We never know what they're doing to do, or when or how.
Just like we have no idea whether we're going to have to endure another invasion during the upcoming AUPE convention, just a few blocks away. Will convention goers be convinced to walk over there and "support" their "sisters" in front of our home?
Or will they avoid the public image disaster this would entail, and stay away completely?
We have no idea.
Like this weekend.
On Saturday, an incident report came through that required some investigation.
It involved one regular we see on the picket line, though no one else was around. She's the one smoking in someone's private parking spot in this photo.
She was seen by her vehicle, parked behind AUPE's truck, on the sidewalk with a tire from her car. She then started talking loudly to no one about her flat tire. Though she was alone, she seemed to be calling out for the benefit of Artspace members trying to go about their business and ignoring her as much as possible.
Except it turned out she wasn't talking about a flat tire.
She was talking about a slashed tire.
As near as could be figured out by the ones writing the incident report, she was claiming her tire was slashed.
This is not the first time this has happened; when AUPE's rental van got a flat, the picketers claimed it was slashed and basically accused someone in Artspace of doing it. There was no video with the van in view to be able to show anything, and while the tire could be seen as flat, no one in Artspace had been able to verify that it had indeed been slashed.
Since this seemed to be happening again, when word of this came in, security footage was checked.
Yes, dear picketers, you are still being recorded.
So what did the video show?
From what could be seen, it appeared the picketer, with the help of someone else that eventually joined her, switched to winter tires while parked on the street in front of our townhouses.
All four tires on her car were changed.
Yet, based on what she was heard to call out into the air, she made out that her vehicle had been vandalized.
Eventually, more picketers showed up and they set up their camp chairs in a cluster in front of the West raised bed garden, as usual, blocking the sidewalk. One of the chairs even ended up on the street, in the gutter of the loading zone.
Sunday, a few of them were back.
This time, a group of them were at the end of the sidewalk, by the East raised bed gardens. No table, no chairs, no signs. If it weren't for the open back of their truck, there would have been nothing to tell us that they were the picketers. They were here from about 11 - 2 or so, and while they seemed to be just talking in a group, they were loud enough to be heard down the street.
On the one hand, this is the closest they've ever gone to picking the actual SAIL office since the strike started. Except they were actually next to a SAIL user member's ground floor unit. They know that this user member has MS and is medically required to take naps during the day.
Which she would not have been able to do while they were talking so loudly outside her window.
And that doesn't even take into account the other user members that would have been destroyed by the noise, as
Then there was Monday.
Nothing.
No one showed up at all.
Could be because it was Thanksgiving, but they've come in on stat holidays before.
We still don't know; if they come in on a stat holiday, does AUPE have to pay them time and a half?
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