No Postage Required

It's true. No stamps are needed if you want to send me an email. So what is your excuse for not writing now?

1) CUPE has become a joke within the departments at City Hall. The strike of 2009 was a perfect storm of sorts;

1) The Great Recession and Windsor's ailing economy
2) An anti - union council and mayor
3) Two weak and inexperienced CUPE presidents
4) Minor CUPE provincial and national representation..

Jean and Jim should not seek re-election. If we vote them back in, then we deserve what we get. How can we decertify?

2) Someone is running against Jim Wood!!!

3) Handi-Transit negotiated a collective that contained a 1.5% increase.
Better than all of the City agreements and without a strike. Maybe council could ask how they did it????

4) Eddie should fly in garbage from Toronto for the Essex land fill.
This way his cargo hub is established and the dump gets filled.
Jobs and more jobs.

It's a win win situation and makes a good garbage business case.
It just fits, doesn't it?

5) With regards to today's blog:

They claim Detroit does not even have a grocery store left in the core. This creates a food desert and helps answer the question many affluent citizens have asked; 'How can poor children become obese?'

6) Progress on Childcare

1/ All centres will remain open until September 1st
2/ PAC meetings have been restarted
3/ Centres now accepting new students
4/ Amherstburg Council voted Monday, March 8, 2010 to send letters to Windsor City Council (to reconsider the decision to shut down all public daycares), MPPs Bruce Crozier & Dwight Duncan & Dalton McGuinty (to ensure that childcare is a priority in the provincial budget) AND to conduct their OWN study

7) Yes why am I still part of CUPE? I also wonder why I continue working for the City. Why people with more than 20 years seniority are losing their jobs. I wonder why garbage collectors are being outsourced when they rank number 3 in the country. I would not want their job ever, they do a great job and you couldn’t pay me enough to do that lifting all day not to mention the smell and abuse they take from some people verbally or by the way some people throw out their trash. The day care workers devote their loving energy to the children under their care. I’d like to know who is going to benefit from this. The children will suffer, the parents will suffer and we will have how many empty buildings? 5 that will be left abandoned. I wonder why the power that is his highness Edgar is picking on us small people. There are managers who manage the managers before you actually get up to the top of the totem pole. This is ridiculous. The out of town consultants the out of town lawyers like we have none here in Windsor. I’m sure we have many capable consultants and lawyers here in our once great City that we surely don’t have to pay the extra expense of hiring from our City. Once again “double standard.” Does not want an outside arbitrator to settle the strike however he has again hired an outside law firm to consult on his latest project.

I actually love my job, and don’t consider the job I do work. However, I am getting quite concerned at so of the things I see going on around me. I ask myself as a City taxpayer- yes I pay my own wages, why do we have all of these high paying salaried positions with full benefits and instructors who put their heart and soul into their jobs are only allowed to work 24 hours a week...

I guess cutting a few CUPE hours here and there are going to save BIG money so we can continue with the expenditures of Red Bull, going overseas, ever heard of SKYPE. Money on consultant after consultant, lawyers for this and that.

So I still haven’t figured out the answer, why am I still a CUPE member. How do we decertify and bring in the CAW? I think that the majority of CUPE members are women with single families some are afraid for their jobs, some afraid of the ramifications of trying to fight the union and the employer. Maybe we are just complacent Canadians that allow others to walk all over us.

8) The Labour relations hearing was not FRIVOLOUS. The OLB didn’t say that. They cited the primary reason was that an agreement had been reached. If the hearing hadn’t been put on hold, that argument could not have been used. So…..

Who asked for the OLB hearings to be put on hold? Why did CUPE agree to that?

It’s funny though how quickly an agreement was reached after the OLB application was made in June. If the Mayor hadn’t flown the coop to Greece, it may have been over sooner.

But CUPE was stupid in their application. They stated that the OLB determine what penalty to impose.

9) I fully expected this response since the Union didn't attach any monetary factor to the submissions... We, the body of the unions, both L82 & L543 voted to continue the submission anyway. We wanted a monetary return attached, but it didn't happen. This is just another example of our "useless" leadership. Useless seems to be the right word, since they don't seem to research efficiently or apply effectively. Hindsight being 20-20 as it is....

10) I think unbelievable is an understatement.

The members now have cause to decertify the union because of non-representation. The complaint to the OLRB was pooched in form and content and set it up to be dismissed.

I don't think there is much motivation or will from the members to do anything more, at this point.

Unbelievable. What a sad, sad, situation.

11) [CUPE] Wow!...Talk about incompetent. A league unto themselves.

12) and we the little guy loses again. maybe the member should bring charges against the union.

13) i am so very disappointed.

14) At the high point there were 300 then by the time of the speeches it had shrunk to 250 with people leaving to run back to work. "The Rock" radio was there and I saw a TV camera but not sure who it was. The mayor had one of his minions filming for evidence. Police were in attendance. It was as if the Eddie Francis Strike was still in progress.

It was amazing to see that many people out in the middle of a Friday afternoon workday for this march. Who has the time?

Some people that made the time were Parents & Children, Early Childhood Educators, Children's Aid Workers, CAW National Skilled Trades Workers, CAW 444 Workers, CUPE Workers and even Concerned Residents of this municipality (imagine that!). We marched from the Casino on McDougall Ave, between the 400 building & City Hall, back onto McDougall Ave to Wyandotte and then east to the Glengarry Childcare Centre.

Presenters at the mike included Fred Hahn, CUPE Ontario President, Jean Fox, CUPE Local 543 President, and Children's Aid Society Windsor. There were others but the most respected was Scott Cipkar of Amherstburg. A parent to a child in public daycare there. He spoke of his concerns with these changes coming up and how his family is trying to cope. Said it is not a simple matter of just moving a kid around. There are scheduling issues, logistics, personalities, and that we can always keep a public daycare open with taxpayers footing the bill but what happens when everything is profit-driven? Without a safety net, the doors can close overnight (like our plants) and the impact on the child is immense. The family comes tumbling down. And when families are tumbling down, well what happens to our community then?

Another thing that Scott had to say was this, "Politicians have forgotten that it was us that put them there and it is us that can take them down!"

15) did you not see council on monday? lewenza standing up to eddie announcing to residents that he has been asking to present to council and residents for 4 MONTHS! and the mayor has been blocking the presentation to the public!

16) Same story, different city

"OSHAWA -- It's been just over three years since the General Motors Centre opened its doors, and on the surface, not much has changed.

City councillors are still lamenting the lack of shows at the downtown Oshawa arena and the finances are still in the red -- the City is on the hook for $537,000 in 2009losses alone.

It's a frustrating state of affairs for GMC general manager Vince Vella and the rest of the Global Spectrum team, which took over management and operations of the venue in the summer of 2008, after Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment asked to be released from its contract.

Mr. Vella sighs when he talks about the fact some councillors and taxpayers still argue the $45-million venue should never have been built...

Mr. Vella says it's unfair to judge a facility on the performance in its first three years, especially when those years involve a sudden management change and a crushing recession...

But, making the GMC Durham's entertainment destination is a threefold challenge, one that Mr. Vella calls "a journey, not a sprint."

First, Global Spectrum staff has to understand the community enough to gauge which shows will be successful in this market...

Next, staff needs to convince promoters to take a chance on a city that many outsiders see as an economic wasteland thanks to the state of General Motors.
"People think there are tumbleweeds blowing down Simcoe Street," Mr. Vella said. "We try to tell them about the university, the courthouse, the health care, all the things that are happening here, but it takes time."

Finally, Global Spectrum needs thousands of people -- anywhere from 2,000 to 6,000 depending on the configuration of the show -- to buy tickets, so Oshawa builds a reputation among skeptical promoters as a sure thing, not a risky venture..."

17) A question... about 4 months ago with a lot of "hoopla" from our favourite Mayor it was announced that we would see a new, dynamic economic development commissioner starting with the city and county February 1st. Has this new person started? If not, why the silence and what is the story?

18) Now they have outsourced shredding services to a London Co. Today Cintas came in and removed all their shredding boxes. Contract was a huge deal for their co., now they will probably lose local jobs. Contract was given to a London Co. who will drive down here, pick up shredding nd take it back to London. Shame on the City, giving more work to out of towners instead of hard working Windsorites.

19) Please ask this question in your blog sometime….Do we not have any f…..ing lawyers in Windsor??? LOL

20) In your Blog "We need their dough here" You mentioned about how Canada Bread was looking to build a new plant and how Windsor should be going after them. I don't know if you heard today but Hamilton was chosen as the city that will get the new plant and 300 jobs.

"Canada Bread Co. has purchased a parcel of land in the former North Glanbrook Industrial Park, now called the Red Hill Business Park, to build the country's largest bakery. The move is expected to bring 300 new jobs to Hamilton, as well as an extra 120 jobs during construction.

Gary Goodyear, the federal minister responsible for southern Ontario's Federal Economic Development Agency, was also on hand this afternoon to announce $2 million in design and engineering support for the project. The cash is intended to kick-start the project as part of the economic action plan."

21) ok, now you have stumped me, what do the feds want? You can build a bridge, own and operate it but you can't make people use it. Are they trying to drive Moroun out of business?

22) Great job!! Keep up the great work...

23) Have you put you name in the hat for mayor OR AT LEAST COUNCIL. You know now that Sheila Wisdom WILL BE RUNNING!!!!!!. I can't see how she gave up a 100,000 a yr job for that. Also with that kind of enormous salary yessiree I will surely NOT be giving money to the United Way. What are the others salaries there. My goodness what a slap in the face to the lowly labourer in this city.

24) FAMOUS LAST WORDS

"Tiger Woods

"I thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to. I felt that I had worked hard my entire life and deserved to enjoy all the temptations around me. I felt I was entitled," Woods said.

"I was wrong. I was foolish. I don't get to play by different rules; the same rules that apply to everyone apply to me."