Bus Strike

Back when I was working in the grouphome, city bus driver's threatened to strike. At the last minute, they came to an agreement with the city, and the strike was called off. Recently, there was another threat to strike, and once again, at the last minute, a tentative agreement was developed. However, after consideration, the drivers decided that the agreement was not satisfactory, and last Tuesday, they decided to strike.

So it's been five days without busses. Their accessibility service, Mobility Plus is also unavailable. It hasn't impacted me too badly, because surprisingly, the Ion drivers are not striking. I had assumed that all transit workers would be allying together, but that appears not to be the case.

I am in the  very fortunate position that, despite using buses regularly, pretty much everything I need to get to professionally is on an Ion route.  I've got to walk maybe ten minutes to my train stop in the morning, and ten minutes after I get off when I go to WALES. The Men's Group I run and all my Direct Support Work are all accessible by train. However, not everyone has the privilege of living and working near an Ion station.

After living through seven years of construction, with the city spending over a billion dollars on something little more tha a streetcar, I wasn't expecting to champion the project less than a year after it's introduction, but here we are.

If anything, the treatment that the Ion drivers have received seems to have exacerbated how the bus drivers feel. The last time they striked, they demanded a pay raise and shields between themselves and passengers. This time around, the demands are the same, and it's hard to ignore that the Ion drivers are paid more and they also have barriers put in place.

Last I heard, the city offered a 6% pay raise for bus drivers and shields next to every driver within the next three years, and I have also heard rumors that the drivers want security cameras on their vehicles taken down, but I don't have a credible source to back that up.

Before I get into the city buses, let me go on a bit of a tangent regarding our Light Rail Transit.

When you're riding Ion, there are these buttons dispersed thoughout the car. At every stop, this electronic voice will tell passengers the station that they're approaching. If you push a button, a signal will light up to stop at the next staftion. Since most stations are quite busy, it toook me awhile, but eventually I came across a situation where no one was boarding or exiting, and the entire train still stopped. Just as I suspected! They have to stop at every station or else they will throw off their schedule, so what's the point of the buttons and the stop alert?

They even have an accessible alarm system that can be reached from a wheelchair, but it just sounds the same alarm. In Toronto, the accessible stop pulls out a ramp, but the Ion is accessible at every door. One of the few advantages we have over Toronto's streetcars.

Anyway, back to the buses. Honestly, I'm not sure if the drivers should win this time around. I'm on record saying that they have a difficult job. No on-site security, people trying to cheat the system all the time, people expecting them to be on-the-minute according to schedule when there are a ton of variables in what they do.

But I think what the city offered them is fair. It's anecdotal, and I'm sure I've said this before, but back when I was working at the grouphome, I was being paid $13.50 an hour and being assaulted regularly. This made the bus driver's concerns about wages and security seem laughable to me.

While we're on it, I just haven't had a great experience with Grand River Transit over the years. We have some really great drivers, but I have also personally seen multiple cases of drivers being discriminatory based on  race, level of ability, and language and country of origin. I've personally been mocked and yelled at for basically nothing by drivers.

And the social worker in me can't ignore the fact that by striking, they're putting vulnerable populations at risk. People that take the bus include the poor, the elderly, and the disabled, and they are using them as leverage to get what they want, even after being offered a deal by the city. TGhey don't even have any talks scheduled to come up with a new deal, at this time.