DEMOCRACY IN THE WORKPLACE

While as a general rule I would suggest that the likelihood of democracy in the workplace is somewhere between slim to nil. There are of course exceptions to every rule. A strong union will have contract language that not only covers working conditions, wages, benefits etc. but also stipulates a working environment that frowns upon favourtism, nepotism, harassment, intimidation and more importantly than all the others, abuse of authority. Abuse of authority is essentially what far too many Canadian businesses are all about. Sure senior managers and owners want money but once you've got that it's all about respect to the point of deference from your underlings. Brown nosing, ass kissing and deference on all matters, business related or otherwise, is not preferred; it is demanded.

Smart business owners of course prefer to attract and keep the best help possible whether or not the jobs they provide are particularly technical, complicated or demanding of high education. They simply know that the nastier and pettier they treat their employees the more likely the better ones will find something else and the dumber, lazier, less caring but more tolerant of abuse employees will stay. Here in Ontario at least we have lots of dumb employers.

Then we have the Ontario Ministry of Labour. I refer to them as the Larry of the Three Stooges. The Ministry of Transport are Curly and then the Ministry of Environment (MOE) are of course MOE. The MOE are mandated to participate in public consultation. This occurs mostly in cases of local contaminated industrial sites. It is of course a sham. In Cambridge we had a citizens' committee with Ciba-Geigy and Canadian General Tower (CGT). Northstar Aerospace may also have had a company led committee. Here in Elmira we have had a very good CAP (Citizens Advisory Panel) at Sulco (Canada Colours). That was however due to the excellent behaviour and ethics of the company involved. They seriously embraced the ethics of both public consultation and of *Responsible Care. The Varnicolour Chemical Liason Committee was good but that was exactly zero thanks to the Ontario MOE who did everything in their power to minimize, deflect and coverup the true seriousness of the Varnicolor situation.

As long as we have a mickey mouse, underfunded and overworked Min. of labour it will function no better than the MOE. All the rules, regulations and laws in the world are useless if the enforcing agency are incompetent or overwhelmed. Much of that, similar to the MOE, is done intentionally at the provincial cabinet level. Thus if you are a non-union employee in a company with little or no ethics etc. you will certainly never find anything even remotely approaching democracy in the workplace. Refer back to the first paragraph to see how they operate.