In a creative effort to bolster union finances heading into what could be a long and stinky painful strike, representatives for City of Toronto workers are asking recently laid off and unemployed people to send their benefit cheques directly to Local 416. As a union rep recently explained:

In these trying economic times, it is more important then ever that workers stand together and fight for the wages and benefits they deserve. And who better to understand the importance of this then the thousands of people in the city that have recently lost their jobs, or haven’t been able to find one in a long time? In turn, we are reaching out to this long disenfranchised group, and asking them to join our fight by signing over their unemployment or welfare checks directly to us. If workers and, er, those without work can unite in this way, we can stand strong and maintain our basic human right to, for example, be able to accumulate our sick days and receive multi-thousand dollar payouts just before we retire onto our gold-plated pension plan.

When queried about whether the union would consider giving up a few of these benefits to create new jobs for struggling workers and provide better service to the city during these trying times, he replied “I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you just said - you must be speaking Korean or something” before heading off to throw rocks at people trying to drop their kids off at now-closed day cares.