In today's Globe & Mail there is an article about the last shift on the GM truck line in Oshawa. Workers were sad as they put the finishing touches to the last vehicles to roll off the assembly line which had, for many, played such a significant role in their lives:
"The Stewarts gathered for a service that was nothing less than an industrial funeral: The last truck – a Chevy Silverado with every option – was set under a spotlight at the end of the assembly line as managers delivered eulogies to a lost way of life.
“They told us it wasn't our fault,” said Mr. Stewart, who has spent 31 years at GM. “We made the best trucks in the world, but we still couldn't compete.”
Mr. Stewart and his wife reflected on the middle-class lifestyle his work at GM had brought them: an education for their two children, a house with a backyard pool, and his-and-hers motorcycles. Mr. Stewart wore a black T-shirt silk-screened with an image of a GM pickup truck and a slogan: “Pride and Dignity – The Last Truck Rolls off the Line.”
“Everyone's hurting,” he said. “A bad day all round.”"
The G&M article has a photograph which is very sad to look at: boots and shoes worn by GM workers on their last shift hung on a fence outside the Oshawa truck assembly plant.
We know that the Harper government is dragging its feet in allowing the billions of dollars of stimulus funds to be injected into the economy. They want to milk the allocation of those stimulus funds for their own political gain, by having a Tory present at a public announcement of the funds being used, even if their inexcusable delay means that thousands of Canadians are hurt by not having new jobs created to replace those lost at places like the GM Oshawa plant.
We also know that the Tory government is mean-spirited when it comes to the employment insurance payments.
Here is an idea for everyone to consider (especially those workers who have lost their jobs in this recession).
Why not send your boots and shoes to your local Tory MP?
Or hang them on fences outside their local constituency office?
Or hang them on fences before Parliament?
Or pile them up before Parliament?
Give the Tory government the boot for their mean-spiritedness, and their slow response to injecting the stimulus funds into our economy.
Friday, May 15, 2009
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7 comments:
Must be nice to have a house, pool, and two motorcycles. Not to mention cars. All with no significant education. Meanwhile I have none of that and work my ass off. I find it hard to feel bad for these people really. I am starting to see how people say they make too much money.
I agree.
No significant stress, no beating your brain for hours (unpaid hours) after regular work hours. Just walk out and leave it all at work.
But hey, it's Harper's fault the automakers are dying. It's Harper's fault the economy tanked. It's Harper's fault that $30,000,000,000 was siphoned out of EI by the Liberals. It's Harper's fault Chretien gerrymandered EI regs and created rules that deny benefits to half of all applicants. It's all Harper's fault and the second we elect Count Iggy the sun will shine out his butt and illuminate the path to righteous prosperity.
I guess the Rat and Anonymous don't really like the Cat's suggestion that workers losing their jobs send their Tory MPs their boots?
Pity.
I think it is a rather grand idea.
Even better than the new Tory ads about Ignatieff ....
Hardly Harper's fault that GM couldn't compete. Of course, $70. an hour as an autoworker does seem rather high to me.
Didn't any worker put away any money when the going was good? If not, taxpayers are hardly responsible for a bailout.
I am recommending sending boots to the Tory government because of their tardiness to invest stimulus funds, and their reluctance to make adequate changes to the employment insurance scheme.
Not because GM and Chrysler (management and workers) blew their brains out by making cars which did not meet the foreign competition, and cost too much to make.
So, send your boots to your Tory MP to register a protest against the above two things ...
This lond weekend has been cold and wet.It's all Harpers fault.Meow!
"We also know that the Tory government is mean-spirited when it comes to the employment insurance payments.'
Mean-spirited, eh? The Liberal's put the current qualifying rules into effect when the unemployment rate was 2% higher than it is today. Liberals lowered the weeekly rate from $448 to $413 when we had an unemplyment rate above 10%. The unemplyment rate was higher for 3 years after the changes were made than today. Liberals raised E.I. premiums while at the same time cutting $2 billion from the E.I. payouts to the unemployed.
In 2002 and most of 2003 we had unemployment rates similar to todays. All that during Liberal majority governments. At no time did they offer to ease the rules to qualify.
So were the Liberals mean-sprited?
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