{"id":1461,"date":"2009-01-08T16:49:40","date_gmt":"2009-01-08T20:49:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vallentyne.com\/blog\/?p=1461"},"modified":"2009-01-29T12:30:10","modified_gmt":"2009-01-29T16:30:10","slug":"bus-strike-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vallentyne.com\/blog\/2009\/01\/08\/bus-strike-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Bus Strike &#8211; Again"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have been spending some time on the Ottawa Citizen <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ottawacitizen.com\/news\/getting-there\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">bus strike site<\/a>, reading the articles about the strike vote today.\u00c2\u00a0 What&#8217;s most interesting are the comments left <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ottawacitizen.com\/Business\/Soundoff+will+strike\/1143599\/story.html\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> by regular folks.\u00c2\u00a0 There is hardly any support for the drivers, which is maybe not that surprising, but there is tons of direct support for the city council and mayor.<\/p>\n<p>The comments can best be summarized as follows:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The strikers would be smart to accept the offer, they have a good job and this is a recession after all.<\/li>\n<li>Most commenters expressed hope that the city would stand firm and out-wait the union because while the strike is bad, the consequences of giving in are likely increased taxes, and the drastic reduction in the city&#8217;s ability to negotiate reasonable contracts with other unions.\u00c2\u00a0 Even lots of people who think the mayor is a jerk still support the city&#8217;s position.<\/li>\n<li>The strike is severely affecting low-income earners who most fervently hope for a quick end to it all, whatever the method.<\/li>\n<li>Deep resentment towards the bus drivers who are seen as greedy, short-sighted, and selfish.\u00c2\u00a0 Many commenters are swearing off public transit for good, refusing to be &#8220;held hostage again&#8221;.\u00c2\u00a0 That&#8217;s not good for the city or the bus drivers, for sure.\u00c2\u00a0 If this sentiment takes hold, those drivers will be out of work anyway since there won&#8217;t be any demand.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It&#8217;s rather inspiring really, because while some people are clearly hurting, public support for the city is very strong.\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;m morbidly certain that the union is going to reject the offer today, against all better judgment.<\/p>\n<p>I think it&#8217;s going to be a long strike, and if we are in it for the long haul, we might as well beat the union down and take back the scheduling.\u00c2\u00a0 There&#8217;s no reason to go this long and then give in, as far as I can see.<\/p>\n<p>It sucks to be a bus driver, that much is sure.\u00c2\u00a0 Even if they do accept the offer, their salary increases have probably been largely negated from the last 4 weeks on strike.\u00c2\u00a0 It will take them a long time to recoup the loss, I think.<\/p>\n<p>**Update:\u00c2\u00a0 It seems they have <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ottawacitizen.com\/Transit+union+rejects+contract+offer\/1156756\/story.html\" target=\"_blank\">rejected the offer<\/a>, and now my friends things will get even weirder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have been spending some time on the Ottawa Citizen bus strike site, reading the articles about the strike vote today.\u00c2\u00a0 What&#8217;s most interesting are the comments left here by regular folks.\u00c2\u00a0 There is hardly any support for the drivers, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vallentyne.com\/blog\/2009\/01\/08\/bus-strike-again\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[37,39,40,38,36],"class_list":["post-1461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-stupidity","tag-bus","tag-cornellier","tag-moron","tag-strike","tag-transit"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piGNU-nz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vallentyne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vallentyne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vallentyne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vallentyne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vallentyne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1461"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.vallentyne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1464,"href":"https:\/\/www.vallentyne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1461\/revisions\/1464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vallentyne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vallentyne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vallentyne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}