A Few Words from Gary Mason on the Strike

The Globe & Mail's Gary Mason wrote a brilliant piece about the strike. While I'm unable to provide a link to it, here are a few key comments of his:

There was a time that citizens of Vancouver actually felt some sympathy for striking civic workers. Not any more.

People have lost their patience - finally. You can hear it on the radio. You can see it on television. You can certainly read it in letters to the editor. The original reserves of goodwill the striking workers had with the public are now completely empty.

The 84-day strike, which will become the longest in city history if it drags on into next week, has now officially entered the lunacy phase. And the real idiots are those leading - and I use that term loosely - the striking CUPE locals. Those leading a couple of them anyway.

The advice that the still-striking workers have been getting from their union leaders has been at best misguided, at worst appallingly irresponsible and politically motivated.

It's funny, from the very beginning of this dispute the unions tried to foist the blame for it on Mayor Sam Sullivan. They called it Sam's Strike. From the outset, CUPE made this dispute political, doing the bidding of the centre-left civic parties that oppose Mr. Sullivan and his Non-Partisan Association party.

At first it worked. When Mr. Sullivan said he was not going to interfere to try to bring an end to the strike, the unions made him out to look weak and ineffectual. Mr. Sullivan, it seems, had a master plan: let the unions hang themselves.

What has really pushed the public over the edge is the attitude, in particular, of the outside workers, many of whom have bragged in interviews about easily finding other jobs that pay them more than the ones they have at city hall. Proof, they say, of just how grossly underpaid they are.

Of course, the reason most of them wouldn't even consider the idea [of leaving their civic jobs] is because the jobs they've found don't come with the same lucrative benefit packages as the ones they have. Or the same job security. Or the same number of days off.