Toronto’s Transit Commission should change its motto to: “There must be a better way”
DUSHANBE — I was offline for the weekend and shocked this morning to read that Toronto’s transit union called a wildcat strike late on Friday. The strike halted service in the nation’s biggest city on its largest transit system. Why?
Because the transit union appears to have been dishonest.
The TTC and its union negotiated a new contract which the membership apparently rejected. Despite promises by union leader Bob Kinnear to provide 48 hours notice before any job action, the union walked off the job Friday — with zero warning to the public.
What does this mean? I’m not sure. However, a few things are clear:
- The union has lost all credibility in the eyes of the public. Never again, will it be taken at its word. That alone will cost the union greatly — both in terms of respect, and in terms of dollars. Future negotiations will be done knowing the public will not support the union. Future negotiations will be done knowing the union’s negotiating team cannot be trusted.
- Union leader Bob Kinnear is toast. Either he was lying to the public when he said the union would provide notice, or more probably, he has lost the confidence of his membership. Either way, he can no longer lead the union. That he would have signed off on a negotiated settlement that was subsequently turned down by his membership, and that they then felt free to flout his public promises by engaging in a wildcat strike, is a sure sign union members have already marked Kinnear for irrelevance.
This is a lose-lose scenario.
Union members are now despised by the public, whether they were party to this flagrant violation of the public trust, or whether they sat passively and allowed their union to be hijacked by idiots.
This loss of public confidence in the transit system means even fewer people will allow themselves to depend upon it. More people will find “non-TTC” alternatives (i.e. cars) to get to and from work, costing themselves more, reducing transit ridership, costing TTC jobs and contributing to gridlock, pollution and global warming.
The saddest fact of all is that our city is led by a mayor and council who are so woefully inept at management that this union believed it could violate basic trusts with impunity.
What a sorry state is Toronto!