A rant against the ATU Local 113's membership

I get it. Unions are a good thing. They keep workers from being exploited by greedy owners of corpoations. They keep them from working in terrible conditions that are bad for their health both physically and mentally. It makes it so that the rich can't exploit the poor.

But in the case of ATU Local 113 vs. TTC who is the greedy owner? Who is the one exploiting whom here? Yesterday's midnight strike by the members of ATU Local 113 was a bunch of greedy, selfish people banking on David Miller and Adam Giambronne (sp?) being a bunch of push overs and giving them more than what they asked for. After all, after all that negotiation, the TTC offered the union exactly what they asked for... and then some. What else do they want? How are you, as a negotiator, supposed to negotiate when they turn you down even when you give them what they asked for.

To go back to the question of who is exploiting who, let us consider who is the most affected by a TTC strike. First, let's ask ourselves who uses the TTC the most often. We have students, seniors, people who can't afford cars... others along the same demographic. Basically, the TTC is used as the main form of transportation for a good proportion of the population. So when the TTC decides that it is going to go on strike, they strand these people and prevent them from moving around - after all if you're struggling to pay your tuition or live on a fixed income, how are you going to afford a taxi to move around the city? So here we have a union in fact exploiting the fact that there exists an element of people in the city that cannot move around without them. They are, as the media and many critics have already stated, holding the lowest economic demographic of the city under hostage. For what? So that they can get paid two to three times more than the student that is working hard labour or monotonous office work to earn tuition?

Unions like ATU Local 113 are no longer fighting for basic rights. The members are using it as a means to try and extort more of the taxpayers money into their own pockets. Because in the end, that is what they are getting... Toronto municipal tax revenue. And I for one, refuse to consider this strike action by the ATU Local 113 to be justified. They got a good deal. They turned it down. So they can go screw themselves. I hope that the provincial government forces back to work legislation than declares them an essential service. I then hope the TTC leverages the fact that they can't strike to scale back everything they were going to give them back to their original contract... which doesn't seem that bad to me in the first place. I bust my back for $9 an hour with no worker's compensation, no benefits, nothing. If they're not happy with $28/hour driving a bus or collecting money from people walking in the station... then what the frig.... what... the... frig...

*** On a side note, I am still very curious as how one, as a negotiator would handle this situation. The TTC gave them almost everything they wanted and more. And they still turned down the deal. When you give someone what they want and they slap you in the face - what do you do? How do you negotiate with someone like that? It's been a puzzling thing that I've been thinking about for the past few hours. Yes... I am a nerd :P It also happens to be the sort of thing I want to do as a job too, so there! :P