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WINDSOR, Ont. — A group of Windsor panhandlers and street performers have joined a union and identified themselves as Street Labourers Of Windsor — or SLOW — in an effort to gain public respect.

“We are a real union,” organizer Andrew Nellis said. “There is no hierarchy, but we have come together to watch each other’s back on the street. We protect each other. We are members of the public just like anybody else. We don’t want extra rights. We just want the same rights that everybody else has.”

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Their main beef is with the Downtown Windsor Business Improvement Association. It paid for iron-spiked railings on cement planters, where many panhandlers sit and ask for change, to prevent anyone from using them as seats.

“The spikes are clearly designed to discriminate against a certain class of people, which is the problem,” said Nellis, a tarot card reader.

“The average person can buy a doughnut or coffee and sit at a table. The person on the street has to sit on a dusty piece of concrete. This is clear discrimination against a certain type of person. The amount of money you have should not determine the rights that you get.”