Hello Top... I can certainly understand your frustration with having some feeb convert your submission to the newspaper and then, add insult to injury by even getting your location wrong... Good help must be hard to find in the newspaper industry these days...
I was fairly quiet about what went on during the labor dispute with Telus that began with a lockout on July 21, 2005 and didn't end until late November, 2005 but I can tell you... it forever changed my life and my view of this country we live in...
Without going into the copious details of the dispute, let's just acknowledge that Telus is now a national corporate giant with a longstanding monopoly on western residential landlines that has, in the recent past, signed agreements with Bell in the East to be able to move in there while Bell tries to move west. I was employed by their wireless division of Telus at the time of the disruption... (This for the benefit of our American members).
As soon as the lockout was in force, Telus used all of their financial clout to literally shut down over 180 internet websites... At the same time, our Union (the TWU) quickly learned that no newspaper was going to publish what was really going on from the Union's perspective. Not only is Telus a major advertiser but its Board contains some of the most powerful elitists in our country. The company continued to propagandize their position on a regular basis in all of the papers but only ONE small independent newspaper on the West coast was willing to challenge the behemoth in order to publish the TWU's grievances...
We were, as union members, deeply concerned about the outsourcing of Canadian jobs to the Phillipines and other countries that Telus owned properties in and we had every reason to be... Telus ran right past our Union to attempt to impose a new collective agreement by sending it to us in our personal emails... Our Union president called their proposal one that was full of skunk language but at the end of 4 months of financial hardship for any of us with enough integrity not to cross the line, the Union president shifted feet and recommended we accept the very same agreement.... Telus was found to be guilty of not bargaining in good faith by the Canadian Industrial Relations Board but no sanctions or penalties were imposed... The power of the corporate elite literally reverberated off of every remedy including those in the courts...
And... those of us who found ourselves at the mercy of this revenue-sucking giant could no longer look away from the fact that "free speech" no longer exists in this country. The average Canadian never did know why we were in lockout with Telus or that we were trying to save some of the Canadian economy...
Yours is but one example of the fact that our newspapers are no longer forums for the truthful reporting of events...
Since then, I have read the classifieds and wrapped my fish in the newspaper... I would no more subscribe than I would do my own root canal through my own nose with a rusty drill...
"Freedom of speech" is now an ideal.. and your situation with a newspaper that alters your views is but an example of what the true situation now is...
Pretty grim stuff my friend...
Luv 'n hugggs,
Silken
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