Just when you thought the latest Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) shakedown had passed without incident, the union rank and file have voted to reject a tentative deal and go on strike effective at midnight:
The TTC’s largest union has voted not to ratify a tentative agreement reached with management last weekend and the transit system will grind to a halt at midnight.
Sixty-five per cent of TTC union members voted to reject the tentative agreement, which required a 50-per-cent plus one vote to pass. Bob Kinnear, the union president, said he had no choice but to call an immediate strike for the safety of his members.
The deal, which critics of Mayor David Miller have criticized as being too generous, offers TTC workers improved health benefits and three years of 3-per-cent annual wage increases, that will make TTC drivers the best paid in the Greater Toronto Area.
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But in a clause seized on by critics, the deal also offers bus drivers an additional raise in December of 2009 if their pay falls behind that of other Toronto-area drivers, something the union says it deserves because of the demands of driving a bus or a streetcar in the city.
If ever there were an argument for the abolition of unions for municipal workers, this is it. The TTC workers union overriding Kinnear’s promise of a 48-hour advance notice is disrespectful to both Kinnear and the city. To do it on a Friday night –when many Torontonians are already out and expecting a ride home- should be criminal. The cowardly maintenance workers who drove this rejection do not have to deal with the drunken public ire sure to keep TTC drivers and police busy for the first few hours of this strike (ironically, Kinnear claims to have pulled the services suddenly to prevent TTC workers from having to endure public backlash).
The lesson from this is simple – unions should only be allowed in industries and services where striking hurts the owning companies and possibly themselves. Calling a strike for an essential service is tantamount to holding the local economy hostage while doing so on short-notice is just plain dangerous. The union is acting irresponsibly and their complaints ring hollow in a city where a ticket collector earns phenomenally more than a retail clerk, despite doing less work. Darts for their lack of consideration.
Additional darts to Adam Giambrone for not taking charge when his presence was requested and to David Miller for refusing to forsake his China holiday / trade mission to fight this fire.
And finally, a dart to the city of Toronto. You wanted socialism, you got it.
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