Who Wins in a Bus Strike?

Well, the 51 day bus strike in Ottawa came and is now over leaving a significant amount of garbage on the road after the fact. In fact the bus strike is another reason in my mind that shows how unions hold the public for ransom and do it without caring for others only themselves and their members. To have a union head ( a disliked and genrally public relations nightmare every time he opened his mouth) come to the final press conference in a limo is also appalling. What kind of man pulls this kind of stunt. Glad he's not working for me. He would be " so fired".

Well we are glad its over and I was wondering who won. Well er no one. The drivers lost money, the city lost money, business lost money, suppliers to OC Transpo lost money, the economy lost money and I lost money ( since I had to cancel meetings because of traffic around City Hall which was tied up by strikers).

So what would you do differently to ensure that it does not happen again? Well, we gave them money, we are now in arbitration and could give them scheduling and maybe the shirt off my back as well. To be serious though something has to change.

First off I would change the negotiation team. I would have a couple of moderates in the same room and perhaps they will get along better. I would have a better understanding ( and should now based on the research for a 51 day bus strike) of the economic impact both in costs to the city and to business and what the threshold of the union is. It looks like 8 weeks and the members get antzy. They lost $8000 by this time.

I would change the legislation that allows Ottawa to function like every other municipality and be able to legislate them back to work. I would make transit and essential service ( especially now that you have seen what's happened to seniors and those low income earners that depend on public transit) and I would try to sit down with the union and players involved an ensure it never happens again.

What was interesting is that, I was reading the Citizen and there was one comment in there posted by some guy who had been on strike a few times in his life. He had it all summed up even before this thing began.

I am going to say what he said. " Nobody wins a strike ".