A video clip of the turnout at USP this morning as the two staff unions go on strike to demand the removal of the Vice Chancellor, Professor Pal Ahluwalia.
Posted without too much detail because Grubsheet has given the unions enough stick for withdrawing their services without rubbing it in by making the observation that most Sunday School picnics attract a bigger gathering.
No more than a couple of busload’s full. Though to be fair, in fine voice for the evening news bulletins. As long as they avoid the wide shot.
Of the combined total of 1365 USP staff, 571 are union members. Of the 602 academic and professional staff, 255 are members of the Association of the University of the South Pacific Staff. (42 per cent). And of the 763 administration and support staff, 316 are members of the Administration and Support Staff Union. (41 per cent)
So where are they all today? Presumably present and correct in class or gone fishing. Because the vast majority of them sure ain’t here.
So what planet does your FBC – the Fibbers Broadcasting Corporation – inhabit? This is the unadulterated propaganda in favour of the unions that passes for journalism at FBC News. Bald faced lies.
Is this the “free media” we were promised Fiji? You can see for yourself in the video clip above the size of the crowd at the union demonstration. So where are FBC’s images to support their claim of “huge numbers”? They don’t exist.
Even if it is true that 150 people took part in the demonstration, that is only 26 per cent of the 571 union members at USP.
“Huge numbers” says the propagandist Nikhil Kumar at FBC. He deserves to be fired for this Orwellian distortion.
Memo Tarun Patel ( the FBC CEO). What kind of third-rate propaganda outfit are you running? The Fijian people are paying for this rubbish. Clean up your act.
Unbelievable.
UPDATE FRIDAY PM:
The offending story has since been removed entirely from the FBC Website – an acknowledgement in itself that the account was wrong and should never have been posted in the first place.
If the national broadcaster can’t stick to the facts and engages in the kind of biased reporting of a media outlet like the Fiji Times, it is time to sack the lot of them and start again.
it doesnt matter if there are 500 or 100 staff ! these are no ordinary staffs – they are professors / lecturers and assistant lecturers – each of them each a class of around 100-400 students – you cant replace them overnight !
it doesnt look good for USP and government – even when USP says it can minimize the effect – there is no way to do that ! the demands of union must be heard ! there is also a huge uproar with Biman constantly interfering and protection VC PaL and trying to run affairs of the USP !
The principle would be the same whether they are professors or gardeners. The workers don’t decide who the boss is. The Board does. Or in this case, the USP Council. And while the Council decides that Pal Ahluwalia is the boss, the workers work. Or they don’t get paid. Simple.
That lady with the orange placard is almost biting it off in sheer nervousness and who the didums are those goras .
Expatriates u one-eyed propagandist.
Please hold your friends hands or someone can get lost in that “huge” crowd.
Fiji and its media and its government are a daily source of jokes for the world.
My, my, my. I never thought I’d live to see the day when a fair dinkum Aussie, and son of a prophetic talatala church leader in Fiji at that, stoop so low as to deliver a biting kick to the butt of unionists fighting for justice in the face of a despotic and aloof feudal lord of a Vice Chancellor.m
Great Aussie battlers for the working class of the past like King O’Malley, Ben Chiefly, Ted “Red” Theodore, Dr Jim Cairns, Simon Crean and old jug ears,Martin Ferguson would be shaking their heads disprovingly at the anti workers’ stance taken by Grubsheet.
Where is the spirit of the ANZACS, the rallying call echoed ay 06.00pm on the dot at RSL clubs around Australia, “we are few, they are many , . . . We shall remember them.”
So what’s this big play on numbers at the rally, GD and your call on FBC boss, Tarun Patel to sack the journalist who provided it in his news cast?
The ancestors of some of those USP protestors would have fought alongside yours in WW 1 and WW2 so that their children and grandchildren can have the right to protest freely and peacefully.
That should be the main focus, not numbers of who protested and who didn’t.
The right to protest and demonstrate, to express their grievances peacefully is the central issue here and is what should be celebrated not condemned.
If the Vice Chancellor had any common sense and a heart, he should be personally out there serving refreshments to the protesters, borrow the megaphone for a few words to boost morale and then all can go back to their families and homes to catch the Friday night news and game on TV.
Fiji is a democracy in case you have forgotten.
Oh get a grip. What an absurd posting. Unions “fighting for justice”? They’ve got their justice in the form of substantial pay rises but demand the right to choose their boss. Where else in the world does that happen?
And the moment an idiot like you excuses deliberate misreporting is the day democracy dies. Don’t quote the ANZACs to me. Your heroes are clearly the Bolsheviks. Up the workers and bugger the facts.
We in Fiji win’t be needing laws like that slide to totalitarianism, the Albanese government’s Combatting Mis- and Disinformation Bill—a.k.a. MAD bill, as long as we have Grubsheet wise counsel to show us the way and the light.
Broken Chain you lost me after the first paragraph. If these unionists were really fighting for “justice ” then shame on the other 74% who are not there with placards!!
Obviously one is living in utopia where the joy and hope vibes matter more than protocols and commonsense.
Tarump Patel must have taken a page out of that idiot in America’s book. This infatuation with, size.
If the turnout is low it’s because of the climate of fear created by Pal. It’s unprecedented in USP’s history, but your head is too deeply embedded inside Pal’s rectum to get a clear picture of the damage by USP’s most unpopular VCP in history, dragging the institution to the ground.
I can assure you that there are darker places, including the fetid recesses of your own mind. I have explained my position on this. But there are some people like you who are either blind to reason and believe their own bullshit or are simply too dumb to tell their arse from their mouth. But do go on.
GD, I really wish there were more journalists of your caliber and integrity in Fiji that tell it like it is. I also find your sarcasm especially endearing as I also have zero tolerance for stupidity.
GD. While all this nonsense at usp is going on with retired Ms Fong inconspicuously there egging on the pathetic crowd…the whole country and of course our pathetic media has failed to ouck up an astonishingly astounding lead. You even printed it yesterday.. I think you missed it too.
I.e the fiji sun lead story yesterday that made a very matter of fact but very quick mention that a recent cabinet reshuffle which included the appointment of Graham “Etuate Tavai’s ex” Leung as AG was made without Rabukas knowledge!!!. What!!?? How can the fiji sun make such a claim twice yesterday and not further elaborate on the story? How come Stanley”crocodile tears” Simpson, Fred “i will lick every coalition govt boot” Wesley and Vijay “i sold my soul” Narayan didn’t pick this up, dig into the story, find other details and leads and maybe even attribute the fiji sun while writing their own piece about this most fantastic claim that Fiji”s very own joe Biden didn’t know or endorse a cabinet reshuffle and appointment of the country’s attorney general. It doesn’t get juicier than this!!
It could of course be not true…but why would fiji sun put it on the front page and why hasn’t rabuka or anyone in govt or even cabinet refuted this yet??
What the hell is going on? I’m tearing my hair out…or what evers left of it.
BTW I totally agree that the council should be deciding Pal Alluwhalias fate but believe me sonny Jim, that man Pal is a slithery african snake. He has got more skeletons in the closet than pol pot. The man helping him hide it is none other than the guy who is fast accumulating his own share of skeletons….Biman “the labasa kaduwadu” Prasad. Some of the shit that’s Pal got up to is in the BDO report. That is why FF wanted to get rid of him…but Pal had a lot of Biman like friends who rall7ed and used the unions back then to disregard that report and support their savior Pal. Ironically it’s the very same unions and people like chubby fong who are now sworn enemies of Pal despite getting pay rises. They are all liars and hypocrites of the highest order. The only constant in all of this is that FF was right in wanting get rid of Pal…remember he was also campaigning for Biman during the elections… admitted by some drunk speakers during a celebratory event in auckland early last year. The video is still floating around. Pal was actually thanked for helping get rid of FF. So he ain’t no saint. He has realized this is a gravy train country if you connect with similar unscrupulous people like biman and Co. He won’t make the same sort of dosh anywhere else in the world. Apart from staying in samosas best hotel untill recently and flying business class all the time…he was getting a pending of $650 a day…even when he came to fiji he was put up at the holiday in and paid that much daily apart from his exorbitant salary. When he came back to fiji permanently he chose not to stay in the beautiful VC house but at holiday inn and continued to get the same 650 perdiem!! Thats why he’s fighting so hard to stay. BTW some integrity the.media know all this and more…but they will keep quiet…cos they are very brave and fearless that way.
BTW…I’m sure you won’t censor me, cos it’s a proper word, but don’t you think a clean shaven rabuka looks like a fat Brazilian waxed vagina?
If you say so. There’s a hell of a lot to digest in your comment but the last bit takes the keke. Now we know why he is always making a c**t of himself. Thanks God it’s Friday. My head hurts.
GD: don’t worry, your honorary PhD is on its way. It was graduation a few weeks ago. Check your postal mail box outside your house please. Does PAL also take you out on lunch when he’s there on Fijian taxpayers money?
Really? How exciting. Unfortunately the answer to your last question is “no”. But I shall keep a candle burning in the window.