"I want to mention one of the obvious symptoms [of a sick culture]: Violence. Muggings. Sniping. Arson. Bombing. Terrorism of any sort. Riots of course--but I suspect that little incidents of violence, pecking away at people day after day, damage a culture even more than riots that flare up and then die down..."
"I think you have missed the most alarming symptom of all...Sick cultures show a complex of symptoms such as you have named... but a dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot...This symptom is especially serious in that an individual displaying it never thinks of it as a sign of ill health but as proof of his/her strength."
--Friday (written 1982), by Robert Heinlein
The Toronto Transit Commission went on strike this past Monday, for the fourth time since 1989. This time, there was no warning. People who neglected to listen to the morning news were treated to locked subway stations and busses that never arrived.
Needless to say, this is illegal.
I started in with my standard anti-union rhetoric, which by now I've worn to a threadbare line of patter. They knew how much the job paid when they took it...this holding the public hostage is an outrage. They should fire 'em all and let EI sort 'em out.
Then I heard the union's justification for the wildcat strike, and it kind of rocked me on my heels. TTC drivers and fare collectors, they argued, are unsafe. They are routinely threatened with assault, spit on, called filthy names, and increasingly punched and kicked. Last week, it was announced that drivers would no longer insist on the correct fare being paid, as every fare dispute had the potential to boil over into violence. This was helpfully plastered all over the Toronto Sun, essentially informing the public that they could ride for free. Must have pissed off the people who had bought Metropasses.
A driver wrote in to that very paper today, asking a very good question:
As for the "wildcat strike" and walking off the job: If every time you went to work you risked aggression and brutality and your bosses repeatedly refused to protect you or act to prevent the attacks, would you still come back to work day after day?
Well, no, I wouldn't.
We're living in Heinlein's Crazy Years, and many public service jobs ought to have "risk of aggression and brutality" written into their descriptions. When I worked nights at 7-Eleven (itself no island of calm and serenity, let me tell you), I used to shake my head at the thought of driving a cab through the wee hours of the morning. I had security cameras, a panic button, space to maneuver. A cabbie, at that time, might have had a panic button of some sort, but (s)he had precious little ability to avoid attack, and cameras in taxis were unheard of.
No, you couldn't pay me enough money to undertake that particular profession.
The same goes for bus driver, at this point. Nearly everywhere in Canada, public transit is stigmatized. (Vancouver being a notable exception: in that city, even lawyers take the bus without complaint.) People tend to reinforce whatever beliefs are held about them, and so many patrons of public transit are ignorant and potentially aggressive. I have witnessed many fare disputes, some of which have gotten quite ugly, and somewhere in the back of my mind I dread the day a knife--or a gun--is pulled and used. Given the deterioration of the culture around me, I figure this is only a matter of time, and I hope to God I'm invisible when it happens.
You see this deterioration everywhere. I deal with the public day in and day out and I hardly ever hear the words "please" and "thank you" any more. Much less "you're welcome", which has all but dropped out of the English language, to be replaced by "no problem" or an incoherent grunt. Store employees are treated as walking directories, not human beings, and cashiers are lambasted with all manner of rude behaviour. In the retail world, the customer is always right...and he knows it and exploits it ruthlessly.
So it turns out I have some measure of sympathy for TTC employees, and I understand why they felt they had to walk off the job.
I still can't condone the action, mind you. Notwithstanding the cost to the economy and the monstrous inconvenience to some 800,000 riders, a wildcat strike in protest of unsafe working conditions is just plain illogical. Consider: you're living in fear of the public whom you serve. So you go out of your way to piss every one of your customers off? How does that make sense?
The sad thing is, although an illegal strike is the wrong answer, I'm not sure what the right one is. The safety concerns are well-founded, but the measures the union insist on are ultimately pointless. Cameras? They might help identify a thug after he's hurt or killed somebody. Or they could be shot out. Hell, given the gang culture that rules the streets in some parts of Toronto, you might actually see a killer mugging gleefully for the camera. After all, what's a life worth? According to our judges, as little as three years of probation.
Barriers around drivers? A horrendous cost, plus they'd just isolate the driver from the passengers and only encourage a laissez-fare--pun definitely intended--attitude.
So-called "smart cards" simply exchange one form of currency for another and do nothing for driver safety.
The sheerest irony was that this wildcat strike occurred on a day when there was a heat alert, a smog advisory, and a humidex warning...just the sort of day you'd think we'd be encouraging transit use. Perhaps that was the point. But forcing people to walk or bike through soupy air isn't just inconvenient: it could be life-threatening.
Just like driving a bus?
Now the city's talking about suing the union to recover lost revenue, the union's talking about doing this again, and the Toronto bus-riding public is caught in the middle.
As usual.
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