Jen Butson

3 years ago I was probably the most excited person ever to go to University. Everything about it excited me, and I loved the University of Ottawa. 3 years later…I’m ashamed and appalled to be a student at the University of Ottawa. I attend the Telfer School of Management, which while being a faculty at the University is still segregated from most of the bullshit. But some things, are unavoidable.

In a tweet I happened to see last week, I came across this article from the Ottawa Citizen. As I read it I could quickly feel my heart rate and blood pressure increasing and I felt quite angry, and also quite betrayed…by my own student union. I have blogged many times before about my stance on labour unions…but the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa (SFUO) may take the cake in the category of disgusting.

Some people have said that they do not see a problem with student service groups using their budgets to do something outside of their purpose…but as a student, I see a huge problem with this. Here’s why…

1) Over my 3 years at this school, I have paid countless dollars to participate in ACADEMIC outings, join ACADEMIC clubs, and compete in ACADEMIC competitions. Yet a small group of self-righteous individuals in semi-powerful positions use the money that I PAY outside of other fees to get an EDUCATION to send themselves to Toronto to protest something that only benefits them? (And yes, I am saying that them protesting doesn’t benefit me at all…they didn’t get results, and protesting isn’t the way to get results IMO anyway.) As a part of the Telfer School of Management, we either get company sponsors, or pay the money out of our pockets to pay for transportation…and these are for ACADEMIC purposes. And we win trophies…guess what…THAT is what makes the school look good, and helps everyone.

2) When you look at how many students attend the University of Ottawa, $1000 doesn’t seem like very much to get angry about, but it makes me wonder about all the other expenditures I don’t know about. I think this incident proves that some of the people in the ivory tower making decisions are unqualified, unintelligent, and untrustworthy. The $1000 came out of budgets for student services…so now if your appeal isn’t taken care of, you can’t get a walk home one night when you’re by yourself, or there is a lack of anything within these services…is it because they wasted hundreds of dollars of their allocated budgets? These services are supposed to be there for students…yet a few chosen people decided to take that away from us, for something they obviously thought was worthwhile. Well fuck you very much for thinking you are more important than the student body.

3) Also over my 3 years at this school, I have seen countless dollars being spent on a “Lower Tuition Fees” campaign…I don’t agree with it, because I do believe higher education should cost money or else it will hold lesser value to the ones who work hard to attain it. When I see ANY money being wasted like this $1000 was, or the thousands of dollars spent every year to advocate dropping fees, I want to strangle someone. This thousand dollars was pulled from budgets of student service organizations…the ones that our tuition funds. Guess what geniuses…if you don’t want to pay so much in fees, how about you stop fucking wasting it on your personal bullshit!

If you’ve made it this far in the post…kudos. I felt I had to get all of this off my chest…if you agree, or disagree, please let me know in the comments section.

So you all probably (should) know how I feel about unions, and were probably expecting this post sooner or later. Union strikes anger me. A lot. The union this time around is the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU). The reason for striking is that the LCBO is trying to move towards a more casual work force – this means employing workers who don’t get sick days, vacation, benefits, etc etc. Basically, part-time students. Currently, the LCBO’s work force is made up 57% of casual workers. So the union is striking to try and make this not happen. Umm, I feel the need to point something out…

WE ARE IN A RECESSION. PEOPLE EVERYWHERE ARE LOOKING FOR JOBS! YOU THINK BY NOT GOING TO WORK TO PROVE A POINT THAT YOU ARE GOING TO GET WHAT YOU WANT?!

Unions are like children. They whine and scream and refuse to do things until they get exactly what they want. They are the most spoiled children in the world. I mean, they do get, on average, 41% more pay and benefits than non-unionized workers. Here’s a tip ladies and gentlemen: you are replaceable. This part bugs me:

“Mr. Layton said the LCBO would not hire outside workers in the event of a strike.”

Why the bloody hell not? You need to bust the union and show them who’s boss if you want to accomplish anything. You can’t win here. They won’t let you win. Here’s another gem from the National Post article:

“We won’t stop someone from getting alcohol if a store is open, but we will let customers know what we are fighting for,” he said on Sunday. “We’re going to try to stop the flow of alcohol by talking to the truckers and warehouses, by convincing them to not move the alcohol.”

Haha so basically “We won’t stop you from buying alcohol, but we’ll stop the alcohol from getting to you.” What the hell is your problem? You don’t want people to drink? Then go work at Alcoholics Anonymous and help people that need it.

This rattles me to no end because unions are mindless, undemocratic armies who take hostages and make threats. That is not very Canadian.

Lesson #1: A recession is a natural occurence, more or less, that cannot be fixed easily. Therefore, do not get in a panic and start throwing around money to try and make it better. It most likely will not work.

Lesson #2: If a company is headed in the direction of bankruptcy, let it go. Billions of bailout dollars will not save it. (Exhibit A: German retailer; Exhibit B: GM and Chrysler)

Lesson #3: If you are a company that is not headed in the direction of bankruptcy (i.e. Ford), you will be put at a disadvantage. This is the point I will go further in depth with.

General Motors and Chrysler, though bailed out and bankrupt, have two significant competitive advantages over companies such as Ford – the only one of the big 3 to not receive bailout funds, nor go bankrupt. What are these two advantages?

1. Wiping out their debt – Ford accrued a lot of debt because of the recession as well, but had been planning for a recession and therefore was not in a position of need necessarily. Ford still has this debt to deal with. GM and Chrysler do not. Because of their bankruptcy, they get to start with a clean slate, but under the same name, brand, etc. So after taking billions of government dollars, they get to start over anyway.

2. Union concessions – under the threat of losing their jobs, the CAW union members agreed to concessions in their agreements – namely a decrease in benefits. However, because Ford was not under this same pressure, the union has not agreed to any concessions. Good thing Ford wasn’t dumb enough to offer them as much as GM in the beginning.

The good thing for Ford, is that they still have the public’s trust and their dignity intact. According to the Economist, 70% of taxpayers disagreed with the bailouts. I couldn’t be more proud of Ford…I have been a Ford girl for as long as I can remember and this just makes me love them even more. And also gives me so much more material to smack-talk GM fans with.

They’ve finally done it: filed for Chapter 11 (in the States anyway). It’s been a long time, it’s been dragged out, but it’s finally happened.

Here’s what I think about this event: band-aid solution. Governments threw piles and piles of money at General Motors, hoping to save it (bad idea) without really looking at it. GM would come up with a “plan” to restructure, ask for a few billion, and do the same thing a week later. They have been fighting this bankruptcy for a long time. Now that it’s finally here, it’s doing mainly one thing: eliminating the debt that the old GM holds. GM expects to now rise from the ashes, but I’m stuck wondering how this will work when there has been no major overhaul of the organization. Sure, they’ve trimmed some fat off their workforce (ahem, unions), but it can’t end there. That is where the problems just begin. I can personally see GM falling right back into their old habits without a second thought (these habits being paying their union too much, not researching the market enough, etc.). I found this great graphical representation of the fall of GM from wallstats.com:

I have to note one major thing from the illustration: GM, annually, pays $67 billion ($7 billion in pensions, $60 billion for retired workers) for workers that don’t work. The retirees. This is astronomical. Of course these men and women are entitled to their pensions and benefits, but GM has to take this into account as a serious lesson in business. What’s going to happen when all their current over-paid workers retire? And if they fall back into their own ways with the union, this trend will just continue forever. My suggestion: either get the union to answer to GM, and not vice versa, or bust it out. Honda is so successful because they refuse to deal with unions.

Also, the obvious points: you pay your management too much for being a failing company, and your products don’t meet market demand. You need to fix these to survive.

And that is my rant for the day. All I can say is that if GM does rise from the ashes and succeed, I hope they name their first new vehicle the Phoenix.

…South Korea’s former president, Roh Moo-hyun, jumped off a cliff and killed himself. Well, that’s a good way to get out of an investigation and subsequent charges.

Click here for more info.

Three and a half years ago I wrote an essay for a class on Kim Jong-Il and his antics. His threats to test nukes and the fact that he’s a greedy SOB who isn’t afraid to let his people suffer. Well, he’s baaaaack!

It’s hard to tell if he’s for real or not, but if someone actually has WMD, it doesn’t matter…you shut up and listen. But it’s hard to take this face seriously…

This is how I see it (looking past all the alleged weapons): Kim Jong-Il has been made fun of for his stature, fashion sense, and all around appearance probably his entire life. He wants desperately to be taken seriously, and the only way to do this is to take control of a country, make people suffer so they will ultimately be begging at your feet, and build weapons that could take out a whole continent in a second. Over the past couple years, the world’s eye for the most part has been focused elsewhere. War in Iraq, worldwide recession are a couple topics that come to mind. Kim, I bet, feels forgotten about. He likely did these tests as a little reminder to the world that he’s still here, and he’s tough shit. But like I said…he’s so eccentric it’d be hard to take him seriously. He’s like Stewie from Family Guy. He’s tiny, funny-looking, and people don’t think about him or take him seriously. But he’s after world domination. I wonder what’s on the next episode for Kim Jong-Il…

Let me give you a basic intro to the following story:

Bad Guys: Hospitals all over Ontario

Good Guys: RBC Insurance, Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC)

Victim: Victoria George

The Story (shortened version): Victoria George, 29, is on vacation with her husband and 5 year-old son when she has an asthma related attack. Mexico puts her on life support, but the family wants to fly her back to Canada. Problem. Canadian hospitals “don’t have any intensive care beds” because of the swine flu outbreak (this later turns out to be bullshit…they just don’t want to take her because respiratory illness now translates to H1N1 flu.). RBC Insurance finally finds a bed for this young mother at PRHC, where they fly her (and pay for all of this, btw) so that the family can say goodbye.

Are you kidding me?!

Since when does the healthcare system turn on one of its own? And why should a flu outbreak (which isn’t even as bad or deadly as the annual seasonal flu) that isn’t considered a pandemic (this isn’t SARS people!) be reason enough to put a family through something a million times worse than what they’re already dealing with?

This story puts the healthcare system in disrepute, and makes me sad for our country.

R.I.P. Victoria George

Click here to read more.

Call it what you will, it’s become the world’s greatest fear right now. One of my favourite bloggers created a cloud of things that are scarier than the H1N1 flu, and I felt it necessary to share. Enjoy.

I don’t know how many of you have seen this video:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp76ly2_NoI]

If you haven’t, please watch it first…it really sets the tone for the next video I’m going to show you. Which is this one:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_1bphY5p3w]

Now that you’ve watched the second one…wasn’t that AWESOME?! What an amazing rebuttal to the anti-gay ad. They did this video in the most tastefully hilarious way possible. I just can’t help but love this video. I hope the gay rain army does fall and start marching…or doing a choreographed dance. I bet it would be a good dance, too.

Who knows if it’s because I’m not religious or not, but…I don’t see what the big deal is. Sorry God.