

But for soccer parents, the strike has become more than an inconvenience, now that our kids have nowhere to play and practice. So parents have begun to take matters into their own hands. Around the city, they are beginning to haul out their lawnmowers and cut the grass on those public fields themselves.
Many members of CUPE, Vancouver's striking union, are taking serious issue with this development. At one point last week, rumours were swirling around the soccer community that the union might even picket some games. Clearly, many CUPE members believe these parents are scabs.
They believe that, by mowing the fields, concerned parents are stealing union work. Further, by making it possible for citizens to use the fields, they are making it easier for all of us to survive this strike. And if it's easier to survive it, then CUPE believes we won't put pressure on their employer to get the thing settled as soon as it might otherwise be.
I can understand why the strikers are frustrated. Walking up and down the picket line, being ordered by CUPE brass not to sit or play games to relieve the boredom, must be an awful way to spend one's day. And most of them are by now missing their pay packets, not to mention their jobs, which I have no doubt they take pride in and enjoy doing.
But it's a step too far to accuse local soccer parents of scabbing.
Not one of them is profiting from doing CUPE's work. Those parents aren't getting paid a cent to mow the acres of fields. They're doing it because they're desperate to salvage their children's soccer season.
And, they're not doing it to make this strike easier on the folks at City Hall. They're just trying to support their kids' rights to have fresh air, exercise and a safe place to play.
They are no different from the people on my street who have found a million different ways to dispose of their garbage. Some of us have hired people to take it away. Others regularly gather theirs up and take it to friends in Richmond and Burnaby. That's all work that used to be done by the union. If that's union busting too, then the city is crawling with scabs.
None of us want this ridiculous strike to drag on a day longer than it has to. We all want things to get back to normal. But, in the meantime, we can't be blamed for doing what we can to keep our lives in working order.
A message to the union: if your members refuse to mow the playing fields, then don't blame taxpayers for doing it while you're on strike. Getting paid to cut the grass might be a job that belongs to CUPE members, but the fields themselves belong to the citizens of this city.
(canada.com)