TriumphAnt

Why do they call it a “job action” when nobody’s on the job?

If I haven’t made it apparent already, let me do so now: I am no great fan of my labour union, despite my being a (now card-carrying**) member.

Recently I have been trying to find answers to some pretty basic questions, such as “What are my rights during a strike?” vs “What are my obligations during a strike?” In other words, do I have any choices? But I haven’t even been able to discover the name of my union representative at work, and not for lack of trying.

So I went to the PSAC website and there I ran into this paragraph that leads the information they have posted about the present and impending state of labour unrest. (“CRA” is the Customs and Revenue Agency, the second group of PSAC members now in a legal strike position. Parks Canada employees were the first. Mine, apparently, is the largest. We are collectively – and cumbersomely – called the “Treasury Board Table 1 – Program and Administration Services” group.)

“Summer is about over and it's being overtaken by the strike season. The primary sport for this season is picketing and we're ready for it. Our CRA members have been limbering up with some rotational exercises while our Parks members are pitching management some strategic curves. You can keep your summer sports. Just call us the boys and girls of autumn.”

How can you possibly respect an official organization that takes a threatened nationwide work stoppage that will put some 150,000 of its “boys and girls” on short wages, and treats it as if it were a warm-up to another episode of Richard Simmons’ “Sweatin’ to the Oldies”?

In fact the more I read about my union, the more I believe they are devoting much of their energy trying to avoid circulating useful information. Even the titles of the documents prepared for each side’s position at the starting line are revealing. The Union’s is entitled “Bargaining Demands” and the Government’s, “Employer Proposals”. Sure sounds like the basis for a “Win / Win” outcome to me!

Recently, I accidentally happened to pass a poster on the way to my bank that advised that PSAC workers on strike will receive no strike pay unless you have a PSAC i.d. number. Despite the fact that a sizeable chunk of my gross pay every two weeks is deducted as “union dues”, a colleague recently told me that does not mean I am a member of the union. The deduction is because all employees receive the benefits and entitlements won by the union and so all employees pay to support the union. However, to become a PSAC member, he said, you have to pro-actively apply to join.

Fair enough, but it bothers me that I found that out only serendipitously. None of this information has ever been given to me by the union. By my union.

As I mentioned above, PSAC does have a website, However, when I finally scrolled several screens into it to try to find out how to join, I discovered, in fact, that the “How to Join” information they post has nothing whatsoever to do with individual membership. Its sole purpose is to appeal to local collectives of workers who are not yet unionized. PSAC, one reads, will be more than happy to help you “organize”.

At the “Reg corn roast”, dismally attended despite its being located amid four enormous towers of government offices, I cornered one of several people in orange vests labelled “NEGOTIATE NOW!” to ask how to get my PSAC i.d. She pointed to another orange-vested person who, she said, would know. She (the second orange vest) did indeed give me a name and phone number. Back in my own office, when I called I encountered a recording that announced the PSAC office “will be closed on July 7th” (this was September 13th). I’m not really optimistic that this latest phone number will lead me anywhere helpful.

However, I did pick up a lovely songbook at the Reg-roast. Now, at least, I can buttress my meagre “Solidarity Forever” repertoire with such toe-tappers as “So loosen up those purse strings” (to the tune of “Lili Marlene”); “Come and sit at the table to bargain” (to the tune of “Red River Valley”); “These parks are your parks” (a Parks Canada-specific ditty sung to the tune of, of course, “This Land is Your Land”); “We Want You, Reggie” (to the tune of Bye Bye Birdie’s “We Love You, Conrad”); and “What shall we do with a 2% offer?” (to the tune of “What shall we do with a drunken sailor?”). Joan Baez it definitely ain’t.

** Disingenuousness-avoidance update 1: In the brief interim since I first put the preceding observations down, a few things have happened. In the absence of any contact from PSAC, I paid a personal visit to their office and a very helpful person there confirmed that, yes, I do have a number, but that nonetheless yes, I do indeed have to actively take one further step – applying – before being considered a member of the union. So I applied. Barely a day later, I was told by phone that my application has cleared its processing and my union card is en route to my home. Oddly enough, I then received, over a span of about two hours, three separate calls from three different PSAC people to tell me that my application had been processed and that I would receive my card in the mail very soon.

** Disingenuousness-avoidance update 2: Better and better. I have also just found out that, despite being a member of PSAC, my “local” is apparently something called the Canada Employment and Immigration Union (CIEU). (No I don’t know why!) They have a much more informative website that admittedly still smacks of the “Isn’t this great sport, pip pip old toff?” mentality around its strike information, but at least they have strike information, including the most recent circumstances about the latest offers / counteroffers. But again, this information came to me from one of my co-workers who set out on his own to try to find more information. It did not come from PSAC.

(Oh, and if you’re wide awake at 3 am and bordering on the desolate in your search for something soporific, you might consider: http://www.ceiu-seic.ca/index.cfm?wtm_language=0 That’d be the cyber-home for my many new brothers and sisters.)

I have since also found an even more thorough information sheet provided by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) for its members – who are also “Table 1”. CIDA’s labour organizers make it pretty clear where they stand with respect to those who might consider choosing to work through a strike, instead of joining the walkout:

“Strike-breakers – also known as scabs – are either people contracted by the employer to replace strikers, or members of PSAC who choose not to respect picket lines for personal reasons that seem worthwhile to them. In crossing a picket line, strike-breakers would expose themselves to consequences that would be immediately evident, such as losing the respect of colleagues.”

But then the iron fist is pulled from the velvet glove as the notice goes on to spell out consequences considerably more dire than simply losing respect, including “taking scabs to small-claims court to recover a significant proportion of the salary that they earned during strike days”.

What was it Bette Davis said in “All About Eve”? – Oh yes, “Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”

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Big Brother is watching me… recently I bought a greeting card in Chapters to use as a vehicle to carry some mailed photos and greetings to Hikana. While she had stayed with us, she had been quite taken with our three cats and they, in turn, had been very affectionate to her. So the card I bought was blank inside, but was fronted by a meltingly “Aw shucks” colour photo of two dozing kittens.

When I got to the cash register, the young woman behind the counter asked me if I had a Chapters Club card. I do, indeed, but I replied to her that I understood Chapters only offered the Club card discounts on books.

Her reply? “That’s right, but we like to keep track of your purchases and someday they might send you a coupon for something.”

So, being a Canadian, I happily handed my card over and received a receipt that included a printed notification that, owing to my purchase of a “Two Sleepy Kitties” greeting card, one had been deducted from the store’s inventory.

Now, the vast majority of my Chapters purchases tend to be weighted heavily towards books, non-fiction and military history specifically. And in light of the most recent addition to my tracked purchases, I’m thinking what fun it’s going to be when their inventory control does a compilation when next my coupon eligibility window opens up: “A Few Bloody Noses: The American War of Independence”; “Diaries of the Zulu War: There was Awful Slaughter”; “On Many a Bloody Field: Four Years in the Iron Brigade”; “Bloody Roads South: The Wilderness to Cold Harbor”; “The Hell They Called High Wood: The Somme 1916”; “Utmost Savagery: The Three Days of Tarawa”; “War Machine: The Rationalization of Slaughter in the Modern Age”; “Defining the Horrific: Readings on Genocide and Holocaust in the 20th Century”; “Two Sleepy Kitties”…

ALARM! ALARM! Ah –OOOO – GAH! (“Hello... uh, sir? We think that someone might have stolen your Chapters Club card…”)

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A self-edit.

In a not-so-long ago entry, I wrote: “So today, as I walked across the bridge dividing Ontario from Quebec…”

Rivers divide. Bridges link. Sorry about that.