| The wheels on the bus don’t go round and round
Once again, the current transit strike – now into its fourth week – demonstrates how easily the personal and the political become confused. On the personal level, the dispute has been inconvenient, costly and disruptive for thousands of Calgarians, who naturally would like to see the stoppage come to a swift end. On the political level, however, we have a city administration seemingly indifferent to such hardships and determined to see this strike through to the end, no matter what the cost. Is any resolution of these two conflicting viewpoints possible?
Let’s look at the personal side first. At first sympathetic and supportive of the transit union, there are now signs that public opinion is beginning to turn against the striking workers. Indeed, as expressed on phone-in shows and letters to the press, the recommendations are coming thick and fast: "Declare transit an essential service." "Legislate them back to work." "Fire them all, like Reagan fired the air traffic controllers." "Privatize the system and then see what they’d be paid." In short, any means should be taken to force some kind of termination of the strike.
While such sentiments might be understandable given the circumstances, they all miss the point. First, if public transport is indeed an essential service, then that argument should have been made calmly and clearly before any strike occurred. And if bus drivers are to be raised to such an esteemed status, the public should be prepared to (a) pay them accordingly and (b) value other service workers (e.g. road-sweepers, day-care operators, etc.) similarly.
Second, legislating an end to the strike makes no more sense. The present strike is perfectly legal and is being conducted accordingly. Passing a new law to force the strikers back to work would only serve to undermine faith in the existing legal framework. As such, why should other workers – unionized or not – in any future dispute even bother to follow the lawful options open to them?
Third, the threat to fire the strikers – itself an illegal proposition – is just plain stupid and underlines why a union is so necessary in the first place. As for privatizing the transit system, this red herring has little or nothing to do with the present strike itself. To my knowledge, no aldermanic candidate in recent years has run on such a platform, and it’s far from clear that privatizing the trains and buses would deliver any long-term benefits. Anyway, as the strike has shown, the city hardly enjoys a monopoly on transportation.
This brings me to the politics of the transit strike. The union’s position seems clear. With turnouts that should put Alberta voters to shame, its members have repeatedly rejected offers from the city and, seeing no possibility of a mediated settlement, have voted 90 per cent in favour of binding arbitration. In other words, they are prepared to stake what the city has offered them so far against the risk of losing everything under a third-party ruling. This suggests a degree of confidence that the union’s position would prevail, should it come to arbitration.
For its part, the city has firmly rejected the idea of binding arbitration, arguing that this would represent a dereliction of its responsibility to manage its own transit system. What is represented by allowing wage negotiations to come to the current state of affairs is less than clear. City negotiators have also dismissed the union’s recent 80 per cent rejection of its last offer, claiming that members were not given all the details. Such allegations of bad-faith bargaining rarely make for amicable industrial relations, and the city may yet live to regret making such aspersions. (Bear in mind that numerous other city contracts are soon up for renewal.)
So here’s the problem. The city doesn’t trust the union, is unlikely to convince members to approve an offer they’ve already rejected, and refuses the idea of binding arbitration. As such, it’s left with no real policy at all. The best it can hope for is to "starve" the strikers back to work, and no doubt if the strike continues into a second month we will see a certain degree of "drift back." With strike pay at $100 per week, few bus drivers will be able to stay out indefinitely.
In the short run, of course, this all means prolonged inconvenience, cost and disruption for Calgarians. So go ahead, make that call, write that letter and blame the union. But remember, the union is only doing what it is supposed to do: representing the interests of its members. It’s the job of elected city officials to ensure that the trains and buses run on time, or at least run at all. And remember, too, that those same officials will get paid no matter how long the strike goes on. |
