What's up?

Things have been quiet on the blog for the past few days, though not quiet at Artspace, where AUPE continues to picket our home.

Sadly, we grieve the sudden loss of a long time member.  On being asked to leave out of respect for his widow (one of several members they have targeted for extra abuse), friends and former neighbours, they refused.  They were blocking the security vehicle with replacement workers when they were told. It seems they felt moving away from blocking the vehicle was enough.  And they call SAIL board members heartless?

The Urinator was back.  This makes the second time that I know of that, after being told by the Edmonton Police that he would not return, he has been back at Artspace.  The police came and they were highly unimpressed.  Despite the fact that he's not supposed to be here, he blocked the vehicle of one of our members; someone he openly targets both here and on his personal Facebook page. She lives here, but he tries to make her out as a nurse who works here, crossing the picket line, turning her into an open target for online bullying and retaliatory behaviour.  That her young son is often with her doesn't stop him from trying to terrorise her.  But then, it's always been open season on children from them.  Considering they have no problem dragging their own kids to sit around for hours, watching their mothers and other picketers verbally assault and harass an entire neighbourhood, even encouraging them to partake, I suppose we can't expect anything different.

At one point, some AUPE bigwigs showed up to read some of the banners Artspace members have put on their balconies and in their windows.  One of them, on reading a sign that said "Human Rights Before Union Rights" was heard to claim that SAIL is oppressing immigrant women.  Funny, we've got quite a few immigrant women who are members of Artspace, and they seem quite capable of finding themselves jobs without AUPE there to tell them how incapable they are without them.  Let's not forget how those poor, oppressed care staff have been able to do things like leave for Jamaica for 2 months, or Ghana for 3 months, and still have jobs to come back to.  So oppressive, that SAIL user members and their supporters fought to save their jobs last year, even then knowing that AUPE wanted them to strike.  Meanwhile, when the Big Wigs weren't busy inadvertently degrading the very people they're supposedly supporting, one of them took the time to try and threaten and intimidate a couple of Artspace members who happened by.  Classy, that.



One of the things that keeps coming up, in one form or another, from Artspace members is the question of, why are they (our striking care staff) biting the hand that feeds them?

They know full will SAIL has no control over funding.

They know Artspace has no control in any of this.

They were told by AUPE, back in January, that if they went on strike and that if it were prolonged, SAIL would run out of money, go bankrupt, and they would lose their jobs.  They voted to go on strike, anyhow.

In essence, they knowingly voted for the destruction of their own jobs.

Why? It is so incredibly stupid, it boggles the mind. It's obvious AUPE is using them against their real target; AHS. Yet they have been willing participants in abuse, bullying, and tormenting our community. They have full engaged in an action they know will likely result in their losing their jobs, while alienating the very people who would have supported them. It makes no sense. How utterly detached from reality does one have to be, to do something like that?

No matter what happens, the one group that lost everything the day the strike started, in such a violent and aggressive manner, is the very care staff that AUPE claims to be supporting.

No one will ever trust them again.  No one wants them in our homes again.

And now that SAIL user members have been able to experience what good care is actually like, no one wants to go back to poor quality care again, either.