Doug Collins

® gel this straight ®

| IT IS to be hoped that the late if not great Lester B. Pear-
son is having second thoughts in his liberal heaven about
what he did to us when he gave postal workers the right to
strike. For he it was who planted the seed that has grown

into a thorn bush.

He came to mind the other
night when I was watching union
goons trashing the mail in the
Montreal post office. In Van-
couver, Edmonton and Saanich,
other goons were bullying citizens
who were trying to exercise their
legal right to take jobs at which
the goons declined to work, or
were preventing trucks from being
driven onto public property.

The rights and wrongs of the
dispute do not interest me,
because there are no rights or
wrongs. The employer may want
to do some things of which the
Shirley Carrs of this country may
not approve, but that is no worse
than the letter carriers getting a

j full day’s pay for work they can
do in four hours or less.

What concerns me is that these
bat-brained badniks believe they
have a divine right to their jobs
and to the post office. The post

office, one might think, belongs

to them, but they are decent
enough to let us use it now and
again.

It’s not merely a matter of the
job-yobboes not knowing the dif-
ference between right and wrong.
If the post office union leaders or
the Craadian Labor Congress has

* condemned these Brownshirt tac-
tics 1 must have been out fishing,
because I have seen no sign of
that.

In the dim and distant past,
before Lester, that is, the post of-
fice was OK. So were the posties.
We even had Saturday mail.
iThere were no unions and no
strikes and no one was ever fired
without good cause.

Today, cause or no cause,
management is stuck with what it
has. Lesbian and homosexual fac-
tions battle straights for control
of the unions, too, | am told by
people who should know. And a
bigger mess doesn’t exist
anywhere.

In some areas, bosses feel
bound to search staff for drugs
and booze. And gone is the image

‘VD council backs away

of the friendly postie. It all
reminds me of Corporal Him-
melstoss in All Quiet On The
Western Front. A sycophantic
postman in peacetime, he became
a raging tyrant the moment he
tasted a drop of power. !

Canada Post is our Nicaragua.
But where are the Contras? Our
gang in Ottawa is busy telling
South Africa what it should do.

We would be well advised to
hire Maggie Thatcher for a couple
of weeks. Our post office woes
would then be over. As things are,
Brian Baloney is Lester B. Pear-
son’s natural heir and successor.

It’s because our politicans have
averted their eyes from this na-
tional disgrace that we have to pay
36 cents to send a letter that may
or may not be delivered within liv-
ing memory.

A reader once mailed a card to
Surrey that came back three mon-
ths later stamped ‘‘Mis-sent To
Fiji’, except that the illiterate
who ordered the stamp didn’t put
in the hyphen. Not only that, but
‘‘missent’’ is in the same category
as “‘misspoke”’.

A week or so ago, a North Van
lady mailed some letters to
members of parliament. Many of
them were returned marked ‘‘in-
sufficient postage’’. Yet every kid
knows you can write to an MP for
nothing. But the post office peo- }
ple who returned that mail were
probably too busy planning their
next sick leave to worry about lit-
tle things like letters.

The ‘‘scab”’ who was interview-
ed on TV had something when he
said the strikers were spoiled.

It’s time that the post office |
workers became unspoiled. .

There’s only one answer to this
nonsense: scrap the whole crazy
thing and start over. This time
with no unions, and let those who
don’t like it lump it.

The shade of Lester B. Pearson
may not approve, but in the other
world there are no strikes and
God’s post office works perfectly.

from changing gas rules

NORTH VANCOUVER District
Council moved Monday not to
change service station regulations
in the municipality.

Council was studying the idea of
enforcing separate zoning areas for
full-serve and self-serve operations
and limiting. on-site retail size in
the wake of the service station in-
dustry trend of converting full-
serve to self-serve.

Said Ald. Joan Gadsby: ‘‘It is

not council’s role to interfere in
the marketplace. There is no
reason to limit retail size.”

The motion not to support any
changes passed, with Ald. Ernie
Crist and Mayor Marilya Baker
opposed.

Said Baker: ‘‘We should have a
zone for both together and a zone
for simple self-serve. 1 would not
support enforcing service bays, but
I would support limiting retail
space.”’

Summer Dey Camp —
Four 2-week sessions

June 29

- Aug. 21

Register now with The North Shore
Neighbourhood House
For children ages 6-12.
Daycare subsidies accepted

225 E. 2nd St. NV. ,

987-8138

9 - Sunday, June 21, 1987 ~ North Shore News

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1987 PONY L 56795
LESS TRADE *1000

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