NotThePNEVille
Media workers that is.
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Just in case you needed another reason to shun those finest of the unfine offerings that the Pacific Newspaper Group serves up every morning.....
Apparently, the folks who run the (notso)Magnificent AsperSons western print organs, the Vancouver Sun and the Vancouver Province, are crying foul because one of their favorite whipping boys of late, the Telecommunications Workers Union, is being supported, big time, by their own workers, the Media Union of B.C.
Essentially, the Jedi Knights (ie. the Media folks who work for the AsperSons) are calling Telus what it is, which, to put it politely is an "unfair employer" . This because of Telus' attempts to turn the Telcom workers into McSerfs.
The 'unfair employer' declaration is important because it could invoke clauses in the Media Union's collective agreement with PNG that would allow members the right to refuse advertising copy from Telus Bossman Darren Entwhistle.
In other words, this is a case of workers banding together to help each other - the only hammer they've got.
And, of course, people getting together to fight the robber barons, be they the Trusts of yesteryear or the Bernie Ebbers wannabes of today, is the only way that we have ever improved our lot. And this is a hammer that Mr. Entwhistle is trying to take away from his workers by offering up scab-o-liscious side deals and a piece of silver errrr, I-Pod, or two.
Jamie Pitblado, the PNG's resident flack hack, and a man who apparently does not believe in irony (or cause and effect), had this to say:
"We're very disappointed that we're being drawn into the Telus labour dispute."
Perhaps the people running the PNG should have thought of that before they started pumping out the puff pieces in support of Mr. Entwhistle's Bust-A-Thon.
And the response from Telus?
They say there have been legal decisions that have supported 'its' approach to labour negotiations.
Thus, their strategy couldn't be any clearer than that
The 'its' win, the people lose.
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Update: The hitmeter is going crazy on this one....and as far as we can tell it looks like it is coming from the TWU discussion board; but we can't get in there to have a look. If that's the case, could somebody drop us a line on the comment thread and let us know what's up - thanks.
DoubleSecretProbationUpdate: Holy doodles! More than 100 hits in the last hour alone? This little blog hasn't seen numbers like this since the days when we did our (very) small part to help break this story which, for those keeping track at home, was BH (ie. Before Holman) btw.
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