Gratitude - Continued

               ' Gratitude' contnued
 
       This is a story about gratitude and when it's given and when it's not. In the first part of this blog entry I talked about a union that never said thanks when it was needed. So let's stick to this theme and talk about another union called the B.C. Government Employees Union. The 'BC Goo' as it's sometimes called  is one of the major public sector unions in British Columbia.
     Its more than 30,000 members toil away as social workers, court reporters, data entry work and highway maintenance workers. Some work in provincially owned liquor stores, stacking shelves, recording sales as cashiers, and putting sale prices on liquor bottles. In 2014 the liquor stores staff got a new contract after some hard bargaining with the usually anti-union B.C. Liberal government.  B.C. premier Christy Clark took part in the bargaining sessions.
    "I think she's a brilliant politician," David Vipond, the B.C.G.E.U.'s chief negotiator said of Premier Clark. "She's got a lot of skill."
     Flash back about 40 years. At this time, the N.D.P. government of Dave Barrett just about created the present BCGEU. Before Barrett's time in power, government workers scuffled long and hard to get any rights. The reigning B.C. premier of the 1950's and 1960's, W.A.C. Bennett was a right-wing Social Creditor who decided what if any raises government workers would get. He decided everything else about their working  conditions too.
      Once Barrett's government was elected in 1972, everything changed. The B.C.G.E.U.'s new leader English-born John Freyer helped forge a genuine union. He negotiated members's rights, wages, and so on. Yet he and his aides were helped by Barrett's Minister of Labour, the former railway worker Bill King. King encouraged and helped form the present B.C.G.E.U.
      What a difference this was from W.A.C. Bennett's day.
     "The B.C.G.E.U. couldn't negotiate its way out of a paper bag," one union official from another public sector union scornfully remarked about the B.C.G.E.U. "Have you ever seen its members on a picket line? They go out on strike once in a blue moon. Everything they won at first they were given by the N.D.P. government."
     This comment was a bit unfair. Yet without doubt if the N.D.P. hadn't formed a government once in a while, the 'BC Goo' would be a very weak union indeed.
     Yet 40 or so years later here was B.C.G.E.U. negotiator praising Liberal premier Christy Clark to the skies. The NDP that sits usually in opposition and helped create the B.C.G.E.U.? Vipond didn't even give them a mention. Or maybe he did but the media never reported. there was no gratitude here.
     Of course 40 years is a very long time. So maybe you can forgive the unions I've mentioned. So let me add a personal anecdote. In 1981 I went down to Vancouver City Hall on behalf of a future housing co-op. I and another housing co-op member
went before the 11 member city council and asked the council for a six month property tax deferral so our money-starved co-op could start being built.  Before that meeting I lobbied three council members to support our tax deferral plan. The deferral went through after some discussion.
    After that I went to at least 15 more co-op meetings. I was also put through the grinder by an official from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation or CMHC as it was known. CMHC oversaw housing co-ops back then and this lady from CMHC forced me to find out the rents from 50 nearby apartments and then rank them from 1 to 50.
    "You've got 48 hours to do this," she firmly informed me.
     I moved into the co-op in the late summer of 1982. After that I went to dozens of meetings and did help track down a a handy man. That took me over 14 hours on one weekend.
      But then danger struck. "Dave," someone informed me over the phone in 1995. "There's a group of people who want to throw you out of here. They held a meeting of 14 people last night. They don't like you.
     I know what had happened. A few days before I was phoned, I had an argument with the group's leader, a short chunky woman who tried to bully me and others. Still at great cost to myself I kept my cool. I recalled what a sociology instructor had told me years ago. "The bigger the group, the more likely it is to split into at least two factions."
     Which is what happened to this group. Soon, nobody talked about kicking me out. They were now fighting  with each other.
     Of course I am not the easiest person to get on with. I have a terrible temper, and a wide streak of paranoia, talk too much and panic easily. I sure offended people in the 42 unit co-op I still live in to-day. But this incident taught me once again, that many people show no gratitude to those who help them.