Vancouver City workers strike is a losing battle for the workers

VANCOUVER, BC, August 28, 2007. City of Vancouver workers are losing ground every day. If the strike is about money, and it seems that way, they are in a no-win position. Let's take a worker earning $50K annually. Their after-tax daily cost of going on strike is about $72/day (after accounting for strike pay). The strike is into its 40th day, so they have "paid" about $2,888 in order to get their much-deserved raise. But how much will their raise be in real dollars? The City's offer is roughly 18.8% over 5 years. Even though the other municipalities have settled for that deal, let's say the Vancouver workers get greedy and demand 22.2% over five (a lofty goal indeed). The difference between the two offers, on an after-tax basis, is only $1,203 over 5 years, and it has cost them $2,888 to get that. My financial expert friends tell me that isn't a very good return on investment. That's not mentioning the union dues they will pay over that five year period, which will equate to roughly $3,570 after tax, for a total cost of $6,460 to make $1,203. None of this is discounted to present value, but that would only make the deal worse for the workers. Nor does it take into account the fact that they probably will get less than 22.2%, which makes this whole effort even more fruitless for them. No matter how I look at it, this strike seems like a disastrous losing effort for CUPE local 15. Granted, this analysis doesn't take into account the union's other reasons for striking, such as job security, safety, etc., so it's not the whole story. But how much is job security worth, when you have to pay an average of over $1,000 per year for it? Especially when the city's unemployment rate is low and other jobs are relatively easy to find. My advice to the union workers is to take the City's offer and stop bleeding themselves dry with this masochistic strike.

P.F.