Carnegie Learning Center Won't Open in Sept Due to Strike

Lucy Alderson, Co-ordinator and teacher at the Carnegie Learning Center, sent out a mass e-mail last Thursday, August 30th: "Hi, Everyone! Well, things are not looking good for re-opening the Learning Centre at the beginning of September.”

The Learning Center is run jointly by Capilano College and the Carnegie Center. Alderson actually works for Capilano College and is not a CUPE member, but most staff at Carnegie are members of CUPE Local 15. The Learning Center specializes in adult literacy, including computer literacy. Alderson’s e-mail reveals her support for CUPE as well as her need for a little time on the Mavis Bacon typing tutor to get the hang of the space bar:

“We have been talking about the situation withCUPE members, Ethel [Carnegie Director], the CCCA [Carnegie Community Center Association], our own union at Capilano College and ourDean. Right now, we have a short-term, 2 week plan to respect the strikeand strongly urge a resolution to the dispute. Hopefully, we are headingin that direction but it is very hard to tell. If the strike continues, wehave many issues to consider and we will bring everyone together to helpformulate a plan.I know that some of you have been helping out in other areas of theCarnegie and some of you have been away, or anxious to get back tovolunteering. We will try and keep you as up to date as possible. I amconcerned about our current students and all the people who regularly usethe facilities of the Learning Centre and the Comunity [Luuuuuucy! Spell check!] Centre. We are alsoconcerned about Carnegie staff who have been on the picket line for almost2 months.I am wondering if anyone has any ideas about bringing pressure to secure aresolution. Do we want to have an email discussion or get together atCarnegie next week?Tomorrow there is a rally at City Hall organized by CUPE. I am going to goafter I have completed some work at the College. It is from 12noon until2:30pm. Also, there is a march from Science World starting at 10am. Let me know any thoughts, ideas or concerns, Lucy"

CUPE Rally on Wed. Aug. 29th

There is a march starting at Science World at 10 a.m. tomorrow, Wed., Aug. 29th. It will be followed by a rally from 12:00 to 12:30 at City Hall. It is intended to show support for CUPE and to pressure the City to settle the strike.

CUPE members who attend will receive picket hours.

It is a bad day for a rally as it is welfare day. After five weeks without a cheque, the poor -- some of whom would like to go -- have shopping to do.

Striking Librarians Should Look Up "Fair"

Vancouver librarians have chutzpah. They have insisted that their union, CUPE, secure whistleblower and harassment protection for them in their next contract.

They want their union to obtain for them what CUPE has a record of not tolerating inside it’s own organization.

By now, many of us have heard the story of the whistleblowing secretary inside CUPE. CUPE called the police on this former secretary to two CUPE Presidents when she blew the whistle on CUPE -- and wouldn't stop blowing it when they ignored her -- for operating a "non-union sweatshop". The secretary who had left CUPE with two glowing letters of reference, alleged that CUPE staffed Local 116 exclusively with non-union secretaries who were being fired without warning. The firings always seemed to come after a woman had spoken up about such issues as: excessive workload, the pension CUPE had promised her, or chronic verbal abuse. The fired secretaries had been whistleblowers too.

The library workers Local 391 and other CUPE Locals fund CUPE BC and it’s President, Barry O’Neill, who allowed a letter sent to him about working conditions to be submitted to the Vancouver Police as “evidence” of harassment. They also fund CUPE National, which has allowed a similar letter to their office to be filed in the Police Property office as “evidence” in this case. And they fund the BC Federation of Labour and it’s President, Jim Sinclair, who has allowed a letter addressed to him about working conditions in the non-union sweatshop” to sit in the police Property Office.

And many of us have heard the story about the steamfitter on whom CUPE called the police. The police were called on the steamfitter, a dues paying CUPE member, during a period when he was alleging that money was missing from WCB cheques processed by the employer through the union. The steamfitter who was well-liked amongst his co-workers was required to have a psychiatric assessment and take medication, or lose his job — leading to accusations against CUPE of involvement in “political psychiatry”. The steamfitter’s whistle stopped blowing. His allegations were never investigated by an independent body.

It is not just CUPE leaders who could be seen as having harassed whistleblowers, it is the rank and file too.

CUPE members staffing Carnegie Center — in the heart of the Downtown Eastside poverty industry which is a rich source of union dues for CUPE — were displeased when, for the first time in the 27 yr. history of Carnegie, patrons were blogging about their experiences there. When patrons repeatedly arrived at Carnegie to find doors to taxpayer-funded education and computer services locked by CUPE members (this was unrelated to the current strike), they occasionally reported it to taxpayers through the Downtown Eastside Enquirer blog.

And one particularly loud whistle got blown at Carnegie: when a CUPE member was alleged to have had a series of sexual relationships with clientele, two of whom have killed themselves and one of whom has survived a suicide attempt to live as a quadrapalegic, bloggers reported it. (Bloggers did not claim a direct link between the CUPE member’s sexual relationships with clients and their suicides or suicide attempt.) Her name was not used, though, at the request of sources.

But she knew who she was and, with the support of CUPE, she went on leave and lodged a Work Safe [WCB] complaint, claiming that blogging was creating an unsafe work environment. Even Carnegie Board member Grant Chancey, an outspoken supporter of CUPE during the current strike, said at a public meeting that he did not believe that the blog in question created a Work Safe issue for staff. There were no threats on the blog, he said, "and I've looked and I've looked and I've looked."

To make the environment safe for the Work Safe complainant, Carnegie Director Ethel Whitty explained at a Community Relations meeting, a homeless man suspected of involvement with the blog had been barred from the building. How convenient. And even more convenient was the fact that the CUPE member accused of serial sexual misconduct escaped genuine investigation.

But a CUPE-supported attempt to silence whistleblowing wouldn't be complete without the lodging of an unfounded police complaint. The CUPE member lodged a police complaint and individuals suspected of blogging or of having been sources for the blog were contacted. A brazen attempt at intimidation, say bloggers.

Long before the sexual harassment story broke on a blog, CUPE members had been working to stop whistleblowing bloggers at Carnegie. Late in 2006, CUPE members -- Rika, Dan, and Colleen --had been involved in a witch hunt at Carnegie in which volunteers were questioned about who had been seen blogging on the public computers. Bill Simpson was barred more than once and CUPE members had a hand in each barring.

Most recently, he was held at the door by Carnegie Security guard Trey, a CUPE member, while Director Ethel Whitty and Assistant Director Dan Tetrault, also a CUPE member who is currently on the picket line at Ray Cam Community Centre) told him he was barred from the entire Carnegie building. They delivered a letter to him from the City stating that he had been "featuring links" to a blog on his website. This barring was later revised by Whitty and the pubic was told -- but never Simpson himself -- that he had been barred because of the Work Safe complaint by a Carnegie staffperson/CUPE member. CUPE members on Carnegie Security continue to enforce the barring of this suspected whistleblower.

Last year a whistleblower blogged about an incident in the Vancouver Public Library, the small branch inside Carnegie Center. A library worker was playing chess with a pal and interrupted the game to call Security to expell a patron who had farted in front of a nearby window. The library worker claimed that the man had farted on a previous occasion and had been warned. The library worker/chess player, a CUPE member, later expressed annoyance that a whistleblower had blogged about this very public incident. He was one of a chorus of CUPE voices inside Carnegie who expressed disapproval of this whistleblowing via a blog. Director Whitty was under pressure -- although not specifically from this library worker -- to bar anyone suspected of blogging from the Center.

Long time Carnegie member, May, stated on Co-op Radio recently that Whitty had told her that she barred a homeless man suspected of being involved with blogging about the Center, not because of any specific behaviour but because staff felt "uncomfortable". But the public incidents reported by whistleblowing bloggers are not libelous, as they can be supported by multiple witnesses and sometimes even documentation, seems to have been overlooked by those Board member Grant Chancey noted at a recent Community Relations Meeting at Carnegie that he assumes this is why no legal remedies have been pursued.

Whitty stated at a public Board meeting on June 25, 2007 that in barring a homeless man from Carnegie for his association with a whistleblowing blog, she went not so much with evidence but with the "feelings" of the staff. CUPE members don't feel like putting up with whistleblowing.

When it comes to whistleblowing protection, CUPE obviously doesn't practice what it preaches. In fact, there is mounting evidence that the public could use whistleblower protection against CUPE.

The word "fair" is being bandied about by CUPE spokespersons during the current strike. What is CUPE's definition of fairness? Maybe it's time librarians look it up.

CUPE: 50 Ways To Evade Your Secretary

[photo: Paul Faoro, CUPE 15]

The problem is all inside your head
CUPE attorney Aikenhead has said
The answer is easy if you
Take it logically
I’d like to help you in your struggle
To be free
There must be fifty ways
To evade your secretary.
Aikenhead said it’s really not my habit
To intrude
Furthermore, I hope my meaning
Won’t be lost or misconstrued
But I’ll repeat myself
At the risk of being crude
There must be fifty ways
To evade your secretary
Fifty ways to evade your secretary

CHORUS:

Screen out her voice, Moist
Call the cops to make a deal, O'Neill
Just step out for air, Sinclair
Put her off 'til tomorrow, Faoro
Stay within the faction, Jackson
Pretend you never heard, Youngberg
And get yourself free


Paul Faoro, President of CUPE 15, has claimed on the "Fairness for Civic Workers" website that the City has met with workers for less than seven hours over a total of eight days.

"That's more time than CUPE has given me in five years," says a former secretary to two CUPE Presidents.

When the secretary attempted to get CUPE to take responsibility for operating a "non-union sweatshop" inside Local 116, CUPE avoided speaking to her and asked the unionized Vancouver Police to muzzle her. In Dec. 2002, Constables Herrmann and Ng -- who don't have jurisdiction at Local 116, in the endowment lands policed by the RCMP -- ordered her to muzzle herself about labour practices at CUPE Local 116. The secretary wants CUPE to take responsibility for using what she calls "everything but brass knuckles" intimidation tactics. CUPE has evaded speaking to the secretary about her case for 4 1/2 years.

It is the secretary's position that CUPE 15 and other Locals became involved in this case the day letters addressed to President Barry O'Neill of CUPE BC, President Jim Sinclair of the BC Fed, and CUPE National, were passed off to police as "evidence". In fact, due to the role played by Jim Sinclair and the BC Federation of Labour, it is her position that this case has now become the responsibility of all unions funding the BC Fed.

The secretary recently noticed CUPE National President, Paul Moist, reassuring striking Vancouver civic workers of their right to "fairness". So she asked him to, in the interest of fairness, ensure that CUPE resolved her case.

Moist has evaded responding.