Toronto Transit Workers Pull Surprise Wildcat: Transit Strikes Also on the Rise in U.S.

As Toronto sweltered under summer temperatures and smog warnings, 700,000 transit riders unexpectedly found themselves out on the streets during morning rush hour on Monday, May 29, looking for alternative means of transportation.

Protesting drastic shift changes, maintenance and janitorial staff of the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) — members of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 113 — had set up picket lines in the small hours of the morning.

Bus drivers, also members of Local 113, already angry about the lack of management concern for increased assaults on drivers by irate customers, honored the picket lines.

“No question that transit workers here are militant to this extent: they act as one and will not scab on one another,” said Bill Reno, the union spokesperson. Before May 29, Toronto’s last transit strike was in 1999.

The TTC—Canada’s largest public transit system—then decided to cancel all bus, streetcar, and subway service at 5 a.m., effectively locking out 95 percent of all workers scheduled for work that day.

CEASE AND DESIST

The Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) had already issued a back-towork order before most commuters knew about the wildcat strike. But stewards told strikers not to stand down; any back-to-work order, they said, would come only from local President Bob Kinnear.

At 2:00 pm, the OLRB again ruled the strike illegal, ordered workers to return to their posts, and ordered the union to “cease and desist from procuring, supporting or encouraging an unlawful strike.”

A few hours later Kinnear advised his members to go back to work. He said he did this despite the continued violations of their contract by the TTC.

SURPRISE?

Although riders were taken by surprise, TTC Chief General Manager Rick Ducharme (who resigned on June 6), TTC Chair and main negotiator Howard Moscoe, and Mayor David Miller can hardly plead ignorance about the level of discontent among Local 113’s 8,500 members.

While the walkout was provoked by a TTC decision to cut costs by permanently moving 53 of 87 janitors and 53 of 91 subway track workers to the night shift, driver safety, health premiums, shift scheduling, and job evaluations have been high on the list of union concerns for months.

Kinnear told the Toronto Star that he had quelled a wildcat uprising just three weeks earlier—the day the janitors were supposed to sign up for their new night shifts. Said Kinnear, “We put out a call for calmness among our membership. Unfortunately, it came to a head [on May 29] and the members just don’t feel like their concerns are being listened to by management.”

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Bus drivers have been upset about safety, as they have been assaulted by passengers over fare disputes. Local 113 is concerned about members who have lost wages due to injury or stress leave.

In February 12 workers were poisoned by carbon monoxide while working in a subway tunnel. The union had been raising concerns about carbon monoxide detection for almost a year. The TTC finally installed detectors after the incident.

“This is symptomatic of management’s attitude,” said Reno. “Their position seems to be: ‘We will not do anything the union wants unless we have a gun to our head’—but people almost died!”

Despite numerous meetings with the TTC and many more requests for their collective agreement and grievance procedure to be respected, Kinnear said, in a phone message to all Local 113 members on Sunday, May 28, that the TTC was “threatening our members with their jobs unless they agree to be punched, kicked, choked, and spit on.”

In that same message, Kinnear called Ducharme a “hypocrite” and Moscoe a “bully.”

On Wednesday, days before the wildcat, the union told its bus drivers not to dispute unpaid fares because it was too dangerous.

A second strike was narrowly averted on June 4, as the issues sparking the wildcat remained unresolved. At press time, the union was still engaged in talks with the new TTC chief general manager, Gary Webster.

RISING ANGER IN TRANSIT

Issues facing Toronto transit workers reflect general pressures on transit workers throughout North America. “There is no question that a great deal of discontent among transit workers in Toronto stems from an oppressive management, and this management attitude has its roots in the severe cutbacks to public transit funding,” said Reno.

In November 2005 Philadelphia transit workers struck for a week over rising health care costs. A month later New York City transit workers walked off the job for three days over pension issues.

Not only was the union fined $2.5 million for the illegal strike, but President Roger Toussaint, was ordered jailed for 10 days for contempt (he was released after serving four days, for good behavior).

A month before the Toronto transit workers walked off the job, transit workers in Denver struck over wage freezes.

And bus drivers in Nashville, Tennessee, members of ATU Local 1235, may have narrowly averted a strike at the last minute in early June. The results of their contract vote were pending at time of publication.