Friday, January 30, 2009

Strike news and reaction on Rogers TV

Yours truly will be representing TransitOttawa on Rogers TV's (cable 22 in Ottawa) Talk Ottawa program tonight (Friday) at 6:00 p.m. tonight. Here is the press release:

The OC Transpo strike is over after 51 days. The City of Ottawa and the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 279 have agreed to send all contract issues to binding arbitration without preconditions. Return of transit will begin pending ratification from City Council and ATU Local 279.

Mayor O'Brien has called a special meeting of Council for today, Friday, Jan. 30. Rogers TVwill provide full coverage of this special emergency council meeting beginning at 11 a.m.

Plus, join Rogers TV for a special
Talk Ottawa with James Hendricks tonight at 6 p.m. for discussion and reaction to the end of the longest transit strike in the city's history. Executive Director of Public Transit in Ottawa Peter Raaymakers, Ward 4 Kanata North Councillor Marianne Wilkinson and President of the Ottawa and District Labour Council Sean McKenny join James in the studio to take your calls.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I wanted to say that it was both sides fault to keep the strike going. No one wanted to compromise on a whole lot. If, it wasn't about the money; that should of been removed from the table. I know the major part of the strike was who would be in charge of the scheduling: Everyone wanted that which should of had a comprimised on it especially for health and safety. So if there are too many days of long hours on over lets say two weeks and not much rest in between; well that becomes a health and safety hazard for everyone (including the driver and the passengers) to me who ever is in charge of the schedule needs to see over not too many days with long hours because the well being of everyone. Within a few weeks of no resulution, it should of went to the arbitration and not wait almost two months of no service. People in the city don't always live close to a grocery store or near their doctors or near their work. They need the busses. Not everyone in the city have transportation. Some are blind, some are in wheel chairs and some needs some assistance in their daily lives. Many of the people in the city had to give up their jobs because they can't walk from one end of the city to the other end to go to their workplace or back home, and what happens if they have children that needs to go to school, or teenagers that are in school and go to the school because their are no busses; I thought we were suppose to encourage school and not have our teenagers miss out on their education. I thought that the children are our future and they need to learn. They can't learn; if they can't go to school. Anyways, everything should have been dealt with a long time ago and not let the citizen of ottawa suffer this long and disrupted for their scheduling problem. Not to mention that alot of people had to spend money on taxis or pay someone gas money and that means they couln't afford paying all the bills or their morgages because of this strike.