Transit strike: Day R (where R is a ridiculously large number)
It’s Monday and I’m blogging, so it’s probably about the transit strike. Of course, if you look back through my recent entries you can probably change the day of the week and that statement would hold true. And today is no exception. *sigh*
CBC has a story about the striking transit workers being “disappointed” because the city rejected their latest offer. The first thing that came to mind was “now you know how everyone in the city felt when your union voted to reject the very reasonable offer”. At least the city councillors didn’t hold a “victory party” and post a video of it on the Internet. (You can see it on YouTube if you want, but don’t bother unless you’re looking to get angry.)
But reading the full story, I found the following:
Sowden [a bus driver interviewed on a picket line] said bus drivers were aware since the beginning of last year that a strike “was pending” and hence are ready to stick out longer.
“Many have worked the overtime in summer and have saved up our pennies so that we can carry ourselves through.”
This just supports something I’ve been thinking since the strike started, namely that ATU union boss, Andre Cornellier, almost certainly had no intention of not striking when he sat down at the bargaining table seven days before he called for a strike. How can this be considered as a prelude to bargaining in good faith?
Oh right – it can’t.
AKA Keeper of Maps, I'm a geocacher who lives in Ottawa, Canada.
Of course the union planned to strike. All unions have to go on strike from time to time or the members start to ask questions about where all their union dues are going.
There’s a difference, however, between planning for a strike as a contingency measure in the event that negotiations break down after an earnest attempt and planning for a strike as part of the negotiating tactics, the latter of which is what’s going on here. Sitting down at the bagaining table so that you can walk away from it isn’t bargaining in good faith.