*This post was written at 10pm Sunday night and we received word at 1am that the strike was over.*
Hello Friends, Family, and Fans,
We’ve now entered the third week of the strike. If you don’t know or don’t follow the news, my union PSAC (you say the letters and don’t read it. If you read it it sounds too much like a bag of urine) which represents over 150,000 public service employees, has been negotiating a new contract with the government since our last one expired in early 2021.
Members do everything from auditing, to web design, to ship inspection, etc. Lots of different jobs. The union wants our pay to be the same as inflation and several other things. (I think the original list was 500+ items)
What happens when you’re on strike is you don’t get paid. We can get $75 strike pay if we picket for 4 hours. That’s less than half of my usual. We’re doing fine financially thanks to some inheritance, but it’ll get tight if this goes on more than another week. (Not asking for help, Thank you)
Because of my health issues, I’ve gone twice and both times I walked around 18,000 steps (3x more than I normally do in a day.) Every time I sat down I caught whiffs of cigarette or cannabis smoke. There aren’t a lot of smokers but it only takes one to stink up the place and make me have trouble breathing.
So I walked, and both times it took me 2 days to recover from the physical exhaustion and pain. It’s hard to recover from, and hard to feel so useless. I know there are awesome and brave people out there walking 20,000 steps per day and really putting on the pressure and I appreciate them. Unfortunately, like many other parts of my life, I’m feeling a little mediocre.
Let’s hope this gets fixed soon so that we can all get back to work and I can get back to figuring out how to improve my health.
Be kind and stay safe,
Éric
