site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32032 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

24
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Overriding the Constitution to avoid negotiating with janitors

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has a little escape hatch that has gotten more attention in recent years. By now I suspect there are even a handful of Americans who have heard of the notwithstanding clause; a segment of the Charter that allows provincial/federal governments the ability to temporarily pass laws that violate certain Charter rights (essentially all the rights except those that pertain to the democratic process). The Canadian Charter is a very popular document (in my opinion, it's one of the best things about my country), and the notwithstanding clause gained a sort of mystical aura in Anglo Canada since 1982 as a big red button that Should Never Be Touched. Outside of Québec, it had only been used a handful of times, and for fairly minor issues that many times were deemed by the courts unnecessary after-the-fact. A few other times it had been employed as a sort of rhetorical tool or threat, ultimately avoided because the legislatures did their job and resolved whatever problem they faced without having to use it. The political norm against not abusing it had become very strong.

Enter Doug Ford. Not the most respectful of norms (in the style of his late brother, who as Mayor of Toronto did a number of turned-out-to-be illegal things, and I'm not talking about smoking crack). His first use of the notwithstanding clause was immediately upon gaining power in 2018, in order to halve the size of the Toronto city council in the middle of Toronto's municipal election. Traditionally the provincial government does not interfere in the affairs of municipal governments, but again this was tradition only and ultimately the courts found that the use of the notwithstanding clause was not necessary. In 2021 he used the notwithstanding clause again to limit third-party political advertising in the run-up to the provincial election that he handily won. In this case the courts did rule that his actions were unconstitutional as they were restrictions on freedom of expression.

But his third use of the notwithstanding clause is the most bizarre, norm-upsetting, and (to me) infuriating of all. The contract for the province's school workers (janitors, early childhood educators, school monitors, basically the blue-collar school employees) is up. The average employee in this union makes $46k CAD (~33k USD). Their wage increases over the last decade was lower than last year's inflation. And meanwhile the cost of living has exploded, especially in the province's most populous areas. So obviously the province owes it to these critical workers to give them a good deal, right? This is not a case of some fat public-sector union, and the provincial government and society at large has spent the pandemic fêting the heroics of these essential "front-line workers".

Well, no. Instead the government is using the notwithstanding clause to override their Charter right to strike. Note that this is not back-to-work legislation; that process involves binding both parties to a neutral arbitration process that tends to give labour a fair shake. Instead this is the unilateral imposition of a labour contract by the state, a first in modern Canadian history. The union has declared its intent to strike anyways, but because this would now be illegal, the potential fines for this are up to $200 million per day.

There are no legal countermeasures available to the union. The provincial governments in Canada are very strong by design, but this was supposed to be balanced by social norms against abusing these powers. But with the increasing polarization of Canadian society and centralization of power within political parties, apparently the weight of the potential backlash has been weakened. It was never the intent of the notwithstanding clause to give provincial governments the ability to just force people to work on the state's terms because they can't be bothered to negotiate, yet here we are regardless. Unless the Prime Minister (or the Governor General) were willing to intervene from on high and use their big red button that Should Never Be Touched (disallowance), there's nothing to be done. But that would kick off a constitutional crisis over janitors, and I don't think Trudeau has the balls; he's no friend of labour regardless and oddly buddy-buddy with Ford (that's another topic though).

Even if you were indifferent to the situation of the workers, there's reason for concern here. This kind of flagrant norm-breaking is what tends to start unraveling countries. The notwithstanding clause was not supposed to be employed this way; indifferent and repeated use of it could turn the Charter into a piece of paper. What's to stop other provincial governments from using their powers in this way? What's to stop retaliation when some other party inevitably comes to power? It used to be that Canadian politics was largely regional, with provincial and federal representatives responsive to local concerns and willing and able to keep their leaders in line. That's gone. The safeguards against misuse of power have disappeared.

The strike starts on Friday, and I'm going to be out showing my support. I've tried to keep this write-up somewhat tonally neutral, but I'm truly incensed about this.

But his third use of the notwithstanding clause is the most bizarre, norm-upsetting, and (to me) infuriating of all. The contract for the province's school workers (janitors, early childhood educators, school monitors, basically the blue-collar school employees) is up. The average employee in this union makes $46k CAD (33k USD). Their wage increases over the last decade was lower than last year's inflation. And meanwhile the cost of living has exploded, especially in the province's most populous areas. So obviously the province owes it to these critical workers to give them a good deal, right? This is not a case of some fat public-sector union, and the provincial government and society at large has spent the pandemic fêting the heroics of these essential "front-line workers".

Seeing as the median salary is 40k it seems to me that, unless I'm missing something here, these people are getting a very good deal for unskilled, safe labour.

Not only that, but being government jobs, they probably get excellent benefits and don't require them to work very hard. These jobs probably pay well above average. Low skilled government jobs tend to pay far more than equivalent jobs in the private sector in Canada.

A lot of these people are doing labor with a fair degree of skill. Bus drivers, maintenance guys, some janitors and early childhood workers, possibly nurses(not sure if they’re in this union)- all skilled labor.

That's not usually what people mean by skilled labour. Bus drivers, for example, only get a few months training.

Not sure about CA, but all of the "help wanted" signs I'm seeing in the US are advertising bare minimum 16$ an hour, or about 32k a year. That is for starbucks baristas, grocery store stockworkers, etc; if you have any experience, it's probably closer to $18. And I'm not in a city which is particularly high COL (not the lowest, but not like the Bay or NYC either--basically like most growing cities). The average employee making this amount sounds low to me, given recent inflation.

The U.S. is a much richer country than Canada. I have an engineering degree and I make just under $16 USD an hour or about $12 an hour after income tax. This is in a city with a relatively high cost of living.

Also, despite the lower wages, the cost of living is similar to the US.

Huh, so the American factories here in Ireland really are getting cheap labour even though they offer decently paying unskilled jobs by local standards. A barista gets €10.50/hr while factory jobs range from €12.00-16.50/hr.

Yeah but that's a recent change to some degree. Before coronavirus fast food workers in the US weren't making $16/hr outside of very expensive cities. And the Euro was worth more.

You might not be aware of this but the US has over 30% higher GDP per capita than Canada.

40*1.3=52 which is roughly the American average.

I am aware. I took the converted value of 33K, which is the comparison point I was using, at face value, since recently I've seen more people using PPP-adjusted numbers instead of just conversion rates (and which is also better than just using GDP ratio). If that's only adjusted for currency conversion, I don't know off the top of my head what the PPP-adjusted numbers would be, but I think it's closer than GDP alone would indicate.

(Also I think that's quite a bit less than the American average, google says GDP per capita in the US is close to 70k)

Comparing to Sweden, whose numbers I'm very confident in, we get:

American workers compensation of GDP: 76%

Swedish workers compensation of GDP:

78%

It's not all unskilled labour. Some custodial labour is skilled, and there are other roles involved here (like early childcare assistants) that require degrees or specialized education.

I misunderstood what early childcare assistants were. I thought the teachers were called preschool teachers and that the assistants were just that, assistants, an title inflated way to say childcare worker.

Depends a great deal on where you live and what the conditions are. I live in Denver, and I legit have no idea how I would even live on $33k a year. Rent alone would cost 3/4 of my post-tax income! So for someone living here, I'd say no that isn't a good deal at all. For someone living in a small Midwestern town, maybe that's a better deal.

Regardless though, even if they are getting a good deal that doesn't justify using the law like this to say "no, you can't strike and have to take what we give".

I'm not disputing that it's a bad use of the law, I'm objecting to the appeal to emotion in an otherwise interesting post.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats