A thing to keep in mind when reading this is that he typed it with his nose.
Strike akin to personal attack
Ken Thomas, Edmonton Journal Published: Thursday, May 22
Re: "Dispute rages at housing co-operative," May 21
The noisy AUPE strike is a personal attack against me and the other 188 able-bodied and disabled individuals who live in private residences at Artspace Housing Cooperative.
Of the 88 apartment suites/condos at Artspace, 29 are wheelchair-accessible. For 23 years, I have been living in one of the accessible units because I have cerebral palsy.
In 1991, a group of us with physical disabilities pooled our resources so we could receive home care from a small, non-profit, on-site service called SAIL (Supports for Artspace Independent Living Inc.).
On May 7, the newly unionized SAIL health-care aides went on strike with AUPE demanding an increase in benefits and a 15.6-per-cent wage hike. SAIL's funding has not been finalized, so how can AUPE expect the employer to commit to a specific wage? The picketers are chanting, yelling and detaining Artspace members and replacement workers as they come and go, and I have videotape to prove it. Shame on AUPE.
AUPE actually took the time to send a response letter to the editor, portraying Ken as agressive and attacking them. The incident they descibe involved Ken coming to the rescue of the replacement workers as they and the vehicle they were in were being mobbed by the picketers again.
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