opinion
Some questions really do have simple and straightforward answers – for example, why did a strike begin last week at Saskatchewan Wheat Pool?
The strike came because Grain Services Union leaders chose to put their members on strike rather than keep talking.
Once you clear away all the honeyed words of union bosses who seem so anxious to declare their friendship with farmers, you’re left with that simple fact.
The company did not lock out any workers, or even threaten to. The company said its doors remain open to employees who want to work.
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The strike date of Sept. 7 was a date set unilaterally and arbitrarily by union bosses, who could have postponed it at any time. And they can still bring their members back to work at any time.
But union leaders chose to strike when farmers are busy with harvest and delivering grain. With friends like that, farmers scarcely need enemies.
Fortunately for the farmers who are the owners and customers of Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, many unionized staff have chosen to defy their union bosses and keep working.
These people deserve all the moral support and encouragement that their farmer neighbors can provide. They are working despite threatening phone calls and other pressure from union activists.
What about the big “contracting out” issue? Despite extensive management attempts to explain why it’s important to the Pool’s future financial viability, perhaps the clearest explanation came last week in a casual conversation with a farmer delivering grain north of Saskatoon.
That farmer recalled how he bought a bin from the Pool two years ago and paid $450 to have it installed. This year, he bought another bin, which was installed by outside contractors, and he paid $207.
To oppose outside contracting is, in effect, to say the farmer should have been charged the equivalent of a 117-percent tax for the privilege of having unionized workers install that bin.
That would be a good philosophy for top-heavy union bureaucracies, but not so good for the farmer.
Being no fool, that farmer would probably look elsewhere for future bins, and he would look to completely non-union companies. The Pool would suffer, Pool owners would suffer, and Pool employees would suffer.
So, the farmers who have been elected by their fellow farmers to direct the Pool have said there should be no restrictions on contracting out.
That brings up yet another question: Who controls the Pool – farmers or union bosses? The answer may well revealed by the outcome of the strike.
