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June 04, 2006
CUPEd
The infamous CUPE’ Ontario branch (or is it family or chapter) is wrong.
The main reason has nothing to do with Israel (and nobody should pay any attention to one more small pooch joining the pack of barking dogs or CUPE’ petty cash they want to withdraw (not sure that they actually invested something) to make a better investment (oil in Sudan? Human organs harvesting in China? Drug trafficking in Colombia?).
The main reason is that CUPE is a trade union with the mandatory membership. I strongly believe that the mere existence of such organizations is a violation of the freedom of associations because it does not allow to the dissatisfied members leave this organization or to organize their own.
However in this case CUPE involving itself in politics becomes also a political party, like NDP, Communist Party or Heritage Front of Canada or at least a lobby group - like PETA or Islamic Congress and membership in political parties or lobby groups in democratic countries should not be mandatory. So CUPE Ontario status as trade union should be challenged: no more mandatory membership, negotiation with the administration power and no more tax deductable duties.
At least it should be done with respect to our TAs or PostDoctoral Fellows. Nobody should force decent people (and the most of them are) to join the gang lead by the bunch of bigots.