Bus Strike

All of Ottawa's OC Transpo workers just went on strike.

Let me give you some context:

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, in the winter, in the snow and ice, when traffic is already the stuff of nightmares. Christmas shopping season.

Oh. Joy.

The main issue in this strike is scheduling. Under the planned budget, the city believes it can save a lot of money if it controls driver's scheduling. Previously, the drivers have been allowed the priviledge of scheduling themselves, but there were two main issues with this system.

The first is that it was possible for a driver to work for less than eight hours a day while still recieving the full day's pay. I don't understand how this happened, so I'm not going to go on and pretend I do. However, this was a fairly common situation.

The second issue is that some drivers were scheduled shifts with as little as four hours in between. This is problematic if the first shift ended at two in the morning, and they were back behind the wheel by six. In fact, this becomes a safety concern; how alert can a driver in this circumstance be? Again, I'm not understanding how this happened...

Whatever the case, there does not appear to be any ending in sight. I don't know the figure of how many people relied on OC Transpo, but I can guarantee that it was high.

I am not a regular bus traveler, but now I don't even have the option, and it has affected me. traffic is terrible. Yesterday it took me three and a half hours to get to school; usually I can get there in 45 minutes.

I don't know the guy, but from radio clips I can't say I'm terribly impressed with Alain Mercier, the union representative. Things are at a standstill and everyone is getting frustrated.

Can't any sort of management be carried out effectively in this country?