SELF-INTEREST POLITICS AS USUAL

Underbelly News
Downtown Eastside

SELF-INTEREST POLITICS AS USUAL

Councillor Tim Stevenson has decided not to pursue his legal challenge whereby the 71 votes which were not counted in the recent provincial election in Vancouver-Burrrard, which he wanted counted, now shouldn't be counted after all.

Some of you may re-call that Councillor Stevenson was carrying on in a very public way that his reason for challenging the result was because every citizen's vote should count and be counted. He was purportedly doing this for the sake of democracy and on behalf of the people.

Now he is abandoning his constituents and supposed values, in favour of his own personal interest. The NDP informed him they would only pay for his court challenge, if he was willing to continue and seek an NDP nomination if the courts deemed the election invalid.

Political strategists informed Mr Stevenson that the move was a risky one. Internal NDP sources confirm that if the election for that riding was declared invalid and a by-election held, many NDP members were expressing an interest in seeking the nomination. Rev Stevenson was not guaranteed a win and has decided to seek better odds. He plans again to seek re-election in this November's municipal election.

So much for Democracy and the People you stood up for hey Tim. I guess you have learned very well from your good ole buddy Jim Green how to practice Self-Interest Politics. Politics as Usual hey Tim!

Jamie Lee Hamilton
tricia_foxx@yahoo.ca

JIM GREEN SCARY as an EMPLOYER

Underbelly News
Downtown Eastside

JIM GREEN SCARY as an EMPLOYER


Jim Green was busy defending his position of running against COPE in this November's municipal election with his new municipal party, Vision Vancouver. In this week's opinion piece in the Vancouver Courier, www.vancourier.com the columnist Pat Johnson, extracted a great quote from Jim Green. As usual though, as Mr Green's always does, he stretches things to suit his purpose. Some call it fibbing. Others say its a misrepresentation of facts.

Here is what he said.

"This is exactly the same structure that COPE ran on for years," Green says of his proposed alliance between VV and COPE. "When I hear people talking about their deep roots with COPE, well, they're not that deep if they're not aware of how we ran so many elections."

Since this blogwriter has deeper roots which go much further back in the progressive movement than Mr Green's, I must champion that Jim Green doesn't always want people to know certain truths.

For instance, Mr Green who did run under the COPE banner in 1990 as its mayoralty candidate and COPE raised all the funds necessary for his campaign. As it should.

However, what Green doesn't want people to know is this. It wasn't enough for COPE to raise the cash for his campaign, he also demanded and was granted, a paid salary while he campaigned for Mayor.

So much for him being a man of the ordinary people as he articulates. The obscene part of this was that he demanded DERA workers volunteer on his campaign after they finished a long day of work at the inner city DERA offices, where Mr Green was the big boss.

In fact, if you refused, there was hell to pay. After the election which Mr Green lost, he came back to DERA with a vengeance and created an unsafe work environment for many DERA workers. Upon his return, Mr Green promptly fired a number of unionized staff--without cause. The Union--CUPE 1004--opposed this blatant disregard of worker rights and challenged Green, for displaying anti union animus.

Of course, Mr Green in his usual blustery way, was overheard saying to Union reps. OK if you want proof that these employees deserve to be fired, "I'll get you proof".

Mr Green forgot one key element, it is that you should always have grounds for firing before terminating an employee. You don't go looking for bones after you have fired someone for petty reasons.

If an employee ultimately is making mistakes, this should be brought to their attention for corrective action. This is union politics 101 and anyone in the labour movement knows this. Of course except Mr Green.

So much for Mr Green's supposed Labour knowledge.

Imagine Mr Green as mayor and what he could accomplish presiding over thousands of unionized city hall employees who he may take a dislike to for not doing as he demands.

Scary isn't it.

Jamie Lee Hamilton
tricia_foxx@yahoo.com