Salvation Army: Hot Soup in a Five Week Welfare Month

A mob of people, roughly two hundred, milled around on the sidewalk around the Salvation Army soup truck last night. Every Tuedsay night, the truck pulls up in front of the Main Street court house, near the police station on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

People are entering the final stretch of a five week welfare month. The welfare cheques don't come out for another week, August 29th.

The Salvation Army truck --which is like a french fry truck with a small side window --came prepared. There was no shortage of food. People lined up for a bowl of vegetable beef soup with bread.; many lined up for a second bowl. They stood around talking and eating the soup as well as sandwiches which are given out at a table near the truck; usually the sandwiches are peanut butter and stawberry jam. A woman in her eighties showed up, as she regularly does, to hand out fresh baked raison bread and scones, slathered with butter, that she makes herself.

Being a pillar of the poverty industry, the Salvation Army would be aware of what a five week month is. Four times a year, the welfare month is five weeks long instead of four. It doesn't take a math whiz to figure out that that saves the government one welfare cheque per recipient annually. The Salvation Army gets government funding to help the poor; it doesn't operate strictly on charitable dollars as many people think.

Brian B. is well aware that the Salvation Army doesn't rely strictly on donations like those people toss into kettles at Christmas. He says that when he was homeless, he went to the Salvation Army and they told him to register with welfare so that they could bill the government for his bed.

Government funding to the Sally Ann raises questions about the separation of church and state. When you are given a bowl of soup at the truck, a polite man says "God Bless" with each bowl he hands out. When the truck first arrives, he says a prayer to the entire crowd. Occasionally, people eating soup are approached by young Christian women proselytizing.

But there is no doubt that the Salvation Army soup truck is a hit. People know it can be counted on to show up in front of the court house every Sunday and Tuesday night. And they show up too.

"Look at this," Serg, a Downtown Eastside resident, said as we walked down Main Street past the crowd by the soup truck last night. "This is the real essential service. Not Carnegie." Sarg was referring to the fact that the Carnegie cafeteria has been designated an essential service during the current strike by CUPE members who work for the City. "You have to pay for food at Carnegie. These people are here because it's free."

See other CUPE strike-related stories on this blog such as: Striking Librarians Should Look Up Fair.

Flood at Carnegie Center Last Evening

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"

City Mgr. Gets $48,000 Vacation Payout

City Manager Judy Rogers has "recently received a vacation payout of $48,000". That's according to the "Counterspin" page on the Fairness for Civic Workers website, funded by the Canadian Union of Public Employees. It is also reported that last year Rogers earned $318,838.

Striking civic workers have pointed out that Rogers' vacation payout exceeds what many of them earn in a year.


For more CUPE strike-related news on this blog, see: CUPE Strike Haunted by Secretary Scandal

Back-to-School Welfare Cheques

Welfare cheques issued in British Columbia for the month of August contained a bonus for people with children in school full time. A note was included at the bottom of each cheque:

"This cheque includes the school start-up supplement. This supplement is $84 for each child aged 5-11 years and $116 for each child aged 12-18 years."

The cheques were issued by the BC Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance at the end of July.

Plagiarizer Nabbed at Blogger News Network

A plagiarizer has been nabbed at Blogger News Network.

BNN publisher Robert Hayes was contacted yesterday by an author who said that a post by Shantanu Duttu on BNN contained plagiarized text from his published work. Hayes immediately investigated and discovered that Duttu "had extensively plagiarized many, many of his posts at BNN, copying outright from other news sources."

Today Hayes notified contributors, writers, and registered users at BNN of this issue. He said BNN is working on improving their ability to detect plagiarism.

"BNN strives for the highest ethical standards," Hayes wrote in his memo. "When we fail to achieve those standards, as we have in this case, we are obliged to be forthright about our failure."

My personal opinion? I post on BNN and I find the site well run. When a writer first starts posting at BNN, their posts are blocked briefly so that they can be screened before publication. As a writer at BNN, I had a question for Robert Hayes and he got back to me within hours. That told me that a writer at BNN is not treated like some Rodney Dangerfield character who can't "get no respect". And BNN now has the added perk of a Book Review Club. Approved writers can join the Club and get free books, DVDs and CDs to review --which reminds me, I have a book to review for them.

BNN's ethics where showcased a year or two when they stopped taking Google ads, as a way of protesting their unethical practices in China.

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.