April 20, 2008
TTC Strike Status: Strike Averted
UPDATE (Saturday April 26, 8:00 p.m.): Please see this post for Torontoist's updated strike coverage.
This post was updated throughout the weekend with the current status of the TTC's operations, using our own reporting, the TTC's website, and local news sources as a guide.
Current Status: Strike Averted
Last updated on April 20 at 7:52 p.m.Bob Kinnear has announced that the TTC and its union have reached a tentative deal, allowing the TTC to continue service, as normal, for Monday. Kinnear, president of TTC employees' union (Local 113, of the Amalgamated Transit Union), will be recommending that the offer be ratified by the union's members over the next few days.
That announcement came just after 5:45 at the Sheraton Parkway hotel in Richmond Hill, two hours after the 4:00 p.m. deadline that TTC management and the TTC union had set. Kinnear called the process the toughest negotiations that he had been through in twenty years (a "rollercoaster ride"), but added that "we are happy that we have reached a tentative deal." The TTC has also issued a press release, saying that the commission "is pleased that it was able to achieve a negotiated settlement with its unions today, subject to ratification by all parties, thereby avoiding a strike....the TTC believes the settlement is a fair and reasonable one for its workers, and good for the people of Toronto." Comprehensive details of the settlement will not be announced until it is officially settled.
TTC employees are now beginning to receive a phone call from their union announcing the deal and that they are to arrive at work, as usual, tomorrow.
Photo of Keele Station from 2006's strike by David Topping. Additional reporting from Jonathan Goldsbie.
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Threat Level Yellow: Elevated Risk
Any word on how service will be affected?
Will the subway go completely dark and bus lines be reduced to minimal, absolutely clogged levels?
I have this exam tomorrow I'm okay with having to reschedule.
If a strike is announced, all service—subway, buses, streetcars—on all routes will be entirely cancelled. The only exception is Wheel Trans: the Star is reporting that there will be limited Wheel Trans service, and only to "provide limited service to hospitals for subscribers who receive dialysis and other necessary medical treatments."
Got my bike. If I have to ride it tomorrow morning, the TTC can go fuck itself for the rest of the summer. I won't be giving them my money. I paid for a monthly pass and now they aren't living up to their end of the bargain.
(Superfluous bit of information: Bob Kinnear's Wikipedia entry is in the midst of an editing war to and from one that begins with "Bob Kinnear is a Class A cock-smoker with a terrible set of plugs" and only gets worse from there.)
It is almost five. They're prolly going over some last minute settlement.
Darn.
That Wikipedia editing war is a small sample of the frustration that lots of people are feeling towards TTC workers.
I am lucky I can bike to work, but I have 2 people there that cannot do it and are going to have to miss the day, and I know someone else who is hurt and cannot quite walk to work either.
I wonder how long it took them to come to an agreement on the pizza toppings.
http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/416287
averted!
Was publictransit the most common way the negotiators got to Richmond Hill?
Kudos to Torontoist for having news of the tentative deal posted 10 minutes before the Star's blog.
From downtown Toronto, getting to the Richmond Hill Sheraton would require a subway ride to Yonge and Finch, then a transfer to the York Region Viva along Hwy 7.
Total cost of round trip: $11.50.
Length of time: 75 minutes each way.