A lot of people have been considering what exactly they would do if
the TTC were to shut down. Even though the percentage of people
taking transit in greater Toronto is decreasing, a morning commute
without the TTC would affect millions. Some may recall a two-day
strike by transit employees in 1999 -- traffic was heavy, but less
than expected, because so many people stayed home from work.
Additional days without transit would likely have brought more
crippling congestion as commuters became unable to put off travel.
It has been
interesting to watch the differences between this set of labour
negotiations, and past ones. This time around there is a different
mayor, a different government in Queen’s Park, and a different set
of people in charge of the TTC’s largest union. To be sure, the
financial situation at the country’s busiest transit agency is
unrelentingly tight, making the bargaining around many of the
monetary issues appear as difficult as ever. Yet the tone of the
whole drama seems different -- partly because many of the players
have changed.
Some pressures
linger. Transit workers apparently want to restore concessions they
made on their pension arrangements during the 1990s, and the City of
Toronto still worries that any deal it makes with TTC employees will
set precedents with other unions at the city. And it’s still hard to
see what’s happening behind the scenes, or to determine the breadth
of issues being discussed at the bargaining table. That’s how labour
contracts tend to work – we find out the real details afterward.
Earlier this
week, I asked transit chair Howard Moscoe why TTC contract talks
always appear to be so last-minute, a process that seems to only add
uncertainty to the lives of everyone. “It goes down to the wire
because it’s the nature of the beast. (The TTC) is basically a
service that everyone depends upon. If you threaten to not collect
my garbage next Monday, I could probably live with a few Mondays. If
you take away my right to get to work, and say ‘You’ve got to find
alternative means’ -- well, it’s major change for everybody in our
society. So it has nothing whatsoever to do with the structure of
bargaining -- it has more to do with the nature of the service we
provide.”
The talks may
be secret, but there is great scrutiny nonetheless. As powerless as
the “travelling public” may feel, our sentiment is taken very
seriously by the negotiators and watching governments. Public
opinion is definitely on the table with all the other issues – and
it is used as a bargaining tool. That is one reason why both parties
appear respectful of each other. It could be a show for the media,
yet the labour-management relationship seems to be genuinely
professional. It may also explain why representatives of the TTC’s
main union prepared an outreach campaign featuring advertisements
and the special website. Perhaps that particular attempt at dialogue
can continue, even after the contract is signed.
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