The Canadian Auto Workers Union has made no friends with racetrack enthusiasts. No friends at all.
Today, the union, acting for striking slots security people held Woodbine hostage on its biggest day, the Queen's Plate.
The strike has nothing to do at all with racetrack issues. The strike was not of Woodbine racetrack's making. Woodbine has no dispute with slots security or with the Ontario Lottery Gaming operation or with the grief that exists between OLG and its security employees.
Yet, rather than targeting slots patrons on a Friday or a Saturday night, when it stands to reason they could make their biggest points with the people who really use slots, the strikers choose to target the racetrack. Could it be that striking on a Friday or Saturday night doesn't suit their personal lives?
And the strikers flat out lie to people. They don't tell the truth. Two weeks ago, when actions were relatively mild compared to Plate day, strikers were telling patrons that the Canadian Oaks had been cancelled and that they should go home. It hadn't. The race was won by Ginger Brew.
They were doing the same, yesterday, telling people that the 149th Queen's Plate, the oldest continuously run stakes race in North America, had been called off, a prisoner to their actions. Not true.
And although Woodbine had worked out a deal with the Woodbine Centre to allow racetrack customers to park in the shopping mall lot, CAW workers posing as mall security people swarmed people intending to park in the mall parking lot, telling them that their cars would be towed if they parked there. These dishonest CAW representatives told people that they could park only on Woodbine racetrack property because they wanted to force them to head into the long lineup of cars that by post time spilled all the way back to Highway 427 on one side, and all the way back to Belfield Road south of the track. Show them a racetrack badge, and they'd immediately back off.
The truth was, Woodbine Centre was allowing racetrack people to park in a certain large lot that tended to be furthest from the mall itself, and that would interfere the least with their own operations. The real security people were sending people to this lot, not telling them that their cars would be towed or forcing them to park at Woodbine racetrack. Later in the morning, after the real security people arrived on the scene, the bogus ones disappeared.
This CAW strike also upended a charity fundraiser, the Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Centre, meant to help kids with disabilities. The charity hoped to raise $70,000 to help kids deal with say, cerebral palsy. Nice work, auto workers. Really bad public relations move.
So the CAW thinks it will gain sympathy for its workers, who are seeking security from their employers? Their causes are being totally forgotten in the mayhem created by the CAW yesterday. Some people reported that it took them an hour to get into the track yesterday. There was at least one incident of a brick going through somebody's car windshield after a scuffle in one of the lines. And that's not even talking about the danger posed to drivers who are left sitting on busy highways and streets as they line up to get into the racetrack.
The strike also scuttled the appearance of popular Ontario lieutenant-governor David Onley, who was to represent royalty at the Queen's Plate today. Because royalty does not cross picket lines, Onley cancelled. Woodbine had created ramps and special conditions to accommodate Onley's wheelchair.
But worst of all, the CAW strikers did not come across as admirable people with a legitimate cause. Not at all.
