Jeff Rybak🍁

My primary engagement on Twitter has been around political issues. For now, and perhaps for good, Twitter has sunk below the level where it feels meaningful in any way. At best it's a placebo - the illusion of doing something. Maybe it always has been. #cdnpoli #onpoli 1/5

A friend is in crisis over a very sick dog and started a #gofundme. I do know them personally and money isn't the real issue. I'll cover what's needed. But moral support also helps. So if anyone wanted to kick in just a few dollars it would be welcome. gofundme.com/f/6kbsz-please…

@voteLabonte At the moment I'm not involved in any provincial Liberal leadership race. If I participate in Twitter at all in the future, you'll know if I align with anyone. But so far I haven't taken a side. I'll say at least I wouldn't be disappointed at all with Nate as leader.

@JeffRybak Are you jumping on the Nate bandwagon?

My primary engagement on Twitter has been around political issues. For now, and perhaps for good, Twitter has sunk below the level where it feels meaningful in any way. At best it's a placebo - the illusion of doing something. Maybe it always has been. #cdnpoli #onpoli 1/5

For anyone still interested in my advice, there are so many great organizations out there, starved for volunteers and participants at every level. Climb out of the Twitter dumpster and into the light. You'll be happier for it, and more useful to society too. #cdnpoli #onpoli 5/5

I won't say I'm done with Twitter. Never say never. But if anyone wonders where I've gone, I'm not looking for the next great thing. I'm going back to the last great things - actual organizations that do good work in my community. I'll be doing more of that. #cdnpoli #onpoli 4/5

@JohnRMiller16 I agree, actually, and that's nuance that doesn't make it to twitter. That's why I'm not specifying Trudeau or, as others are quick to correct, that it's a Harper-era screw up. Really, it's the bureaucracy itself, which is distinct from the government of the day.

@JeffRybak I don't expect the politicians were involved in granular decision making on system design for the payroll project. More likely to have been the civil servants and the consultants. Fox and chicken coop come to mind...

Turns out the Government of Canada managed to screw itself with the Phoenix pay system in one more, unexpected way. It's hard to deter striking employees with the cost of being on strike when the government can't actually figure out how to stop paying them. Just saying. #cdnpoli

@nisobel Yes, they are paid in arrears, and that's one issue. The other issue is the government also doesn't know how to reliably stop paying 150k plus employees.

@voteLabonte I don't know how I can explain this in plainer language. Unions have never had the power to prevent members from working. Employers have never been required to prevent it. The theory is the union itself can motivate a general strike. If they can't, it's their own bloody problem.

@JeffRybak It's 100% union busting. Any undergrad game theory class could explain how letting someone break a pact leaders to the free rider effect which destroys efforts like this

I'm about as pro-union as it gets. But it isn't "union busting" to allow existing employees to continue working and get paid while a strike is ongoing. If a union can't convince people to strike, that's their problem, not the employer's. #cdnpoli theglobeandmail.com/politics/artic…

I paid for Twitter a couple of months so I could record longer videos. I don't care if people believe I am who I say I am. Look me up. Now that Musk has turned the blue checkmark into a referendum on him personally, I can't wait for my billing cycle to end and lose it.

@futbolsono So if both sides are fighting with untruths and "alternative facts" the important thing to remember is that your side is right? Regardless of whether I agree with you, I know the other side thinks that also. Justification built on that logic can excuse anything.

@JeffRybak ...nazis, stirring culture wars. I am far more forgiving of labour's mistakes than I am of the CPC's agenda. The end result matters as does the environment. If worker solidarity is undermined, regardless of attributed % in blame, who benefits? Both sides it is not.

@futbolsono Okay. Let's assume I agree entirely with every statement you just made. Does it help when the labour movement and left-wing politics starts making statements as confused and ahistorical as the absurd claims on the right? Everyone has their own invented facts. That's not better.

@JeffRybak My position was one about the larger state of labour politics in 🇨🇦. We have an arguably rudderless NDP, we have 40 years of chipping away at labour solidarity, & relentless scary growth of RW populism - one side is benefitting. The larger environment is playing a role here.

@futbolsono I appreciate the reasonable exchange on twitter, thank you. But the slippage isn't only yours, here. It's in the union's public statements. Which is my point. They're flatly wrong, and ignoring their own labour history. I know it's all positioning, but they're wrong, here.

@JeffRybak OK, I would concede this. Twitter isn't ideal when looking for shortened words, my bad. I still, however, believe, that the end result in all of this favours corps. Blame exists on both sides, but systemically only one side is winning here. And that is decades in the making.

@futbolsono Even calling them scabs, as the union is trying to do, is ahistorical. Scabs are replacement workers brought in to replace strikers. Here, we are talking about existing employees continuing their existing jobs. Whether anyone agrees with them working or not, they aren't "scabs."

@JeffRybak FWIW, I don't think you are considering the role 'employers' play in seeding scabs. It's in their interest And in the last 40 yrs, there's been a general seeding from corps and media. Blame can be ascribed to union leadership but it isn't binary. End result is weakened unions.

@ArleneAdamo There are a lot of obligations an employer needs to observe during a strike. The Government should be held to all of them. But preventing existing employers who want to work from working isn't one of them and never has been, no matter how hard the union tries to pretend it is.

@JeffRybak That's definitely union busting and conservative-like "logic".

@futbolsono As I've said, I don't believe in crossing picket lines. But any union who complains it's the employer's fault its members are doing that is being ridiculous. What the union is actually asking for is the employer to lock out everyone so it isn't their fault anymore.

@JeffRybak Then you are not 'pro-union as it gets'. The whole point of unions, as the name implies, is collective bargaining: Collective power where individual power is not enough. Breaking that solidarity, breaks the power which is why union busters promote the very thing you advocate.

@SimonONeill1966 I don't approve of crossing picket lines. That's a personal view. But it has never been an employer's obligation to prevent it, and that's exactly my point. Arguing that allowing existing employees to work is the same as hiring scabs is incoherent and ridiculous.

@JeffRybak Nope it's definitely union busting. I understand if workers can't afford to strike so must find work elsewhere but crossing the line to aid the employer during a strike is wrong