(3 votes, average: 3.67 out of 5)
Loading ...OC Transpo, the transit service of the City of Ottawa, has been on strike since December 10th because they are not happy about what the city is offering in the new contract. Here are some of the details of the offer the union received and rejected:
- Salary increase: 3% retoractive to April 1, 2008, 2% on April 1, 2009, and 2% on April 1, 2010.
- One time payment of $2,000
- Increase uncertified sick leave from six to eight days per year.
- Scheduling: “While we are proposing expansion of mixed odd work to weekdays for operators, we are committing to recovery time between all trips. We are also proposing more straight runs (up to 10 hours) as a means to provide more days off for operators. In order to ensure that concerns raised around the issue of run-cutting are heard, we are offering to pay a representative of ATU 279 to work with us on a full-time basis for the next 18 months. Operators will continue to book their daily work and their seniority rights will be respected.”
- Benefits: Many new and/or improved benefits.
Here’s the kicker… many bus drivers are paid over $100,000 because the overtime is getting abused. The city has made many improvements to their original offer, which keeps being rejected by the union president André Cornelier. André refuses to ask the members to vote on the city’s latest offerering. Meanwhile, many people can’t get to work, have to pay for a taxi every day, walk long distances in bad weather, or are stuck in heavy traffic driving to work. Finally, Labour Minister Rona Ambrose is expected to force a vote on the city’s latest offering.
Here’s an interesting clip of André Cornelier explaining on CTV why he is not asking his members to vote on the offer.
I think in today’s labor world the unions are obsolete. Unions were needed when there was a lack of labor laws to protect the worker, but now all they do is choke the employer until it goes out of business (take the big 3 for example). I say every worker needs to earn to keep his job just like the rest of us.
I agree with you! Maybe unions are not completely obsolete, but they wield too much power. How can unions, in good conscience, ask for wage increases given how the economy is going?
At least, when there is a strike in the private industry, there is a huge incentive to solve the problem; companies can lose millions for every day the strike lasts. In the case of a public service - like OC Transpo - the city saves $3M a week by not paying salaries and fuel… Too bad we still have to pay the same tax amounts.
I would think that the worst union leader in the world would cave in to the management’s demands. These guys seem to be doing what they’re paid to do.
Not that I’m not extremely angry about this whole strike, but you have to blame both sides for this - none of us are experts in the ins and outs of public transit mamngement and making a vicseral criticism of the union’s won’t get you very far.
The OCT is there to serve the best interest of the tax payers and the community. The employees should be treated fairly and without discrimination, which the law supports.
A Strike should only be allowed in dire circumstances. This type of behavior does nothing but add to the disdain for all unions. Holding a community hostage and making its residents suffer over a shift bid process is absurd.
I have always been at the very least, neutral - until todays Ottawa Citizen quoting Cornellier;
“It is the members themselves who will decide…not the mayor….not city council… and not the Ottawa Public”
My public dollars pay ‘e - my public dollars can replace ‘em
Full rant was here;
http://elliotross.wordpress.com/2009/01/02/no-public-in-public-service/
I would think that the worst union leader in the world would cave in to the management’s demands. These guys seem to be doing what they’re paid to do.
So your contention is that union members, even the very junior ones (who routinely get shafted by the Union, BTW), are paying Cormellier and others out of their own pockets so that they can be denied the right to vote on a revised offer, nearly 30 days after an initial offer, for which a vote was also effectively denied through both action and inaction of the Union senior members?
What are they paying for again? Clever negotiation tactics that ensure the union continues to stonewall long after peak leverage has passed (right about Jan 1st)? Being withheld the right to vote?
There’s are words for these kind of behaviors. Extortion and racketeering come to mind.
Thanks for the comments! I came across this new article today: http://www.orleansonline.ca/pages/N2009010504.htm
We’ll find out soon enough what happens… but if the drivers vote against the city’s offer on Thursday, let’s hope they get forced back to work. There is no reason why Ottawa residents need to suffer this strike any longer.
General update: The city offer was rejected yesterday, so Ottawa is still stuck with no public transit. I doubt such a long strike would have been “allowed” to go on in other major cities!
The big question remaining is, will the strike achieve anything without public support.
http://ottawa.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20090109/OTT_transit_vote_090109/20090109?hub=Ottawa
First of all the union hasn’t done a single members vote, the lastest was a supervisor vote and supervisors are usually seniors.
why hasn’t the union leadership allowed a general vote, because their demands only benefit the senoirs at the cost to everyone else, such sad greedly people who not only live off of public money but is disrupting the whole city for such a minor gain.
They’re kids, who need adult supervision and learn the world’s not I, me and myself.
I know this is politically incorrect but the city should replace them with migrant workers form poor countries.
Driving a bus is not a skill, people should not be paid 100,000 a year for this.
Beside being a senior bus driver just means your less physically able to do the job, experience is not a major factor, But why are seniors being paid more for doing the same job with better hours than others?
Besides the city should get to schedule the drivers.
what boss will tell you come to work whenever you like and get paid by the hour?
But if its for the quality of their driving that entitles them to more pay then why haven’t i seen any bus drivers smile, say hello, or be nice?
On a side note the city even provides the drivers with their own police force, driving a cab’s way more dangerous than a bus full of people but yet their asking for taxpayers money to fund a private police. If they had social skills this wouldn’t of happened.
Considering every other strike, when _NONE_ of the over 200+ drivers I spoke to said they voted for the strike… and there was a 99.7% mandate for strike…
Uhh… I dunno…
This time, it’s gone WAY too far.
Time for City hall to excercise it’s rights to find replacement workers who want to work.
I’d LOVE to see the union squalk if the drivers were getting paied comparative wages to private sector.
OCTC could actually risk turning a PROFIT
43 days on strike and counting…
I need to borrow a blog post from the Punk Rock HR Blog which perfectly fits here… http://punkrockhr.com/2009/01/21/january-2009-layoffs/
“We have a war on drugs, a war on cancer, a war on poverty, a war on obesity, and a war on terrorism. Where’s the war on … failed leadership, … mediocrity, greed, and short-term thinking?
My question to OC Transpo AND the City: What side of the war are you on?”
Matt - I’m not sure that replacing all workers is the best solution… Media is always distorted and I’m sure we’re not getting the full story. This being said, as someone who does rely on OC Transpo to get around the city, and from my (maybe distorted) perspective, if Reagan could fire and replace 13,000 air traffic controller, there is no reason why this couldn’t happen to bus drivers. http://eightiesclub.tripod.com/id296.htm But maybe that’s a selfish way to look at it.
In a more rational, and perhaps naive way, I’m wondering why the city is not trying to fix loopholes in the scheduling dilemma instead of trying to take over its control entirely. There has got to be a way to make a compromise… although from what I have seen on both sides, maybe a compromise would require a bit more maturity.