[PHOTO] Papier-mâché, shopAGO

I wish I kept the information for the artist who made this startling papier-mâché column. All I can tell you is that it was for sale two months ago in the Art Gallery of Ontario gift shop.



A close-up.

[BLOG-LIKE POSTING] On the TTC, its workers, their union, and Torontonians

"Thank goodness what's happening in Wisconsin could never happen here" was the title of james_nicoll's post announcing the Ontario provincial government's introduction of legislation making the TTC an essential service and stripping workers of the right to legally strike.

Ontario's government tabled legislation Tuesday to declare the Toronto Transit Commission an essential service, which would strip transit union workers of the right to legally strike.

Labour Minister Charles Sousa introduced The Toronto Transit Commission Labour Disputes Resolution Act, saying it "was the right thing to do."

"We have acted reasonably in introducing this bill," he said.

He said about 1.5 million Torontonians use the TTC every day and a work stoppage costs the city's economy about $50 million a day.

Premier Dalton McGuinty insisted the move is not about bowing to pressure from the Toronto's new mayor ahead of a provincial election.

"We have received a proposal from Toronto's city council. We have listened to them, we have talked to representatives of the workers as well and we have heard from many Torontonians," McGuinty told reporters.

"Whatever we do it is about helping the people of Toronto and ensuring that their needs are being met."

One of Mayor Rob Ford's first orders of business after sweeping into office late last year was having the TTC declared an essential service.

In January, Toronto City Council voted 28-17 in favour of asking McGuinty to introduce legislation to declare the TTC essential.

The essential service designation takes away transit workers' right to legally strike amid a contract dispute. Instead, negotiations could be subject to binding arbitration by a third party.

The transit workers union's leader, Bob Kinnear, criticized this, calling Mayor Ford a coward for not saying he's down to bring down the unions instead of assuring service.

Local 113’s contract with the Toronto Transit Commission expires March 31 and Kinnear tried to pre-empt the essential services designation by promising not to strike during negotiations.

That offer was rejected by Ford’s TTC chair Karen Stintz.

“Over and over Karen Stintz has been talking about continuity of service,” Kinnear said. “The proposal that we put forward would have guaranteed continuity of service throughout this round of bargaining. But unfortunately Karen has got the wrong C-word. She’s looking for confrontation, that’s what this legislation is about.”

Instead of lobbying the province for a bill to bash workers, the city should be pressing Queen’s Park for operating cash to run the transit system, something it stopped doing annually under former premier Mike Harris, he said.

“That’s what they should be focusing on, not this mirage that taking away workers’ rights is going to somehow alleviate the problems people face each and every day on transit,” Kinnear said.

He's not going to be listened to. Kinnear is in a relatively weak position, both in relationship to the wider city (I've never heard anyone refer to him in a complimentary fashion) and to a union membership that found him the most acceptable candidate. Mayor Ford's government is as unsentimental towards unions as a municipal government can get, and the prospects of a groundswell of opinion opposing the designation is unlikely. TTC workers just aren't very popular, not only because of wages which seem ridiculously high--overtime, it seems, is the TTC's substitute for adequate staffing at rush times--but because of a lack of transparency in disciplinary proceedings that has gotten people to share videos and photos featuring TTC workers misbehaving on the job. It's reached the point where the mass of Torontonians doesn't especially care about the financial and other costs of essential service designation, so long as the union gets crushed. I'm certainly not inclined to believe Kinnear's promise not to strike without the designation. The sorts of hopes for a broader coalition you see being made on the union's Facebook page are unrealistic.

No one outside Toronto will help. The potential ramifications of this for other unions in Ontario hasn't deterred anyone. While the provincial government might not be inclined to breaking unions, its dependence on seats in Toronto with the provincial election coming up in October makes paying attention to the Torontonian mood critical, besides which Globe and Mail's Marcus Gee and the National Post's Peter Kuitenbrower both agree that the provincial government wouldn't mind making responsibility for public transit in Toronto a municipal one, in terms of funding and in terms of political risk. Let Mayor Ford, not Premier McGuinty, be chastised by the electorate if things end badly.

And so, despite Steve Munro's suggestion that everyone should calm down, we're heading towards a shift. I'm inclined to support the designation on sentimental grounds, though it is likely that the designation will further reduce city flexibility in negotiations. Parallels with Wisconsin have been made, obviously, but it's unlikely that the parallel will take hold on account of the workers' isolation. Good will is lacking.