The basement of Carnegie Center flooded last evening. A patron said, "They kicked everybody out at 8:30." Usually people are allowed to sit around in the building playing board games or talking until 11 p.m., although most services such as the library, computer room, and basement tv and computer lounge close at 10 p.m.
The flood occurred in the area of the washrooms, across from the weight room in the basement. Staff had to shut off the water in the entire building. So toilets couldn't be flushed and dishes couldn't be washed.
Carnegie is staffed by CUPE members who are on strike, but food service workers, as well as a few janitorial and security staff and a front desk receptionist are still on the job. That's because the cafeteria and related volunteer program have been designated essential by Labour Relations.
Carnegie was open again this morning.
See more CUPE strike-related stories on this site, such as:
CUPE Boss Asked to Settle with Secretary
Striking Librarians Should Look Up "Fair"
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4 comments:
For the life of me I can't understand why our 3 centres (Carnegie, Saller and the Gathering) have any operations that should be deemed essential. The great unwashed of our area are deemed so that they are not capable of feeding or entertaining themselves. At the same time, there are scores of other centres around the city where children of single parents that are left to fend for themselves at home or with daycare centres that charge an amount that is a burden on the household. Why are these people more important than the taxpaying single mother that can ill-afford the extra cost of the daycare and feeding of their children? Make all of the centres non-essential and get on with settling this strike. I know for a fact that with these extra people on strike the union will be more apt to look at the city's offer, after all 30% is nothing to sneeze at!
What essential service indeed do the povertarian parasites provide to anyone other than themselves? How many of those vegetating at the various povertarian centres actually need anything of the 'services' they receive at these places? These centres are more often than not if not always simple sinecures for the lucky or connected few who rake in the big bucks milking the system and screwing the deluded into thinking people cannot live without their expert 'help'. Give us all a break and dump these CUPE parasites back into the work-place where they have to compete for wages like the rest of us. The "Poor" will get along very nicely without the "essential services" the povertarians dole out-- as they feel inclined.
I agree with DAG. There is no real need of their services when you come right down to it. It only takes away the initiative to do the work for yourself by doing things for you and making you believe you are unable to feed, clothe and amuse ourselves.
What would happen if for only one month we didn't use their services and didn't volunteer? Carnegie Centre would not and could not operate, that's what! It's just too bad that we couldn't pull together and do something like this and hit them where it hurts the most, in their bank accounts when there is no work because the centre had to close for a week or so.
Ultimately this all comes down to a matter of Human rights: are you going to accept your rights to live like a Human or are you going to abdicate the responsibilities that go with it to the povertarians who will then rule you and your personal life as if you were, and indeed are, a farm animal? do you feel good about being the pet project of a povertarian who makes 4104.00 per year to treat you like a house-dog to feed once in a while? So you get petted occasionally. Is that the life you want for your Human self? Yuk.
But let's face some hard reality here before we suggest jumping off the deep end. Many people are so conditioned, like pigeons in BF Skinner's laboratory that to stop going to the Carnegie Centre would mean real hardship for those who can't recall anything better. There's no good to come from boycotting a place that one certainly needs for the small necessities they might, if the staff isn't striking for higher wages, provide. Some people seem to actually need the hour's work at $0.80 to pay for a slice of banana bread. That I can and do make a whole loaf of the same thing only better for a dollar is no help to anyone. I'm not giving mine away for nothing, and those who can't get mine have to get their own elsewhere, even if at Carnegie Centre. So what do people who need do? Well, think a bit before jumping into worse conditions than exist now.
No one can think through all the contingencies that might arise from a boycott of the Carnegie Centre. Too many things go wrong, and when they do everyone is discouraged and the Carnegie povertarians will be at the door saying "I told you so, you're all losers who cannot live without us." Of course you can, and of course you wouldl rather, but not of an instant, not only simply because you wish it were so. It requires planning to free oneself of the grip of the povertarians. They get two million dollars per year to run the place, and if you don't get at least some of that cash to make it through the day you'll have to return to them for whatever they're willing to make you sweat for. Plan it out. No rash actions.
If you've been broke and dependent on the Carnegie Centre for a few years, then don't worry that a while longer is going to make any significant difference. Look at what can be done and plan it out. No one can plan everything alone, it takes a group of planners, any number of whom are far brighter than the professional povertarians at the Carnegie Centre who rake in the union dollars for dick-all plus attitude. Learn to walk before you decide to hang-glide.
Success is in the end of Carnegie Centre. How would you know it's time to close the place down? It would be when people find themselves no longer going there simply because it never even occurs to them to go to the place. No conscious boycott, just a change in life habits. The place will whither away. You won't go because it has nothing you'd ever want.
You have to look at others to see if they live better than you, and you have to decide if you're not living as well as you would. If you find you're being cheated, if you're being sucked into a cesspool of povertarianism by worm-tongued manipulators, then you have to figure out an escape from them. It's not as easy as simply walking away. Where would you go?
Take over the place and use it ass you would to improve your lives rather than give up your lives for the sake of a dribble of life from others. The povertarians milk the poor the same way a farmer milks a cow. Who benefits? Well, of course the cow does, not being too uncomfortable with an excess of milk. But you're not cows, last time I checked. You live like farm animals, and the Carnegie Centre rulers are tax-farmers, milking you, milking them, milking everyone.
Figure it out. Who benefits from the Carnegie Centre? Follow the money. You get $0.80 per hour to work next to a CUPE unionist who makes $30.00 for the same thing. You get used, and you have to put up with it till you figure out how to make it work for you. You won't do it on your own.
The povertarians will say it takes a village; that you are all one big happy family of community members. To buy that it takes a village idiot.
Go meet away from the Carnegie Centre where you won't be spotted talking and end up barred from the place for it. Ask how things could be better than they are and if you could contribute to that happening. No, you're not so special that your ideas warrant $104.000.00 per year for your input. But it's your life, and that's got to be worth at least something to you. Your opinions might be worth something to your mates. Talk it over, plan a bit. Think it through.
Look, you're getting by reasonably well while the povertarians are striking for more money. If you needed them before you either need them to be back at work now or you don't. And if you can live without them at the current wage they get, why hope they'll be any more useful to you if they get even more? You don't need them, but you can't live on nothing. Plan a bit. Think it through. Realize you don't really have to live like a farm animal. And then come to some understanding of what kind of life you'd prefer. How can you get that done? Talk it over. Exercise your right to be Human. But don't try it at the Carnegie Centre for otherwise you shall surely be banished to the wilderness and have only to comfort you in your misery the company of Simpson. (BRRRR.)
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