BAN ON UNION DONATIONS - DEMOCRACY?

content="Word.Document">

BAN ON UNION DONATIONS – DEMOCRATIC? John Beeching

Courier News Item: Friday March 26, 2010.

“It surprises me a lot and it sounds a little odd” Barry O’Neil said in the item. It not only surprised us; we felt it was a disgusting distortion of democracy. It is typical of the now social democratic leadership.

At first, it sounds democratic; after all it lumps union with corporations and treats them equally. That is fair is it not? The supporters of the present system we live under think so. We do not. To us we liken it to the time when the small business has approached the NPA council and convinced them to change the burden of taxation to the homeowner. The NPA declared it democratic and began to shift the burden of taxation to the homeowner. It completely ignores income. A comparison of incomes will show homeowners, in particular seniors, are largely in the fixed income bracket. Business on the other hand has an income that is profit based – variable income. There is a (hidden from public) process called mark-up. Its function is to guarantee maximum profit to the owner of the business. That is why they can sell an item at 70% off and still not go out of business because they have already recovered their costs with the first mark-up price. Check it out! COPE and Vision we understand are continuing to shift the burden of taxation from business to the homeowner.

As supporters of world peace allow us to give you some information you may not know that relates to democratic balance, which remains unfair in the extreme. “Since September 29, 2000 to the present 1,072 Israelis and at least 6,348 Palestinians have been killed.” Source, If Americans Only Knew web. “USA is providing Israel with at least $7.0 million per day in military aid and $ 0 in military aid to the Palestinians.” Ibid. Where are the people who support a balanced approach?

As for unions, it is time they faced up to the realities of our present day. They are under attack by a failing system in the interest of making super maximum profits. It is time they woke up and began to take open political action. Business is not shy about doing just that.

Translink discriminates against people with disabilities

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Translink discriminates against people with disabilities

Translink guilty of discrimination of people with disabilities

"I can confirm that 'custom transit model' I referred to in my March 4th letter is the service delivery method chosen to provide HandyDART service to customers. You may be interested to know that since its beginning nearly 30 years ago, HandyDART has been a contracted service." Dale Parker Board Chair

For almost 30 years HandyDART has been separated from general public transportation. To be clear "discriminate 1. make or see a distinction. 2. treat unfavorably or favourably on the basis of race, gender etc." Oxford. We suggest that disabilities is one of the subjects under "etc".

"Translink does not have the in-house expertise to operate such a specialized service. In fact, when Translink issued a Public Request for Proposal (RFP) to advertise and identify the most qualified proponent for the HandyDART contract, our own Coast Mountain Bus Company concluded that it did not have the experience necessary to submit a viable bid." ibid.

We do not know about Coast Mountain but to us this sounds like an evasionary tactic on the part of Translink. In other words an excuse. We find it in contradiction with known facts. Here is the question we have asked Translink;

"Regarding the section of your letter dealing with, “in-house expertise to operate such a specialized service” we wish clarification of a puzzling contradiction. Translink signed a “Custom Transit Operating Agreement” effective November 15, 2008 to December 31, 2013. Under “Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act” we are in receipt of an edited copy. Presumably, Translink had the “expertise” to understand and agree or disagree before signing. Its contents deal precisely with the ‘operation of such a specialized service’. You say neither you nor Coast Mountain Bus Company have expertise; therein lies the contradiction."

Translink chose not to end the HandyDART strike

Finally it is time the public knew that in that contract mentioned above there were two clauses which would have ended the HandyDART strike almost immediately:

"We have studied the agreement and it contains detailed information regarding the operation of such a specialized service. Taking advantage of a discretionary word “may” you did not use the authority you have to invoke section 11 DEFAULT AND TERMINATION section 11.1 and under section 8.0 RECORDS AND AUDIT section 8.5. We believe the public deserve to know this and have an explanation as to why." From our letter to Translink.

Posted by John Beeching at 2:57 PM