Rather than admit that trying to stage concerts behind a picket line at the Orpheum was a bad idea, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra is citing 'union intimidation' as its rationale for cancelling its upcoming shows. Either Bramwell Tovey and the VSO board are overreacting to a single isolated incident at last Saturday's Sarah Chang concert (which happened to involve a single CUPE Local 15 member) which has yet to be heard before the courts, or they really do believe that striking workers exercising their democratic right to picket their employer constitutes a 'threat'.
This page hopes that for a serious crescendo of blowback to the VSO's exercise in class warfare. Already some union members who regularly go to the symphony are telling the VSO that after being branded a 'threat', they will be taking their entertainment dollar elsewhere. Note to CUPE 2950 member Bill Pollard (who's interviewed in the linked story): I don't know how much you know about your own Local, but did you think of mentioning that the VSO could have moved their shows to the Chan Centre at UBC, where your own members work?
Cancelling the concerts only plays up to the West Side, NPA-voting, blue-haired season ticket base who are aghast about rubbing up against the ghastly hoi polloi who take their tickets and serve their drinks outside the Orpheum's front door. How dare they publicly state they have a right to their dignity and some of this province's apparent prosperity! It's not 'union intimidation', it's trying to intimidate the union by sucking up to their City Hall landlord and scapegoating CUPE in the media.
Maybe Mr. Pollard could join this page in taking out a restraining order against the VSO. At the least, the VSO should be barred from playing the Battle Hymn of the Republic, i.e. 'Solidarity Forever' or Aaron Copeland's Fanfare for the Common Man again.
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