Regarding the FortisBC/ IBEW standoff. I for one would like to know the reasoning for throwing this out in the public eye (mind you it makes a good change from hearing about Toronto’s Mayor Ford).
You both know “we” as the general public can’t solve it and trying to convince us the other guy is the bad guy accomplishes absolutely nothing as we don’t know and will never know all the details nor do we want to, on top of that what’s fact and what’s fiction.
In all due respects Mr Bortolussi your comment about Wagenaars dollar figures being skewed (Union counters FortisBC claims, Trail Times, Nov. 20) because they include health and pension benefits to me is a little off base. Health and pension benefits might not be wages but they certainly are earnings if paid for by the company. If you had to pay for these out of pocket that’s a different story and then it makes your wages smaller. People out in the work force that don’t get these benefits have to pay for them out of pocket effectively reducing their disposable income, or do without.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-union or anti-company in this scenario because I don’t belong to either. I just don’t see the benefit of trying to sway our view either direction.
I/we can’t vote or sway the decision of the company to change their offer in any way. And I am sure the concerned parties are well informed via meetings and internal bulletins / e-mails etc. So they don’t need to be informed in the media.
Some of us here in town went through a couple long strikes and they hurt ... a lot. Especially when we calculated what we gained/saved at the end of the strike would take us 54 years to recover what we lost during the strike. Just sayin’.
All in all we all hope both parties can sit down and come to an amiable solution soon as I’m sure its wearing heavily on both parties.
Dale Evans
Trail