A Loveless Marriage

Veolia Transportation and the Amalgamated Transit Union local 113 will be meeting for one last time before York Region Transit employees serving the region's southwest will officially be in legal strike position. The YRT says in an e-mail to me that the dispute was between the two above parties, and it was simply out of their hands.

What does this say about trying to make public transit a viable option for all stakeholders? What about the tens of thousands of York Region commuters who make the smart choice by not hogging the roads in tonne-heavy cars, who will now have to take costly alternatives to get to where they're going?

The regional government should never have let anyone who would provoke a strike take a contract. Part of a harmonious (and conflict-free) workplace involves keeping everyone happy and if the quality of transit has to suffer under crippling strikes (remember Viva a couple years back), it's not worth the savings that the lowest bidder for the contractor provides.

Veolia has only operated local service in Southwest York Region for only a few months now. What does this say about an employer who can't keep their employees happy enough not to get a settlement in a quick, timely and painless manner?

And then the ATU. They sent a press release claiming that it was Veolia that has forced them to strike. What truly intrigues me is the fact that this union can speak of things like sick days when the patrons who take service operated by their stakeholders usually have none of these liberties. Students lose marks if they don't show up to learn, and many employees (union or otherwise) could even lose their jobs because they can't get to work as efficiently if at all.

Not listening to employees: Not cool. Not seeing outside of union demands: Not cool. Washing hands in regional government when a contract goes awry: You guessed it.

For I, a college student, have prepared for a prolonged egotistical mania - saved by my hometown of Brampton (with their buses running through Woodbridge) and ironically... the TTC, which has union staff.

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