Labourtalk

Speaking about remembering the past and moving on…. I Googled my name and found yet another new thread about me on Labourtalk. Can’t they find anything better to talk about? After all, I am very insignificant. Just a little drummer boy. Regardless, I have two points about the past as I move on into the future.

Labourtalk was an anti-union forum Darren Entwistle bragged about claiming it represented what the members felt about the Union. Not so. There were by far in the minority: http://www.darrenentwistle.com/twu/vanrat.htm

John Doe doesn’t work for TELUS any more though his father is still management. JD said some pretty funny things trash talking TELUS after he left whilst anonymously moderating a forum designed to break the Union.

Crazy Tracy never worked for TELUS but her husband did. Her anti union passion can be frightening. Although she clearly does have good qualities on other issues, as far as the union breaking quest goes it reminds me of a Martin Luther King quote: "It is still one of the tragedies of human history that the children of darkness are frequently more determined and zealous than the children of light."

I believe banning all unions is wrong. It reminds me of pastor Niemöller’s poem: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Martin_Niem%C3%B6ller

Yet Labourtalk has every right to exist. They have every right to ban me for truthfully answering their question as to who we say the moderators of that site are. I have never threatened them with anything but legal action. I wish no harm upon them or their families yet I have no desire to participate in their forum.

The Right claims I’m all about the Left and all about Unions no matter what. Not so. The Left claims I’m all about the Right and promoting a neo conservative agenda. Not at all. I believe in balance. I believe everyone has something to offer. I believe there is good and bad on the left and the right and that offends both.

I am not a member of a trade union any more and I have no desire to organize my work place because I am happy with my employer. Having said that I firmly believe TELUS and Canada Post both need a union because of their obsession for profits above people. They need a union to maintain a royal opposition to their extreme agenda which I believe is bad for Canadians and bad for the economy.

My Case at Canada Post

Labourtalk posted a CUPW Bulletin that cited my case in a very incomplete manner and just to set the record straight, I will. I hesitate because I really rather not talk about it but I will one last time. I really enjoyed working for Canada Post. I thought it was a great job.

I really got frustrated when people would destroy a great job just because they can or just because they wanted to advance their own position on the corporate or union ladder with no regard for anyone else. That really made me angry.

The CUPW Bulletin sets my case up as a model and says na na na na boo boo. Ya play with fire, you’re gonna get burned. The Labour board basically said the Union owns my grievance and can withdraw any grievance for any reason at any time irregardless of how that might affect a member or members. I believe that is inherently wrong.

The government doesn’t like to get involved in the administration of a trade union. I was told going into my complaint that I had a 1% chance of winning a failure to represent simply because regardless of the merits of the case, the union owns the grievance.

That is why I pushed for the grievance to proceed. I knew I didn’t have a chance with the labour board. John Bail and Pat Bertrand said in the beginning my grievance didn’t have a chance. I smiled and said everything has a chance. They however, were not prepared to give me that chance and refused to refer the grievance to arbitration.

I went over their head and National referred the grievance without them. John Bail was shocked and slighted. It then became his campaign to prove the grievance wrong to save face. What a petty life. He is Pee Wee Herman.

The bulletin and the legal opinion Pee Wee paid for to argue his position not mine made reference to new information not disclosed at the onset of the grievance which made the grievance not winnable. Yet John and Pat both said my grievance was not winnable from day one. That is why they refused to refer it to arbitration in the first place.

So their own legal opinion they paid for proved them wrong. Their legal opinion said my grievance did have a chance when they passionately refused to admit that. I know Stan. I’ve worked with him before. He is good and he is smart. John Bail is neither. Stan did what John asked him to do. We are being sued, write a legal opinion that covers our ass. I submit that Stan’s legal opinion was biased and if he had been asked to write a report arguing my case he would have. Stan is Praetorian.

The corporation got an order to seize my home computer and national panicked. The evidence on my computer would have saved my case not destroyed it. It would have shown private E-mail from John Bail as well as private e-mail from National officers connecting my web site to the Unions’ Operation Transparency campaign. National didn’t want that information to get out so they let Pee Wee Herman proceed against me.

Operation Transparency was a Union campaign of civil disobedience calling for more transparency from the CEO of Canada Post as her behind closed doors slash and burn tactics were destroying the company just like she did at Bombardier and CN. They called upon the members to flood Moya Greene with letters demanding she come clean and show the deregulation plans and had intricate events planned to promote that cause.

Anyways, yes I am an idiot and yes I am better off working for a different company that doesn’t have hemorrhoids. However, I did have a chance when John Bail refused to refer my grievance to arbitration and the labour board’s position of letting the union withdraw any grievance at any time for any reason is just plain wrong. Nevertheless, life goes on and I’m still pursuing higher ground. On ne pas jetable.