Not normal

Artspace members have had to put up with a lot of abuse for the past 13 weeks.

Yes, it's been that long.

One of the excuses given to justify the behaviour, and for nothing to be done about it, is that this is somehow "normal."  This is how all strikes are.

Let's forget for a moment the problem of their not picketing the employer's place of business in the first place.

That would be here.

Not here.

Nor under a tree in front of the townhouses.

Nor on people's front steps.

For just a moment, let's set aside that they are picketing private homes and people who have nothing to do with the employer, SAIL.

Let's just look at picketer behaviour.

Because there are rules about what picketer behaviour is supposed to be.

There are specific regulations for picketing.

III. PICKETING
Once a lawful strike or lockout is in progress, the Code allows persons to engage in picketing and to try to persuade others not to enter the employer's place of business or do business with the employer. See: Section 84(1).
The right to picket in connection with a labour dispute is subject to the following conditions:

· it must be peaceful;
· it must take place only at the striking or locked-out employees' place of employment;
· it must not involve acts that are otherwise unlawful.
The Board has the power under section 84 of the Code to regulate lawful picketing. It will do so where necessary to maintain the lawful character of the picketing and preserve the peace. The parties may themselves reach agreement on picketing protocols. See: Section 84(2)(b), (3), (4); Cargill Foods v. UFCW Local 1118 [1997] Alta.L.R.B. LR-025.

There are rules about misconduct, too.  The definition of "dispute related misconduct", according to Labour Relations is:

... a course of conduct of incitement, intimidation, coercion, undue influence, provocation, infiltration or any similar course of conduct intended to prevent, interfere with or break up lawful activities likely to induce a breach of the peace in respect of a strike or lockout.

AUPE has openly stated that their behaviour, including the use of noise, is SOP, even at senior's residences, therefore they think we shouldn't complain that they are doing to us.  Because apparently, seniors haven't complained.

Basically, they admit to abusing old people as a normal course of action, and used that to justify abusing Artspace members.

How utterly reprehensible.

One thing needs to be very clear.

This behaviour may be common picketer actions.

But it is NOT normal.

Normal people don't behave this way.

Normal people don't stand around, swearing, taunting people on their balconies, harassing people trying to go in and out of their homes, using bull horns, air raid sirens, horns, and other noise makers, for hours at a time, day after day, week after week.

They don't go up to windows of vehicles and hurl verbal abuse at the people inside.  They don't interfere with people who are just trying to go about their business, in their own homes.

They don't target little kids, say nasty things about their moms, push petitions on them, or try to lure them with ice cream.

Normal people do not target individuals, picking and choosing their victims, trying to play people against each other, and generally being a$$holes, to put it mildly.

Normal people certainly don't deliberately target individual with visible disabilities.  People they know have PTSD.  People they know are living with brain injuries, MS, CP and various other challenges.

Normal people do not take such obvious pleasure in hurting the vulnerable.  The elderly.  Children.

This is not the behaviour of normal people.

This is the behaviour of abusive people.

Nasty people.

Vicious people.

Cowardly people.

It has been clear pretty much from the beginning - and by that, I mean right from when the SAIL staff was told that AUPE intended to strike should they vote to join the union - that this labour dispute has never been about SAIL.  They are simply using the care staff, SAIL and Artspace in some other battle.

It's been about AUPE control.  AUPE power.

That our care staff has so eagerly allowed themselves to be dragged into this, knowing that it would hurt the people they claim to care so much for (except on the picket line, where they instead yelled out about how embarrassing it was to care for the "fat cripples", and where they openly taunt people who can't even talk back to them), is particularly disturbing.

Or to hear them and the picketers calling people n****rs.

... to order women to bring them water or cook them supper.

... to tell people they should "go back to their country."

... to call people garbage

... tell them that they should kill themselves

... say that their mothers should have killed them when they were born.

... threaten that they are going to "take you out."




Artspace is an intentional community.

We may have little in common anywhere else - we have different ethnicities, religions, histories, political opinions, personal interests and so on - but there is one thing we have in common.

We chose to be part of this community, and the community chose us.

For all our differences, we care about our community.  We care about our fellow members.

So when we see people who have been an integral part of our community, some for more than 10 years, suddenly out on the picket line, engaging in verbal abuse, intimidation, racism, sexism and able-ism and other forms of misconduct on the picket line, it was quite the betrayal.

Artspace members fought hard to have an in-house care company.

Artspace members fought hard to be able to decide who would be allowed into their homes to provide care for those who needed it.  To decide who our care workers would be.  Who they could trust.

When the AHS contract was in danger of being lost, Artspace members fought hard to save the jobs of those care workers.

What sort of brainwashing does it take to completely destroy any sense of empathy, any shred of civilized behaviour, to betray those who had been so loyal to them, and fought so hard for them, and return that loyalty with such abuse?

No one has ever tried to deny them the right to join a union, no matter how unwise we may have thought it was.

No one has ever tried to deny them the right to strike.

What we expected, however, was for the picketers to engage in proper picketing behaviour.  We would even have been willing to allow the picketers to do so on private property, in front of the actual place of employment, the SAIL office.  It's a lovely area, with plenty of grass and shade.  I don't know about my fellow members, but I sure most would have been okay with them putting up a shelter tent and their table of Timmies.

They could have picketed, properly, to their heart's content.

And many would have supported them, even if they disagreed with them.

Had they done so, there never would have been a reason to create this blog.

Instead, they engaged in abuse behaviour and blatant misconduct, as defined by the labour code, from the very first day.

And when we complain, we are told this is "normal."

No, it isn't.

What none of us can understand is, how anyone can behave this way and think it's okay?

How can anyone behave this way and not be ashamed of themselves?

How can supposed "care" workers engage in this sort of abuse, then go home like nothing happened.

How can they live with themselves?

Can they even look at themselves in the mirror and not be disgusted by what they have become?

This is not normal behaviour.

It is psychotic behaviour.  Abusive behaviour.  Sociopathic behaviour.

It has never, ever, been "normal."