ATU Local 1587 Rejects the Latest Offer
Today is day 79 in week 12 of the York Region transit strike. (While I’m sure no one expected the strike to last this long, we’re actually still some distance away from setting a record. We’re creeping up on the 94-day transit strike in Vancouver in 1984, but are still a ways behind the 128-day strike there in 2001 and of course the nine-month strike in Quebec City in 1979.)
By now everyone knows the members of ATU Local 1587 voted down the last offer from Miller Transit on Friday, 196 to 38. Ninety-two percent of the membership voted, so clearly I was wrong in thinking the union leaders didn’t actually have the membership on their side. Members of Local 113 won’t be voting on the latest offer from Veolia until the 17th (I was also mistaken on that date in my last post), but I think we can safely assume that offer will be rejected, too.
It’s hard for me to imagine what’s going to change at this point to bring the strike to an end.
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The union would like to dismantle the public-private partnership model used in the Region, so I think it’s unlikely it will agree to any offer from a contractor—especially at this point, after more than eleven weeks of striking, when it desperately needs to score a
win
to make the sacrifice appear to have been worthwhile. (I’m pretty sure the specific details of the contracts being negotiated are immaterial at this point, though gains there—such as the additional health-care premium subsidy Local 113 appears to be holding out for—may end up being what the union leaders settle for to save face.) For the same reason, it’ll continue to beat the drum for arbitration as aneutral
way to settle the dispute, which even were it not to bring any gains for union members would still establish in people’s minds the fiction that private contractors just can’t be dealt with. -
The Region, of course, wants to maintain its sovereignty and defend the public-private model, and will resist doing anything that would hand over power to the union. (Union supporters like to point out York Region CEO Bill Fisch was never elected by the people to run the transit system, but we should remember the same is true of the Local presidents, Bob Kinnear and Ray Doyle, both of whom want to refashion the system to their liking.)
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The private contractors naturally want to preserve as much of their profit from the Region as they can, as they have already agreed to the maximum amount of revenue they can expect from taxpayers. They will not operate services here at a loss, so there is naturally a certain point past which they will not make further concessions to the workers. (People in favour of a completely public model complain about the huge tax subsidies poured into transit in the Region currently, but if it is impossible for private contractors to operate services here at a profit, why should anyone expect the government to be able to?)
Meanwhile, the taxpayers and transit users—the people actually funding the entire dispute—remain essentially powerless, while the union adds insult to injury by continuing to picket the bus terminals and the buses themselves every morning.
@Simon: “The union would like to dismantle the public-private partnership model used in the Region, so I think it’s unlikely it will agree to any offer from a contractor”
And here’s the proof – some thick nose plugs are recommended before this reading:
http://www.marxist.ca/labour/labour-news/722-support-york-region-transit-workers-fund-public-transit.html
@OP: An eye-opening read. To be fair, this was written by (I believe) a student, and doesn’t necessarily reflect how the drivers themselves are thinking about the situation. But then we do know Ray Doyle, at least, is sympathetic to the socialist movement, and it is startling how well the union’s aims align with socialist doctrine. I wonder how many people who think of themselves as standing up for the drivers understand the bold political statement they are really making?
As an aside: I find it funny how just about everything union supporters say makes equal sense if you reverse the roles. Consider this rewritten paragraph from the article:
“The drivers have little regard for the impact the strike is having on transit users. Thus far, the union has not been willing to come to the table and negotiate on the specific concessions being offered by the contractors. The union strategy, thus far, has been to wait-it-out, hoping the contractors will eventually be forced into arbitration, and to wage a fierce media war to convince transit riders to blame the Region for the inconvenience.”
Makes just as much sense, doesn’t it?