Whatever happened to Lackie Brothers?

I served time at the Lackie Brothers shop in Kitchener back in the day.

We were in the International Brotherhood of Iron-workers, Shopmen's Division.

That "Shopmen's Division" was often referred to as the "n-word Division," although at the time, folks actually said the word.

Not that there were any people of colour in the shop, but we considered ourselves n-words because we got about half the hourly rate of the glamour guys who went out on the high steel.

Lackie Brothers was a going concern, and they had big contracts moving machinery into the Bruce Nuclear complex near Tiverton. They did all kinds of millwrighting work and machinery moving. It was actually not a bad gig.

They had a few old Germans on the shop floor. These were guys who learned the trade in the old country. They also learned subservience to authority in the old country. I saw an old dude in tears because he'd asked for time off to attend his grand-daughter's birthday party, and was told no.

Anybody brought up here wouldn't even think about asking permission. You'd just call in sick.

The shop steward was an affable dude. He had a cream job building the heavy-haul floats that Lackie Brothers built in-house. He'd be hours with the rose-bud on those I-beams trying to get the right arc into them. At the time, that was more art than science, and you could pretty much fandangle the process out indefinitely. So Buddy the union boss wrote his own overtime ticket and made out like a bandit.

Which probably made him less than enthusiastic when I came whining about an outside guy working in the shop.

They needed some columns for a project ASAP, and sent a Ironworker from the job site to get the job done. I'm welding the connector plates to one end, and the outside guy is welding them to the other end.

The "Shopmens Local" Ironworker is welding his end of the column for $12/hr.

The regular Ironworker at the other end of the column is doing the same job for $20/hr.

Anyway, it was a decent gig. But they seem to be gone...

Whatever happened to Lackie Brothers?

Why Kevin O'Leary is not the Donald J. Trump of the Great White North

There will definitely be a few Canadian voters who will be cheered by the news that Kevin O'Leary intends to take a run at the leadership of the Conservative Party.

Starting tomorrow. The reason he's starting tomorrow is because the all-candidates French language leadership debate is today, and O'Leary doesn't speak enough French to order a plate of poutine in Rimouski... at least not in French! So a French language debate is obviously out.

There are admittedly some cogent similarities between the two reality TV stars. They're both given to talking a lot of stupid shit, for example. But even then there's a difference. Trump's stupid shit generally finds a bigly amount of traction with a yuge swath of the electorate.

O'Leary's stupid shit just sounds like stupid shit.

Take O'Leary's many pronouncements on unions, for example. O'Leary doesn't have any use for unions. They're obviously a serious impediment to the meritocracy that he imagines is waiting for him to graciously accept its leadership mantle.

Trump has worked with the most powerful unions in the New York City construction scene all his life, but you never hear him dissing unions. Working class voters take note of these things.

Then there's that personal net worth thing. Both these guys play wealthy investors on TV. Only one of them keeps his own fleet of private aircraft. The other one flies commercial.

There's also the matter of how they deal with adversity. When O'Leary's business empire hit rough waters, he sold a controlling interest to Bain Capital, Mittens' company. When Trump has been faced with adversity in his business career he rolls up his sleeves, sits down face to face with the biggest banks in America, and walks away having got the better of them.

People respect that.

Ken Lewenza's resignation can only mean good things for Canadian workers

There is a new generation coming up, a generation that has $40,000 or more in student loans for that university degree that they don't really need for their minimum wage job at the mall.

Ken and the major unions and the national labour groups have all failed that cohort.

Ken was an old school organized-labour guy. He doesn't get the kids at the mall.

They are the future of organized labour, because they are smart enough and educated enough to see that things don't need to be the way they are.

What a tragedy that the leaders of organized labour can't see that.