Have you ever walked a picket line? If you have, then you know the camaraderie that can emerge, the rare sense of standing for a common principle. You also know the tedium that develops after days or weeks, broken occasionally by violence or news from the bargaining table. If you've walked a picket line you're also familiar with the costs: physical and emotional exhaustion, the often irrecoverable hit to your income, the impact on labour relations, and perhaps above all, the costs to the people affected by the strike -- coworkers, the public, and all the other institutions and individuals whose activities are derailed as the result of a strike.

If the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), representing nine thousand TTC workers, acts on the strike mandate given to it by its members, then tomorrow morning at 4:00 am the TTC will cease to operate. No subways or buses will run. The stations will be shuttered. The 1.5 million people who rely on the TTC to get to work or school will be forced to find other ways of commuting on roads choked with cars, bicycles and pedestrians.

Media reports have focused on the inconvenience a strike will cause for commuters. This morning's Toronto Star headline blares, provocatively, "Is TTC an Essential Service?" Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty has muttered obliquely that the Province may introduce legislation to make it so, and indicated more coherently that back-to-work legislation would likely bring a quick end -- although perhaps not within a week or two -- to any strike action. Mayor David Miller, being feted all week in China, is staying -- at least publicly -- out of the fray. That's not a surprise: in the coming months he's got even bigger negotiations looming with the two huge CUPE locals representing tens of thousands of city staff, and isn't likely to show his hand unless forced to do so.

I don't buy any of these claims. I don't find "inconvenience" a legitimate reason to oppose a strike, nor do I consider it adequate justification have a service declared essential. I find the Mayor's self-imposed absence from the bargaining table reprehensible, especially at a time when he should be doing everything possible to broker a settlement. I am ambivalent about back-to-work legislation, but acknowledge its value if (and only if) a strike or lockout goes on so long that the public interest becomes genuinely compromised.

The right to strike is one of the most fundamental labour rights. It is -- like the right to join a union and bargain collectively -- enshrined in the Ontario Labour Relations Act. A strike is a legally protected course of action when, after the term of a collective agreement has expired, properly conducted negotiations do not produce a new one. Unions may go on strike only if a strike vote is held and only if the majority of those voting support a strike.

In the case of the TTC workers represented by Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113, the collective agreement has expired. The union has been in negotiations for months. In a strike vote, over 99% of those voting supported a strike, and the ATU has been in a legal strike position since April first. The union has indicated it would give the public advance notice of any strike action, and it has done so, announcing several days ago that if a settlement is not reached by 4:00 this afternoon, the union will commence strike action at 4:00 tomorrow morning. Both parties acknowledge that, despite prolonged talks and the presence of provincial mediators, progress at the bargaining table has stalled. Under these circumstances it would be difficult to describe the ATU's action as precipitous or premature.

I will support the TTC workers in the event of a strike. I will do so even though, like 1.5 million other Torontonians, I depend on the TTC to get around the city. I don't drive, and am rapidly becoming too pregnant to be able to depend on my bike as a mode of transportation. My ability to do my job, attend important medical appointments, shop and socialize will be compromised. In short, a strike will inconvenience me.

But it seems to me that an inability to strike would be a far greater inconvenience. Unions are largely responsible for the job security, wages and working conditions that employees -- and not just those in unions -- enjoy. The benefits unions win for their members tend to spill out across the non-unionized workforce as well, through legislation such as the Employment Standards Act as well as through pure labour economics -- wages and benefits across a sector tend to improve for all employees when they go up for unionized workers.

Moreover, declaring the TTC workers an essential service -- and thus depriving them of the right to strike in exchange for arbitrated contracts -- would ultimately involve a trade-off that might be more inconvenient to taxpayers' wallets than negotiated settlements punctuated by the occasional strike, given that most essential workers command higher wage premiums by virtue of being so designated.

I'll also support TTC workers because one of them is my neighbour, a bus driver with three kids under the age of ten, who contributes to local soccer programs and does his own renovations on the weekends. Who navigates Toronto's clotted streets every day on the job, dodging angry drivers and challenging riders who put dimes instead of tokens into the fare box; who risks getting spit upon or shot at or blamed for a late bus stuck in traffic; and who will walk the picket line acutely aware of what it will cost to do so.

Above all, though, I'll support TTC workers in the event of a strike because I believe in their fundamental right to do so.

[Amy Lavender Harris is the daughter of a Teamster. She has also been a union president and chief negotiator, and once spent 78 days captaining a picket line. She holds a master's degree in Industrial Relations from the University of Toronto.]

[2007 TTC strike image by David Topping and used here under the aegis of a Creative Commons license.]

1. Sure—collective work stoppage has got to be a right. It’s no different from individual work stoppage—just better organized. Forcing people to work against their will would mean slavery.

   But work stoppage by any one bunch of people choosing to not work should not mean that other people—who might want to work—get barred from doing so.

   People have every right to not work. But they ought not have any right to stop other people from working. Not unless there’s something sufficiently unique, special or essential about the services workers provide.

   Therefore, in event of collective work stoppage: either that particular kind of work should get declared essential service—or the option to hire replacement workers must remain available.

   Posted by  on  04/20  at  10:25 AM

2. Good point, Peter—if exercising your right to work is genuinely dependent on TTC employees ferrying you to your job, and if their failure to do so results in catastrophic harm not only to to you but to the public interest. In short, you’re making an argument that TTC employees should be declared essential workers. Fair enough.

   I disagree, mainly because I don’t believe Torontonians’ access to employment is so immediately dependent on the TTC that its members should be denied their legal right to strike. Should a strike go on interminably and surpass some threshold of public endurance, the Province has the ability to adopt back-to-work legislation—an action which, if taken reasonably and not precipitously, protects both the public interest and the ATU’s right to strike, while putting additional pressure on the TTC Commission and the ATU to reach the settlement that has evaded them to date.

   The Ontario Labour Relations Act has evolved over decades to incorporate numerous checks and balances between the rights of unions, employers and the public. The right to strike receives legal protection because this right, too, is in the public interest.

   A strike is a legal pressure tactic. A strike puts pressure on employers to meet unions’ bargaining demands. It also puts pressure on unions to settle before striking members run out of endurance. And it puts pressure on the public as well—want to apply some of your own? Contact the TTC Commission, the City and the ATU urging them to reach a negotiated settlement as quickly as possible.

   Posted by Amy Lavender Harris  on  04/20  at  11:24 AM

3. As for replacement workers, it is my understanding that the Ontario Labour Relations Act does not currently prohibit replacement workers. However, given the specialized training of most TTC employees, particularly front-line bus drivers and subway operators, it’s unlikely the TTC would be able to dredge up enough trained workers even from within management ranks to run the system.

   And this doesn’t even address the unlikelihood that the TTC would even be able to get its buses and trains out of the yards, which will be principal picketing sites.

   It seems to me that in the event of a strike the fastest way to get the buses and subways running again will be for the ATU and the TTC to reach a negotiated settlement.

   Posted by Amy Lavender Harris  on  04/20  at  11:32 AM

4. That’s terrific information and very good to know—thanks—but mostly tangential to my objection. Maybe my objection was too radical?

   Either TTC work is too special for non-TTC workers ever to perform. In which case it ought get declared an essential service.

   Or, TTC work isn’t that special. In which case, when TTC workers stop working, non-TTC replacement workers should be able to receive training and get hired to perform TTC work.

   Yes, it is a fundamental right to stop working. But what gives anyone the right to stop others from working? Why should those that need and seek work when there’s a strike ever get physically threatened and denigrated as “scabs?” What’s wrong with crossing picket lines?

   I have always wanted to drive buses. Been a fantasy of mine since I was 3. If TTC workers stop working—isn’t that the best time for me to apply?

   Posted by  on  04/20  at  01:59 PM

5. If I apply your logic about essential workers, it would seem that downtown coffee shops should also be declared “essential services”, given that so many Torontonians seem utterly unable to perform their jobs without steady injections of caffeine. Pity so few baristas are unionized.

   As for replacement workers, as far as I know there’s currently no legal prohibition against it in Ontario. So sure, head over to the local TTC yard and offer your services as a scab—if you can stomach transgressing all the moral terrain you’ll have to cross to get there. But hey, it’s just a matter of personal conscience.

   At the same time I’d have to admire your guts, and despite my disagreement I’d still give you far more credit than I do those who object to a TTC strike on the grounds that it “inconveniences” them. Of course it does. But strikes—which are calculated inconveniences—are a perfect reminder to us all to appreciate the services—hot coffee, mail delivery, vacuumed carpets, and regular bus service—that we take so easily for granted.

   Posted by Amy Lavender Harris  on  04/20  at  03:04 PM

6. Amy

   Blame Marilyn Churley. She told us via the ATU ads that no TTC = impact on Torontonian health. Can’t compare that, however smartassedly you try, to coffee.

   McGuinty is trying to posture both ways here – to the right as being ready to impose essentiality but to the left as having been asked to do so by the municipality so he can pin the political downside on Miller – not that I have any sympathy for a mayor cosying up to a despicable regime and absenting himself from “his” 20-minute cleanup day while a critical service is under notice of strike.

   Posted by Mark Dowling  on  04/20  at  03:39 PM

7. Good point, Mark—politicians at all the relevant levels are talking out of both sides of their mouths. Pity none of them seems interested in playing the hero and helping broker a deal.

   As for the health (and environmental) costs of not having a public transit system, you’ll hear no disagreement from me. But if Torontonians really believe in declaring the TTC an essential service for these reasons, then why are they raised only when a strike is imminent, and why is it not a no-brainer to settle with the ATU to ensure that we can all continue to enjoy these benefits?

   Posted by Amy Lavender Harris  on  04/20  at  05:23 PM

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