The LCBO can go straight to hell!

The BBQ Pit
21

It has already been established that you don’t “pay for” this service through you taxes. The LCBO brings in more money than it costs; it is a self-sustaining entity that actually provides income for you and the rest of your province, and you pay no more to support it than if it were a private corporation.

Do you get it? The wages of all those employees are paid by the income generated from the sale of alcohol. The only way in which you pay the wages of these employees is through your purchase of alcohol from the stores, which is exactly the same situation as would be the case if the stores were privately run.

And no, your taxes won’t go down while they’re on strike because it’s already been established that your taxes are not necessary for the ongoing operation of the LCBO. In fact, as Muffin’s figures clearly demonstrate, if the Ontario government fired every single LCBO worker and closed down every LCBO outlet tomorrow, the government would lose hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, likely resulting in a tax increase for whiners like you.

Also, to be honest, even if your income taxes, GST, PST, etc. were necessary for the ongoing operation of the LCBO, there’s nothing quite so pathetic as a rant against government workers that uses the words “I pay them…” You’re probably also one of those morons who starts customer service complaints with, “I pay your salary, you know.”

22

mhendo, you apparently work for the unions or the lcbo…I, on the other hand, work in customer service. If the business I work for falls on hard times, I don’t have a job guarantee. I don’t understand why, in this market, anyone would have the nerve to ask for that. What a ridiculous demand.

And, of course, choosing Thursday of a long weekend is just a coicidence.

And, no, I’m not a moron.

23

oh, and yes, my customers in fact do pay my salary.

24

So are you morally required to continue working at that job for the rest of your life?

25

Anyone in customer service should realize that the customers do pay their salary.

26

Well, technically speaking, they don’t. Your employer pays your salary. Your customers make that possible, but they are paying for your products, not for you.

If you want to take ridiculous connections far enough, I could argue that your customer’s employers are paying your salary. If they didn’t pay your customers you wouldn’t get paid, right? Or THEIR customers are. Ultimately you can follow the money through dozens of hands. The direct, immediate and proximate relationship, though, is that your salary is paid by your employer. There’s not even a direct relationship between your pay and the amount of money your customers pay your employer (unless your pay is 100% fixed to gross revenue, and I sincerely doubt that.)

But you didn’t answer my question. Are you morally required to work your job indefinitely? If not, why are you holding the LCBO staff to a different standard than yourself?

27

I don’t understand what point you are trying to make. Morally obligated to a job for the rest of my life?

What can that possibly have to do with being public employees and on strike?

28

Well, I’ve heard it trotted out every time teachers, nurses, or any other public employees go on strike- how dare they? As though we should be able to make them show up and work no matter what the conditions they labor under.

They have the same rights as any other employee- frankly, I think they should have more, because we should hold our public institutions to a higher standard than the private sector. How should they find redress in the case of exploitation?

And this may be an issue of more than job security. As has been pointed out, the LCBO is a profit-making entity, and opening up to the private sector not only endangers those employees jobs, it might actually bring in less revenue to the state. So i can’t see why you wouldn’t support the employees.

Are you against strikes in general? Or only when they are well coordinated enough to have the most impact?

29

I think you guys are arguing apples and oranges here. CanadianGirl is (rightly, in my opinion) upset because the union employees are demanding job security guarantees, which nobody else in the labour force has. No, we’re not morally obligated to work at our jobs forever; what does that have to do with union employees demanding unrealistic job security guarantees?

30

Well, they do seem to have a monopoly, which raks off some people.

31

I don’t disagree with the idea that demanding job security is pretty out to lunch in this day and age. What I think is stupid is her insistance that the fact that they are tax payer funded (except, of course, for the fact that they’re not) has anything to do with it - it’s her sense of entitlement I find laughable.

32

Thanks, Featherlou. You’re right. My employer will not, and rightly so, cannot guarantee my employment. If someone opens a shop next to us, sells the same thing we sell and gives better service, we would be closed and I wouldn’t have a job. We are in a common industry - the idea we promote is better service. Bad service = no customers = no company = no job.

I’m not saying the LCBO gives bad service, in fact, the local one is excellent. Nor am I saying they do not have a place in the community.

What I am saying is, why would, or should, a bunch of employees have job guarantees? Because they can effectively shut down the public if they don’t get what they want?

I’m not against unions; thirty years ago they were very effective in changing horrible working conditions.

What I’m against is expecting the employer to agree to a ridiculous condition.

I have also worked in management with a union…the intimidation and bullying is unacceptable by union stewards and other employees. If an employee chooses to work instead of picket, they should be allowed to. Not treated like a leper when they return to work. Some people simply cannot be without paycheques and it’s unfair to expect them to. Yet, it happens every day. And those who say it doesn’t, have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about.

33

No, actually, i don’t.

I have not made a single comment in this thread about the issue of job guarantees, either for or against the concept.

If you look at my previous post, you’ll see its only purpose was to correct your apparently-wilfull ignorance regarding the financial relationship between the LCBO and the Ontario taxpayer. You keep contending that, as a taxpayer, you are paying the wages of the LCBO employees. But, as has been pointed out more than once, the LCBO is a self-sustaining entity that does not rely on your taxes to remain in operation.

I don’t recall anyone ever asserting that it was.

And yet you keep providing evidence to the contrary.

Well, first of all, as RickJay has already pointed out, your employer pays your salary, and the customers make that possible.

But, even if your customers do pay your salary, it has been my experience in the past that the sort of person who constantly goes around saying “How dare you? I pay your salary!” is a selfish fool who can’t look past his or her own self-interest in any given situation.

Actually, if there’s an apples and oranges argument here, it’s CanadianGirl’s fault. If she had merely complained about the issue of job security, she might have had a reasonable point. Even if i didn’t agree with her, i would have conceded that reasonable people might differ on the issue.

Buy she keeps whining about how her taxes pay for the LCBO, and how her taxes won’t go down during the strike, despite having been repeatedly informed that her taxes are not required for the operation of the LCBO, and that the revenue raised by the LCBO probably actually keeps her taxes down. She can keep whining about this all she likes, but it won’t change the reality of the situation.

34

Eggs-actly.

35

It doesn’t.

  1. Canadiangirl is upset because LCBO employees are on strike.

  2. She ostensibly doesn’t believe they should be on strike, because she is paying their salary.

  3. jacquilynne and others demonstrate that Canadiangirl is not paying their salary; since the LCBO pays for itself, their salaries are not paid out of taxes. (This is the usual meaning of “I’m paying your salary” in this kind of situation).

  4. Canadiangirl continues to insist they are obligated to continue to work, as she is paying their salary.

  5. The only other possible meaning for this is that she is paying their salary by purchasing alcohol at the LCBO.

  6. Since this is the same way any business, public or private, functions, the inference is that since customers’ purchases “pay their salary,” all workers must continue working indefinitely, via (2) above. (After all, how would quitting be any different than going on strike?)

36

Because you’re saying that there’s something wrong with them going on strike since you pay their salary through your taxes. Your words:

That’s silly, of course; it has been explained to you again and again that you don’t pay their salary through your taxes, but hell, let’s assume you do. Since you seem to be saying it’s wrong for them to leave their employment because you pay their salary, doesn’t that apply to you, too? You’d better never quit your job. Your customers are paying you to do that job!

If employees want to strike, who the hell are you to say they shouldn’t? Isn’t this supposed to be a free country? The relationship between the LCBO and its employees is a business relationship; the LCBO gives them money and they give the LCBO time and effort. If the two sides cannot agree on a deal, then they can’t agree on a deal, and I guess the exchange will be off until they do.

As for the issue of job security, give me a fucking break. LOTS of unions negotiate job permanence; guarantees of no layoffs are a frequent negotiating point in labor negotiations. What’s wrong with that? If the LCBO employees can get it, I say good for them. Everyone wants job security; what’s wrong with seeing if you can get it?

37

The LCBO is not your average business. It is, in fact, an agency of the provincial government. It reports to a government agency, and its dividends go directly to the government of Ontario. By law, they have a monopoly on the products they sell.

Yes, the dividends (profit) made by the LCBO helps to reduce my taxes. But I pay more for booze than I would if there was competition, so it’s not a given that overall I’m better off financially. It’s not hard to make a good profit when you have no competition and can charge whatever you want for your product.

So CanadianGirl isn’t really wrong in saying ‘part of my taxes pays them’. Indirectly, because it a government sponsored monopoly, she is right.

38

The strike has been averted. Please return to your normal discussions.

Thank you.

Registration required.

39

AWWwwwww.

Well, Telus is still on a vicious strike/walk-out/lock-out.

40

This is not generally thought to be true about the LCBO. It has such massive buying power for liquor products that it demands, and gets, very low prices from suppliers around the world, thus making the costs you pay for a product at LCBO fairly competitive to what it would be if private competitors drove prices down to minimal levels of profitability - the new competitors would make less money, and the suppliers would make more, but the prices would remain fairly static.