City
Morning Brew: March 19th, 2009
Photo: "Obligatory sunset" by Torontogal Photos, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.
What's happening in the GTA (and sometimes beyond):
Are we headed for a labour dispute between the unions that represent civic workers and the City? It's starting to look like that may happen. The words picket, arbitration, etc. are making me cringe a little already. If city employees pull a TTCesque "city employees in the 416/647 should have it written into their contracts that they make more than 905ers" I think I'll scream.
Residents in the Bloor and Bathurst area take note: on Tuesday night there was a series of three swarmings that resulted in violence against the victims. At least six suspects, working together, mugged but also inflicted injury by stabbing, beating, and pepper spraying their victims. The Sun calls the description given by victims "vague" which means there is no description in the article.
What appears to have been a malfunctioning slot machine at an Innisfil casino is now resulting in legal action. A guy playing a penny machine jumped for joy when the screens lit up with a $42.9-million jackpot. But the OLG identified this as a glitch/error and ended up offering him and his friends a free buffet dinner instead. The courts may have to decide if this is fair or not.
Emergency crews are being praised for their handling of an early morning explosion and apartment building transformer fire in Scarborough. Residents were evacuated quickly and the fire contained.
In another case of what-the-eff-is-wrong-wth-people, sewing needles have been found in Scheiders pre-packaged deli meat products in Guelph. Police are saying that it appears to be an isolated case, and confined to just one store. I hope they search surveillance video and find the coward who did this so we can stick needles in his/her throat and ask how it feels.
And in much happier news... it's maple sugar time!
Discussion
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Its not as if he was told he won, and a year later told it was a mistake and they need the money back - right away he was told. He never lost any money. What's worse is how he's on the media bitching about how he needs to fix his house, etc. If he didn't win would he still be complaining? And how is gambling at a slot machine an effective source of income generation?
In fact, after typing this, I hope they sue him.
I don't believe the OlG contacts people when they find out their machines malfunction and there was no chance of winning at all. Right now this is a one way street favoring the OLG which has a pretty shitty record with misprinted tickets (in which case they should have been forced to pay out for every misprint).
Here's a reality check: I came out of University two years ago. My tuition was about $7000/year. I worked throughout the year and received no OSAP nor accumulated any debt. I got a job out of school with no connections and I make pretty good money. I feel for anyone who's trying to increase their wage, I don't expect the government to take care of me.
His picture is here: http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/323/dimervr7.jpg
It's no longer a game of chance when only the House can tell you if you have won. That's fixing the outcome, and it's illegal.
And if OLG truly believes that it was a flaw in the machine's hardware or software, why haven't they pulled the hundreds of identical machines they run?
The Star article had some computer guy explaining how a $9,000 win might be mis-reported by the machine as a $43 million win. But this means that the guy did win $9,000, which OLG also refused to pay up.
How many times have they done this, and it never got reported because $9k isn't that much money?
Come my lady. Come, come my lady.
Here's the Star's article:
http://www.thestar.com/News/Ontario/article/604696
However, the OLG will probably end up giving the guy the $9000 jackpot and perhaps a little extra to keep the media at bay. But only once they can determine it was merely a computer glitch and not due to human intervention.
I completely agree with that sentiment -- instead of bitching, we should look for ways to raise the bar all over.
But you have obviously never run a business. Unionizing a private-sector workplace is next to impossible in this day & age. The industries we work in today would much rather just pack up and leave, rather than be left with an unworkable labour model. And don't fall for that "creative class/new economy" jive -- a graphic designer in India can do just as good a job as one in Toronto.
The public sector employees, whose legacy unions are still with us only because the public sector can't move anywhere else, have never faced that risk. They've had it easy, and they have it good.
The unions as we know them are relics from an a different era.
You're probably right. I bet OLG has fine print that says just about any screwup must be resolved in their favour.
And to be fair, if a computer error results in you getting a whacky multimillion dollar long distance bill, nobody seriously expects you to have to pay it.
Still, as with the misprinted tickets a few months ago, OLG needs to come up with a better way of saying "sorry, we were wrong to make you think you won" than just handing out free tickets to the buffet.
Why, it's enough to make one question the wisdom of gambling.
Perhaps THEY are the dumb ones for thinking an investment of time and money into a philosophy degree would net them a good job.
http://www.netlingo.com/word/smiley-or-smileys.php
Ding! Ding! University enrollment is at it's highest numbers ever, and we have to relieve ourselves of an older generation's perceived high value of a University degree. It's just more common now, and is the new norm for a lot of employment. That being said plumbers and contractors are in high demand too because of their weak numbers. The Philosophy degrees can get a second job!
P.S. I'm not Anglo
Just how many Philosophy majors does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Unions can be good, prevent people form being taken advantage off, right now i find they are more of a terror organization that is milking it for all it's worth. They can ask for more at a time where everyone is cutting back only because they can hold society hostage. My parents work in a unionized shop, they hate the union. The have no option of not paying union dues, it's essentially a mafia that looks out for itself, not the worker. They been screwed over by it plenty.
I know Chrysler is the big bad corporation our hippie cousins conditioned us to despise, but you really think their demands for union concessions is devious money grab? Do North American car companies just decide to make less favourable cars? Or is there a huge defining factor between foreign and domestic cars manufactured here? (Hint: which workforce is unionized?)
I make more than York TAs or most TTC union members but I still think they're assholes for taking the public hostage whenever they feel entitled.
You complain about people always assuming too much about you ramanan? Think before you assume things about other people's motivations. Everything I've seen unions touch turns to shit.
and yes i am not biased, i see things from the workers perspective, the people that the unions are supposed to represent but are milking
if you try to get rid of the union you can kiss your ass good buy
now that is fashist
WRONG! They make less favourable cars because they decide to build SUVs with huge mark-ups and focus less on what people actually want. If you think paying your employees differently magically makes car safer with better gas mileage and parts that don't break in a few years then you have a warped sense of the world.
It'd be an interesting experiment that's for sure.
If you're such a business major how does North American car companies, all three of them, just decide to be ignorant of consumer demand?
I'm no business major either, but I still maintain unions are shit.
I was trying to refute YOUR claim that "any other business that has failed" was due to ignoring consumer demand.
Ok, I will concede you may or may not be correct about the North American auto market and business management in general if we can get back to why I hate unions...
Also, auto-workers don't design cars. Nor do they make top-level business decisions.
>actually the CAW offices are temporarily moved to a few floors of a downtown toronto hotel for the period of the government negotiations, it comes out of workers dues
You mean The Sheraton, downtown. The Sheraton downtown is unionized BY the CAW. They get the space for (almost) free. No one's union dues are being spent.
Also, just like pension funds, strike funds earn interest. Usually the union dues aren't spent the way you are insinuating, they are invested.
The comments re: unions in here are laughable. So many things people don't know, realize or would rather assume. I sense a lot of jealousy.
>dont like your employ?...go to school
LMFAO!!!!!!! Do you think people just wake up one morning and say: "I'm going to be a tool and dye maker today", apply for said job and get it? Get a f'n grip dude. It's a long process and someone as "educated as yourself" probably wouldn't even be able to hold a conversation about it, unless you were historically versed.
@Andrew: love your thoughts on our society's outlook on unions. Totally bang on.