The point is clear: the state is stagnated by a bureaucracy that prevents it from scratching its butt without sending the right form to the right fax number.
Published at 2:10 am. Updated at 5:00 am.
There are a million examples of government structures that lack the agility tag. No, in healthcare, education and SAAQ, the user is not at the center of the proverbial priorities: the priority is respecting the little boxes on the forms. Procedure in front of people.
As I said, the state is ineffective in providing services. A thousand reforms under successive governments have attempted to curb this evil. Good luck to anyone who wants to bring some agility to this.
Can we talk about unions now?
Absolutely ridiculous things happened recently in the Autonomous Education Federation (FAE) unions when local unions had to ask their members to vote on the agreement reached with the government.
In Montreal, the virtual meeting (via Zoom) lasted… nine hours!
In Outaouais, the virtual meeting lasted… seven hours!
That of the Basses-Laurentides, Wednesday: eight o'clock!
The virtual meeting of the Montreal Teachers' Alliance began at 5 p.m., after a day of teacher work. Only those who attended the entire virtual session were able to vote…
And it took two hours (!) until… the agenda was approved. Then the meeting could finally begin… at a snail's pace. Several teachers told me that they fell asleep before the vote, which they ultimately missed. Others, exhausted, unable to spend a sleepless night, unplug and forego exercising their right to vote…
Voting started just after 1:30am!
In Outaouais, the local union was somewhat more effective than that of the comrades in Montreal: around midnight, union members were finally able to vote.
Message from a disgruntled Basses-Laurentides union member who wrote to me on Thursday to denounce the river meeting: “I left before the vote. It was my last union meeting. »
The FAE union of Basses Laurentides teachers has 5,259 members. Of these, 1,896 union members voted. Hundreds of people attending the virtual meeting tuned out before the vote.
We might think that union leaders are extending meetings to ensure that the angriest of their members are over-represented at the end of the evening. Perhaps. Student democracy – the first cousin of trade union democracy – specializes in this, particularly at UQAM.
But I don't want to assume anyone's intentions. I'm just saying that unions are not children of unicorns and that where there are comrades, there can be masculinity. The expression “packing an assembly” doesn’t exist for nothing.
The evil is somewhere else anyway. I simply do not understand that union “democracy” forces comrades to attend endless meetings (or not) in order to obtain the right to vote.
When I vote in local, provincial or federal elections, no one asks me to prove that I have actually read the manifestos of all parties. Nobody is asking me to prove that I followed the debates of all the heads of state and government.
Then I put myself on the voter list… I vote. Point.
It's radical, isn't it?
But this is how democracy works in cities, provinces and the countryside. And elsewhere in the world.
I add: When we vote in local, provincial or federal elections, everyone votes blindly without reading the results in any part of the city. The FAE teachers are currently voting and know what other comrades in other local sections have voted.
Question: Why would a union in 2024 accept an outdated framework that creates the conditions that allow seven, eight or nine hour meetings that extend into the night?
Why doesn't a union in 2024 just send the agreements to its members saying: “We'll vote in five days, if you have any questions: write to us, call us, visit us at the local union, consult our.” Statements on the website or connect to the Zoom that will take place the day after tomorrow from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m.?
I'll try this answer: Because the unions are no more agile than the boss, it just seems less. It is clear that this Soviet “democratic” process suits the unions.
I will laugh if they criticize the heavy-handedness of the employer state: there is nothing to suggest that they would do better.