TTC on strike

[Keebler Elf]

The problem with Unions today, especially here in Ontario is that they are too used to getting their way.

Too funny. I actually laughed out loud when I read this.

Unions today are "too used to getting their own way" because the people of Ontario won't put up with any kind of inconvenience at all. No TTC for a day during the work week??? Back to work legislation! GO train strike??? Back to work legislation.

The government forces the hands of the employers (either directly through back to work legislation or indirectly though back channel orders telling them to "Settle. Settle now.") because it doesn't want to put up with a pissed off public.

And what does that mean? It means the unions get more than they would have gotten had the people of Ontario been able to put up with an inconvenience for a few days. And dumb-ass joe public is the first to congratulate the government on forcing the workers back to work, and then the first to complain when the added cost of doing so comes out of their pockets!!! It's so sad it's almost comical.

Union critics want it all. They don't want unions to be able to go on strike. They don't want them to be well paid. They want the service levels to be excellent. They don't want their taxes to go up. They want to hire the cheapest labour they can possibly get. And then they can't seem to grasp the basic little concept that all those demands are EXACTLY what causes workers to be unionized in the first place.

Too funny.

p.s., I also don't put much weight at all on the decline in support people are giving the TTC. When you ask someone, "The TTC might be on strike tomorrow. How do you feel?" of course they're not going to be happy. Why even ask the question, other than to drum up anti-union animus. If I ask you how you feel about your employer right after they tell you they aren't giving you a raise this year, you're not going to very happy either.

 

[Thousand]

And what does that mean? It means the unions get more than they would have gotten had the people of Ontario been able to put up with an inconvenience for a few days. And dumb-ass joe public is the first to congratulate the government on forcing the workers back to work, and then the first to complain when the added cost of doing so comes out of their pockets!!! It's so sad it's almost comical.

The implied solution seems nice, fluffy, and not practical. How do you expect the Torontonians to cope with the strike of a heavily relied on public transit with no similar alternatives, especially if the strike last more than just a few days?

 

[mediaguy]

Fire every one of the greedy sluggos and give the jobs to people who want to work.
.

Remember what Ronald Reagan did to the striking air traffic controllers in the USA?

 

[lamwi]

We are almost for sure that a recession is on its way for the next two years...I think the TTC workers have to think about the economy situation and go back to their work.

In the long run I think the TTC should be privately own and should be run by more than one company. Canadian really need to think about the future, as many people already moved back to their own country in the last few years.

 

[james t kirk]

I was the first guy to defend the TTC drivers and workers. You can check my previous posts. I figured that everyone deserves to earn a decent living.

When they announced that they had a deal I thought that it was a fair deal with it being moderately more fair to the drivers actually. 3% per year is pretty good. Inflation is about 1.5%, so in fact, it was a good deal. I don't konw if there were cost of living increases on top of that.

And now this BULLSHIT.

My heart has hardened towards them all rather instantly. They (the unionized workers) have squandered any good will they might have had with me. I now see them as greedy bastards who deserve to be fired. I have no more respect for them. They aren't particularly skilled, or educated, or generating revenue, or managing anything other than a bus. A raise at twice the rate of inflation is a sweetheart of a deal.

As far as I am concerned, the city can do anything now:

1. Pull the 3% deal off the table and cut it down to 0 (Sorry, all bets are off and we don't have the money.)

2. Tell them that they have 48 hours to get back to work, and if you don't, you're fired (Ronald Reagan fired the air traffic controllers and everything was just fine. A bus driver is not an air traffic controller.)

End of story.

The city was more than fair with these guys. They deserve nothing now. All bets are off.

 

[Esco!]

2. Tell them that they have 48 hours to get back to work, and if you don't, you're fired (Ronald Reagan fired the air traffic controllers and everything was just fine.
A bus driver is not an air traffic controller

Firing them all would send a nice message to the next union that decides to hold the city hostage

 

[james t kirk]

I find it funny reading from the lone TTC union worker on here about how this is about "The Wording" that maaaayyyy allow TTC to contract out some maintenance work in the future.

Welcome to the real world brother. WELCOME to my world.

It's not like they're going to send a bus to China to be repaired. They'll send it to a garage in Mississauga where they pay the mechanics there about $18 bucks an hour.

Take note of that.

 

[Esco!]

yes yes please do make us essential service. but you see are pay will not go down with this it will go up up up.

Not if we cut it 10%

 

[KBear]

Legally, can they fire them all? If they can, they should and give the work to people who would appreciate it? It would take less time to train new workers then to go through the back to work legislation.

 

[Don]

The 48 hours notice was not given because last week before the last minute deal drivers were being threatned and assaulted. The union did not want to get any other drivers assaulted over the weekend if they knew we were walking off the job monday.
I do think my union is dumb for what they have just done. This comes down to the maintnace side not having the right language in the contract to make sure jobs would not be contracted out. which with all these new buses they feared the company that made the buses were going to get the maintnace work down the road and they would be out of jobs. All they needed to do was stay at the table longer last week to make sure the proper language was included and we would not be striking now.
The TTC managment likes to screw us when it comes to language in contracts. We are still fighting for our job evaluations which we won 6 years ago. The TTC is using every stop to not give it to us. All other city workers received this but not us because of the contract language from 6 years ago, they found a loophole to delay it.
Well only thing good about this is now maybe we will be declared a essential service which we are. To all those that miss work today I am sorry. I had nothing but positive feedback from my regular customers all week that they were on our side. Somehow I think that will not be the case anymore. But we must stand together and fight for our jobs as if they contract out maintnace jobs it would just be a matter of time before they tried same with drivers and other workers.

Why didn't you guys strike after last service (2:30 AM)? At least people can go home and then find out in the morning of a strike instead of leaving everyone hanging and avoiding mass confusion at the stations. Talk about PR disaster.

 

[Esco!]

Legally, can they fire them all?

I'm pretty sure you can legally fire almost anyone, including the PM (impeachment..whatever).

But does any person in power have the balls to do that???
We are Canadians after all

 

[lamwi]

If they don't go back to work tomorrow the 3% increase will become 2%, if they don't go back to work on Monday it will be 1% increase over the next 3 years, if they don't go back after a week, it will be a 4% decrease in their salary over the next 3 years.

 

[jwmorrice]

If they don't go back to work tomorrow the 3% increase will become 2%, if they don't go back to work on Monday it will be 1% increase over the next 3 years, if they don't go back after a week, it will be a 4% decrease in their salary over the next 3 years.

I'm waiting for Lancs to suggest a small thermonuclear device be dropped at Yonge and Davisville.

Seriously though, the TTC is a natural monopoly and has become an essential service to this city. The workers oughtn't to be allowed to strike and they should be legislated back to work under fair terms. What a mess if all were fired and new workers had to be hired and put in their place. Moreover, fired for what? Exercising their right to a legal strike? That would not stand.

I suspect there'll be no mention of taking away the right to strike in the back to work legislation. That will happen later. Otherwise the NDP would probably be a road block to getting the law passed.

jwm

 

[train]

To show how stupid and greedy these little piggys are even the pinko union loving Mayor is pissed at them. That takes some doing.

It was reported that one of the clauses the machinists were most agree with was having to prove before a panel that they were really injured before collecting full pay. Can you imagine what it would be like if these guys weren't held accountable? Hangnails would turn into 3 weeks of at full pay.

Their public image has to worse than Richard Peddie right now.

 

[james t kirk]

If they don't go back to work tomorrow the 3% increase will become 2%, if they don't go back to work on Monday it will be 1% increase over the next 3 years, if they don't go back after a week, it will be a 4% decrease in their salary over the next 3 years.

Now that's a good idea as well.

 

[basketcase]

I'm pretty sure you can legally fire almost anyone, including the PM (impeachment..whatever).

...

If you have cause. Don't think that's the case with a legal (but retarded) strike.

... What the city needs to do is cut the pay of the police, fireman, teachers, and doctors so that they can pay the TTC employees more money ...

Teachers and doctors aren't city employees. Otherwise continue with your sarcasm.

 

[WhaWhaWha]

If anyone is thinking they will be forced back to work they are wrong. Noone, not unions or government can force someone to work in an unsafe environment. And since its easier to throw money at this problem, than solve the safety issue, it's likely we'll see them ratify the agreement to exclude the fine print. I personally support this strike. I dont want to see a transit system run by a contracting agency. First the support workers, and next the drivers. Drivers would have lower wages and zero benefits for the first two to five years of their careers. Higher attrition means more trainees than experienced drivers. Pretty soon you'll be hard pressed to find drivers with clean driving records or clear communication abilities.

The management is just corrupt. 5 years ago they asked for $980Million in funding from three branches of government. In exchange they promised no fare hikes and 800 new buses. They got all the funding. They hiked the fares twice. Then the government gave us a tax rebate on metropasses. They hiked the fares to claw our savings into their pockets. Then they sold the 800 new bus engines to Argentina and installed weaker engines made in Taiwan. Savings of 150K per bus. Now these 800 new buses break down in the winter on upgrades when fully loaded. And where did the funding and savings go? Why is the commission strapped? Just how much management corruption and pilfering do the drivers, fare collectors, and maintenance workers have to pay for?

I hope they use the safety issue to hold the commission for ransom for weeks. And I hope they fire that union boss for tabling such an unfair agreement in the first place.

 

[KBear]

The contracting out had to do with warranty work being done on the new busses. Normally the warranty work was being done by the ttc, and billed back to the manufacturer, and that was to continue, but there was something in the contract that might have allowed warranty work to be done by the bus manufacturer.

Have to agree that not shutting down at the end of normal service 2:30am shows a total lack of respect for the public. They will have to put the drivers in bullet proof cages now.

 

[buffyjunky]

Most TTC employees are drones ...
Meaning of "drone":
1) A male bee, especially a honeybee, that is characteristically stingless, performs no work, and produces no honey.
2) an idle person who lives by the work of others; parasite; loafer
3) a person whose work is routine, monotonous, etc.

These people are soooo overpaid it's not funny. You can train a chimp to blow a whistle and press a couple of buttons...

lmao yo have no idea what the subway training is like. When i went through and passed failure rate was 75%. They cram everything into 30 days and some of the test are 100 % to pass.They made the testing so much harder after the subway accident.

 

[buffyjunky]

Why didn't you guys strike after last service (2:30 AM)? At least people can go home and then find out in the morning of a strike instead of leaving everyone hanging and avoiding mass confusion at the stations. Talk about PR disaster.

reread my post i said the union was dumb for what they just did.