XPost: can.politics, bc.politics, ab.politics   
   XPost: sk.politics, man.politics, mtl.general   
   From: puela@nyet.ca   
      
   I'm betting they're going to win their case.  And WE, as a citizenry, will be   
   better off for it.   
      
   Unions give employees an avenue to file grievances on major issues affecting   
   their lives or their workplace conditions.   
   Female police officers will no longer have their sexual assault or sexual   
   harassment complaints ignored.   
   Unsafe working conditions, biased and incompetent management, and improper   
   training will be addressed.   
      
    From the public's standpoint, incompetent police officers will be subject to   
   reviews under scrutiny of union representatives as well as supervisors - and   
   much less likely to be protected from discipline by just being shuffled off to   
   another town or city to cover up their actions.   
      
   Good luck to all of us with this Supreme Court decision.   
   _____________________________________________________________   
   Montreal Gazette /Postmedia News  01.12.2015   
      
      
   Mounties await Supreme Court decision on whether they can unionize   
      
      
   Mounties are eagerly anticipating a decision this Friday from Canada’s top   
   court over whether they can unionize.   
      
   Currently, RCMP members are not part of the labour relations regime established   
   for other federal public sector workers.  Instead, they elect staff relations   
   representatives to advocate on their behalf on pay and workplace issues.   
      
   Critics say these in-house representatives are “part of the chain of   
   command,”   
   and that RCMP regulations preventing Mounties from forming an independent   
   association to engage in collective bargaining is a violation of their Charter   
   rights.   
      
   One York University labour expert has gone so far as to suggest that the   
   current RCMP labour management model wouldn’t be out of place in China.   
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   The RCMP is the only major police force in Canada without a union. In 2009, an   
   Ontario Superior Court judge ruled that the ban on forming a union was a   
   violation of the Charter, but that decision was overturned by the Ontario Court   
   of Appeal in 2012.   
      
   In filings with the Supreme Court of Canada, the Mounted Police Association of   
   Ontario and the B.C. Mounted Police Professional Association — informal   
   Mountie   
   associations that are not recognized by RCMP management — cited studies that   
   have made “damning observations” of the RCMP’s work conditions,   
   including heavy   
   workloads, an ineffective promotion system and a failure to meet the needs of   
   injured members.   
      
   Total compensation for Mounties continues to fall outside the average of the   
   top three police forces, said Rob Creasser, a spokesman for the Mounted Police   
   Professional Association of Canada, the umbrella organization for the   
   provincial police associations.   
      
   Creasser said the current system of representation is more akin to   
   “collective   
   begging” than collective bargaining because all staff relations   
   representatives   
   can do is make recommendations to management and the Treasury Board about pay.   
     “It doesn’t allow them to be effective.  They have no power,” he said.   
      
   A union would also have been more effective in acting on recommendations for   
   improved weapons and armor following the shooting deaths of four Mounties in   
   Mayerthorpe, Alta., Creasser said.   
      
   But in court filings, lawyers for the Attorney General of Canada said that   
   staff relations representatives have provided members a “meaningful”   
   process   
   for resolving workplace issues since 1974 and that management is duty-bound to   
   consider their representations in good faith.   
      
   Even though their relationship with management is collaborative and   
   non-adversarial, staff relations representatives speak “frankly and   
   critically”   
   on areas needing improvement, they argued.   
      
   They cited the Ontario appeal court ruling, which found that the existing   
   system passed constitutional scrutiny because it allowed members to form   
   voluntary associations; provided for extensive collaboration between staff   
   relations representatives and management; and allowed for the creation of a   
   Legal Fund, a voluntary not-for-profit corporation that provides legal aid and   
   protection to members and is funded by dues paid by members.   
      
   In an interview, Abe Townsend, a member of the national executive of the RCMP   
   staff relations representative program, said his team has been able to bring   
   about a number of positive changes, including improved accommodations for   
   members who provide relief duty in the Arctic, greater transparency in the   
   promotions process, and more options for training.   
      
   On the issue of pay, Townsend provided a copy of a briefing note that staff   
   relations representatives distributed to parliamentarians last month   
   highlighting how total compensation for RCMP constables, including benefits and   
   pension, was lagging behind compensation packages in Vancouver, Toronto,   
   Winnipeg and the Ontario Provincial Police.  This sort of advocacy for members   
   occurs routinely, he said.   
      
   However, David Doorey, a professor of work law at York University, has a   
   decidedly different opinion of the RCMP’s labour relations model.  Writing on   
   his blog after the Ontario appeal court ruling, Doorey compared the current   
   system to China’s model of “forced state unionization.”   
      
   “As long as the employer goes through the motion of meeting with the   
   state-created, non-independent association, nodding along to the suggestions it   
   makes, there will be no violation of (the Charter),” he said.   “Can you   
   see   
   why our model of freedom of association is beginning to look like the Chinese   
   model?”   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)