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.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock the last few weeks, you know that Local 279 of the Amalgamated Transit Union is on strike. Today, they union is being forced to take the last offer from the City to the members for a vote. The union executive is strongly encouraging its members to vote “no”, meaning the strike will continue, even though the majority of citizens in Ottawa are prepared to freeze them out.

Most of the bloggers I know are encouraging the union members to vote “yes” for what is generally felt by everyone except the union executive to be a fair offer. Here’s a quick round up of what they’re writing:

• Darin points out to the members that this is their chance to redeem themselves for the behaviour of their union boss by voting to accept the offer
• Ken suspects they will vote “no” and muses about the fact that it appears Cornellier was set on striking from day 1 of the negotiations
• Trashy hopes the members ignore the union rhetoric and vote to accept and reminds us that the Canadian Industrial Relations Board is accepting submissions from members of  the public on how they’re being impacted by the strike

And, of course I’ve written an entry encouraging people to not demonstrate outside where the union members are voting.

All there is to do at this point is wait and hope that the union members are clearer thinkers than their union boss.

*** If you’re looking for the results, I wrote about them here.

I drove Brian home to Kanata this evening after our weekly gaming session. While driving along the 417 westbound near Maitland we watched a car in the eastbound lanes go zipping off the road, hit the snow bank and flip over into the ditch. I immediately called 911 who transferred me to the OPP. While reporting the location, we got off at Maitland and got back on heading east. We arrived on scene to find the driver standing near his car along with a couple of Bylaw Enforcement officers who happened to be passing by.

Fortunately, the driver was just a little shaken up and not actually hurt so he must have been wearing his seatbelt. The skid marks were still visible and showed that his trip into the snow bank probably started from the left lane. Talk about a lucky guy!

Once I confirmed to the dispatcher he was uninjured, I set up some road flares to alert on coming drivers. An OPP officer arrived just as I finished lighting the last flare and a tow truck appeared a few seconds later. The OPP officer released us from the scene and we resumed our journey to Kanata and I’m happy to report that was uneventful. I snapped a picture of the upside down car before we left.

On my way home from Kanata, I came across another car in a snow bank on the other side of the median. Fortunately, this one appeared to be just sitting on top of the snow bank. As another car was stopped nearby and there didn’t appear to be anyone looking injured, I called *OPP (*677) to make sure they were aware of it rather than calling 911.

While most people on the 417 were travelling around 80 km/h, there were a few who insisted on driving along at 100 km/h or faster as though the roads were bare and dry rather than partially snow covered and slippery. Hopefully, they arrived safely at their destinations and not upside down in a snow bank.

The mayor released the results of a survey conducted by Harris/Decima that asked city residents about the transit strike on his blog Tuesday. There’s a fair bit of detail in the results, so I thought I’d highlight a few numbers.

Overall, 63% moderately or strongly support the City while only 14% moderately or strongly support the Union. (Eighteen percent of people support both equally.)

While 14% of people have sided with the union, only 8% of people are satisfied with with way the union has handled the negotiations, compared to 36% who are satisfied with the city’s behaviour. Most people think the city is “being fair and reasonable with the transit union in its approach to the issues”.

It gets more interesting… (more…)

So, we’re entering the second work week of no bus service. People are still carpooling and I must admit as a driver it’s kind of nice to not have to content with the buses on the road. Though I walk to work every day, I did have to make a couple of trips during the afternoon rush hour last week and it wasn’t that bad.

A story on the CBC’s website, which is also on the Salvation Army’s website, talks about the effect the strike is having on charities. You’ve probably seen Salvation Army volunteers in the shopping malls ringing bells next to their Christmas Kettles. Because many of the volunteers rely on transit to get to their stations they’re finding it difficult to get to their stations. And, even if they are able to get to where they’re collecting, there are fewer people donating because there are fewer people in the malls. Thus, the 5,000 families in Ottawa that the Salvation Army supports may find this Christmas even more tighter than it normally is. (The Salvation Army helps these families with food, clothing and heating, which are basic essentials of life.)

I’ve registered an iKettle with the Salvation Army, so if you would like to donate, you can do it online.

As you know, Local 279 of the Amalgamated Transit Union is on strike. Like many strike votes, not every member actually voted. The question begs to be asked: Do the bus driver’s who didn’t vote at all think the City’s offer is a bad deal?

Larry O’Brien is quoted in a CBC article as saying “We’re getting a lot of calls from drivers, who are saying, ‘We didn’t know what we were or were not voting on. We like what we’re seeing,'” and he’s challenging Andre Cornellier, head of the Amalgamated Transit Union local representing the drivers to put it to a vote.

So, what did the union actually tell its members about the offer before they voted?

It will be interesting to see whether there are any significant differences between the offer on the table now and the one that the union eventually accepts. I hope there are none.

By now you’ve probably heard a lot about the strike by OC Transpo drivers. It’s had a lot of coverage in the media and many people have written about it in their blogs. (I walk to work, or I’d have written about the strike sooner.) Its result has been to significantly increase the number of cars on the road in a city that already has too many cars on the road. Some people are carpooling, which is good for the environment, but work schedules are suffering. And even with carpools, the average commute is still longer than what it was before the strike started. Some of my co-workers are spending the better part of two or three hours each day travelling to and from work.

City parking regulations are being eased up for non-metered parking so that people don’t have to run out and move their cars every hour or two and some additional parking lots have been opened by the city. Picketers are hampering access to some of the park-and-ride lots, which is only further reducing any chance of sympathy the drivers might have had.

About ten years ago they city gave the drivers the right to determine their own schedules. This means that drivers with lots of seniority get the choice shifts at the expense of the others. As well, it is contributing to something like $8 million a year in overtime. Because of certain guarantees in their contracts drivers can arrange their shifts such that they end up being paid more hours than they actually worked. The city has caught on to this and wants to retake control of the scheduling in an effort to reign in the costs. In return for this change, the city is willing to give each driver a $2000 bonus because the overall operating costs will be lower.  (You can see the city’s final offer at the City of Ottawa website.)

The Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents the drivers and other OC Transpo staff, has been vocal about their downtrodden drivers.  The annual increases being offered are higher than I’m getting as a civil servant, so I don’t have a whole lot of sympathy for them. At least they’re keeping up with inflation. But the thing that really steams me comes from this quote:

“Most of the bus companies would never ever do anything that would be scabbing our members,” said Randy Graham international vice-president for the Amalgamated Transit Union Wednesday afternoon. “We’ll have to deal with it if it does occur. We have to do the things that we legally can do. And we will do it.”

You might think that this quote is referring to the City of Ottawa hiring scabs to drive buses while the union members are standing in the cold and you’d be wrong. Randy Graham is referring to the privately-operated shuttles the universities are operating to help their students get to their exams.

Yes, the Amalgamated Transit Union is targetting university students.

Classy, eh?

I’m sorry, but this single act is the reason why I will not respect an Amalgamated Transit Union strike line ever again. The universities have every right to run their own shuttles and the ATU has no right to block them.

Larry O’Brien is holding a press conference at 1:30pm today to talk about the strike. It’ll be interesting to hear what he has to say. Hopefully he’ll make it clear to the union that the drivers are welcome to stand in the cold for a long time.  Every week they’re on strike the city is saving a huge amount of money, so if they stay out long enough this might not be a bad thing.