Opening Statement



Tuesday 9 July 2013

Teachers London West By-election Watch! [Expanded + Retitled]

Regular News Links + Blog Features Continue Below Here!


Q: Tim! Don't you like teachers at all? A: Sure! I like to kick your butts!

This blog continues @ Teachers By-election Watch

News Flash:

A shouting match erupts during Wynnes visit to Corans campaign office. The OLP faithful chanting "We Ken Coran" compete with anti wind turbine protesters, a major hot button issue for the Liberals across rural Ontario where most of them are being built. I'm not sure why they don't just build them out in Lake Ontario, which is a toxic soup anyway, or any of the other Great lakes/ Georgian Bay. Anyway, the article is @ Shout Fest!

Sign wars heat up in the London West by-election. Signs won't win an election by themselves, but without enough of them a candidate can loose. None of the 3 main parties are taking any chances @  All out sign wars!

Score card? ETFO Thames Valley endorses NDP candidate Peggy Sattler in London West. OSSTF Thames Valley has endorsed the OLP's Ken Coran. See @ ETFO Thames

Metro News provides the text of the local ETFO endorsement statement in part. When I find a direct link to the complete text I will post it for you to see, just like the local OSSTF one below. For now see @ Endorsement

London Free Press article by Brent Boles examines how Coran's OLP candidacy has divided teachers in the riding and on the internet. Here's a good overview of the current situation @ Divide + Conquer?

Tim Hudak is back in London West playing the OLP + the "big union bosses" game to the hilt by targeting Coran's run in the riding. Hudak smells blood and is only too happy to move in for the kill. I was talking to some QP + MOEs sources who were dismayed with the teachers overall reaction to Coran's candidacy. There still is a very basic disconnect. They seemed to be expecting that his OLP election run would go over well with the province's teachers, and help bring us back into the Liberal fold. Tut! Tut! Here's the news link to an interview with the PC Party leader during his most recent visit to the riding. Seems to me he's been hanging out there a lot. Is Wynne gambling that a mad dash during the last two weeks of the sleepy summer by-elections will suffice after she gets back from holidays? Not Tim! See @ Hudak Interview: The OLP's Big Bad Union Boss


CPC-ML Political Forum claims both the OLP + the PC's are united in their legislative anti austerity drive to target workers + unions and in their support of corporate interests. The PC's are open about it with their White papers. The OLP uses these to scare us and divert our attention for their own similiar goals, the only difference is they claim to be "less prescriptive." Read more @ Austerity Campaigns

This New Politic's writer considers how we have to rebuild the teacher union movement from the grassroots up not to fall into the trap of the corporate attack on public education and the teachers unions around the world. Are we just playing their game by their rules? Read @ No Movement No Justice!

More links below ....

Commentary: Ken Coran's OLP by-election bid is resulting in a union split with 2 local OSSTF + ETFO units endorsing separate candidates. Teachers taking opposite sides is hardly an ideal situation. Great shades of the 1990's when the Harris PC government took power!  United we stand, divided we fall! Alas! What a perfect political storm!


 Thames Valley OSSTF D11 has advised its members that the local executive has unanimously endorsed former provincial President Ken Corans controversial run as the OLP candidate in the London West By-election on August 1. A letter has been sent to its members advising them of the situation, and listing ways that they can help Ken. Here's the text of the letter:

Dear Fellow Member:

Our District Executive Council has voted unanimously to endorse Ken Coran as the Liberal Candidate in the London West Provincial By-Election to take place Thursday, August 1st. Ken has always stood strong for OSSTF members and we know he will be a strong voice for residents of London West at Queen’s Park. If you would like to support Ken, there are a number of things you can do:

· TAKE A LAWN SIGN! – contact the campaign office @ 519-204-4326 or email ken@votekencoran.ca


· Door-to-Door Canvass (going into areas in London to help identify Ken supporters)

· Telephone Canvass (making phone calls to help identify Ken voters)

· Sign Crew (to put up Ken Signs at identified intersections and homes)

· Scrutineer (to be at a poll on Advanced voting days and/or on Election Day to help ensure all Ken supporters, who we've identified, vote who have not yet voted, and to monitor the vote count)

· Office helpers (needed closer to the end of the campaign. Assisting in administrative work)

· Volunteer recruiter (contact volunteers by phone to check availability and interest)

· For residents of London West, take family & friends … Get out and VOTE!

· Vote early. You can vote daily by special ballot at the Returning Office at 611 Wonderland Road North Wonderland (at the tracks south of Oxford beside the Pharma Plus/Rexall) or at the Advance Polls. The Returning Office is open Monday to Sunday 10 am to 8 pm except for Sunday July 7, 14 and 28 when they are open noon to 5 pm. The Returning Office phone number is 1-866-325-6241. Advance Polls open July 20th, locations will follow shortly.

You can volunteer for 5 or 30 minutes, 2 hours or full days – whatever and whenever you can. Every minute for Ken counts! Every vote counts!

Ken Coran’s Campaign Office is located at 332 Wellington Road, Unit 1A, (Wellington @ Baseline in the Staples Plaza behind BMO). 519-204-4326. Call, email or drop in ANYTIME!!!

Campaign e-mail is ken@votekencoran.ca. The website is
www.votekencoran.ca

We Are The Rank + File has broken the story online. A page member, Michael Bednarski is suggesting a grassroots rebellion against Ken Coran's recent political aspirations. He writes:

"I will suggest Tuesday, July 23 at 11:30 in front of Ken Coran's campaign office. Tuesday is a good news day. 11:30 is a good time in that people from Toronto, Hamilton, and Windsor can arrive in time for the event."


The Rank + File website has denounced Ken Coran's defection to the OLP in an article @ Anatomy of A Sell out!

Class Struggles: See Ken Corans campaign materials from his successful 2005 OSSTF Presidential election bid when he was singing from the NDP songbook. So who is the real Ken Coran OLP?!? Read @ REWT

REWT is signing up teachers, educators + others who are appalled with Ken Coran, to help out the NDP or Greens [?] in London West. Find more info and the sign up list @ REWT

Did former OSSTF President Ken Coran purposefully sabotage the unions MOU strategy for the OLP? London Free Press writer Colin MacKay considers the possibility @ Union Betrayal?

The World Socialist Web Site would certainly agree, and takes the argument a few steps further analyzing Corans move within the context of the Ontario union movement and the three main political parties. IMHO It is not becoming for any of the supposed progressive sides! Read @ An OLP Liberal Fighter?

Backgrounder: Here's my blog with a report + news links about Ken Coran's decision to run in the London West by-election for the OLP @ Coran news links

COMMENTARY

This week I have been quietly remembering a year ago July 5th when my OECTA provincial executive surprised us by unilaterally ratifying the controversial OECTA MOU Road map. My readers will know I have been in opposition against the decision all year. I can take some consolation that the executive decision was not anonymous. We have done some OECTA house cleaning since then and await with bated breath to see what our new President James Ryan and the 2013-14 OECTA executive can do to heal the terrible riffs + sense of betrayal many of us feel.

I can understand the OSSTF members humiliation and anger, especially since Ken led their long, hard rotating strike actions, protest and withdrawal from voluntary extracurriculars before reaching an OSSTF MOU deal with the Liberal MOE this spring. We know that before his presidential term ended on July 1st Coran had all ready decided to seek the nomination to run as an OLP candidate with the parties blessing as the "Chosen One".

OLP attack ad: Summer 2012!


We can also cringe at the thought of former OSSTF President + seeming union stalwart Earl Manners decision to go work for the school board negotiating teams after he led the members through the province wide teacher strike in 1998. The OSSTF grassroot members have received two really bad blows to their overall trust in the OSSTF leadership and it's political direction and strategy in supposedly representing their best interests. Or has the interest just been in often selling you out for their own career advantage?

Brothers + Sisters: I feel your pain. Please know my blogsite will do whatever it can upon your request to help spread the message like the other dedicated websites listed above. A guest blog that can best explain the situation from a members perspective can be posted here anytime. We are all in the good fight for teachers, workers and a strong, uncompromising + true union movement, at the grassroots level!

In Solidarity!

David Chiarelli 

Follow the NDP's Peggy Sattler on Facebook @ Sattler

Follow the OLP's Ken Coran on Facebook @ Coran

PS: Info on posting a guest blog is @ Guest Blog!



COMMENTS?

4 comments:

Skinny Dipper said...

Check your "it's." Should be " its political direction..."

Anonymous said...

More importantly: where is so called new democrat James Ryan in all of this? Too busy having Eric Hoskin's wife over to speak on the members dime at the latest social justice Liberal love fest I guess. What about Sid Ryan? All talk and no action. Must be on vacation in Dublin hiding his head in the sand. Where is so called new democrat OSSTF pres Paul Elliot? Still moving in to his office I guess.....What about Fred Hahn? Sad liberal enablers them all.

Kulture Kult Ink said...

The crux of the biscuit is the apostrophe. Actually I'm thinking of slowly but surely eliminating them all together. I average at least a couple of hundred woirds a day, sometimes a lot more. Punctuation, spelling + grammar get mangled + are not foremost on my mind.Many thanks for the correction though!

Kulture Kult Ink said...

All the affiliate leaders are laying mighty low, as you say! Probably not too many folk are following whats going on during the by-elections either, except for us hard core politicos. Pity!

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