This week, the issue of time seems to be looming large in Voice writers’ minds. We’ve got a few articles looking at the best ways to handle your time, albeit with wildly different interpretations of what makes it the best. From our feature article where Darjeeling Jones looks at how worthwhile it is to stealing time for your own use, to Deanna Roney’s thoughts on how to organize and track the time you have, to Tara Panrucker’s look at whether the time she’s spent moving from job to job to job has been really worth it.
Also this week, be sure to check out our new column, The Struggling Student Rants. If you’re looking for simple tips on how to get your finances under control, this column will let you follow along with a student doing exactly that.
I’m also quite fond of our Not-So Starving Student article this week, as I’ve often looked at various restaurants offering Dim Sum, but been daunted by the variety of unfamiliar choices. Xin Xu gives us some beginners advice on what some of the best things to get are, which might be just enough to get me to order from one of these places. I just need to find one that does delivery now.
However, if you’re looking for more news on the labour dispute between AU and the AUFA, unfortunately I have no new news to share. Neither the presidents’ office nor the AUFA has gotten back to me yet. I’m keeping fingers crossed that this might mean they’re too busy finally negotiating rather than just stalling in an impasse until they can make it an election issue here in Alberta.
Because, let’s be honest, a strike in the public service isn’t the same as a strike for a private company. A private company has to worry that if their workers are on strike, they’re not producing product, so not making money. A public institution, however, is a lot better able to withstand a strike, at least monetarily. For public sector unions, striking is, inevitably, little more than a public relations move to garner attention and hopefully public support to make the government take action. With that in mind, and the 2019 election here in Alberta having to take place no later than May 31, it stands to reason that the AUFA is looking to any strike being timed to maximise their exposure, forcing government to act, and opposition parties to make promises.
I’ve heard some suggest that AUFA won’t be striking until the summer, but that makes little sense to me since right after the election is when governments are busy showing that they mean business and trying to do all the unpopular things they need to do, so that they have time to recover before the next election. And if the UCP is elected, as polls suggest they will be, legislating a striking public service union back to work would seem to be exactly in line with the kind of messaging we’d expect from them on the campaign trail. So if the AUFA feels they’ll have to strike, expect it before, not after the election.
