As the Herd Turns

The last few days have been eventful; details will be posted in good time.

For now, we have been having to put up with the Hive Cluster increasing their abusive behaviour, while at the same time accusing Artspace members and SAIL of the very behaviours they are engaging in.

Honestly, you'd think they'd at least have enough creativity to come up with their own descriptions, rather than parroting this blog.

They are blocking pretty much everyone, as they had threatened to do, regardless of whether of not the people they are blocking have anything to do with SAIL - you know, the actual employers, with a place of employment they have never picketed.  They've expanded their "not a picket line" territory to include the cul de sac behind the Artspace high rise.  So along with trespassing Artspace property itself, they are not picketing on a street and blocking people for an hour and a half.

The megaphone is back.  While blocking people, one of the herd dutifully stands at the driver's window, with the megaphone, reading a statement.

Yes, you read that right.  A megaphone to the head, basically.

As near as I can make out from the mumbling, the statement is from the professionally prepared pamphlet they had ready to hand out on the 1st, even though the vote to turn down the mediator's impossible recommendation did not happen until the night before.

A suspicious person might think it looked like some sort of collusion or inside knowledge, but hey, I'll leave the other side to make baseless accusations.

Before we go on to other events of the past few days, (including a great big Thank You to AUPE for publicly providing some of the evidence contradicting their own claims, coming up), let's take a look at this statement of theirs.

It's titled, What SAIL turned down:

On Monday, July 28, an independent, third-party mediator issued recommended terms of settlement for a first collective agreement between SAIL and its unionised employees.

Okay.  Fair enough - though the more of a big deal they make over how "independent" or "impartial" or whatever phrase they happen to throw out to describe the mediator, the more it seems they need to really, really try and convince people of this; what's really happening is that they're convincing people that perhaps the opposite is the truth.

The mediator was agreed to by SAIL and AUPE and assigned by the Government of Alberta.

Uhm... so?

Over the course of the two mediation sessions, the mediator heard both sides' positions and considered a wide range of economic data, including financial records presented by SAIL Inc., which detailed the organisation's funding and expenses, and data presented by AUPE detailing the prevalent wage and benefit levels with similar employers.

If the mediator had truly compared to "similar employers", then it would have been a comparison to other home care aides, that travel from home to home, and it would have been clear that SAIL's care staff were at the top of the pay scale.  SAIL's care staff positions would have been compared to other positions with similar training and qualifications.  They would not have been compared to places like hospitals and care centres with huge budgets, and staff with considerably more training.

The pamphlet then goes on to describe a few things the mediator recommended, though of course, not everything; like the mediator's recommendations actually being more than the union asked for.  How... impartial.

Which is a good time to remind readers: SAIL actually agrees the care staff should be paid more and have benefits.  The reality is, SAIL's one source of income - Alberta Health - provides only a certain amount of funding, which has to cover expenses as well as employee incomes.  SAIL made the best offers they could, within budget.  Those offers were rejected out of hand.

The statement goes on to read:

However, the mediator's report did not give AUPE everything it asked for.  In some cases the mediator's recommendations sides with the employer.

So?  It was still more than SAIL could afford.

However, the union recognised that is was a fair compromise and accepting the recommendation would bring and end to the dispute and picket line.

Apparently, bankrupting SAIL is what AUPE views as a fair compromise.

AUPE suggested acceptance of the mediator's recommendations and on Tuesday, July 29, the unionised SAIL employees voted to accept it.

Of course they did.

Unfortunately, the SAIL board just voted to reject the mediator's recommendations, which would have ended the lockout and picket line in front of Artspace Housing Co-op.

Yes, well, heaven forbid user members vote to reject recommendations that would utterly destroy the in-house care company they fought so hard to create 24 years ago.

Nice of AUPE to admit that they aren't picketing SAIL at all, but our private homes.

Then there's a sub-title, What comes next:

Contrary to what you may have heard, the employees from SAIL do wish to return to work.

I don't know where that was heard from; we in Artspace know full well they want to come back to such and easy job as with SAIL.  The thing is, after the picketing SAIL staff demonstrated their true colours, the SAIL user members no longer feel they would be safe having these individuals in their homes.  All trust has been utterly destroyed.

As members of Artspace, living independently in their own homes, they have the right to decide who does or doesn't come into those homes.  Not SAIL. Not AHS.  Not AUPE.  They do.

But they are not prepared to give up their legal rights to collective bargaining.

Who's trying to deny them the right to collective bargaining?  Certainly not SAIL or user members.

That includes the right to maintain a picket line until a fairly negotiated collective agreement is obtained.

No one is trying to deny anyone the right to maintain a picket line.  What we would like is for them to obey labour regulations about picket lines.

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.

And an end to misconduct.

... 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.

No one is trying to deny anyone the right to a fairly negotiated collective agreement, either.  There seems to be significant disagreement as to what "fair" means, though.  Let's take a look...

Fair:
1. free from bias, dishonesty, or injustice: a fair decision; a fair judge.
2. legitimately sought, pursued, done, given, etc.; proper under the rules: a fair fight.

Huh.  Let's see.  One the one hand, there is SAIL, which has made several offers of increased wages and benefits, within budget.  On the other, there is the mediator recommendations and AUPE demands, which would bankrupt SAIL in short order.

Sounds to me like a "fair" compromise would be the one that gave at least some increase in pay, plus some benefits, and their jobs would still be there, rather than the promise of exorbitant increases, un-affordable benefits, and bankruptcy.

The power to end this dispute is not in the hands of AUPE.  Is is now up to SAIL to return to the bargaining table and engage in rational discussions with the intent of achieving a collective agreement.

You know, there are TWO sides to this whole bargaining thing; it is AUPE that turned down the offers SAIL made, refusing to lower their own demands to something SAIL could afford.

It's not SAIL that's been unwilling to compromise.

What we have here is yet another way the union is trying to control the narrative and public perception.

Artspace members are not so easily fooled.

As for rational... well, just who is it that's picking private homes, engaging in bullying, threats, harassment, intimidation, trespassing and causing real, physical, medical harm to members of Artspace through their use of noise and disruption?

Let me answer that for you.







(updated for typos, Aug. 7)