something about responsibility.
Now if we could only hold the Windsor Star management responsible, that would really be something.
