Good Faith Personified
The City of Ottawa, personalized by its redoubtable mayor awaiting due process in a court proceeding, charged with voting malfeasance, is in charge of the negotiations between the Amalgamated Transit Union's Ottawa branch and the municipality. Do we have confidence in this mayor? Certainly not. On the other hand, is sympathy extended to the striking OC Transpo drivers, mechanics and dispatchers by the city's tens of thousands of regular transit users being held hostage by the two sides' intransigence? Most certainly not.
Furthermore, since the service crosses provincial borders, it comes under the purview of the federal government, not the provincial government which could order the strikers back to work. All that we can expect from the intervention of the federal government is that the Minister of Transport, Rona Ambrose, order the parties to break their current impasse only in regard to bringing the latest contract offer from the city to the union for a vote.
The union head has steadfastly refused to bring the city's latest offer to the union membership. And likely with good reason. It's entirely feasible that union members, in a closed vote, would deny their president his day. Union president Andre Cornellier isn't in the business of losing face, nor does he feel that the Minister should be intervening. Mr. Cornellier, in fact, feels the city should roll over and play dead, leaving the field to the union, triumphant.
There is no need, he avers, to bring the city's latest offer back to the membership. "We don't have to, so why should we? Just because the city says to take it back, we should? Because the city thinks they have a good offer? Who are they? We're negotiating with them. We don't believe it's a good offer, so we don't bring it back to our members and that's our right as a union."
Sigh. Would that it were not so. The latest offer is a real humdinger of a good contract. The bus drivers already make good money, and given the fiscal constraints bordering on dire that the City is labouring under, the original offer of 7.5% over three years looks good, sounds good, is good, to a whole lot of people wishing they had the job security and benefits that the OC Transpo employees enjoy.
Not to mention the generosity of the signing bonus, in excess of $2,000. The union's lawyer argues that the city has an obligation to resolve the strike by negotiating in good faith with the union's bargaining committee. The city, doubtless, believes it is doing just that. The major sticking point being that the city has every intention of reserving the right to work-scheduling, as occurs in all other cities.
The union refuses to give up that hard-won and treasured perquisite that represents the interests of senior drivers, some 230 personnel whose entitlements are holding the other 2,070 OC Transpo employees in thrall to those very specific demands. Solidarity forever, even if it means that in the process, the strikers will end up losing weeks of salaries that the best of contracts won't make up within the course of a year.
Even if it means that, in the process, the union head's belligerent stance does far more than merely inconvenience people dependent on public transit. Yes, it strikes at the core of the city's workforce who represent a higher percentage of transit users than most other cities. Many, if not most of those nine-to-fivers have taken to using their personal vehicles, clogging up traffic, desperately looking for increasingly rare parking spots.
Those forced by necessity of lower wages to walk, bicycle, hitchhike, carpool eventually make it to their destinations. Or not. There've been a whole lot of health care appointment cancellations. The city's elderly cannot quite get around as handsomely as formerly, so they sit at home, unable to visit their usual haunts. Students find it difficult to get to classes, to write exams.
Volunteers with charitable organizations, lacking the means of arriving and departing, leave those organizations unable to provide the full services to those who depend upon them that they normally provide, with the considerable assistance of volunteer help. All of this is as nothing, utterly irrelevant, when weighed against the greater good to the community of the union's ongoing control over scheduling and route assignment.
There are an awful lot of people in the city who would gladly change places with the OC Transpo employees, considering them to be a selfish, coddled lot. Those who are currently unemployed, or contemplating the very real possibility of losing employment would jump at the opportunity to replace the current lot of dissatisfied workers, embracing the opportunity to take up what OC Transpo has rejected.
Pity that exchange couldn't be somehow managed.
Furthermore, since the service crosses provincial borders, it comes under the purview of the federal government, not the provincial government which could order the strikers back to work. All that we can expect from the intervention of the federal government is that the Minister of Transport, Rona Ambrose, order the parties to break their current impasse only in regard to bringing the latest contract offer from the city to the union for a vote.
The union head has steadfastly refused to bring the city's latest offer to the union membership. And likely with good reason. It's entirely feasible that union members, in a closed vote, would deny their president his day. Union president Andre Cornellier isn't in the business of losing face, nor does he feel that the Minister should be intervening. Mr. Cornellier, in fact, feels the city should roll over and play dead, leaving the field to the union, triumphant.
There is no need, he avers, to bring the city's latest offer back to the membership. "We don't have to, so why should we? Just because the city says to take it back, we should? Because the city thinks they have a good offer? Who are they? We're negotiating with them. We don't believe it's a good offer, so we don't bring it back to our members and that's our right as a union."
Sigh. Would that it were not so. The latest offer is a real humdinger of a good contract. The bus drivers already make good money, and given the fiscal constraints bordering on dire that the City is labouring under, the original offer of 7.5% over three years looks good, sounds good, is good, to a whole lot of people wishing they had the job security and benefits that the OC Transpo employees enjoy.
Not to mention the generosity of the signing bonus, in excess of $2,000. The union's lawyer argues that the city has an obligation to resolve the strike by negotiating in good faith with the union's bargaining committee. The city, doubtless, believes it is doing just that. The major sticking point being that the city has every intention of reserving the right to work-scheduling, as occurs in all other cities.
The union refuses to give up that hard-won and treasured perquisite that represents the interests of senior drivers, some 230 personnel whose entitlements are holding the other 2,070 OC Transpo employees in thrall to those very specific demands. Solidarity forever, even if it means that in the process, the strikers will end up losing weeks of salaries that the best of contracts won't make up within the course of a year.
Even if it means that, in the process, the union head's belligerent stance does far more than merely inconvenience people dependent on public transit. Yes, it strikes at the core of the city's workforce who represent a higher percentage of transit users than most other cities. Many, if not most of those nine-to-fivers have taken to using their personal vehicles, clogging up traffic, desperately looking for increasingly rare parking spots.
Those forced by necessity of lower wages to walk, bicycle, hitchhike, carpool eventually make it to their destinations. Or not. There've been a whole lot of health care appointment cancellations. The city's elderly cannot quite get around as handsomely as formerly, so they sit at home, unable to visit their usual haunts. Students find it difficult to get to classes, to write exams.
Volunteers with charitable organizations, lacking the means of arriving and departing, leave those organizations unable to provide the full services to those who depend upon them that they normally provide, with the considerable assistance of volunteer help. All of this is as nothing, utterly irrelevant, when weighed against the greater good to the community of the union's ongoing control over scheduling and route assignment.
There are an awful lot of people in the city who would gladly change places with the OC Transpo employees, considering them to be a selfish, coddled lot. Those who are currently unemployed, or contemplating the very real possibility of losing employment would jump at the opportunity to replace the current lot of dissatisfied workers, embracing the opportunity to take up what OC Transpo has rejected.
Pity that exchange couldn't be somehow managed.
Labels: Human Relations, Realities, Whoops
posted by Pieface @ 5:30 PM
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