Simon South

This morning, transit riders attempting to commute using the 40% of the system still operating in York Region were again frustrated by union members picketing the bus yard in Vaughan. Buses were being held for five minutes each, which presumably resulted in the same hour-long delays riders experienced two weeks ago.

The union is promising to make this a regular occurrence. From the CBC:

Local union president Ray Doyle urged frustrated commuters to help them get the transit service back up and running by pressuring politicians to agree to meet them at the bargaining table.

One union organizer promised the disruptions were far from over.

We’re not just going to picket once in a blue moon. We’re going to be out there. There will be more disruption, it will escalate, he said.

The union’s strategy in all this is gradually becoming apparent to me, and it’s a strategy I understand has been used for some time by unions in the public sector. It’s also one the public-private transit model used in York Region has so far largely foiled, which is undoubtedly one of the main reasons the union is calling for that model to be abandoned.

Key to this strategy is the ability to influence labour policy through electioneering. Jeff Jacoby, a conservative op-ed columnist, has written a number of articles critical of public-sector unions. In What Public-Sector Unions have Wrought, he writes about the differences between collective bargaining in the private and public sectors. The most significant difference, he claims, is that unions in the public sector have the ability to reward and punish politicians—their own employers—through the use of political force. Quoting Roger Lowenstein in his book, While America Aged:

This is because public unions can organize politically and influence elections, which is to say, they can vote their bosses out of office. This gives them direct clout over the people who determine their benefits. By contrast, the [United Auto Workers], for all its muscle, cannot vote the CEO of General Motors out of a job.

Politicians thus face huge temptations to increase benefits. Even though this is costly in the long run, in the short run officeholders are rewarded at the ballot box.

The reason this has not worked well for the union in York Region—witness the comparatively low wages drivers are paid here—is the same reason it does not work for the UAW: Although union members and other York Region residents elect their councillors, none of us elected Veolia, Miller or First Transit, the private companies who operate the transit lines. Neither can we simply vote these companies out of office.

And this, I believe, is why it’s so important to union leaders that the Region join them at the bargaining table: Once the politicians are involved the union will be able to wield the force of public opinion against them to get what it wants, threatening any refusal to meet its demands with failure in the next election. So long as the union is forced to negotiate directly with the contractors, it is largely without this power.

But not completely. Already many people are blaming either regional Council or the provincial government for the strike having lasted this long. A letter to the editor recently published on YorkRegion.com is representative:

If YRT general manager Richard Leary cannot act to restore the service he’s paid to oversee, perhaps the region would do well to replace him… I have little doubt the taxpayers will be happy to replace many councillors come election time if the region doesn’t take action.

The Conservative MPPs who introduced back-to-work legislation last week clearly recognized an opportunity to wield this power for their party’s own ends. They’ve been very careful to pin the blame for the bill’s failure on the Liberal government. From a press release issued by MPP Peter Shurman, who introduced the bill in parliament:

As far as I am concerned the McGuinty Government’s vote against my Private Member’s Bill to end the York Region Transit strike says that they are not concerned about the personal and economic hardship that our residents are experiencing as a result of the labour disruption, said Shurman. I am disappointed that the Liberal government has treated York Region as a second class citizen and refused to give our residents the same protection against transit strikes that those living and working in the City of Toronto enjoy.

The strategy is working; I am already seeing comments on Twitter from people saying they won’t be voting Liberal again.

The irony in all this is that it is the politicians these people are protesting who have so far been responsible for keeping the union’s power contained.

Now consider again this line from the CBC article quoted above:

Local union president Ray Doyle urged frustrated commuters to help them get the transit service back up and running by pressuring politicians to agree to meet them at the bargaining table.

Of course he did. This is a key part of the union’s strategy. Once it has politicians cowed with the threat of the loss of their seat the union will find it much easier to demand, and probably get, whatever it wants.

If this is not what you want, please stop calling for politicians to intervene in the strike. So far Council and the provincial government have successfully frustrated the union’s political aspirations by doing nothing. And if you are concerned about what the transit system might look like and what it might cost us once the union is in charge, please join me in allowing politicians to continue doing just that.

Tags: picketing, politicians, public transit, strike, transit, union, York Region, YRT

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 29th, 2011 at 12:57 pm and is filed under Public Transit, York Region. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.