You probably didn't like having your transit system held hostage on Friday night, did you? No reason you should. Here's the closest thing resembling an explanation for the snap strike that has yet been offered by Amalgamated Transit Union local president Bob Kinnear:
We knew we would be severely criticized for striking with no warning, but our first duty as a union is to protect the safety of our members. If only one member had been assaulted by a passenger angered by the impending strike, that would have been one too many.
In other words, Kinnear claims to have acted on the premise that giving advance warning of a strike would have placed his members in more danger from an outraged public than stranding hundreds of thousands of people downtown and freezing the city for a weekend did. Seems to me that (at five a.m. Monday morning) it's still an open question whether he was right or wrong, and there exists a corresponding question of incentives. If you prove him right, you'll confirm that the strike was your fault—you're a boorish, dangerous mob that needed a weekend to cool off from your entirely unjustified anger!—and you'll leave the same line of argument open to himself and his successors. Is this how you intend to let yourselves be treated?
Comments (6)
Coming on the heels of the wildcat strike two summers ago I think that this is likely the last gasp of this union. Considering that there was really no reason to strike this time aroung I submit that Friday night was an attempt by Kinnear to become relevant. Even the Toronto Star was pretty clear after the tentative agreement that the union had no reason to strike and that Kinnear was a windbag. I think Friday night was about his ego, nothing else.
They are going to be declared an essential service now - even David Miller and Howard Hampton could not support this foolish act.
They gained nothing and may have lost everything.
Posted by Pat McLean | April 28, 2008 8:41 AM
Posted on April 28, 2008 08:41
It's not so much a dying union as a struggling leadership - Kinnear is not a popular guy within the union and he has been struggling to keep control. This was an attempted show of force.
Posted by Tybalt | April 28, 2008 9:12 AM
Posted on April 28, 2008 09:12
They are going to be declared an essential service now - even David Miller and Howard Hampton could not support this foolish act.
I dunno. You'll never go broke betting against the incompetence and moral cowardice of Toronto civic leadership.
Posted by Lord Bob | April 28, 2008 11:49 AM
Posted on April 28, 2008 11:49
Fire them all.
Worked here in the States.
Posted by Sigivald | April 28, 2008 12:04 PM
Posted on April 28, 2008 12:04
Pat, people claiming to be TTC staff are online -- http://stevemunro.ca/?p=819#comment-33518 -- suggesting that Kinnear's not behind any of this, that he's been outmanoeuvred by others in the union. Doesn't say much for his leadership either way, I suppose.
Posted by Garnet | April 28, 2008 2:25 PM
Posted on April 28, 2008 14:25
According to today's Toronto Star a number of city councillors do well by the union. They won't be in any hurry...quite a dystopia we have here, truth be told. Sigh.
Posted by thor | April 29, 2008 10:51 PM
Posted on April 29, 2008 22:51