Now I am normally a VERY calm individual, but what is happening right now in Ottawa is quite frankly… pissing me the fuck off! For those of you who do not live here, our Public transportation, Buses and the O-train (which is a big fucking waste of money… but that is neither here nor there), is going on struck tomorrow. What really pisses me off is that they already have very good benefits and a decent salary over 20 bucks/hour ( I heard that they actually get paid 25/hour but I cant verify) and the city has offered a 7% increase in salary over the next 2 years and an upgrade to 8 uncertified sick days, but guess what. Those fuckers rejected the offer! It is hard to find information on exactly what they want but to quote a news article “They are trying to make it look like it’s all about money, and it’s not. That’s why it’s going to be a long strike,” Andre Cornellier* said. “The message is not going out properly. It’s about respect and dignity”
Respect and dignity? I suppose shutting down acess to the city, during a snow storm i might add, is a good way to get respect. What especially pisses me off is that not only will people not be able to go to work, but students who have exams in university will be forced to find alternate ways to get there. Some “alternatives” that the city suggests are as follows:
1.) Taxi: Which is great if you already live a reasonable distance away from your destination. but if you dont, you’re fucked and will have to pay around 40 to get to work, not including taking one to get back.
Cycle: Yea… Did i mention the part about the huge snow storm? Dont forget about the Extra cars on the road from people being displaced from the buses
Carpool: Which is the best of all options, but I cant imagine the entire city doing it. not to mention that the parking downtown will be non-existant which was usually the case anyway
My mom worked as a busdriver for over ten years. Not OC transpo, but a handi-capped childrens school bus ( she tried to get a job with oc but she never graduated high school so they rejected her regardless of her qualifications) and now she works for the catholic school board. Anyway, she told me that if the strike lasts for a long time, the school boards, both catholic and public, will try and get yellow school buses to pick students up from school. BUT she also said that the workers on strike will also try to picket those buses… I mean WHAT THE FUCK… even though this hasnt happened yet, I am still outraged that they would even contemplate something like that.
worst case scenerio, everything I mentioned comes true and I will be FORCED to Egg every Public Transit bus or Picket line i see… since I am still in high school and that is what we are capable of doing… if need be.
*Andre Cornellier: Public transit director, Ottawa. AKA Greedy Mc assface, Aka Giorgio Dickwood.
Goodness! You mean…a public transit strike might actually inconvenience people?! Say it ain’t so!
I think that’s more or less the purpose of a labor strike, actually. An industry which doesn’t inconvenience anyone when labor strikes is an industry for which strikes are going to do nothing for labor.
A 7% increase over two years averages out to 3.5% per year, pretty close to a COLA adjustment. Even if it’s high, the point of a collective bargaining agreement is to negotiate.
And, yeah, $20 an hour seems high, but as Mr Bus Guy and our resident bus driver (whose name escapes me at the moment) will tell you, public transportation operators need an awful lot of skill and training, hence the relatively high wage. This isn’t some stiff sitting in a messenger car, it’s a guy behind the wheel of a large vehicle with passengers that can cause a lot of damage, up to and including killing people. When I take a bus, I want the guy behind the wheel to know what he’s doing and to like his job enough to take it seriously.
And what jayjay said. The point of a strike is to inconvenience the public as much as possible. It’s to try to pressure management so the strike ends quickly.
I say fuck both the union and the city/Transpo management for not sorting all this out back in March when the old contract expired instead of waiting until two weeks before Christmas to decide to break off negociations and go on strike. I’m not seriously affected, other than having to take the car and get to work by 7AM to make sure I can find a parking spot for a couple of days before my vacation starts, but a lot of people rely on the buses for getting to work or for shopping, and this is a particularly nasty time to call a strike. And I believe that it was called at this time exactly for that reason - to put extra pressure on the city to cave in. Any time in winter would be very bad for the public, but Christmas? Fuckers!
You appear to miss the whole point of a strike. If the union strikes when nobody needs to use public transit (the middle of summer or something, when everyone’s on vacation and out of town), the strike is pointless. A strike that doesn’t put pressure on management is a strike that shouldn’t even have been called.
I understand where the OC Transpo workers are coming from. You seem to think their demands are completely unrealistic? You might want to dig a little deeper. Read the actual proposals, demands, and offers.
COLA wise, 7% ain’t that unreasonable. Nor are the drivers’ other demands.
Now’s the right time to strike. Cut them some slack, stand behind the drivers and show them your support instead. Rage against the idiot bureaucrats who aren’t getting the point, here. Yeah, it’s a major inconvenience. That’s the whole freakin’ point, dipstick. Trust me, these people don’t have easy jobs. They earn their pay.
Elly, former Ottawa resident, now living in the midwest (and fierce union gal)
INCUBUS! Sorry about the shouting, I was just proud that I remembered something. Hey, I just realized that he has “bus” in his name, and then he got a job driving buses. It’s like it was pre-destined or something.
ANYway, Jim’s dad is a city of Calgary bus driver, so we get to hear the other side of these negotiations, and it seems to me that neither side is above reproach. The city plays dirty little games, the union plays dirty little games, and unfortunately, as you all have pointed out, it’s the public who suffer.
Ooooh. I missed the bit about you being in high school.
Yeah, it’s gonna suck to be you. But the School Board is going to get you guys some nice little yellow busses and help you guys out. Don’t worry. Otherwise, it will put a cramp in your style, but you’ll live. We did, when OC Transpo struck back in the 90s.
I imagine you’re not familiar with matters of unions, contracts, negotiations and shit like cost of living, wages and what it actually means to only make $20/hr on a schedule like bus drivers have. It sounds like a whole lot of money. And 10 days off a year sounds like a great deal.
Yeah…
You’re not gonna get a hell of a lot of sympathy from some of us, here… especially not from the girl who spent 100 days on strike last year (WGA) and who looks like she’s about to be hanging in the balance because a sister union (SAG) may be walking out in the new year…
The union never got to vote on the proposed deal. The union leader never even presented it to them.
The strike is not about wages; it’s about scheduling of work. Currently the union (workers) get to pick their own schedule based upon seniority. Management cannot schedule the work and therefore extra wages are being bandied about as a result: something to the tune of an additional $4,000,000 a year.
I’m on the city’s side on this one. Take control back from the bleeding union or you’re going to be setting a precedent for future labour strikes.
Rumour has it the drivers would overwhelmingly accept the new offer, but they never even got a chance to vote on it.
And it’s not only inconvenient regarding Christmas, but look what else is about to begin here.
IM seriously considering writing an ANGRY EMAIL to those fuckers at oc AND Mayor O’brien… that bald, weasel, pompous asshole. They really are fucking the shit up though… an example of the shit fucking would be from a few hours ago when traffic was so congested that an ambulance was trying to get through on riverside road and it took it nearly 20 minutes to get about 2kms. OH and another thing, WE BETTER NOT SEE A RAISE IN FARE PRICES SO HELP ME GOD. it is already alot more expensive that most other cities in canada, but with rude quebecers at the wheel Not all quebecers are rude, just the ones who drive OC buses in ottawa are
I’m a 35-year union member, and have been a shop steward and local executive, so don’t think my reaction is a knee-jerk anti-union reflex. I place the blame on management as much as on the union leaders. I think the union is wrong trying to hang onto the current scheduling process (and wonder who in management ever agreed to it in the first place), but would support most of their other demands. However, a public service strike, while it puts pressure on management, doesn’t hurt management, unlike say a factory strike, it only hurts the public (whence the pressure). Their choice of strike date puts a lot of extra hurt on the public for IMHO only a meagre gain in pressure on management, who are probably happily looking forward to the savings in wages and operating costs at a time when council is frantically trying to cut budget and avoid a major tax increase. So fuck 'em all.
I may respect their right to strike but I am not a fan of their tactics.
Seriously! Picketing the city depots and blocking the trucks and snowplows from going out and clearing the roads and sidewalks during a snowstorm!? Shutting down the transit system is one thing but endangering the public who must use other means to get to work, that’s fucking negligence!
And that Andre Cornellier really needs some PR training! Did you catch him on CJOH with Carol Anne Meehan? What a jerk! I think he actually lost some public support there.
From the drivers I know, there is no pay grid, the drivers all make the same salary regardless of years of service. Every 90 days, drivers, by seniority, select their shifts and routes for the next 3 months.
Now, extra shifts, overtime, holidays are also all selected by seniority. Apparently, (some)drivers with seniority are racking up huge paychecks as a result. This is the $3-4 million that has been mentioned. If this really is the cost overrun for staffing, I don’t blame the city in trying to reign it in. Especially, with my property tax increase of 4.9% (but that’s another rant)
IMHO, 7% over 2 years is a little high considering the nurses and teachers are getting about 3% per year.
BTW The rumour now is that the city is saving $2-3 million a day so I don’t see a resolution coming anytime soon. Most pundits are saying a week at least.
Day 26 going on 27. Tomorrow some school board are going to begin using yellow buses to shuttle people around. It’ll be interesting to see if they do picket the pick up locations like they said they would a few weeks ago when the idea was floating around. I’m pretty sure if they do picket children, something hilarious will happen.
Supposedly tomorrow they’ll finalize arrangements for the vote that the union members must do. The union head is insisting that the membership vote no to the city’s deal, but I don’t know anyone in the union who’d know their feelings about that.
The union has apparently agreed not to take any action against the school buses. I expect that someone in the leadership realized what a PR disaster that would be.
