TTC union chief blasts bosses, media and public

Thanks, oldgoat.

Are you equating members of a legislature with employees of the TTC? 'Cause that would just be silly.

Le T wrote:

Are you equating members of a legislature with employees of the TTC? 'Cause that would just be silly.

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All I'm equating is that they both work for the public. But you seem to feel there's a significant difference that makes a photo like this "citizen journalism" rather than "harrassment". Care to share?

Ok. One of these categories is elected officials, who have power over public funds, laws, your life, etc. The other one of these categories is a group of workers, who work for a wage to survive. Just like you don't have customers/clients timing/filming your bathroom breaks, nor should TTC employees. Politicians while at work (but not in the bathroom or at home) should be under constant srutiny from media and citizens. That is the first condition to representative democracy.

Being a poltician is not a job. It is a privilege and responsibility, it carries no right to privacy at work.

Actually, a lot of bus drivers work the entire shift without a scheduled break. But you wouldn't know that because you have obviously just read the MSM articles on TTC employees.

The guy that you are talking about was actually driving a bus, so you can't even repeat the gossip correctly.

There are around 15 000 TTC employees who work as operators or in the garages, etc. So far the MSM smear job has exposed two or three photos as evidence of the "endemic problem with TTC employees".

Unlike politicians, the great majority of TTC employees do a really good job at serving the public.

Just thought I'd congratulate Le T and Slumberjack for their passionate and eloquent defence of the truth in this thread. As for Snert's card-playing legislators, I impatiently await the results of the disciplinary investigation that was no doubt conducted.

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The guy that you are talking about was actually driving a bus, so you can't even repeat the gossip correctly.

It's actually a video recording, not "gossip". Sorry I got the vehicle wrong... I can see how that's really the meat and potatoes of this. I'm tempted to intentionally make a typo so you can move up to spelling flames next.

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As for Snert's card-playing legislators, I impatiently await the results of the disciplinary investigation that was no doubt conducted.

At least one of them apologized (did the TTC driver? I doubt it) but the "disciplinary investigation" you're waiting for is called an "election" in their case, and I don't know when the next one is in CT. On the bright side, it could result in termination of employment over this. No lukewarm letters of reprimand in this case.

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Those are not suggestions. I'm just asking for information.

Very well. Do I think there's a scandal within the TTC with regard to bad workers? No. By and large, my experience with the TTC has been reasonable, and notwithstanding a few drivers here and there who go out of their way to be jerks, I think the majority of my beefs with the TTC would be directed at management, not front line employees.

At the same time, I don't have a problem with customers documenting what they see as bad service, nor going public with that. For about six months one of the banners here at babble was for a t-shirt that read "Citizen Journalist: isn't that redundant?", so I would hope that babble also recognizes the right of citizens to document what they see as problems. Remember, the paper only picked up the original sleeping collector photo once it started getting passed around on the web, so I'm not seeing these recent photos and videos as something the evil MSM did, I'm seeing it as something some actual, frustrated TTC riders did, and I'm having a hard time with the idea on the say-so of Bob Kinnear, they're supposed to not do this. I don't get that.

So to me this is, at this point, less about the TTC itself, or the workers themselves, and more about the degree to which a public who pays TTC wages at least once (through taxes) and in many cases twice (though fares) do or don't have the right to go public with what they believe is unacceptable service.

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If you knew anything about employment matters (which you obviously don't), you'd understand that when a member of the public observes a service employee not doing their job, they're allowed to contact management and squeal on them. That's about it.

I've never heard of this. Is it a law? Or under what authority is the public restricted to this? This is genuinely news to me. Could you flesh it out some?

Snert, didn't I read in some thread somewhere that you yourself are unionized?  Giving you at least a glimpse of public and union interactions?

Wow, yes, Michelle. Thank you. And now that you're no longer weighed down with a moderator's need to be moderate, please carry on!

ETA: Oh, and I take back what I said about Toronto Sun op-ed pieces. That one (above) was excellent.

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And despite what anti-union types are claiming in the media and in comment sections, he was not "protected by the union" because the union can't protect you when you're clearly in the wrong. 

Perhaps he wasn't protected in the sense of the Union insisting that he should not be disciplined, or threatening an action on his behalf, but Kinnear was more than happy to pretend that he was on a "washroom break" instead of being honest about the fact that it was a coffee break. I find that nearly as insulting of my intelligence as Kinnear's earlier response to the first sleeping collector photo in which he tried to turn it around on the cruel and callous people of Toronto who simply assumed a man with his feet up and hands crossed across his chest was sleeping (which he was) rather than making sure he wasn't suffering from some kind of emergency that (presumably) makes your feet lift up and your hands cross over your chest.

So, protection, no. Honesty? No.

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Before whipping out the camera (or, at least, before uploading it to YouTube), people should ask themselves - could there be extenuating circumstances here? 

So, like, in the photo above, "could this be a computer malfunction?" "Is it possible that what looks like a game of solitaire is actually a complex spreadsheet?"... that sort of thing?

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And for you to defend such activity in this forum is repugnant.

If you're not saying it's forbidden then I guess I'm not defending. but if it comes down to it, I'd certainly defend their right to have their say, and yours to rebut it. To do anything else would be far more repugnant, IMHO. I think this may be what Skdadl was talking about in the thread she started on civil liberties and the left. If you don't support free speech, even the offensive kind that you disagree with, perhaps you're on the wrong end of the spectrum.

Some occupations should not be undertaken by one person and it is not for efficiency reasons but for the safety of the worker.  I think that the bus drivers are in an untenable position given the lack of safety in their jobs from the ever present threat of random violence.  It is not only the TCC that has the problem of violence against drivers it happens on most urban systems.  Building a plastic shield will only worsen the perception of "us and them" and the violent types will merely attack when the drivers are going in and out of their cages.

Whipping up anti-union worker sentiment serves to promote the fire sale of our public services. 

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So, like, in the photo above, "could this be a computer malfunction?" "Is it possible that what looks like a game of solitaire is actually a complex spreadsheet?"... that sort of thing?

That's so stupid.  Come on, you can do better than that.  I didn't say no one should take any videos ever, and that citizen journalists should never take pictures of anything.  I said that if you are going to defend this on the grounds of citizen journalism, then you have to also recognize that citizen journalists have a responsibility to be ethical - to try to get the full story.

In the example you posted above, there's not much doubt that people are sitting in session and playing solitaire.  "Could this be a computer malfunction" is stupid and you know it.  If you can't tell the difference between reasonable doubt and total bullshit, then that's your problem.

And you know what?  Remember way back when an NDP MP went after a Tory MP for supposedly looking at "soft porn" on his laptop in the House of Commons and denounced him in the House and on national television about it?  And then it turned out she was wrong about it and it was just a picture of his girlfriend in a bathing suit mixed up in a screensaver slideshow and she apologized?

I said the same thing on babble then that I am saying now - instead of flying off the handle and making accusations and whipping up resentment against someone, you should check your facts, and see whether the situation is what you think it is before setting the dogs on someone.

Because in the case of TTC operators, real people can get hurt when people demonize them - and they ARE getting hurt because of it.

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They WERE cruel and callous.  The guy was sleeping because he had a medical condition and was on a couple of different medications that made him doze off. 

Kinnear didn't chastise the city of Toronto for not making sure this guy didn't have a medical condition that made him sleepy. Kinnear suggested that the man could have been in a state of acute medical crisis, and really, I think that was pretty far fetched... and thus a bit insulting.

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Would it really have been worth getting someone fired to get a thrill out of tattling?

Maybe here's the locus of our disagreement.

I really don't think the person who snapped that first pic and uploaded it did so out of some juvenile desire to "tattle" and get someone fired. I think that, like many Torontonians, he was probably a little tired of the level of service that the TTC provides, coupled with fare hikes so regular you can set your watch by them. To be fair, the collector in the photo was certainly not responsible for those fare hikes, but at the same time he was probably earning more sleeping than the photographer earns working, and my guess is that the photographer found the whole thing a bit insulting, particularly as it follows hot on the heels of a recent hike, a clampdown on tokens, etc.

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If you can't tell the difference between reasonable doubt and total bullshit, then that's your problem.

Ya that was kind of my thinking with regard to the whole "medical distress" distraction. People who are having a stroke, or dying of apnea, don't typically think to put their feet up.

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Because in the case of TTC operators, real people can get hurt when people demonize them - and they ARE getting hurt because of it.

I certainly cannot support anyone assaulting drivers over this, ticket issues, fare issues, or anything else, but at the same time, the Union seems to lump together the "irresponsible" citizen journalist who posted a pic of the sleeping collector with the videographer who captured the leisurely coffee break. I don't think that guy was irresponsible, and I don't think there were extenuating circumstances. Should people continue to document genuinely unacceptable service, or does the fact that other people react to this put an onus on them to stop? For the record, I agree that a driver taking a perfectly legitimate washroom break shouldn't be videotaped, but what about another idiot? I get the sense that the Union would rather that neither be seen.  

RevolutionPlease wrote:

I saw it mentioned I think on babble but this is a serious affront to our neighbours.  This is the slippery slope of worker rights.  Do you want to agree to be filmed all moments of your job?

I'm not sure that it's a matter of agreement or not. We pretty much have to accept that most people now have cameras on them.

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Would you rather your driver doze off?

Those are the only two options?  Either the driver dozes off and we all die, or I have to sit on the bus with the door open while he relaxes over a double-double and makes gestures out the window at anyone who had someplace they wanted to be?  There isn't a third way, where the driver takes his breaks appropriately, or gets enough sleep for the job, or phones in sick if he believes himself unable to remain awake while driving a bus full of people?

Really, I think all this was working out better when it was conceded that this kind of behaviour is inexcusable.  And now you're trying to excuse it and that just muddies things.

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Snert, would you be comfortable with someone watching you at work 24/7 and be confident there would be no scrutiny?

If I accepted a job where I chose to actually sit right in front of the public, I suppose my consent would be implied, wouldn't it?

This letter is being circulated by Martin Long, President of the Toronto local of the elementary teachers union:

TO: ETT MEMBERS

FROM: MARTIN LONG, PRESIDENT

RE: BE KIND TO A TTC WORKER

DATE: FEBRUARY 5, 2010

What amounts to a cyber-bullying campaign against TTC workers continues unabated, and is
being fuelled by the media.

An occasional mistake or error of judgment is blown out of proportion, while instances of abuse
of TTC workers on the job are not reported. In fact, the reporting of the “errors” may well be
leading to an increase of the abuse.

Teachers, too, have been victims of ambush by cell phone camera, and bullying on social
networking sites.

Right-wing forces whose goal is to privatize our public services will exploit this situation to
advance their cause, and they won’t stop at transit – public education is in their sights as well.

As a regular rider on the TTC, I have been as frustrated as anyone else with poor service on
occasion. These problems are the result of lack of adequate resourcing of the system by senior
levels of government, and not due to the actions of an overwhelmingly dedicated work force.

If you ride the rocket in the days ahead, please share a kind word or gesture in solidarity with the
TTC staff.

I was just thinking on the streetcar on the way home (where I was greeted with a smile by the streetcar driver) that it might be kind of fun to start a "valentine" campaign for TTC workers.  What if people were to give little paper hearts and valentines to TTC staff on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday? 

That could be a fun show of solidarity. :)

It would, too!

I started a Facebook event encouraging people to give valentines to TTC employees this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  Join! :)

That's a good example of how systemic problems are creating a hostile environment for employees.

That whole screaming match could have been avoided, had the TTC just smartened up and not set such a short deadline for people to use their tickets.  You wouldn't get such angry and frustrated passengers being so abusive to employees that way.

The other thing they should do is provide better training to their front-line service workers if they're going to force them into situations where they have to enforce unpopular rules with passengers.  Specifically, training in de-escalation, etc., because you know you're going to get morons like this passenger screaming at your employees when you make stupid policies for your employees to enforce.  They should also be providing major security when they put through idiotic rules like "no using two month-old tickets" to protect the employees from abuse.

People assume that "anyone" can do a customer service job without training.  It's not true - it takes extremely good people skills, and that sort of thing requires special training, especially if management is putting them in the position of defending outright stupid rules that piss people off.

In this case, I'm sure that if the ticket-taker had allowed the woman to use the ticket with the extra payment, she'd have gotten in trouble for not enforcing the rules.  But the passenger paid good money for the ticket and there's no reason why it should expire a month or two after she bought it, instead of allowing her to pay the extra quarter with the ticket.

I place this at the feet of management.