The transit strike was a terrible thing for many, got dirty at times, and created negative publicity for all involved. I can understand employees not wanting to lose what they have. I can understand management looking for control. However, even the biggest mistakes that have been overlooked for years will tend to surface eventually. A TRANSIT COMPANY without the rights to schedule its employees is ludicrous. This money belongs to the people, yet we are the last to have any say in what takes place with it.
The recent bomb threat on a bus parked 50 feet from my door is not a surprise. People are angry. To those who say the union is to blame, city council and the transit management have been taking advantage for years. However, to those who blame everyone else, I would like to point out that in my Grandfather’s day, being in a union didn’t mean we could hold our employer and the city hostage because we’re not happy with the changes in the economy. In his day, it meant you were more likely to survive the job, and you were more likely to be treated as a person rather than a disposable unit.
I’ve done contract work for dozens of corporations and businesses and out of my own experience and only that, in any workplace I see that is non-unionized, people work efficiently, as if their job actually depends on their performance. In contrast, EVERY unionized workplace I’ve been in, employees work inefficiently (for the most part), as if they don’t have a job to worry about. Many of them make jokes in their boss’s face, because in the end the collective group holds more power than the management. In an economy with high unemployment, and little to no job security, there is a huge disparity between what these people are making and fighting for, and the actual value of their skills and work. Why did I spend years in university when I simply could have worked for Metro Transit? I’ll take any position. Where is the public outrage at a flawed system that allowed this all to happen, not for the first time, and surely not the last. This money belongs the public, but as soon as the words “public” and “money” come together, we see a direct correlation between rising dollars and declining sense. —Dollars Not Sense
This article appears in Mar 15-21, 2012.
i’ll get on ths bitch, before out two resident assholes glorify the strike. their were people who lost wages, jobs, schooling and a lot more. wilson should be horse whipped and rode out of town tarred and feathered. the drivers that i know, have said from the start that they had to go along with his stupid shit, or be blackballed from said union. yes, it does and can happen.
wilson would like you to believe just about all the members voted, wrongo. the only ones voting were pro union supporters. out of 700 plus people, only about 100 actucally voted in favor.i would like to hear each driver tell his part of the story, not just the pro union suckers.
time for a major change in this business, and the sooner the better. okay, i’m sure that our two mouth pieces for the union will have a lot to say in a bit. go to it, douchebags.
My granddad was a trade union organizer in the ’20s and ’30s. Before he died in the late 1970s, he said he was ashamed of how unions had developed since WW2. He said that unions had lost sight of the mission to fight for and protect workers’ rights. Instead, he believed that unions had developed into greedy, corrupt gangs intent on bullying their pockets full at the expense of non-members.
Powerful talk from an old-school trade union organizer and socialist.
I couldn’t agree more, Fool!!
“I would like to point out that in my Grandfather’s day, being in a union didn’t mean we could hold our employer and the city hostage because we’re not happy with the changes in the economy. “
Back in your (and my) grandfather’s day trade unions had significantly more bargaining power (less international competition from child labour). It really doesn’t surprise me that unions have to stoop to such low levels in order to regain some of the power they’ve lost to employers and big business. Unions today our far smaller, less organized, less funded and hence vastly less powerful than before. Also, back in your grandfather’s day, trade unions held riots and contributed to massive social changes such as the implementation of unemployment insurance. Unfortunately no union today would hold the mass appeal or financial/political capital to accomplish anything of that magnitude.
A public sector job is pretty much the last possible career where people can actually feel secure in their work, without having to worry that they might, through no fault of their own, lose their job just because some international entrepreneur has access to a massive supply of workers willing to work hours on end for a few bucks each day. It really surprises me that there’s so much spite coming from the middle class against the very people who represent the last hope against managerial tyranny.
Fool on the Hill…
Most old people say things like that. Especially prior to death. It’s called “recall bias”. Business/government/people of the past are always somehow morally superior to those of the present. We also have to keep in mind that many of our elderly die before dementia gets its full grip on their minds.
@canned. If these people represent the last hope against managerial tyranny we are screwed
good ol’ simpleton response.
“A public sector job is pretty much the last possible career where people can actually feel secure in their work, without having to worry that they might, through no fault of their own, lose their job just because some international entrepreneur has access to a massive supply of workers willing to work hours on end for a few bucks each day.”
A public sector job is also the last bastion of the lazy self-entitled communist – a job where they don’t have to prove their worth, work hard, try to excel in their career – just count down the years of mediocrity until they get “seniority” from their “years of service” . They don’t have to worry about losing their job through fault of their own either – watching porn at work, taking eighteen sick days a year, or because their employer can’t afford to employ them any more.
We are so civilized now, why would anyone hate on unions? Lets gang up on the employers anyway, they are just getting in the way of going back to an agrarian non-industrial economy. Hey we’re already half way to fiefdom in this shitty province, why stop now right canned?
@canned, Simpleton? I think not. You have made some good points, but you seem so surprised that people are angry though even you admit they stooped “to such low levels.” This is not the last stand against managerial tyranny, my friend. These people have excellent working conditions, high pay in relation to their skills and education, and great perks, as well as job security, and its at the expense of the tax payer. So, I reiterate, if THESE are the last stand against managerial tyranny, then we most certainly are all screwed.