Humour

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Rail-riding hobos begin

sympathy strike
CP Rail workers

   

By “Boxcar” Liam Britten

Ithough the CP Rail
Teamsters were legislated
back to work Friday by the

Conservative government, another
union, the Union of Canadian
Hobos (UCH) began a sympathy
strike today to support the
Teamsters at CP Rail and fight for
better conditions themselves.

Citing a litany of grievances
about their working conditions,
compensation, and the way rivers
keep looking at them funny, the
over 6,000-strong union represents
all of the bums, sponges, alkis,
drifters, beggars, and tramps who
ride the rails in search of temporary
work and cheap liquor.

With their collective bargaining
agreement recently expired, the
hobos have reached a stalemate in

in support of

songs. Tall tales will be noticeably
shorter. Incoherent screaming will
be minimal. And perhaps most
troubling of all, the nation will be
completely free of any horrible
reminders of the consequences for
falling behind in a capitalist society.

Unity among the hobos is
extremely high. After the UCH
leadership informed members that
the Union’s emergency supply
of cooking wine could last all
summet, members voted 96 per
cent in favour of labour action.
This solidarity is a good sign for
the strikers, as labour unrest can be
trying for workers

“The hobos really need to
make sure they don’t encounter
competition from scab workers,”
said “Boxcar” Gary, a professor
of vagabond studies at Memorial
University. “Also ,they need to

“Citing a litany of grievances about their working conditions, compensation,

and the way rivers keep looking at them funny, the over 6,000-strong union

represents all of the bums, sponges, alkis, drifters, beggars, and tramps who
ride the rails in search of temporary work and cheap liquor.’

negotiations with management.
Demands for workplace safety,
new bindles, harmonica tunings,
and a bottle of mouthwash every
day have fallen on deaf ears,
primarily because most managers
are delusional voices brought on
by the hobos’ mental disorders and
inhaled paint fumes.

“We hobos understand the
magnitude of our actions. We
realize the seriousness of a strike
that paralyzes major infrastructure
the entire nation depends on,” said
UCH chief negotiator “Boxcar”
Pete. “But we cannot stand by any
longer as our better-paid and less-
urine encrusted comrades suffer
under the yoke of oppression.”

The scope of the strike is
wide-ranging. The hobos will
refuse to perform almost all of
their normal duties, which may
have major ramifications for
the country. Decaying cities will
now be completely free of hobo

22

watch out for blister workers, open
sore workers, festering wound
workers, pustule workers, missing
teeth workers... the list goes on.
What I’m trying to say is, hobos are
really unhealthy.”

Although the strike is in its
infancy, the federal Conservatives
have made no secret about their
desire to get the hobos off the
picket lines and back to not
working as soon as possible.

“My office will be tendering
legislation within the week to
end this strike,” said Labour
Minister Lisa Raitt. “These dregs
of society are an essential part of
our nation’s economy. If regular,
everyday Canadians have to drive
to work without getting their
BMW’s windows squeegeed for
mere pennies by a destitute man
suffering from Hepatitis C, our
government is not doing its job.”

 

BC’s new Family Day holiday
considered an ‘insult’ to

province’s orphans
Test-tube babies, foster children also ‘humiliated’
by new holiday celebrating familial love they can

never know

By Little Orphan Liam Britten,
Humour Editor

he British Columbia Human
| Rights Tribunal is hearing a
complaint brought on by a
group representing the province’s
orphans that claims the new Family
Day holiday is nothing but a cruel
joke at their expense.

And for their part, the BC
Liberals aren’t denying it.

The Minister of Children
and Family Development, Mary
McNeil, told The Other Press that
children “make me sick,” and that
orphans are the “whiniest little
fucks you'll ever meet.”

“Nothing is ever good enough
for these little pukes,” McNeil told
The Other Press. “You give these
kids the opportunity to travel
between multiple foster homes,
sometimes ten or more times each
yeat, you give them all the gruel
they can eat, and look at how they
repay you! Makes you wish for the
days of Dickens.”

The government's reaction
to the Tribunal’s case was met by
Kaylin Rogers, one of the plaintiffs
in the pending action.

“This just shows you how
insensitive the government is.
Public holidays should be inclusive,
not exercises in divisiveness,” she
said. “I mean, imagine if we had a
holiday that celebrated people who
go overseas and murder people

in the name of the state? Or what
if we celebrated the monarchy
one day a year, say, in the middle
of May, and forgot about the
hundreds of years the royal family
wielded dictatorial powers of

life or death over a quarter of the
globe? That would be sick. We
need more inclusive holidays, like
Remembrance Day or Victoria
Day.”

However, the government is
receiving support for their “tough
on orphans” approach from the
most unlikely of places: right-wing
think tank the Fraser Institute.

“Tt’s important that we remind
these orphans that their lack of
family costs taxpayers millions
every year,” said senior fellow
Charles Lammam. “I think the best
thing for us to do as a society is
teach these orphans a little bit of
self-sufficiency. Let’s teach them
that working in a coal mine isn’t
so bad. Let’s use their tiny hands
to their fullest advantage, and get
them working in machine shops
unjamming wood chippers and
what not.”

Lammam said that if
orphans don’t get to work, the
competitiveness of BC’s economy
could be at risk: “If our orphans
don’t take these kinds of jobs, some
harder-working Malaysian orphan
is just going to snatch them right