M II A II R II K
Senior Member
MPP pushes for no-strike TTC
Feb 22 2010
Robert Benzie
Read More: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/ttc/article/769313--mpp-pushes-for-no-strike-ttc
Feb 22 2010
Robert Benzie
Read More: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/ttc/article/769313--mpp-pushes-for-no-strike-ttc
The Toronto Transit Commission would be designated an essential service, its workers prohibited from striking, under private-member's legislation being introduced Monday by a leading Liberal MPP. David Caplan (Don Valley East) says commuters are fed up with work stoppages that disrupt the city and cost the local economy about $50 million a day. "No strikes, no lockouts. And it establishes – if the parties can't bargain on their own – an arbitration process for them to resolve their collective-bargaining issues," he told the Star.
"We've had too many work stoppages over the course of recent years. Enough is enough."
Mayor David Miller and a majority of city councillors oppose Queen's Park declaring the TTC essential because they believe it would lead to unaffordable arbitrated wage settlements.
"The party line is that these kinds of arbitration processes cost more than collective bargaining. I don't buy that," said Caplan, a former senior minister in Premier Dalton McGuinty's cabinet.
"Because what happens, as we've seen the last several rounds, is we have a work stoppage, the province convenes an emergency session to send people back to work and to send it to arbitration," he said.