Flit

Nedohin could have brained a Scotsman with a rock, it still wouldn't have made the front page

The no-doubt significant accomplishments of the other man aside, I was disappointed to see Tiger Woods' photo on the front page of the Globe, Post and Sun this morning, and not Randy Ferbey.

Some obscure "Crazy Train" reference here

The third public transit strike in a decade-and-a-half is expected to start tonight in Toronto, which will of course prove a dreadful inconvenience most of all to those people who don't generally have union jobs, and dream of steady employment and 9% salary increases over three years... increases that come just short of sucking up every last cent of the recent transit fare hike, it seems. In fact, as far as I can tell from the papers, this strike is really about giving the employees the remainder of that, while management wants to use it to, you know, improve service a little.

I'm not saying that transit should be deemed an unstrikeable essential service, but the union in this case has done such a hopeless job of explaining their case that I have absolutely no valid reason to believe at this point that they have any "case" at all. When a union says it wants 3% a year, then gets it, then still walks out, well, they've forfeited any pretense of claiming our sympathy, seems to me. All that's left now is the extortion attempt.

UPDATE: See, now if I'd just posted this on Friday, they'd have come to a deal then.

FURTHER UPDATE: I truly appreciate the TTC, you know. And my pre-existing respect for Howard Moscoe and the mayor, for working in collaboration with the union leadership to save this city from what still seems would have been an entirely pointless labour disruption, has definitely risen another notch.