How to tell your neighbour reads the National Post

This page was attacked in his own home yesterday. More to the point, this page, and Walnut Boat were attacked by their anti-union neighbour, who ironically, works for a financial institution which enjoys a positive reputation among Unions in British Columbia. For reasons unknown to us, she decided we were appropriate targets for her to spew her imagined superiority and vitrol towards the members of CUPE Locals 1004 and 15, despite the fact that she is well aware that both Walnut Boat and this page are also members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

For your consideration, this page is in the process of drafting a response:

Dear Neighbour,

The Labour Movement lives by a creed that was first spread by the Industrial Workers of the World at the turn of the last century "An Injury to One is an Injury to All". When you insulted the members of CUPE Locals 1004 and 15, you insulted every member of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, and that includes Walnut Boat and me. You are not a member of our Union and you do not have the right to cast judgement on our Union's bargaining proposals. Bargaining proposals are established in consulation with rank-and-file union members like Walnut Boat and me, and are researched according to the needs of our members and the employer's ability to pay. They are NOT based on what you made at a job sometime in the past and how you had to 'suck it up': it's not CUPE or anyone who supports us who needs a lesson in 'reality' - it's you.

I am extremely disgusted and angry that someone like you who gets a six-figure bonus and yet has complained openly about the cost of living and buying a home in Vancouver actually begrudges someone asking for a 3% wage increase. City of Vancouver workers' previous contract had increases of zero, zero, and one per cent. The City is running a surplus (at least until the 2010 Olympics and the RAV line bankrupt them), and yet they are demanding concessions in their workers' pensions and health care benefits. You have spoken to Walnut Boat and this page at great length about how hard you have worked and how much you've sacrificed to get where you are today, and those tirades leave three questions which are begging to be asked:

1. Do you really feel you're the only person who has worked hard to get where they are today?

2. Do you really believe that hard work and education automatically entitle someone to a better position in life? Is it not possible that issues of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, political belief, economic opportunity, or geographic location might factor into whether or not someone succeeds?

3. Do you think being in a 'superior' position gives you the right to look down on and disparage workers who organize to mitigate those disadvantage and improve their own position?

Another creed union workers live by is "What we want for ourselves, we want for all." You made it quite clear yesterday you don't share that view: you said that CUPE 1004 members don't have the "right" to ask for 3%. In case you missed it, last month the Supreme Court of Canada ruled against the BC Liberal Government in the Bill 29 case, where the government wiped out the binding contract provisions (and jobs) of my friends and co-workers who were members of the Hospital Employees Union. The court stated that Collective Bargaining is a RIGHT guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights of Freedoms.

Please be advised that until you can absorb these facts and discuss them without selfishiness, petty jealously or imposing your personal issues, you should not consider yourself our neighbour, but just another fascist we have to put up with.

Sincerely,

Ursa Minor