Anti-Semitism: Alive & Well in CUPE Ontario

Despicable news from the CUPE Ontario conference in Windsor, Ontario.

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Congratulations CUPE members, you've performed a two-fer:

1. Shown how you feel about Free Speech in Canada.
   
   
2. Shown your true colours toward Jews.

Brilliant! Now be sure to teach your children well ... so that we can get a whole new generation of bigots. Sigh.

Shame on you all! Truly, SHAME On You ALL!!!

CUPE Shows Their Colours

In a not surprising, but still disgusting move, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) has issued this press release:

CUPE Ontario to recommend support for ban on Israeli academics in response to Gaza bombings

January 5, 2009

TORONTO, Ont. – CUPE Ontario's university workers committee will bring a resolution to its annual conference supporting a ban on Israeli academics doing speaking, teaching or research work at Ontario universities as a protest against the December 29 bombing of the Islamic University in Gaza.

“In response to an appeal from the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees, we are ready to say Israeli academics should not be on our campuses unless they explicitly condemn the university bombing and the assault on Gaza in general,” said Sid Ryan, president of CUPE Ontario. “It's a logical next step, building on policy adopted by our provincial convention in 2006.”

Resolution 50, adopted in May 2006, supported boycotts, divestment and sanctions aimed at bringing about the Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories and a just peace in the region.

“Clearly, international pressure on Israel must increase to stop the massacre that is going on daily,” said Janice Folk-Dawson, chair of the CUPE Ontario University Workers Coordinating Committee, whose conference is scheduled for February. “We are proud to add CUPE voices to others from around the world saying enough is enough.”

Ryan and other CUPE representatives will join in the demonstration against the Israeli assault on Gaza at 2:00 p.m. tomorrow, Saturday, January 3 at Dundas Square in Toronto.

For more information, contact:

Sid Ryan, President, CUPE Ontario, 416-209-0066
Pat Daley, CUPE Communications, 416-616-6142

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The Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees is headed by one Dr. Amjad Barham, who has a long history of issuing boycotts against Israel. That's his prerogative but for CUPE to go along with it is despicable.

On a purely Canadian note, isn't it interesting how last year much of the news featured assorted Muslim groups trying to silence the free speech of Ezra Levant, Mark Steyn, and others. Now in 2009 we have CUPE ready to go along with an initiative to silence the free speech of Jewish academics. A very disturbing trend indeed.

I wonder how long it'll be before we see the pink flags mixed with the green ones.

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Question: Perhaps any painters out there can tell me, if you mix pink with green, do you end up with red? No particular reason, I'm just curious.

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Update: Further to the antics of CUPE's President, Sid Ryan, I just read this.

About halfway down is this interesting revelation: "I was told that CUPE (Canadian Union of Public Employees) was one of the organizers of the anti-Israel protest. Sure enough, I ran into CUPE President Sid Ryan, sitting comfortably in the back of a coffee shop near the Israeli consulate."

So it seems clear now that we have a public sector union calling for an end to free speech for [some] academics and inciting anti-Jewish hatred at rallies. And the MSM on all of this is ... where exactly?!?

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Update #2: SDA has an interesting update. Read the comments!

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.

Vancouver's Civic Strike: The Truth Is Finally Becoming Clear!

It's said that if you tell a lie enough times that even you start believing it. Such is clearly the case with the "altered truths" told to the striking CUPE workers by their leadership and then repeated amongst themselves ad nauseum.

This became clear to me when I heard striker after striker calling into CKNW and providing a completely twisted, false view of the facts at hand. Recall the first sentence above.

Province columnist, Michael Smyth, offers a scathing view of the strike here. He says what many of us have been thinking for some time: This strike was mostly about the union leaders and their political masters trying to embarrass Mayor Sam Sullivan and his NPA party so that the CUPE friendly parties will win the next election. I have to wonder what a striker, who wasn't able to find temporary work, thinks about being used as a political pawn throughout all of this.

The ironic thing for me is that I have not been a fan of Sam Sullivan whatsoever. I did vote for him but have since found him to be weak, indecisive, and at times, just downright odd. But the hairs on the back of my neck have gone up over the past 13 weeks, watching the way he has been treated.

If you're a citizen of Vancouver then think carefully about who you vote for next time around. Also, think doubly carefully about not voting at all. For if the union-friendly thugs get in, watch for your taxes and rents to go sky high!!!

Vancouver's Civic Strike: Absurbity Beyond Compare!

Back in late July, when the Vancouver civic strike began, if you had asked anyone whether 12 weeks later, the CUPE members would vote down an agreement that had essentially long been accepted by municipal unions all over the rest of Metro Vancouver, you would rightfully have been told you were nuts. After all, what kind of person, after being out of work for 3 months, and now sitting out in the rain everyday, would possibly vote to stay out even longer?

But in order to understand why 2 out of 3 unions turned down the offers presented to them, you need to revisit the question posed above and see the fallacy in its assumptions. It turns out that there are a great number of CUPE members who have not been out of work and are not getting rained upon every day. These folks immediately obtained work elsewhere, much of it in the private sector, and often for higher wages than they're getting from the City of Vancouver. Why won't they quit their city hall job? Because they don't want to give up their lucrative benefits and pension.

So we have a classic impasse. What's thick with irony though - in fact, as wide as the RAV line passing in front of their picket lines on Cambie Street - is that these same people who voted 'No' are supposedly holding out for lifetime job security. Think about that for a second. Their union is wanting guaranteed employment security for jobs that these people clearly hate. Don't believe me? Talk to a civic worker sometime: They have the worst jobs known to mankind, they're treated harshly, and they're not paid enough. It's sad.

The only way I see out of this problem is for the courts or the provincial government to order them back to work. Otherwise, new deadlines will come & go but nothing will ever change, because there's absolutely no incentive for those 'No' workers to change their minds.

Back on August 5, 1981 U.S. President Ronald Reagan fired 11,345 air traffic controllers for failing to return to work. Perhaps something similar needs to happen here? Imagine going into a municipal government office and being greeted by people who are pleasant & caring and actually seem to enjoy what they do.

Nahhh, I've got to stop day dreamin'!