Something nice to say about ATU
The first few days of the OC Transpo strike had me utterly in awe of the ATU’s communications ineptitude. But I do have something nice to say about the union.
For all the sixteen years I’ve been working in union communications, my colleagues have constantly reassured me that unions were getting better at getting their point across, and were learning how to treat the public with the respect they deserve, even when embroiled in a strike.
And then along came ATU 279 and their (now sidelined) spokesperson André Cornellier. Between shouting at interviewers, denouncing the public for failing to support the drivers, trash talking the other media, hanging up on live interviews, the ATU local’s president completely ruined the first news cycle for the transit strike.
So instead of the usual two week grace period where public comment is more or less neutral – maybe not supporting the union, but either supporting their right to strike or urging both sides to settle – we now have support gelling rather solidly behind OC Transpo and (shudder) Mayor Larry O’Brien.
So the second news cycle is all about the answer to a question Cornellier totally botched: “Will you put the employer’s last offer to a vote of your members?”
The answer should have been (do some pyramiding here for effect): “my members have already rejected the employers offer with a 98 per cent strike mandate.” I won’t even get into the business about picketing the university’s shuttle buses. Whole other post there.
Now correct me if I’m wrong, but, OC transpo – because it sends buses into Québec – is under the Canada Labour Code which, under section 108, permits the federal labour minister to order a one-time-only vote of the union’s members on the employer’s last offer. So, if it was truly the case that Larry O’Brien was getting deluged with calls from drivers saying they want a vote, then why don’t they order one up? Diane Finley Rona Ambrose, being no friend of workin’ folk, I am sure would oblige.
Maybe they’ve got that in the wings for next news cycle? Or maybe they know that ATU members – if not their spokespeople – can pick their issues. Maybe they know that ATU members really are enraged by the employer’s sticking on the scheduling thing?
The letters they’ve claimed to send directly to ATU members likely won’t help. But they will give ATU something else to use to beat OC Transpo over the head, of course, because communicating directly with the membership is considered bad faith bargaining and ATU could file a complaint. (I doubt they will because it would cost time and money and would derail the whole bargaining process).
But maybe that’s the next news cycle: ATU agrees to conduct its own vote on employer’s last offer in return, employer agrees to stop sucker punching ATU.
But back to the title of the post.
A few years back I went on a canoe trip in Temagami and one of the people on that trip drove a bus for OC Transpo. At the time he’d been doing it for a while and was looking forward to retiring.
He didn’t complain about the job, and he boasted about how in something like 24 years he’d never taken a sick day, never had an accident, never had a complaint. But what he did talk about was how after so long on this stressful job where you’re often the lightning rod for people’s own anxiety about getting from A to B, he had something to look forward to: easier shifts and longer vacations.
I don’t know if he was a union supporter or not. He’s likely retired now. And I don’t want to speak for him. But I bet he’d be arm in arm with his comrades over this.
