Clive Doucette submarines the city

Just when I thought things were turning positive (in the Ottawa transit strike) Clive Doucette decides to break ranks and say it was all the City's fault, and that Mayor O'Brien misled him.

What a tool. 36 days down the drain.

Oh no, not another councilor who's said something to make himself look good and someone else look bad.
If you ever have the time to go, go watch a City Council meeting, generally every other Wednesday starting at 10 A.M. and count the amount of times that you see a councilor belittle another councilor or city employee or even the mayor in order to make themselves look great. It's absolutely disgusting.

I can't believe this strike is still going on... wow.

shabbs wrote:I can't believe this strike is still going on... wow.

I can't believe the Mayor and the city councillors are only now looking into some of the issues, like checking whether they can legally bring in replacement drivers, or petitioning the feds to declare it an essential service, or determining if and how they can open the transitway to regular traffic. But O'Brien already has a list of infrastructure projects lined up for when the feds start handing out the economic stimulus package.

Incidentally, OC Transpo is under federal jurisdiction because some busses go from Ottawa to Gatineau -- i.e. it is interprovincial. Because of that it would take the federal government to declare OC Transpo an essential service. First thing after the strike, they should sell any busses they use for interprovincial routes to Quebec and let them run it. Then turn around and make OC Transpo an essential service without disturbing the feds.

I wish we could just get temporary drivers to get the 95 going again. Simply put, getting the 95 operational again -- not even at full capacity -- would reduce the traffic in the city by at least 50%.

When I lived in Ottawa, I used to take the 118 every day... ahhh the good old days.

I see Clive apologized...

http://www.ottawasun.com/News/Columnists/Sherring_Susan/2009/01/16/8041556-sun.html

Man this is getting ugly.

shabbs wrote:I see Clive apologized...

http://www.ottawasun.com/News/Columnists/Sherring_Susan/2009/01/16/8041556-sun.html

Man this is getting ugly.

While I don't think the strike and it's impact is funny, what the city is starting to do is, at least in myeyes.

They have taken the 2500/person signing bonus off the table, and have also stated that the 7.25 increase over 3 years is a max.

They have also asked the federal transportation minister to look at making the bus drivers conform to the same law truck drivers and other transportation employeed have to.

Currently they do not have to conform to the same laws, which means they could technically take two 11 hour shifts in a row. Where as Joe the Grey Hound Bus driver can't drive for more than (just being general here as I don't know the exact values) 6 hours at a time without a 2 hour break and no more than 14 hours in a 48 hour period.

What this tells me is they are now starting to play hard ball.

Bonus..it's gone. It was something we were offering as incentive to not drag the strike on.

Raise, 7.25 is a ceiling and will now only decrease as time goes on.

Scheduling, well if we get our way and you have to conform to the same laws as other drivers then have it back. It won't do squat for you as you'll have to conform to legal limits and your drivers can't work obscene amounts of overtime anyways.

It's a tennis match, but now the ball is back in the unions court and should the drivers be put into the group under that law they just screwed themselves out of a huge chunk of cash.

I've heard a lot of stuff about comparing how things are done in other cities and that seems to get spun a lot with the City saying what they're proposing is how it's done most places and the Union countering that that's not the case.

So much spin, misleading and mis-communication. The longer this goes, the more and more bitter each side seems to get.

They took the $2500 off the table for two reasons.
1. The union leaders (as well as individuals) have continued to say it's not about the money, that they couldn't care less about the $2500.

2. The $2500 was a "productivity" bonus. Essentially, with the new scheduling rules you could not (as easily) sign up for minimum hours at maximum pay. So, in essence, you'd be more productive.

The reality is that there are certain screwy rules which would result in the driver working X hours plus 1 minute and getting paid for X+Y hours. They wouldn't *actually* be driving for 14 hours, but that's what they would be getting paid for. The rules were clearly aimed at putting a different way to limit the overtime. Let's not kid ourselves here, the city probably cares a lot less about someone driving 14 hours straight and not getting 8 hours rest between shifts, than it does about how much overtime it pays out. The quoted a stat somewhere that said overtime billing has climbed 400% in 12 years. Does that mean that drivers are doing five times as much overtime as they did when I first got to Ottawa? Hardly, but they are certainly getting paid for that overtime.

shabbs wrote:I can't believe this strike is still going on... wow.

I get to drive in from Morrisburg early to pick up my son, who lives with his mom in Ottawa, and drive him to school as much as possible.

It's all too real! lol

SeawaySensFan wrote:

shabbs wrote:I can't believe this strike is still going on... wow.

I get to drive in from Morrisburg early to pick up my son, who lives with his mom in Ottawa, and drive him to school as much as possible.

It's all too real! lol

Wow. That's a lot of driving.

shabbs wrote:

SeawaySensFan wrote:

shabbs wrote:I can't believe this strike is still going on... wow.

I get to drive in from Morrisburg early to pick up my son, who lives with his mom in Ottawa, and drive him to school as much as possible.

It's all too real! lol

Wow. That's a lot of driving.

I have to say, it's only a little extra driving because I work in Ottawa. With accidents multiplying, it can almost triple my driving time.