One sentence says it all:
"Acting Mayor Michel Bellemare, along with the city manager, solicitor, and OC Transpo general manager worked out the deal with the union’s local president Andre Cornellier and international representative Randy Graham over the last few weeks."
This was a strike that had to be, but never should have been. After over 50 days of the workers going without pay and the city going without transit service, and the hardships resulting from that, we ended up with a settlement that we could have had without a strike.
But the fact is that it took a strike for OC Transpo and Mayor Larry to realize they could not impose their position (the main issue being the rollback of previously negotiated contract provisions) unilaterally.
At this point we have very ill will between workers and management and the potential for a “poisoned work environment”. How do we move forward from here.
The irony of it all is that the very contentious scheduling provisions that we're at the heart of the strike were negotiated as a solution to the ill will between management and workers and a “poisoned work environment”.
The solution put forward at that time, by the consulting group KPMG, was to get both sides to work together for the common good using interest-based bargaining, rather than the traditional confrontational demands-based bargaining. Out of that came a management proposal to change the scheduling system to give the workers more control over their lives. And things did improve.
Then Larry O'Brien was elected Mayor of Ottawa, and he obviously did not bother to learn the history of OC Transpo or he chose to ignore it.
We can no longer ignore history. We not only need to rebuild OC Transpo ridership, we also need to rebuild trust between workers and management. We need to go back to the non-confrontational approach.
Their may be a need for improvements to the scheduling system. If so, they should be designed the same way the existing system was designed, by workers and management taking the time to co-operatively design a better system together.
There will be a lot of challenges to rebuild OC Transpo and rebuild ridership. The chances of success will be a lot better if workers and management do it together co-operatively. We are at the stage of moving into a whole new phase of public transit in Ottawa. We can only succeed if we work together and take advantage of, not only the expertise of hired consultants, but the expertise of our own front line workers who are in contact with transit users everyday.
Both sides could start by providing transit users with an assurance of continued stable transit service by agreeing to use interest-based bargaining for the next collective agreement and agreeing to send any outstanding issues to binding arbitration with no preconditions.
They could start working immediately by establishing a worker-management brainstorming group to develop ways of improving transit service in Ottawa. Not only might this come up with some novel ways to improve service, it will get both sides working together for the common good.
It is really easy to blame the drivers, mechanics and their union for the strike. However the facts do not support that.
The strike was called when the employer, the City of Ottawa and OC Transpo, presented a final offer and stated that they were not willing to negotiate any further (and they have not moved from their bottom line position since then). That left the workers with the choice of accepting an unsatisfactory offer or going on strike. Further negotiations were no longer an option (although the union indicated its willingness to accept the federal mediators proposal as a way of ending the strike within days of it's start).
We could still blame the workers and their union if the strike had been the result of unreasonable demands by them. But it was not.
The strike was precipitated by an attempt by the City of Ottawa and OC Transpo to rollback previously bargained for benefits relating to the scheduling system. This was a system that was proposed by the employer and negotiated in a non-confrontational interests-based bargaining process over an extended period of time. It was also a proposal that, despite the rhetoric (lies?) of Larry O'Brien and his cohorts, did not cost the City and OC Transpo anything because the workers took a reduced pay increase to pay for the extra costs.
The strike can be settled immediately if City of Ottawa and OC Transpo would accept the workers and their union's reasonable proposal to send the financial package to arbitration and the scheduling issue to a mediation process. The system was developed in a non-confrontational process over an extended period of time. If the city believes it has problems that need to be fixed that is the process to use, a process that may be able to find improvements that benefit both the workers and the employer.
The facts make it clear that it was the City and OC Transpo that that caused the strike and it is the City and OC Transpo that are responsible for it continuing.
Special Saturday Fifth Column
The Amalgamated Transit Union has made a proposal that could end the OC Transpo strike almost immediately by sending the financial offers to binding arbitration and submitting the scheduling issue to a mediation process.
Mayor Larry O'Brien, the City of Ottawa and OC Transpo claim that they have made a fair and reasonable offer to the Amalgamated Transit Union and claim that their new scheduling proposals are better for the drivers and are just not well understood by the drivers and their union.
If that is true why are they afraid to send their financial offer to binding arbitration without preconditions and submit their scheduling proposal to a mediation process where it can be explained to and understood by the union and it's members.
There is a word for it when you tell other people something you do not believe to be true.
As an environmentalist, I am inclined to say yes to that question because of the extensive environmental benefits provided by public transit systems, the main one, of course, being the fact that it reduces automobile use considerably and in some cases can make car ownership unnecessary.
But the first question we have to answer is what does that mean.
If public transit is essential, like police and health care services, then it must be provided. There must be legislation requiring municipalities above a certain size to provide a public transit service.
If public transit is essential, then it must be publicly provided. It cannot be left to the whims of the private sector that will only provide service where it is profitable.
It must be a meaningful service so the legislation must provide standards of service that must be provided.
It must also be affordable to all citizens, especially lower income citizens. In order to do this fares must only be used to cover a portion of the costs, no more than fifty percent.
Since municipalities have the least effective and least equitable taxing powers of all levels of government, funding must be provided by all three levels of government, municipal, provincial and federal.
And for it to be effective in getting people to make permanent lifestyle changes it must be reliable and provided without interruption.
This would require removing the right to strike from workers and the right to lock-out workers during labour disputes from management and replacing it with a fair system of compulsory arbitration when negotiations and mediation fail. It should also be noted that despite whatever legislation may be in place strong unions always maintain the ability to strike if the alternative measures are not applied fairly.
Legislation declaring public transit an essential service must include all of these factors if we are truly treating it as an essential service. It has to be a lot more than just taking rights away from workers.
While we are discussing declaring services essential for their environmental benefits, I would suggest that a comprehensive system of commuter bike routes also be declared an essential service that must be provided by all municipalities.
The labour movement has always held the Right to Strike to be sacrosanct. In reality though, the biggest gains made by workers have been gained during illegal, rather than legal strikes. Indeed it is union solidarity rather than the legal Right to Strike that is key. Workers will always have the effective ability to strike as long as they have solidarity in their ranks.
But that does not mean that strikes are always the best way to settle a dispute that cannot be settled at the bargaining table. As one who worked for, perhaps the most essential of public services, democracy itself, I did not have the Right to Strike. Instead we had compulsory arbitration. On at least one occasion simply serving notice of arbitration brought the employer (House of Commons) back to the table with an offer we could not reject. I have to admit it was somewhat reassuring to not have to worry about going on strike and losing income to settle a bargaining dispute. And, of course, the bottom line was that as long as we had solidarity we always had the effective ability to strike if that became necessary.
The recent TTC strike fiasco is an example of the ineffective use of the legal Right to Strike. The TTC workers are one of those groups of public sector workers that have a fictitious legal Right to Strike. It is often expressed this way by politicians: “we will respect your Right to Strike as long as you do not abuse it”. And by “abuse it” they mean actually “go on strike”.
The TTC strike was a fiasco because the workers went on strike knowing they would be legislated back to work and knowing they did not have the intention, or the solidarity, to continue the strike after they were legislated back to work. So all they accomplished was upsetting the general public. There was obviously something else going on there. The strike was more of an “emotional” response to something going on between workers and management beyond the terms of the proposed contract or something going on between the workers and their union leadership.
The real problem with public sector strikes is that they do not affect the employer’s bottom line. In a private sector strike you shut down production and the employers revenues and profits go down. In a public sector strike you shut down public services and the employers costs go down. There is a real bottom line incentive in that situation for the employer to try to manipulate the union into a strike.
A more effective TTC union response would have been to take the initiative to propose arbitration at the same time they announced the membership had rejected the tentative agreement. This way they could have not only avoided the wrath of the public but gained their support. Instead they called a strike they had no intention or ability to continue, knowing that the end result would be compulsory arbitration.
Why is arbitration not used more often voluntarily in the public sector.
Employers have often expressed a dislike for it because it means turning over “budgetary decisions” to a third party, or so they claim. They also, apparently, fear costlier settlements than those after a strike. It also means they do not have the savings from unpaid wages during a strike to offset wage increases awarded by an arbitrator.
Unions do not like it because of the feeling that the Right to Strike is sacrosanct and that agreeing to arbitration can be seen as a sign of weakness.
Strikes are not always successful. The big problem with public sector strikes is that they affect the public more than the employer and indeed they can save the employer money. Another way that does not upset the public is worth trying. I think public sector unions have a lot to gain by giving arbitration a chance. It does not require giving up your Right to Strike, just not using it for one set of negotiations at a time.
It may very well be that in many cases the employer will reject arbitration. So be it. The employer can then feel the wrath of the public when workers are forced to strike.
