Thanks Muffin. I’m still hoping that STS has a source for specific OPU T’s.
Great job in this thread by the way. I’m getting a lot from your contributions.
I’m wondering how the OPU got founded and how you got the idea to approach the wobblies. Do you have support from other homeless advocacy groups? How is your organization viewed by the shelters, churches and other groups that attempt to help the homeless? Do you do any fund raising activities, such as musical benefits? Where does the majority of the funds for keeping the organization running come from? Do you solicit donations? Do you get enough funds to help the homeless, such as collecting or purchasing warm winter gear to help them survive those horrid winters, or do you focus on rights issues?
Also, in regards to the Cop Watch program - I have seen abuses by police first hand when I was a street kid, and I know how officers of the law can behave when they don’t have any empathy or understanding of street people. As I know well, the police don’t take kindly to being scrutinized. Because you are watching the watchmen, are you ever a victim of mistreatment because of the Cop Watch program?
I can’t speak on what happens today, but I am aware of years in the past when the police of several municipalities, including in the Ottawa area, dropped off street people in the boonies in the winter, and I am aware of some municipalities who specifically used police to rough up career criminals. What may have been acceptable in these regards in past years should not acceptable today.
What really pisses me off is that it would be a lot less expensive to provide reasonable social services (ranging from food and shelter to medical and addiction treatment to job training and placement) for street people than to pay higher medical costs, higher policing costs, higher legal costs, and higher jail costs.
I’m not sure how someone who doesn’t work can go on strike but it sounds like it would benefit society if you can pull it off.
If you want to increase your membership you should post your address so people can hand it out to panhandlers. That way they can gather in large numbers and you won’t have to travel so far.
I was a street kid, I’ve been off the streets now for about 18 years, and this is only one of the things police would do (in Calgary they’d drop you off on the highway outside of town too). This was on top of your backpack & belongings constantly being searched, constantly having to “move on” because they didn’t want you hanging out in one spot for too long, I had a friend who was asleep in the squat who was beaten up by the cops because he didn’t get up right away when he was sound asleep as they were busting it up. In general the police treated you like you were human garbage, unless you were cute and female… Then you’d encounter police who would ask for sexual favours in exchange for not running your name & seeing if you had any tickets, or other violations which would send you to jail for the night. Vancouver was the worst for the creep cops, but even here in Calgary, there were ones who knew the street kids and prostitute girls were very young, yet still asked for blow jobs from them. I still have little trust of police, because from what I have seen, too many people attracted to the job are just big bullies, who enjoy the power they have over others.
We have squeegee kids and ex-squeegee kids among our membership. While squeegeeing was made illegal under the Harris regime in Ontario, you may be interested to know that I’ve talked to several very conservative police officers who say they were quite angry when squeegeeing was banned. You see, a kid who is out squeegeeing is doing a job staying out of trouble. It may be a minor annoyance, but if a street youth needs to buy his ciggies or his pot, would you rather that sie squeegee windows for voluntary donations or smash car windows for stereos to hock?
I’ve mentioned this in other threads, but I’ll give you a brief synopsis. It’s a personal decision, made for the same reason I use the spelling of Amerika, Mexiko, Republikan Party, Demokratic Party, and so on: I wish to emphasize that these social constructs have their basis in fascism.
I don’t use the term “fascism” lightly or figuratively. Fascism has its origins in ancient Rome, where the fasces was the symbol of authority. The fasces was a symbolic phallus (indeed, “fascinum” was latin slang for penis) constructed from an axe with a bundle of sticks bound tightly to the handle. This symbolized the strength and might of the State, created through the unity and conformity of the people, bound rigidly with ropes of authority. Later, Mussolini defined modern fascism as rule through the combined strength of State and industry. In this sense, modern nations and political parties are all grounded in fascist ideology, the idea that strength is created through the procrustean amputation of the individual to a regulation size and shape.
You may disagree or come to different conclusions, but for me, the use of ‘k’ is a moral issue, and a symbol of my resistance to authority.
We’re not unreasonable. We understand that McDonalds is not going to tolerate someone setting up a hamburger stand right outside their door. Likewise, we don’t want to block traffic, impede pedestrians, or endanger either ourselves or the public. We are entirely willing to negotiate areas suitable to vending. The problem is that vending in the city is banned entirely. Verboten. Except, of course, for the BIAs, which are permitted to hold sidewalk sales, set up craft stalls, and vend whatever they wish because the laws don’t apply to those who own city hall.
You see the same thing here, where experienced panhandlers regard a certain street or corner as “theirs” and will become quite irate if you “cut their grass,” as they phrase it. The OPU doesn’t have any formal policies on this. We recognize that the street has its own customs, often as baroque as any medieval Chinese court, and that we should approach established cultures with respect and humility.
I believe the IWW currently has something like 3000 members in good standing, though of course this number fluctuates, and we have considerably more members whose standing is not currently good (as in, they are not at this precise moment up to date on their dues). At its high-water mark, the IWW had some 200,000 members. That, of course, was before our entire leadership was imprisoned for opposing the First World War and some 2000 anarchists were deported en masse to the Soviet Union, effectively breaking the back of the IWW.
One might think that if a person is capable of vending, then that person should be capable of holding down a McJob, and that it is a matter of personal preference rather than economic necessity that finds a person peddling on a street corner rather than employed selling something for an employer.
I don’t want to hijack Sts’s thread, but as someone who has been there - it is not as simple to off the streets, and live a normal life.
There are many factors in why someone may not be able to maintain a traditional job. Mental Illness is a major factor - here in Alberta, Harris’s Idol Ralph Klein closed the hospitals and mental health wards and many people who would have been in care or on AISH became homeless.
Addictions are another issue, alcohol and drugs can be a temporary escape from the pain of the street life, but with long term consequences.
Street life, and often what lead to street life as well can break a person mentally, I would say it is kind of like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder - you see a lot on the streets, and there are times when you are in great danger, yet you must keep going, you life day to day, and you really lose connection to the rest of society. It can take years to recover from that life, even if you have no addictions and no serious mental health issues.
Quite often street people have problems working within a structure due to these and other issues, someone may be able to handle a day of vending or panhandling, but only on their own schedule. Sometimes, street kids you see could be far too young to work - there were kids as young as 11 years old in my own street family. Also many of the kids have little or no education - I would say most of the kids I knew at the time only had between grade 6 and grade 9 educations. Some of these kids never make it back to normal life - they become the older homeless.
I think there should be more programs for addicts, homeless youth and for the mentally ill before we can start talking about them “getting a job”. Once they recover from the other problems, maybe then they can work at a McJob, or maybe even go to school, get a trade, a university degree, or what ever they decide to do once they can think past today and work towards a future.
Well… gosh, no, that’s totally false, at least in Canada. The most prominent unions in Canada span a wide variety of occupations or trades.
I’m curious as to how much personal familiarity you actually have with real unions. The largest union in Canada, by far, is CUPE, which includes hundreds of professions and jobs, and which is the only union of choice in most workplaces in which it is the bargaining union.
This is simply false. The old Rent Control Act was abolished, but because it was replaced by the Tenant Protection Act, which included rent control measures. I was renting throughout the Harris administration, so believe me, I was acutely aware of rent control limits (and this stuff can be very easily found on the 'net.) There has not been a single day in my lifetime, and probably not in yours, in which Ontario did not have substantial rent control. You can argue the TPA was worse for renters and made rent control less stringent, but rent control remained all the same. Your statement that Harris “completely removed rent controls in Ontario” is a plain falsehood beyond any doubt or question.
One can make a serious case that Harris was a bad Premier, especially with regard to the across-the-board welfare cuts, which were mean-spirited and not, in the long run, of any fiscal benefit to the province whatsoever. But just making stuff up does not help your case.
One might think that the Bolshevik revolution, rather than opposition to the war, was the deciding point in severe government repression of the I.W.W.
My questions are being blown off. So much for that.
No, how many dues paying members of the Ottawa Panhandlers’ Union?
Here’s what wiki sez "*The Ottawa Panhandlers’ Union (French: Syndicat des clochards d’Ottawa) is a trade union for panhandlers formed in Ottawa, Canada in early 2003. It is a shop of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), Ottawa-Outaouis General Members Branch. The union purports to gather together panhandlers, street vendors, and buskers, to fight for their rights as a collective. The OPU maintains that these people are being unfairly persecuted in Ontario.
[edit] Structure and character
The organization is largely a collaborative effort by lead organizer, IWW delegate and spokesperson Andrew Nellis,[1] Jane Scharf, and other long time anti-poverty Ottawa activists. One of the main pieces of legislation which motivated activists to form the Panhandler’s Union was the Safe Streets Act.[2] Other pieces of legislation objected to include the Vending on Highways Law, passed by Ottawa City Hall. Aside from one of its members, the panhandlers’ union dues are paid for by the Industrial Workers of the World through donations and various organized events.[3]*
Do you know Andrew Nellis?
I’m not blowing off your (or anyone’s) questions. I’m tackling them one at a time, in the order they’re posted, but it’s taking a while since the questions are stacking faster than I can respond to them. Be patient, I will answer them, promise. I’ll be going to sleep shortly, but I’ll be up bright and early to tackle the remaining questions.
So the panhandlers are effectively panhandling their dues from a socialist/anarchist union? A more perfect union could not be entered into.