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Aggravating Transit Union should be disbanded

April 26, 2008 on 5:38 pm | In Social & Political Issues | No Comments

For too many years Toronto residents have been abused by the Amalgamated Transit Union which rules over the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) with an iron fist.

These greedy, spoiled, overpaid drivers and mechanics of various sorts make outrageous demands and then hold the city’s residents to ransom by shutting down vital transit service and costing us all a fortune each time they go out.

Businesses suffer losses in the millions and riders also lose similar amounts.

This current outrage, a flash strike on a Friday night leaving many stranded Downtown, should be the fabled straw that breaks the union’s back. What’s most informative is that they had a sweetheart deal in this contract offer that ensured no similar transit agency in surrounding cities would be able to pay wokers more without these TTC bunch getting a boost even above that.

Toronto must get rid of these unionized scabs growing on the wounds they inflict on our city. It’s unconscionable that the provincial government hasn’t long ago declared transit workers a vital service and not entitled to strike.

One would have thought that a goofball like rightwing nutbar Mike Harris, when he was premier of Ontario for most of two terms, would have cracked down on such a union. But he was seemingly more interested in punishing Toronto than he was in doing us any good. So the net result is the Harris Tory years were a complete wash that hurt Toronto perhaps irreparably.

But for today, one must consider seriously what the culture of TTC workers has metastasized into. Perhaps most should be replaced with honourable workers and definitely with those not allied with a union and not permitted to wreck the city by going on strike.

Frank Touby