United front on GE claims has crumbled

Re: Present a united front on GE health claims, Ingrid Buck, letters, Aug. 26.

Dear Ingrid Buck: So sorry for your loss. Hundreds of G.E. Employees have died of industrial diseases. There are hundreds suffering still, and that is a tragedy. After 13 years, someone should really be ashamed.

You mention Roger Fowler three times in your letter. I have never met you, at any of the hundreds of meetings. You don’t know Roger, but cast blame. People have misled you.

Roger has had cancer. After 11 operations, he is still fighting for justice for everyone. He counselled for Kawartha District – Cancer, Chronic Care Association. That’s a tough job.

Roger helped bring out about 75 people to meetings Tuesdays and Thursdays. He took hours to produce a very informative book we are proud of. He writes beautiful poems for people who have suffered a loss. As a member of Project Z, we dug up valuable information for the book. I can only remember Roger missing two meetings, one of which was for an operation. Yes, Roger is emotional. He has earned that right. Too bad some people can’t get that.

The steering committee that criticized our book didn’t put a single word in it, but they took seven books from the Union Hall. They think they are privileged, we don’t. Now there are seven people that worked there that don’t have a book.

There is a big difference between a leader and a tyrant. The rift you refer to was caused after the victims were told that under no circumstances would they be going to Ministry of Labour meetings. Three people who never worked at General Electric, who never had cancer, are making the rules. They insist on that. Anyone who disagrees with them has been insulted and demeaned.

This is not the way that a coalition should work. When some people put their personal agenda before the people who are dying, that’s wrong. They don’t get it.

Ingrid, you say presumptive entitlement is the best way to go. I say talk to a fireman. We lost 13 or 14 people in a very short time.

You give Roger some advice. I’ll give you some – the people you are talking to are misleading you.

We listened to them, and look where we are. Jim Dufresne Warsaw