Just Another Manic Monday: Chaos in Toronto!

Having lived in Toronto several times (What can I say? I get around...), traffic is one of my least favourite things about the city of five million souls. That said, I'm getting over my hangups today to discuss this slice of LR news.

In case you don't live in the Greater Toronto Area, the Toronto Transit Commission and their union the UTU are having a little tiff.

Specifically, a HIGHLY ILLEGAL tiff.

Details are sketchy--management and union have been discussing a deal to move some 100 employees in their maintenance shop from the day shift to the evening shift. This is not a bargaining round, no one's taken a strike vote. Reports vary from one source to the other--some are reporting that maintenance employees were barring other TTC employees to go to work, and others are saying that management actually locked the doors first.

The long and the short of it is the Toronto Transit System is not running today (the pickets apparently went up at 4AM or so), leaving the 700,000 folk who use public transit in the GTA stranded today. The only problem is, of course, is that when most of the 700,000 woke up this morning, they had NO idea this was coming.

Not to worry, the wheels of justice have already made at least one full revolution--the usual spate of "cease-and-desists" have been issued. But as of 9AM those orders had made exactly ZERO in the way of a difference.

In all, a major crisis in terms of labour relations, city planning and plain old PR. So, what to do? Dave Miller, the city's mayor, has these stirring words for the good citizens of Toronto: "...do what you can."

Let's hope for his sake this isn't an election year.

UPDATE: It appears this has been "settled," after TWO rulings from the labour relations board declaring the strike illegal. For the record, the Board, the CBC, the Globe and Toronto Star are all referring to the dispute today as a strike, despite the insistence by some union rep's that management locked them out.