Lets Call it a Spare

The TTC (Toronto Transit Comission) tried to throw a strike yesterday. I would classify it as a blitzkreig strike (lightning fast in large numbers), but the press is calling it a Wildcat Strike.

Whatever. My point is this. The TTC thinks they're being screwed. They are not the bad guys. Am I pissed off at them? Sure I am. They keep raising the goddamned price of the fare because of their own incompetence and the Jane bus is enough to drive anyone to drink (seriously, the bus comes every 15-20 minutes in packs of 2 or 3 - not the promised 7 minutes or less). Anyway, I don't blame the guys who drive the trains or collect the fares. These poor chaps are getting beaten for trying to do their jobs. And there's problems making their schedules work. They've been complaining about it for months and no one's done a thing. Well. That would piss me off. I might not go into work if that kind of refusal to acknowledge my problems continued. I might call all my co-worker friends and say, "Hey man, we're getting fucked here! Let's not go into work today and see how they do without us." And so that's what they did. En masse, they decided to say, 'You know what? We're getting fucked here! Let's not go into work today.' And being the backwards society that we are, our government said 'Hey, you're way out of line because we didn't listen to you' and forced them to go back to work.

Apparently there are 'rules' for how to strike properly. Apparently the Labour Relations Board declared the sudden strike "illegal" and issued a cease-desist order demanding workers return immediately. The ruling was filed in court, meaning workers who ignored it would be held in contempt of court and face the possibility of fines or jail time. Apparently the Labour Relations Board is headed by chimps.

Are you kidding me? This is war! These guys are fighting to be heard and resorted to desperate measures because no one listened. Granted, I have no first-hand experience of war, but to my knowledge the Germans rarely - if ever - declared they were going to march across no man's land in iron suits with flamethrowers before they did so. Nor did they say, 'Hey, France, we're rolling about three thousand tanks through your vineyards tomorrow. Just a heads up!' It sort of removes the element of surprise from the ordeal and understates the point that you want to make in bold, capital, large letters.

Only in such a ridiculous society of politicking and selfishness does the good guy become the bad guy. Seriously. The bad guys here are the idiots who didn't listen in the first place. I hate assholes who hide behind rules. They're supposed to protect the good guys, not give the bad guys grounds to screw the world up. I understand why the rules are in place. If doctors held the same attitude and didn't come into work, people would die. Here's my advice then. Listen. If doctors have a problem, listen very, very carefully. If the nurses have a problem, sit down with them, listen and make every effort to give them what they want. And maybe now they'll do the same for the TTC people.