However, I must take issue with the comment: “There is no way you should make more than 60K a year to drive a bus.” With respect, that’s a bit ignorant of the facts. If TTC workers were really as overpaid as you would suggest, you’d think there’d be a line-up of people applying for jobs. But there aren’t. In fact, the TTC and GO Transit are having great difficulty maintaining the drivers they have. A number of new employees take the TTC’s six-week training course, get the upgrade to their license, and then hi-tail it to private charter bus companies, where the pay is just as good, where they don’t have to face Toronto traffic and potentially angry commuters for eight hours a day, and where they get to keep tips.

_Privately run_ bus companies are offering wages which are more than competitive to the TTC’s union wages and seniority. Therefore, if you feel that TTC workers are overpaid at $60K per year, your beef is not with the unions, but with the capitalist marketplace. This is what the market has said these workers are worth, and we have to lie in the bed that we’ve made.

1) The crucial difference between the TTC and many other workplaces is that it is a public utility. Not only do I pay to ride, but I pay for operations through tax dollars. And because they have a monopoly, I depend on its services. So I have a well-defined right to weigh in on this issue. If we take the word ‘public’ in its proper context, I own the TTC, as do you.

2)I don’t fault anyone for standing up for their rights. But again, the important distinction is that I can’t leverage an undeserved raise from my employer because I don’t have a monopoly on a service used by 1.5 million people every day. The TTC union has a spectacular amount of power which they seem willing to use irresponsibly. So don’t play it off like they’re the victims fighting against unjust oppressors. They’re just playing the system. And rather cynically, too.

3) This is just incorrect. Management reached a deal, in good faith, with the union. The union then rejected the deal, and immediately went on strike. It pushes credulity to suggest that managements was the broken link in this chain. TTC management simply didn’t have a chance to respond to the new situation.

As I said over on my blog, jealousy and fear are raising their heads. If you think you’re not making what you should, don’t blame people who have the courage to actually demand better treatment. It’s your fault for not standing up for yourself.

Incidentally, I love the “holding the city for ransom” line. Who’s really holding the city up: the union that is taking part in the negotiating process, or the management team that wouldn’t respond to their bargaining positions yesterday?

While I treat TTC employees with the utmost respect they deserve as human beings, I certainly wouldn’t resent them as much if they didn’t make so much money. I wish the people who maintain the trains and buses had a separate union, since they are actually skilled, unlike the ticket takers who sit on their asses all day.

it’s quite incredible actually.

i’m a bit worried about what’s going to happen to the operators when they go back monday. if they were beaten, threatened and verbally abused *before* the union decided they should leave their posts at midnight (i’m betting the drivers weren’t consulted on that timing), i can’t imagine what it’s gonna be like when they’re back on the job.

Still think it’s an easy job?

Did you get stranded?