Now what?

Another damp and rainy day.  A very few picketers showed up, with whoever Captain Crazypants v3.0 is, now that Captain Crazypants v2.0 is away for a while.  They didn't follow their usual schedule, showing up late and blocking the replacement workers, looking rather ridiculous, standing in the rain, eating take-out while blocking the vehicle.

Then they hung about, sitting on our raised bed garden.  Some members have noted that they've been sitting on the flowers, too, damaging some of the plants.  This is a garden bed that is shared by several people, who buy the transplants themselves and tend to them as they are able, when the picketers aren't around to get in the way and harass them.  Of course, the picketers don't give a rip.

While they are busily damaging our flowers and raised bed, they are also blaming us for a flat tire.  They have a rental van that's been sitting on our street since before the strike started.  They only move it back and forth often enough to not get towed.  Now it has a flat tire, and they are claiming someone in Artspace of doing it.  Sorry, but we'd like nothing more than for that van to be gone and no longer taking up precious parking space.  Why would we do something that would prevent that from happening?  Perhaps they should look at whomever among the picketers was using the tires as ashtrays.  Considering the other damage on the vehicle, like the Duct Tape reside from the signs they attached to the mirror, they don't respect property they're actually paying for any more than they respect Artspace private property.

They stayed through the 4 hour period they normally leave for "lunch", then left shortly after the time they normally would have been coming back.  It may have been for a much shorter time, but that didn't stop them from being a nuisance, with their hollering at people and using the bulb horn.  Most amusing of all was seeing several of them twitching about.  At first, it seemed they were once again mocking some of our disabled members by pretending to have spasms, but it turned out they were "dancing" to the incessant honking of the horn.  Except that they kept twitching even when the person honking the horn stopped for a while, so maybe it was spasms, after all.

As for news, we have none.  The person who told me negotiations on Thursday had been cancelled was wrong.  SAIL reps have done the best they can.  Now, it's a waiting game.  Will the mediator recognise that SAIL cannot meet AUPE's demands and still remain solvent?  Or will it be politics and kowtowing to AUPE's bullying tactics?

We shall see.

Meanwhile, we still have to deal with AUPE's threats of escalation and retaliation against Artspace members if they don't get their way.