But as listeners of The Great Canadian Talk Show heard, the controversy over the delivery of frozen pork to striking workers intensified even as the ratification vote took place, with the provincial government now voicing concern.
The first strikers story about the pork, which can be found here, claimed "A man who delivers donations for the Winnipeg Harvest food bank" miraculously appeared at 11 AM on October 17th at the picket line, after he was "asked to get rid of it", and that the meat had been declared "surplus":
"The province’s biggest food bank appealed for donations last week when supplies ran low. The appeal drew hundreds of donations, including the frozen meat."
We have now discovered, that story was quickly re-written, excising the reference to the meat having been part of the public response to the emergency appeal and deleting the time of the delivery, but the strikers added the detail: "The meat was piled into trucks and most of it was to be driven back to union headquarters and distributed."
The strikers ran a second story on October 20th after the Porkgate controversy erupted on CJOB and in the blogosphere, titled "Harvest boss happy pork got to Free Press staff".
However after a couple of hours, even that story got a revision, and someone added the following sentences to the very end:
"On Oct. 16, a truck came by the Free Press line last week after trying to deliver frozen pork to Winnipeg Harvest. The driver was told Harvest had no room in its freezers for the pork. The truck then came by the picket line and donated it to the strikers, saying Harvest couldn’t handle the donation."
When our listeners emailed questions about the pork to the strikers website, freepressonline.com, they were told:
"The issue of the free pork was addressed on freepressonstrike.com. Please see the story "Harvest boss happy pork got to Free Press staff"."
This advice, directing our listeners to look at their revised second version of events, occured DAYS AFTER the absolute and categorical denial of the "facts" contained in both stories -- by Harvest honcho David Northcott, in an appearance on Richard Cloutier Reports on CJOB.
He told the AM audience
- that the delivery had never been turned away by Harvest,
- that it was actually meat Harvest had donated to other organizations for distribution to the needy, and
- that he could not get help from anyone, to identify the driver or the organization the pork came from.
When one of our listeners asked the strikers who the driver was, their spokewoman emailed back:
"I don't know the delivery persons name, you would probably have to contact Harvest for that information." -- sending our listener to the same David Northcott who had already declared on CJOB the week before, he did not have the answer and had given up looking for it.
Meanwhile, on October 23rd, TGCTS sent a series of questions to provincial Agriculture Minister Rosanne Wowchuk, and today her office responded:
"... we are very concerned with what has happened in regards to the incident in question with Winnipeg Harvest."
As we continued to pursue the mystery of the meat delivery, and what the Union really did with the taxpayer-paid pork, we received an email at the end of today's program.
We went into overtime to read it on-air.
This contains shocking details of the reason why the strikers' pork stories had no by-line, what really happened with the delivery, and confirmed the discord within the union that had forced a clamp-down on the comments section of their news website. While we cannot yet confirm this email came from a union member, it is the best account available of the delivery or of the mood of the strikers. Here it is:
I work at the FP in editorial. I had friends mention to me that you were asking some tough questions about the strike and content on the freepressonstrike.com website. I thought I'd add some additional information to you.
I was on the picket line the day the pork showed up. I can tell you that I didn't see anyone touch the food. We were horrified and disgusted that anyone from the union would have accepted such a donation, for the obvious reasons you have highlighted. I guess the cold and the depression stunted our normally inquisitive minds, and the folks I was walking with never did ask for an explanation.
I was quite concerned when I heard you on Monday explain that David Northcott had disowned a story on the fponstrike website. I read that story, and considered your analysis. I think you need to know this is part of a much, much bigger story.
The story on the website is not really indicative of the quality of the work of the striking journalists. I know that is your normal rant, but I think you should consider that this is not about shoddy journalism, this is about a union that is lying to its own members.
I did some asking around and the version of the story on the website was directly from the top brass at the union. That is why it did not have a byline. Normally, a member of a union could expect to get the straight goods from their own union reps, but not this union, and certainly not these union reps.
The union has consistently misled the membership about the negotiations and the issues involved. We were asked to support strike action based on one set of issues, and then once out we found out it was a whole other set of issues that were the cause of the conflict.
Our biggest issue, and the root cause of all this dishonesty, is a union that foolishly unionized its carriers. These people make $12-15K a year for working two hours a day. They get a full vote on all union decisions, even though none of them picket. Why? Because they have other, full-time jobs to go to. The union claims these are disadvantaged, underprivileged minimum wage earners. WHat a crock.
We have been screwed twice by this union, which has taken us out on the street primarily to get stuff for the carriers, who control 55 per cent of the membership by their sheer numbers.
So, you'll forgive me if I see that story behind the story of the frozen pork as yet more evidence of how dishonest this union is. They believe they can tell us anything, lie to us, all in the name of some greater good. In fact, all they are doing is trying to satisfy a disinterested and unaccountable part of the membership.
This union decided to somehow score some free food from Harvest, without considering how utterly appalling it is for the strikign workers to take food out of the mouth of truly disadvantaged people. Then they lied about it to cover it up. They will no doubt continue lying to cover up the earlier lies.
I know you love to hammer some of my colleagues on a regular basis... but this isn't about shoddy journalism. It's a much bigger story about liars and cheaters who do their dirty work in the name of a greater good. You can see from the letter crapping on picketing workers that they no longer care what anyone thinks other than the small band of thugs who control the union. They are out of control.
Fighting for the rights of workers at the FP? What a load of shit.
For what it's worth, there you have it.
Wednesday at 4PM, we'll have more on the strike vote, our investigation into Porkgate, your emails and calls -- and of course CTV's Kelly Dehn with Crimewatch at 4.10 PM -- as we are joined by our special guest co-host, Scott Taylor of the National Post.
