Tennif Shoe wrote:blues good luck on your strike.... hopefully it will get resovlved before you go broke......... STRIKE STRIKE STRIKE
IAM local 2198
ATU 1724
I am optimistic that it won't be a long one. We are part of the transit system that provides transportation to people with disabilities, and anyone that cannot use public transportation unassisted.
I have been working for them almost 15 years. In the 30 or so years that the system has been around, there has never been labour unrest.
We have always been able to negotiate a contract.
Last year, the governing body over the transit system decided to award the contract to running it to an American company.
Disclaimer...this is not about bashing American people
There were several Canadian companies that put in a bid....then out of nowhere the contract was awarded to this American company. We figure it has something to do with the fact that the transit authority brought in a guy from NY to be CEO.
Anyway, from the moment this company came into our country, they have routinely tried to circumvent Canadian labour laws, Canadian labour standards, and contravened the collective agreement.
Our union has taken them to task each and every time and have won every time.
The union and this company have been negotiating for ten months...the company has tried to roll back wages, take away benefits, they lost us our pension plan, they disrespect the seniority list, and so on and so forth....
All the previous contractors were non profit community type societies, or cooperatives.....this was good, because the system is heavily subsidized by tax payer dollars, so the money stayed in the community.
This new company is a "for profit" company....so they are trying to squeeze every last penny they can out of us....the drivers are so stressed trying to keep up to the schedules....drivers were missing breaks and lunches....the union kept harping on them to make sure they took their breaks because it was the only way the company would realize they can't treat our drivers like robots and our clients like parcels.
Anyway...the other thing that galls....tax payer money funding a US company where the profits head south instead of staying here.
A lot of feel that if this company had properly done thier research , they would have known that they could not waltz into our country and start pushing us around. We think they thought that we would be pushovers....not so...we have stood up for our rights and our laws.
Anyway....there will be a lot of negative publicity for the governing body, so this may get resolved soon. I know that yesterday and today, all the management was in having some big pow wow.....
We have gone essential service only....
So, I will sleep in tomorrow and then go for a ride later.....
