I didn't get a chance to hear the show. I wonder if any of the other panelists had a chance to ask Alex Tsakumis about his 24 Hours rant against the Vancouver City workers? Does Alex really expect people to believe, as he stated in his column, that the average amount of vacation leave for City employees is 50 days per year? That may be the maximum employees are eventually entitled to if they stay with the City for decades, but it's certainly not the average that all of them enjoy at any given time given their current length of time as city employees.

Buddly:

You have a reading comprehension problem. I said "Day off" NOT strictly vacation time.

What's a matter Budd? Truth hurt? It's fact,
look it up.

But even it were "a maximum...after decades" and we accepted your erroneous postulate that it's just "vacation time" that's still absolutely outrageous that you would defend that. Mind, I should consider the source...

If the union members want some credibility then they can jolly well get up off their arses, lose the Soprano look-a-like (wannabes) with the two cent grunts as negotiators and hammer out something that's real--not bullshit.

Typical of you Budd...blind acceptance of the ridiculously over-the-top nature of union negotiating, just to prop up solidarity's flag.

Have a good summer old boy...and try and squeeze some reading comp leassons in there between the Depends and the herbal tea.

"If the union members want some credibility then they can jolly well get up off their arses, lose the Soprano look-a-like (wannabes) with the two cent grunts as negotiators and hammer out something that's real--not bullshit."

Tsakumis, given that you haven't explained your misleading comments one bit, it seems to me that it's your image that needs some attention. A pundit's reputation is only as good as their credibility.

I repeat. Your comments about 50 days off being an average were most certainly not a fact, on the contrary, they are utterly false and misleading. And I think you know that, and knew that when you wrote it. How's that for Sunday morning cheerfulness?

As for "blind acceptance", I suggest that what has happened here is that you have blindly accepted "information" from one of the management negotiators and have chosen to print it as fact, knowing full well it's totally suspect, on the grounds that you have a "source". So tell, what was the source?

Hi Alex,

I'm a regular reader of your articles and listener of Public Eye Radio. Sometimes I agree with you, and sometimes I don't.

I didn't have the chance to read your 24 Hours article this week, and it doesn't appear to be accessible from the 24 Hours website. But I thought I would wade in on this "50 days off" business.

The majority of City of Vancouver employees work an extra half-hour each day (thus a 8:30am-5:00pm work day), and bank the additional 30 minutes. This translates into approximately 1.5 "earned days off" (EDOs) per month, or 18 EDOs per year.

You correctly wrote that these are "days off", rather than vacation days. However, can I assume that there is an insinuation in your article that City employees have a cushy work environment because of these EDOs? And if so, do you genuinely think this is the case? Surely the old-school Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm working schedule is out of sync with modern reality. If employees are willing to put in the weekly/monthly hours, who cares if they do 8-hour days, or 16-hour days?

If employees work their hours in concentrated days, and thus get a "day off", why should this be perceived as some sort of generous and benevolent gift by the employer? The employee has worked the number of required weekly/monthly hours, so where's the benefit from the employer?

If you think there's lots of days off in the Canadian public sector, have a look across the pond at the UK. Rather than EDOs, they have flexitime - come in when you want, leave when you want, bank as many accrued hours as you want, and thus take as many earned days off as you want. And all this in a country that's had its unions significantly weakened by the old Thatcher regime - unions are MUCH stronger here in Canada, and yet working arrangements here are far less progressive.

What I'm trying to say (in an incoherent ramble) is: vacation days, health insurance, pensions... these are all benefits/rewards/perks that employees (potentially) receive from the employer. But EARNED days off, as a result of concentrated working days, aren't rewards. The same number of working hours are put in as if people did M-F 9-5, so using this to insinuate that CoV employees already have "the good life" is a bit misleading - but apologies for assumptions I have made about your arguments, as I haven't been able to read the article.

Cheers.

P.S. Any chance we could keep these conversations a tad more civil? :)

One of our family members is an inside worker in Vancouver, has been for well over twenty years.

Yes he gets benefits, all bargained for in good faith, under NPA and COPE as council. I believe he gets a shift differental as he does nights. Pretty standard in a lot of union contracts. The BC Government still has flex times. So why is this right of center guy making noises? well it's simple, that way he gets paid to be on some radio station. Too bad a fellow such as Jim Sinclair wasn't on the same show. Jim would blow him out of the water. and wouldn't need to twist words to do so.
I worked for a federal crown for a number of years. shift differential, sick leave , holiday pay and overtime were right there in the contract. After 14 years I got the same number of holidays as I did when I started. Now if you really want perks, become a MLA or really big time a MP.

Here's the quote: "The unions want additional holidays, when, in fact, the average number of days off for a municipal worker last year was - please sit down for this 50 days."

For DR & others: http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/News/2007/07/27/pf-4371844.html

It would be nice if AGT could provide a source.

I couldn't find a copy of the current city collective agreement, but here are a few older ones [.PDF]: http://www.lrb.bc.ca/cas/WPO3.pdf & http://www.lrb.bc.ca/cas/WPO6.pdf

There might be some more here: http://www.lrb.bc.ca/cas/

Think Alex is making a big deal over nothing.

The extra time worked for those EDO's is a benfit
to the employee. A person has to wonder if Alex has this 1950's management mentality that was
prevalent.

Being a student of management, he should know better.

I did the same thing in private business, added
the extra time I put in to get the customer's materials completed for about 3 weeks. I then added up the time and that ended up being equivalent to one week.

I then took that extra week's worth and added it to the vacation time so I told the owner that it's
not two weeks I'm leaving on vacation for, but three.

"What if we have a problem and need you to fix it?" he asked.

"Do it yourself. I'm on my motorcycle for the next three weeks travelling the U.S. But don't worry I won't cross the border until 6 o'clock tomorrow".

He was relieved since I was the only one in the company of three employees that knew how to run
the specialized computer equipment.

I then told him: "That's 6 o'clock tomorrow morning. See ya in three weeks!"

Just came across this writer's work. Has anyone checked into the tri governments secrete meetings and nagociations about more integration of regulations etc. between Canada,Mexico and the USA. It looks very suspicious.