CUPE Still On Strike

CUPE is still on strike. The strike was supposed to have been over last month. But the poor are still being locked out of services on a semi-regular basis at Carnegie Center.

Last Thursday, a Carnegie member went to the Computer Room on the 3rd floor of Carnegie, just after 2 p.m. and found it locked and in darkness. The excuse was that there was "no volunteer" to sit in there to sign-in people and kill time by web surfing. Never mind that Director Ethel Whitty, who makes $104,000 a year, and her entourage of staff have offices just a few meters from the Computer Room.

Whitty retaliates if bloggers mention the locked doors and the word "Whitty" in the same sentence. She makes slanderous remarks at public meetings about bloggers engaged in defamation and character assassination. She never provides examples.

On Friday, a Carnegie member went to the Learning Center just after 2 p.m. and found students being evacuated by teacher Lucy Alderson. There was a volunteer receptionist there, Jack, but the highly paid Alderson said she wanted two volunteers. She didn't have them so she closed shop. Witnesses don't recall Alderson lifting a finger to find a volunteer. There are CUPE members on staff who are paid to co-ordinate volunteers, but they too let the Learning Center close. Rika Uto, a CUPE member who plays a supervisory role in relation to the Learning Center, was present that day but that didn't prevent the doors from being locked. These people are well paid and just got a 20% raise (that's what it works out to with compounding). So why aren't the jobs being done?

On Saturday after noon, the Learning Center was shut tight and in darkness again. Unlike during the week, it is the sole responsibility of CUPE members on Saturdays to keep the Learning Center open. On Saturday evening, when the Computer Room was scheduled to be open from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., people arrived to find it locked and in darkness.

These are not the only examples of doors being locked at Carnegie over the past month. The DTES Enquirer has been told that doors are being locked on a semi-regular basis.

What is Ethel Whitty, who takes her orders from City Hall, doing about the problem of CUPE members dragging their asses? She is writing PR material that covers CUPE asses . Look at what Whitty read to a crowd at a by-election and Board meeting on Thursday evening -- that would be just hours after Downtown Eastside Residents had found the Computer Room locked -- in the Carnegie Theatre:

"Staff have returned to work with enthusiasm and good will and quickly resumed providing the services they love to offer."

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