This environmentally friendly moment brought to you by the Toronto Transit Union.
(photo credit – SDA reader NCF TO)
89 Replies to “Yonge Street, May 29”
And the Ontario Liberal party who will either cave in to demands or do nothing.
enough
Jeez, you think Miller will call in the troops like Lastman did.
Troops
In our streets
Shoveling snow
In Canada
‘Cause we don’t know how
LOL
I think that the management that makes the decision to switch people to permanent graveyard shift for the good of the company should also switch to permanent graveyard shift. Its like chickenhawks giving orders in war–they don’t know what the —- they are doing,except it looks good on paper, of course.
Director’s mug shot here: Free. (Enjoy your stay,in TO, terrorists included.).
Honk if you support janitors and terrorists. …
A Message from the Director
Welcome to the Amalgamated Transit Union Canada website.
The ATU represents over 25,000 public transit and inter-city bus workers in Canada. Our membership is characterized by both its cultural diversity and the diversity of its professions including driving, maintenance, supervisory, security and sales.
The ATU is committed to improving the working conditions and the quality of life for all of its members through education, training and lobbying.
Our locals are recognized for their community involvement, effective collective bargaining and membership representation.
Thank you for visiting our site and I hope that you enjoy your stay!
Yours in solidarity,
Ken Foster
Click Here to continue to the ATU Canada website. http://www.atucanada.ca/ …
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I’m sure if the transit strike would have happened in Vancouver the CentralCanada Broadcating Corporation would have also had this as its lead story on its website. Oh well, at least we get a RoadShow a couple of times a year with Mark Kelly and a few dozen stories each year about the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver.
Steve D.: the story presented in the CBC report does not give the complete story in context (surprise!). There is more to the story about shifting the workers to the graveyard shift…as I recall, this was debunked months ago by pointing out that the union had originally agreed to or proposed the switch…now, of course, they claim to the contrary. Perhaps my memory is wrong on this point, though.
Plus, I believe that the REAL dispute is on driver safety and the maintenance workers illegal strike is the excuse that is being used at the moment by the union.
Maybe,just maybe,now is a good time for thinking Canadians to see our public sector unions and their illegal strikes for what they really are.
With memories of the Caledonia standoff fresh in our minds,I can’t help but recognize many similarites.We have a self-interested group illegally and deliberately disrupting the lives of INNOCENT Canadians,using blockades as at least one tactic,to force the government to come to terms in negotiations.Oh,and don’t forget,nobody goes to jail for their ILLEGAL actions and the taxpayer is on the hook for any costs.
May I humbly introduce the term “Caledonia-style”!?
Stevie D
Maybe I am a facist capitalist pig but what the f**k are you talking about. The TTC runs on the whims of the janitors? The guys in charge have to check their decisions out with the guys cleaning the stalls? Sorry, but it is a public service heavily subsidized by the oublic purse. If you don’t like the nightshift, quit.
You won’t get a good unionist to quit his job. It’s too cushy. Why not just bellyache and complain and have a illegal strike and see if you can “organize” and illegal pay raise. I just love the double standard the union guys use to justify their existence.
Fire ’em all! It worked for Reagan.
Ah, a beautiful picture of unions doing what they do best: nothing.
Torontonians should take this time to reflect that the traffic today isn’t all that much worse than it was yesterday, and by Friday should be nearly normal strike or no strike. They might also wonder how much their property taxes would shrink if they just shuttered the whole TTC and fired the lot of them.
The rest of Ontario has been wondering that for years. We don’t get to ride the Red Rocket, we just get to pay for it.
The union wants to rewrite the bus drivers ($80K /year) job description to include “let everyone ride for free that wants to”.
This is already the unwritten policy that dominates after dark here in the socialist capital of North America.
That, however is not good enough if it can be parlayed into a few days off in the summer.
Then the union strikes when there is a rumbling of opposition to this.
Fire them, or at least put David Peterson on an obscene retainer!
Memorial Day long-weekend to boot, this ought to help bring back tourism.
Sorry, I’ve forgotten. Can someone remind me what the basis for public sector unionization was — protection from what exploitation exactly?
The public sector should not be unionized. Pay and conditions should be referenced/indexed to average industrial wages BUT slightly lower due to greater security — just as government bond yields are always lower than corporates.
Is Al Gore going to fly in to Toronto on his private jet, and blame Stephen Harper for the giant ozone hole that just opened up above the CN Tower this afternoon? I suspect, at the very least, that Jack and Olivia will somehow link this to a lack of funding for public transit, while ignoring the emissions of a couple hundred thousand additional cars idling for hours.
Anyone that tried to get to work via car in Toronto today is a moron. Judging by the photo……
I take the TTC to work, so today I’m working from home.
I just saw that yutz David Miller on TV saying it’s Bike Week, so it could have been worse(!).
Miller is completly oblivious to the fact that people from outside of Toronto commute downtown. It’s no wonder that the banks and other major firms are setting up shop in the ‘burbs; Toronto under Miller is disfunctional.
Another reason that I’m so grateful I don’t live in the GTA! It looks the worst place in the country to spend spring or summer.
As an aside, does all that smog affect their ability to think reasonably?
Mark,
What do you want them to do? Take the bus?
Quitting doesn’t solve the problem of —hole management. Besides, why should the little guy quit. If the little guy is so angry he is willing to forgo a day or a week or a month’s pay don’t you wonder what could make these guys so angry they give up pay to make their point.
This didn’t develop overnight. These things simmer a long time before they reach this point. Any time management allows things to get this bad its bad on them. If anyone should resign it should be management because they didn’t do what they get paid to do, manage. Does management lose pay because they have failed to manage effectively? Hmmm? Never. Bad management lives to badly manage another day.
Hey Warwick, long time no speak.
How about calling their bosses and telling them that they won’t be in, like Missisauga Matt?
The general point is that it is pointless to try and get downtown.
nice picture of the Centre of The Universe
maybe they should add up all the CO2 emissions and then send an invoice to the Union for the cost of the Kyoto credits needed to offset their little temper tantrum.
Mark,
Yup, not going is an option for some, but lots of people won’t want a (usually) unpaid day off cause some jackasses shut down a service they rely on.
The union should be de-certified for illegal strikes and their workers should be fined if not fired. This is vital service and strikes shouldn’t even be allowed at any time. Mid-contract is unacceptable. They should also be liable for a class-action suit to recover costs lost from either a day off or the additional costs to drive for a day.
I don’t think it’s about safety; the union is using that as an up-front guilt trip.
It certainly isn’t about management either, unless you mean the management of the union.
Remember, unions are a business. Their income is derived off the wages of the workers; they are, yes, parasites. In order for the union to increase its profits, it has to increase both the numbers of workers in its corporation and the wages of the workers.
Fifty to one hundred years ago, unions had a constructive role. Now, most of their original tasks such as wages, hours and safety, have been taken over by the government. Unions are now, in my view, a completely parasite corporation. They increase costs, they decrease the net value of wages, but, they do provide an income for the union management.
Steve D,
Maybe you should ask what gives the “little guy” the right to break the law. Next time you take the TTC tell them you’re not going to pay for the ride because it’s just a law and people don’t have to follow the law.
You also said:
“If anyone should resign it should be management because they didn’t do what they get paid to do, manage.” And what exactly is it that workers get paid to do….hmmm could it be to work?
ET wrote “Remember, unions are a business. Their income is derived off the wages of the workers; they are, yes, parasites.”
Absolutely. I am bombarded daily with glitzy ad campaigns from the nurses, the power workers, and other unions. Nice to see my hard-earned tax dollars at work.
But I don’t suppose anyone will be making a sequel to The Corporation where the focus is on big labour.
You know, one of these days, Toronto will wake up to this garbage.
No. Wait. This is Toronto forget that. A hitchhiking, I go!
Those poor frustrated workers. I will be thinking of them on my 10-km walk home with the 40+ degree humidex and the crap air quality.
Now I’ve got to run and go clean the toilets, because as a manager, I would be a ‘chickenhawk’ if I forced the janitor to clean those. Because as we have all learned from a certain comment above, it’s wrong to pay people to do something you don’t want to do.
Hope Dullard McSquinty is taking deep breaths of that fine Toronto air in preparation for taking on the wildcat strikers as stridently as he put down the Caledonia insurrection.
Right. Toronto (where I live) is governed by the ‘latte-crowd’. The ones who govern this city have not, for the most part, used public transit for decades. If ever.
I mean that. There are a lot of people in ‘the governing class’ who have never, ever, ever, used public transit. They have at least two cars and, if they are not using those cars, they’ll use a taxi. Public transit is for ‘others’.
That’s why Miller can make the utterly ignorant suggestion to ‘find other means to get to work’. For him, that means ‘get a taxi’. He has no idea that the cost of a taxi (30, 40, etc) can mean food for a week.
Don’t we have laws anymore?
We get Caledonia, with people burning bridges, barricading roads – and, rather than acknowledge these acts as illegal, we actually accept them as an ‘articulation of protest’. They aren’t; they are destruction of public property.
A strike that is illegal is illegal. Why does one have to go to court?
And why does a parasitic corporation, aka a UNION, have the right to act illegally? They should be fined, heavily; the workers who obeyed that strike should also be fined.
If legality is reduced to mere perception, and the perception depends solely on the perceiver, then, there are no laws.
Ahh, so many brilliant conservatives, so little time.
This is not a “strike” in the sense that the union okayed it.
It is a “strike” in the sense that both union and management didn’t pick up on the fact that the “workers”, the ones actually doing the work, are mad as hell and are not going to take it anymore. Whatever IT is, has to be fixed. Maybe someone with authority AND intelligence is out there picking up on this.
Ask yourself what would it take to make me stay off without pay from my job, breaking the law on top of it. If you say you’d do it in a flash, well you probably don’t need the money. If you say never! Ask yourself, what if they started changing this and that over time? Never? Maybe if you were a slave you would say never. But I think most working people could visualize a point at which they would lay down their tools and say, enough. Even a conservative has to have that much imagination.
“Ahh, so many brilliant conservatives, so little time.”
Steve, you should save that for the moment when you stumble and accidentally say something intelligent. Up until now your stuff has been comic relief.
Steve d.: if you think that this was about workers being “mad as hell and not going to take it anymore”, you’re crazy. This is an age-old story – a public-sector union showing complete contempt for the public, because they know their bosses (the government) will buckle. A private-sector labour force would never pull crap like this. With publicly-owned-and-operated businesses, this kind of crap is absolutely inevitable, no matter how overpaid and underworked the staff is…
ahh, our local illiberal, who insists he knows, for example, exactly what Harper is thinking and why he does whatever – and now, he also knows exactly what the union is thinking and why they are doing – whatever.
steve – it is an illegal strike. It isn’t an ad hoc walkout by a few workers. It’s a total strike. The union ordered its members to stay away from work. Got that? The union ordered its members to stay away from work.
Our modern day unions operate as an unaccountable Shadow Management. Unlike the regular management, which is paid by the government, the Union management takes its income from the wages of the workers. It’s a very good business. It has no competition, its income is guaranteed; every other year, it increases its income but provides no extra or better services for this income. This income provides hefty incomes for this Union management, and, hefty investment returns. So, all in all, it’s quite the corporation. Remember, it provides no services.
And, when this Union Management, of which you MUST be a member or you aren’t allowed to work for the ‘Other Management’, when this Union Management orders you, the worker, to do not go to work, you can’t go to work. And if you don’t obey the Union and instead obey the Other Management, the Union Management will ensure that you lose your job. OK?
It isn’t the workers who are ‘mad as hell’. It’s a power play by the Corporation, known as the Union, that Corporation that gets all its income from the workers..and from the investments it makes with that money. What a neat corporation!
Mayor Miller, holding news conference now. When asked about consequences to lawbreaking strikers: “Not sure, we’ll be consulting the lawyers on that…”. Why can’t we have a mayor who would simply say: you better believe there will be consequences!!!
Polls
A Toronto couple celebrating their 13th anniversary is dead, their 7 yr.old daughter is orphaned after the latest drag racing crash. Police say 2 vehicles were racing 140K when one of them broad sided the couple’s car.
PM Harper is right – mandatory prison time for drag racers – it should be a criminal offence
89.3%
Current laws are satisfactory & allow judges to use discretion based on age & record of the offender
9.77%
Other (email mornings@cfra.com)
0.83%
Total Votes: 2148 … cfra.com
There was an illegal strike in New York last year. Result? Fines in the millions for the union and jail time for the union leaders. That’s the way it should be here. But with our spineless mayor and premier, nothing will happen.
Illegal action is illegal. I am fed up with people taking the law into their own hands, and asserting that this is an ‘act of protest’ about..whatever.
And yes, more people killed by street racing in Toronto. A seven year old child left an orphan. I recall our local liberal, steve d, sneering at Harper’s action of criminalizing street racing.
What is illegal is illegal. Don’t try to redefine reality.
Steve D, OT but a few quotes for you to keep in mind while you extoll the virtues of socialism:
“The substance of the eminent Socialist gentlemen’s speech is that making a profit is a sin. It is my belief that the real sin is taking a loss!”
–Winston Churchill
“How do you tell a communist? Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.”
-Ronald Reagan
“Any man who is not a communist at the age of twenty is a fool. Any man who is still a communist at the age of thirty is an even bigger fool.”
George Bernard Shaw
“Communism doesn’t work because people like to own stuff.”
–Frank Zappa
Miller is a Dipper in bed with the Unions. He said we’re lucky it happened during bicycle week, what a twit. I hope we can replace him in November with Jane Pitfield, she’s smart and has a lot of common sense.
The TTC, like all unionized Government jobs, is a duel monopoly. Therefore management behaves like the monopolistic kings that they are and they mirror image the unions. Neither side tries very hard to compromise. Sooo … let’s outsource.
If the outsourced contract came up say .. every 5 years, the owner of the maintenance crew contract would painstakingly try to keep his work force happy and not go out on strike for fear of losing the next bid. The fact that it is a bid would keep the costs down. This creative tension would be healthy.
We’re facing a demographic labour shortage in this country. We’ll need to pay market to attract the right level of skill at a fair wage. But with a monopoly we don’t know what a “fair” wage is unless we put it to the market test. A unionized worker will never voluntarily agree to this but the fact is: an outsourced contractor would treat the labour force with much more dignity than the monopoly kings in TTC’s management.
First we have to dump McGuinty and Miller, and then we need Jane Pitfield and John Tory to campaign on “outsourcing” so that we can get value for our escalating taxes. It’s hard to think of anything the government does that should not be outsourced.
Steve D:
You just posted a collection of statements that lacked any specific fact.
Smell and texture buddy.
ET
The union says it was a ‘lockout’. Something tells me you don’t believe the union though. If its a strike or illegal walkout or lockout, if there is a union involved there can only be one instigator and that has to be the union. See, you don’t even have to answer, I answered for you. Not because your answers are predictable, well not ONLY because they are always predictable, but because I know you so well I can go right inside your brain. On most issues. Come to think of it I can do that for most people who blog here, scary eh? I know, you can see my pea brain too. Right? Well we’ll see. I don’t think I am as predictable as some.
Steve, baby, push that crayon back up your nostril – it helped Homer Simpson, and it can help you too.
The Ontario Labour Relations Board declared the strike illegal and has ordered the “workers” (why is it that those who work the least are the only ones referred to as “workers?”) back to work.
The union tried to get the Board to overturn its ruling, but the answer was “no dice.”
“Bob Kinnear, president of the 8,500-member local of the Amalgamated Transit Union … said the walkout was not organized by his union, but Toronto Mayor David Miller said it was too well organized to have been anything but. ”
Geez Louise Steve, if Miller can figure it out before you can, you really are spoon-fed.
First, steve, it wasn’t a lockout. It it were a lockout by the city, the city wouldn’t have to get a court order to order the workers back to work. If it were a lockout by the city, the Ontario Labour board wouldn’t have ordered the workers to go back to work; they’d be ordering the City to end the lockout. Get it?
It was an illegal strike, and it was ordered by the union Management. You may be unwilling to acknowledge reality, but that’s your problem.
And, speaking of your problems. Apart from your ideological devotion to socialism…
You are showing clear signs of megalomania. You insist that you know everything; you insist that you can tell what everyone is thinking. You’ve been informing us for some time that you know precisely what Harper is thinking, at all times, in all places, even though you’ve never met or talked with him.
Now, you are asserting that you know what everyone who posts here thinks. That’s a personality disorder. Here’s the definition:
“Megalomania is an unrealistic belief in one’s superiority, grandiose abilities, and even omnipotence. It is characterized by a need for total power and control over others, and is marked by a lack of empathy for anything that is perceived as not feeding the self.
Although megalomania is a term often ascribed to anyone who is power-hungry, the clinical definition is that of a mental illness associated with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD).”
Now, your focus on power, your insistence that all that any politician wants is power, your insistence that you know exactly what every political leader is thinking, and now, your insistence that you know what each and everyone of us is thinking…hmmm…steve…I think this is a pretty straighforward diagnosis.
What do you think? But why am I asking? After all, you already know what I am thinking, and knew that I would suggest that you have this problem…
There must be some way for the MSM to blame our Prime Minister for this illegal strike.
Luckily I work in downtown Toronto but live in the ‘burbs and now will have to contend with the masses of people who want to get home because my GO train line actually makes 3 stops within the confines of the GTA.
Heat Alert: It’s his fault, no doubt.
In the meantime,”the city was forced to issue a heat alert”. Forced by him, of course.
“many jostled for taxis”. His fault.
“hopped on their bikes”. His fault. The mayor was on hand as its “bike week” in TO…
“many … walked”. Participaction? There oughta be a law ‘gin walking in TO….
“Temperatures rose to at least 30 C by early afternoon and the city was forced to issue a heat alert as many jostled for taxis, walked or hopped on their bikes to get to work. cnews
ET
Well, I think you would get perhaps a tidge of disagreement about my ability to control others.
Harper is a politician in a minority government. He wants very very badly to have a majority in less than two years. In that sense, he is predictable yes.
This is a conservative web blog. A lot of conservatives come here to recieve confirmation of their views. Are conservatives predictable in their views? ah often, yes. On a whole range of subjects.
Does that make me a meglomaniac? Naw, not quite doctor ET but maybe I am getting there who knows, oh I forgot, you know. Hmmm, you know quite a bit. What does your analyst say about your astounding knowledge of so many things? How come you have this intimate understanding of meglomania?? I am going to get a cheque for your diagnosis? Are you really as qualified as you claim? So many questions.
Far and away, the best simple explanation of modern unions that I have ever read!! Bravo ET, I am going to email this out to many people today, hope you dont mind!!
‘Our modern day unions operate as an unaccountable Shadow Management. Unlike the regular management, which is paid by the government, the Union management takes its income from the wages of the workers. It’s a very good business. It has no competition, its income is guaranteed; every other year, it increases its income but provides no extra or better services for this income. This income provides hefty incomes for this Union management, and, hefty investment returns. So, all in all, it’s quite the corporation. Remember, it provides no services.
And, when this Union Management, of which you MUST be a member or you aren’t allowed to work for the ‘Other Management’, when this Union Management orders you, the worker, to do not go to work, you can’t go to work. And if you don’t obey the Union and instead obey the Other Management, the Union Management will ensure that you lose your job. OK?
It isn’t the workers who are ‘mad as hell’. It’s a power play by the Corporation, known as the Union, that Corporation that gets all its income from the workers..and from the investments it makes with that money. What a neat corporation! ‘
Sanctimonious Ubertroll Steve D could help us all understand reality better by explaining why it is being reported that Mayor Miller is happy to report that the “wildcat strike” is over. Even the Red Star is referring to it as a “wildcat strike”.
What’s that you were saying Steve D? It was a “lockout”?
Or is the Red Star now part of the VRWC?
If I choose to go on a taxpaying strike is it likely that the government will be as forgiving as it is for unions and Indians?
ET:
I find it ironic how you accuse steve d. of knowing everything , then you go on and pontificate about unions, how they work and what the actual reasons for this strike are.
“The union ordered its members to stay away from work.” Do you have proof of this? Normally members have a vote on such issues. Unions are actually a democracy, something you conveniently ignore.
“And why does a parasitic corporation, aka a UNION, have the right to act illegally? They should be fined, heavily; the workers who obeyed that strike should also be fined.” It doesn’t, and they will be. The membership knows this before it goes out…so it’s highly unlikely that they went out over something trivial.
“Our modern day unions operate as an unaccountable Shadow Management.” More nonsense from know it all ET. Elections are held every two or three years and members vote for their executive. Thus they ARE accountable to the membership.
Etc.
Stick to subjects you know something about.
…if you look hard enough down Young street you can see the centre of the universe…
Shaken
If you want to know what the Taliban are thinking do you ask George Bush?
If you want to know what the union is thinking do you ask management?
It is humourous how the right wing media never talks to the “other side”. Maybe they are afraid of what they will hear.
The lawyer for the union said it was a lockout.
No media has gone to ask the obvious questions eminating from that lawyers statement. I for one wonder why. I know you already know. But some of us want to hear it directly. I am still waiting all these hours after the fact.
And the Ontario Liberal party who will either cave in to demands or do nothing.
enough
Jeez, you think Miller will call in the troops like Lastman did.
Troops
In our streets
Shoveling snow
In Canada
‘Cause we don’t know how
LOL
I think that the management that makes the decision to switch people to permanent graveyard shift for the good of the company should also switch to permanent graveyard shift. Its like chickenhawks giving orders in war–they don’t know what the —- they are doing,except it looks good on paper, of course.
Director’s mug shot here: Free. (Enjoy your stay,in TO, terrorists included.).
Honk if you support janitors and terrorists. …
A Message from the Director
Welcome to the Amalgamated Transit Union Canada website.
The ATU represents over 25,000 public transit and inter-city bus workers in Canada. Our membership is characterized by both its cultural diversity and the diversity of its professions including driving, maintenance, supervisory, security and sales.
The ATU is committed to improving the working conditions and the quality of life for all of its members through education, training and lobbying.
Our locals are recognized for their community involvement, effective collective bargaining and membership representation.
Thank you for visiting our site and I hope that you enjoy your stay!
Yours in solidarity,
Ken Foster
Click Here to continue to the ATU Canada website.
http://www.atucanada.ca/ …
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These messages not brought to you by the Socialist Power Corp. Liberal Party of Toronto. (SPCLPT)
I’m sure if the transit strike would have happened in Vancouver the CentralCanada Broadcating Corporation would have also had this as its lead story on its website. Oh well, at least we get a RoadShow a couple of times a year with Mark Kelly and a few dozen stories each year about the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver.
Steve D.: the story presented in the CBC report does not give the complete story in context (surprise!). There is more to the story about shifting the workers to the graveyard shift…as I recall, this was debunked months ago by pointing out that the union had originally agreed to or proposed the switch…now, of course, they claim to the contrary. Perhaps my memory is wrong on this point, though.
Plus, I believe that the REAL dispute is on driver safety and the maintenance workers illegal strike is the excuse that is being used at the moment by the union.
Maybe,just maybe,now is a good time for thinking Canadians to see our public sector unions and their illegal strikes for what they really are.
With memories of the Caledonia standoff fresh in our minds,I can’t help but recognize many similarites.We have a self-interested group illegally and deliberately disrupting the lives of INNOCENT Canadians,using blockades as at least one tactic,to force the government to come to terms in negotiations.Oh,and don’t forget,nobody goes to jail for their ILLEGAL actions and the taxpayer is on the hook for any costs.
May I humbly introduce the term “Caledonia-style”!?
Stevie D
Maybe I am a facist capitalist pig but what the f**k are you talking about. The TTC runs on the whims of the janitors? The guys in charge have to check their decisions out with the guys cleaning the stalls? Sorry, but it is a public service heavily subsidized by the oublic purse. If you don’t like the nightshift, quit.
You won’t get a good unionist to quit his job. It’s too cushy. Why not just bellyache and complain and have a illegal strike and see if you can “organize” and illegal pay raise. I just love the double standard the union guys use to justify their existence.
Fire ’em all! It worked for Reagan.
Ah, a beautiful picture of unions doing what they do best: nothing.
Torontonians should take this time to reflect that the traffic today isn’t all that much worse than it was yesterday, and by Friday should be nearly normal strike or no strike. They might also wonder how much their property taxes would shrink if they just shuttered the whole TTC and fired the lot of them.
The rest of Ontario has been wondering that for years. We don’t get to ride the Red Rocket, we just get to pay for it.
The union wants to rewrite the bus drivers ($80K /year) job description to include “let everyone ride for free that wants to”.
This is already the unwritten policy that dominates after dark here in the socialist capital of North America.
That, however is not good enough if it can be parlayed into a few days off in the summer.
Then the union strikes when there is a rumbling of opposition to this.
Fire them, or at least put David Peterson on an obscene retainer!
Memorial Day long-weekend to boot, this ought to help bring back tourism.
Sorry, I’ve forgotten. Can someone remind me what the basis for public sector unionization was — protection from what exploitation exactly?
The public sector should not be unionized. Pay and conditions should be referenced/indexed to average industrial wages BUT slightly lower due to greater security — just as government bond yields are always lower than corporates.
Is Al Gore going to fly in to Toronto on his private jet, and blame Stephen Harper for the giant ozone hole that just opened up above the CN Tower this afternoon? I suspect, at the very least, that Jack and Olivia will somehow link this to a lack of funding for public transit, while ignoring the emissions of a couple hundred thousand additional cars idling for hours.
Anyone that tried to get to work via car in Toronto today is a moron. Judging by the photo……
I take the TTC to work, so today I’m working from home.
I just saw that yutz David Miller on TV saying it’s Bike Week, so it could have been worse(!).
Miller is completly oblivious to the fact that people from outside of Toronto commute downtown. It’s no wonder that the banks and other major firms are setting up shop in the ‘burbs; Toronto under Miller is disfunctional.
Another reason that I’m so grateful I don’t live in the GTA! It looks the worst place in the country to spend spring or summer.
As an aside, does all that smog affect their ability to think reasonably?
Mark,
What do you want them to do? Take the bus?
Quitting doesn’t solve the problem of —hole management. Besides, why should the little guy quit. If the little guy is so angry he is willing to forgo a day or a week or a month’s pay don’t you wonder what could make these guys so angry they give up pay to make their point.
This didn’t develop overnight. These things simmer a long time before they reach this point. Any time management allows things to get this bad its bad on them. If anyone should resign it should be management because they didn’t do what they get paid to do, manage. Does management lose pay because they have failed to manage effectively? Hmmm? Never. Bad management lives to badly manage another day.
Hey Warwick, long time no speak.
How about calling their bosses and telling them that they won’t be in, like Missisauga Matt?
The general point is that it is pointless to try and get downtown.
nice picture of the Centre of The Universe
maybe they should add up all the CO2 emissions and then send an invoice to the Union for the cost of the Kyoto credits needed to offset their little temper tantrum.
Mark,
Yup, not going is an option for some, but lots of people won’t want a (usually) unpaid day off cause some jackasses shut down a service they rely on.
The union should be de-certified for illegal strikes and their workers should be fined if not fired. This is vital service and strikes shouldn’t even be allowed at any time. Mid-contract is unacceptable. They should also be liable for a class-action suit to recover costs lost from either a day off or the additional costs to drive for a day.
I don’t think it’s about safety; the union is using that as an up-front guilt trip.
It certainly isn’t about management either, unless you mean the management of the union.
Remember, unions are a business. Their income is derived off the wages of the workers; they are, yes, parasites. In order for the union to increase its profits, it has to increase both the numbers of workers in its corporation and the wages of the workers.
Fifty to one hundred years ago, unions had a constructive role. Now, most of their original tasks such as wages, hours and safety, have been taken over by the government. Unions are now, in my view, a completely parasite corporation. They increase costs, they decrease the net value of wages, but, they do provide an income for the union management.
Steve D,
Maybe you should ask what gives the “little guy” the right to break the law. Next time you take the TTC tell them you’re not going to pay for the ride because it’s just a law and people don’t have to follow the law.
You also said:
“If anyone should resign it should be management because they didn’t do what they get paid to do, manage.” And what exactly is it that workers get paid to do….hmmm could it be to work?
ET wrote “Remember, unions are a business. Their income is derived off the wages of the workers; they are, yes, parasites.”
Absolutely. I am bombarded daily with glitzy ad campaigns from the nurses, the power workers, and other unions. Nice to see my hard-earned tax dollars at work.
But I don’t suppose anyone will be making a sequel to The Corporation where the focus is on big labour.
You know, one of these days, Toronto will wake up to this garbage.
No. Wait. This is Toronto forget that. A hitchhiking, I go!
Those poor frustrated workers. I will be thinking of them on my 10-km walk home with the 40+ degree humidex and the crap air quality.
Now I’ve got to run and go clean the toilets, because as a manager, I would be a ‘chickenhawk’ if I forced the janitor to clean those. Because as we have all learned from a certain comment above, it’s wrong to pay people to do something you don’t want to do.
Hope Dullard McSquinty is taking deep breaths of that fine Toronto air in preparation for taking on the wildcat strikers as stridently as he put down the Caledonia insurrection.
Right. Toronto (where I live) is governed by the ‘latte-crowd’. The ones who govern this city have not, for the most part, used public transit for decades. If ever.
I mean that. There are a lot of people in ‘the governing class’ who have never, ever, ever, used public transit. They have at least two cars and, if they are not using those cars, they’ll use a taxi. Public transit is for ‘others’.
That’s why Miller can make the utterly ignorant suggestion to ‘find other means to get to work’. For him, that means ‘get a taxi’. He has no idea that the cost of a taxi (30, 40, etc) can mean food for a week.
Don’t we have laws anymore?
We get Caledonia, with people burning bridges, barricading roads – and, rather than acknowledge these acts as illegal, we actually accept them as an ‘articulation of protest’. They aren’t; they are destruction of public property.
A strike that is illegal is illegal. Why does one have to go to court?
And why does a parasitic corporation, aka a UNION, have the right to act illegally? They should be fined, heavily; the workers who obeyed that strike should also be fined.
If legality is reduced to mere perception, and the perception depends solely on the perceiver, then, there are no laws.
Ahh, so many brilliant conservatives, so little time.
This is not a “strike” in the sense that the union okayed it.
It is a “strike” in the sense that both union and management didn’t pick up on the fact that the “workers”, the ones actually doing the work, are mad as hell and are not going to take it anymore. Whatever IT is, has to be fixed. Maybe someone with authority AND intelligence is out there picking up on this.
Ask yourself what would it take to make me stay off without pay from my job, breaking the law on top of it. If you say you’d do it in a flash, well you probably don’t need the money. If you say never! Ask yourself, what if they started changing this and that over time? Never? Maybe if you were a slave you would say never. But I think most working people could visualize a point at which they would lay down their tools and say, enough. Even a conservative has to have that much imagination.
“Ahh, so many brilliant conservatives, so little time.”
Steve, you should save that for the moment when you stumble and accidentally say something intelligent. Up until now your stuff has been comic relief.
Steve d.: if you think that this was about workers being “mad as hell and not going to take it anymore”, you’re crazy. This is an age-old story – a public-sector union showing complete contempt for the public, because they know their bosses (the government) will buckle. A private-sector labour force would never pull crap like this. With publicly-owned-and-operated businesses, this kind of crap is absolutely inevitable, no matter how overpaid and underworked the staff is…
ahh, our local illiberal, who insists he knows, for example, exactly what Harper is thinking and why he does whatever – and now, he also knows exactly what the union is thinking and why they are doing – whatever.
steve – it is an illegal strike. It isn’t an ad hoc walkout by a few workers. It’s a total strike. The union ordered its members to stay away from work. Got that? The union ordered its members to stay away from work.
Our modern day unions operate as an unaccountable Shadow Management. Unlike the regular management, which is paid by the government, the Union management takes its income from the wages of the workers. It’s a very good business. It has no competition, its income is guaranteed; every other year, it increases its income but provides no extra or better services for this income. This income provides hefty incomes for this Union management, and, hefty investment returns. So, all in all, it’s quite the corporation. Remember, it provides no services.
And, when this Union Management, of which you MUST be a member or you aren’t allowed to work for the ‘Other Management’, when this Union Management orders you, the worker, to do not go to work, you can’t go to work. And if you don’t obey the Union and instead obey the Other Management, the Union Management will ensure that you lose your job. OK?
It isn’t the workers who are ‘mad as hell’. It’s a power play by the Corporation, known as the Union, that Corporation that gets all its income from the workers..and from the investments it makes with that money. What a neat corporation!
Mayor Miller, holding news conference now. When asked about consequences to lawbreaking strikers: “Not sure, we’ll be consulting the lawyers on that…”. Why can’t we have a mayor who would simply say: you better believe there will be consequences!!!
Polls
A Toronto couple celebrating their 13th anniversary is dead, their 7 yr.old daughter is orphaned after the latest drag racing crash. Police say 2 vehicles were racing 140K when one of them broad sided the couple’s car.
PM Harper is right – mandatory prison time for drag racers – it should be a criminal offence
89.3%
Current laws are satisfactory & allow judges to use discretion based on age & record of the offender
9.77%
Other (email mornings@cfra.com)
0.83%
Total Votes: 2148 … cfra.com
There was an illegal strike in New York last year. Result? Fines in the millions for the union and jail time for the union leaders. That’s the way it should be here. But with our spineless mayor and premier, nothing will happen.
Illegal action is illegal. I am fed up with people taking the law into their own hands, and asserting that this is an ‘act of protest’ about..whatever.
And yes, more people killed by street racing in Toronto. A seven year old child left an orphan. I recall our local liberal, steve d, sneering at Harper’s action of criminalizing street racing.
What is illegal is illegal. Don’t try to redefine reality.
Steve D, OT but a few quotes for you to keep in mind while you extoll the virtues of socialism:
“The substance of the eminent Socialist gentlemen’s speech is that making a profit is a sin. It is my belief that the real sin is taking a loss!”
–Winston Churchill
“How do you tell a communist? Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.”
-Ronald Reagan
“Any man who is not a communist at the age of twenty is a fool. Any man who is still a communist at the age of thirty is an even bigger fool.”
George Bernard Shaw
“Communism doesn’t work because people like to own stuff.”
–Frank Zappa
Miller is a Dipper in bed with the Unions. He said we’re lucky it happened during bicycle week, what a twit. I hope we can replace him in November with Jane Pitfield, she’s smart and has a lot of common sense.
The TTC, like all unionized Government jobs, is a duel monopoly. Therefore management behaves like the monopolistic kings that they are and they mirror image the unions. Neither side tries very hard to compromise. Sooo … let’s outsource.
If the outsourced contract came up say .. every 5 years, the owner of the maintenance crew contract would painstakingly try to keep his work force happy and not go out on strike for fear of losing the next bid. The fact that it is a bid would keep the costs down. This creative tension would be healthy.
We’re facing a demographic labour shortage in this country. We’ll need to pay market to attract the right level of skill at a fair wage. But with a monopoly we don’t know what a “fair” wage is unless we put it to the market test. A unionized worker will never voluntarily agree to this but the fact is: an outsourced contractor would treat the labour force with much more dignity than the monopoly kings in TTC’s management.
First we have to dump McGuinty and Miller, and then we need Jane Pitfield and John Tory to campaign on “outsourcing” so that we can get value for our escalating taxes. It’s hard to think of anything the government does that should not be outsourced.
Steve D:
You just posted a collection of statements that lacked any specific fact.
Smell and texture buddy.
ET
The union says it was a ‘lockout’. Something tells me you don’t believe the union though. If its a strike or illegal walkout or lockout, if there is a union involved there can only be one instigator and that has to be the union. See, you don’t even have to answer, I answered for you. Not because your answers are predictable, well not ONLY because they are always predictable, but because I know you so well I can go right inside your brain. On most issues. Come to think of it I can do that for most people who blog here, scary eh? I know, you can see my pea brain too. Right? Well we’ll see. I don’t think I am as predictable as some.
Steve, baby, push that crayon back up your nostril – it helped Homer Simpson, and it can help you too.
The Ontario Labour Relations Board declared the strike illegal and has ordered the “workers” (why is it that those who work the least are the only ones referred to as “workers?”) back to work.
The union tried to get the Board to overturn its ruling, but the answer was “no dice.”
“Bob Kinnear, president of the 8,500-member local of the Amalgamated Transit Union … said the walkout was not organized by his union, but Toronto Mayor David Miller said it was too well organized to have been anything but. ”
Geez Louise Steve, if Miller can figure it out before you can, you really are spoon-fed.
First, steve, it wasn’t a lockout. It it were a lockout by the city, the city wouldn’t have to get a court order to order the workers back to work. If it were a lockout by the city, the Ontario Labour board wouldn’t have ordered the workers to go back to work; they’d be ordering the City to end the lockout. Get it?
It was an illegal strike, and it was ordered by the union Management. You may be unwilling to acknowledge reality, but that’s your problem.
And, speaking of your problems. Apart from your ideological devotion to socialism…
You are showing clear signs of megalomania. You insist that you know everything; you insist that you can tell what everyone is thinking. You’ve been informing us for some time that you know precisely what Harper is thinking, at all times, in all places, even though you’ve never met or talked with him.
Now, you are asserting that you know what everyone who posts here thinks. That’s a personality disorder. Here’s the definition:
“Megalomania is an unrealistic belief in one’s superiority, grandiose abilities, and even omnipotence. It is characterized by a need for total power and control over others, and is marked by a lack of empathy for anything that is perceived as not feeding the self.
Although megalomania is a term often ascribed to anyone who is power-hungry, the clinical definition is that of a mental illness associated with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD).”
Now, your focus on power, your insistence that all that any politician wants is power, your insistence that you know exactly what every political leader is thinking, and now, your insistence that you know what each and everyone of us is thinking…hmmm…steve…I think this is a pretty straighforward diagnosis.
What do you think? But why am I asking? After all, you already know what I am thinking, and knew that I would suggest that you have this problem…
There must be some way for the MSM to blame our Prime Minister for this illegal strike.
Luckily I work in downtown Toronto but live in the ‘burbs and now will have to contend with the masses of people who want to get home because my GO train line actually makes 3 stops within the confines of the GTA.
Heat Alert: It’s his fault, no doubt.
In the meantime,”the city was forced to issue a heat alert”. Forced by him, of course.
“many jostled for taxis”. His fault.
“hopped on their bikes”. His fault. The mayor was on hand as its “bike week” in TO…
“many … walked”. Participaction? There oughta be a law ‘gin walking in TO….
“Temperatures rose to at least 30 C by early afternoon and the city was forced to issue a heat alert as many jostled for taxis, walked or hopped on their bikes to get to work. cnews
ET
Well, I think you would get perhaps a tidge of disagreement about my ability to control others.
Harper is a politician in a minority government. He wants very very badly to have a majority in less than two years. In that sense, he is predictable yes.
This is a conservative web blog. A lot of conservatives come here to recieve confirmation of their views. Are conservatives predictable in their views? ah often, yes. On a whole range of subjects.
Does that make me a meglomaniac? Naw, not quite doctor ET but maybe I am getting there who knows, oh I forgot, you know. Hmmm, you know quite a bit. What does your analyst say about your astounding knowledge of so many things? How come you have this intimate understanding of meglomania?? I am going to get a cheque for your diagnosis? Are you really as qualified as you claim? So many questions.
Far and away, the best simple explanation of modern unions that I have ever read!! Bravo ET, I am going to email this out to many people today, hope you dont mind!!
‘Our modern day unions operate as an unaccountable Shadow Management. Unlike the regular management, which is paid by the government, the Union management takes its income from the wages of the workers. It’s a very good business. It has no competition, its income is guaranteed; every other year, it increases its income but provides no extra or better services for this income. This income provides hefty incomes for this Union management, and, hefty investment returns. So, all in all, it’s quite the corporation. Remember, it provides no services.
And, when this Union Management, of which you MUST be a member or you aren’t allowed to work for the ‘Other Management’, when this Union Management orders you, the worker, to do not go to work, you can’t go to work. And if you don’t obey the Union and instead obey the Other Management, the Union Management will ensure that you lose your job. OK?
It isn’t the workers who are ‘mad as hell’. It’s a power play by the Corporation, known as the Union, that Corporation that gets all its income from the workers..and from the investments it makes with that money. What a neat corporation! ‘
Sanctimonious Ubertroll Steve D could help us all understand reality better by explaining why it is being reported that Mayor Miller is happy to report that the “wildcat strike” is over. Even the Red Star is referring to it as a “wildcat strike”.
What’s that you were saying Steve D? It was a “lockout”?
Or is the Red Star now part of the VRWC?
If I choose to go on a taxpaying strike is it likely that the government will be as forgiving as it is for unions and Indians?
ET:
I find it ironic how you accuse steve d. of knowing everything , then you go on and pontificate about unions, how they work and what the actual reasons for this strike are.
“The union ordered its members to stay away from work.” Do you have proof of this? Normally members have a vote on such issues. Unions are actually a democracy, something you conveniently ignore.
“And why does a parasitic corporation, aka a UNION, have the right to act illegally? They should be fined, heavily; the workers who obeyed that strike should also be fined.” It doesn’t, and they will be. The membership knows this before it goes out…so it’s highly unlikely that they went out over something trivial.
“Our modern day unions operate as an unaccountable Shadow Management.” More nonsense from know it all ET. Elections are held every two or three years and members vote for their executive. Thus they ARE accountable to the membership.
Etc.
Stick to subjects you know something about.
…if you look hard enough down Young street you can see the centre of the universe…
Shaken
If you want to know what the Taliban are thinking do you ask George Bush?
If you want to know what the union is thinking do you ask management?
It is humourous how the right wing media never talks to the “other side”. Maybe they are afraid of what they will hear.
The lawyer for the union said it was a lockout.
No media has gone to ask the obvious questions eminating from that lawyers statement. I for one wonder why. I know you already know. But some of us want to hear it directly. I am still waiting all these hours after the fact.