Shameful saga
To the owner of the Inn at Westview: shame on you for abandoning your property and letting it rot [“Time to clean up eyesores: council,” November 23]. Isn’t it about time you stepped up to the plate and stopped shirking your responsibility?
To a succession of council members, shame on all of you for indulging the property owner and not doing your due diligence. If you think for one minute the rest of us will willingly pick up the tab for the removal of the Inn at Westview, think again.
There has been tippy-toeing around this derelict eyesore and its owner for many years and now other similar buildings are becoming all too familiar. Does broken window syndrome ring a bell?
Many years ago in one, if not the first, Powell River Vital Signs report, there was a call for the Inn at Westview to be converted into much-needed seniors housing, among other ideas. No action of any kind was taken and the building was left to rot.
When I lived in Mission and worked at the fire department it was not uncommon for abandoned, derelict properties to be handed over to the fire department for training sites before they became targets of vandals and/or arsonists and a huge potential for human tragedy. It was good, on-the-job experience for volunteer firefighters in a tightly controlled environment and worked in everyone’s favour.
If the current council and owner fail to end this saga, one can only conclude that, somehow, doing nothing benefits both parties; a pretty poor legacy, don’t you think?
Rosemary Morgan
Padgett Road
Seniority principle
I was a quarry worker but became a human rights activist when LafargeHolcim blindsided us with its final offer [“No end in sight for Texada Island quarry lockout,” November 30], which contained clear enough/conveniently vague legalese that day-to-day seniority rights are forfeit.
The seniority principle is an objective framework that allows individuals to navigate their work life free from the personal bias of managers.
I am a visible minority in my workplace. My union job has allowed me, as a never-married single woman, to buy property, have excellent health benefits and be treated with complete equanimity in the workplace, because I’m a number.
From day one the thing I have been most grateful for is the fact that whatever job I get each day is not because of anything other than I am qualified to do the job and no other worker senior to me wants to do that job.
The seniority principle in our workplace means we get asked, not told, what job to do. It’s for management to treat us with respect and allows individuals the opportunity to move into positions that suit them as they age or face health changes.
Nadine Nyl
Van Anda
Hard times
The community of Texada Island is experiencing a very hard time right now [“No end in sight for Texada Island quarry lockout,” November 30] as union workers are locked out from the LafargeHolcim quarry after bargaining talks stopped.
Talks stopped because Lafarge wanted to take away seniority rights, the backbone of any collective agreement.
After the picket line was up for a time, an injunction was issued in favour of the company. Union members can no longer picket and stop vehicles; they must let them pass. The van with the darkened windows passes daily without incident as union workers watch neighbours and friends cross the line, feeling helpless due to the injunction.
Lafarge office staff are on salary and not in a union. They are crossing picket lines to go to work. They are not doing their usual management jobs; they are doing union jobs. No one from the office staff is talking; they have no voice. Ironically, if they were in a union, they would have a voice.
So, as happens in small communities, assumptions are made, talk is heard, rumours abound and tempers flare.
Lafarge is actively advertising for a shift supervisor as their employees are locked out. Replacement workers fill the union employee’s shoes without retribution, in violation of the Labour Relations Code.
If this is happening to this union, it could happen to yours. Powell River and Texada are union-based communities that fought long and hard to have the rights they have today.
Please show your support to the men and women of United Steelworkers Local 816 from Powell River and Texada. They are now into week eight of the lockout. Get the word out that this is happening and honk or wave if you are on the island. Together we stand strong.
Malle Behan
Van Anda
