Just became aware of this website by the ATU regarding the transit strike.
There's an article here which the ATU has cited as an apt description of the root of the problem.
I feel these are important reads, not because I'm suddenly an ATU sympathizer (one need only read this, this or this to be assured of that), but because there is a lot of misinformation and speculation out there about what is really going on. The most accurate way of understanding the problem is going to come from hearing the viewpoints of both sides, then contrasting them and doing some fact-checking. This is the first time I've been aware of somewhere I can go to hear the ATU's take on this matter, so I'm sharing it with you here.
I'm still reading and frankly this flu is taking it out of me so I'll post an update later.
18 January 2009
Who impeded the electric car?
Grand plan for electric cars takes shape in Ontario
Well this is good news all right, but why does it take an American company to get things into gear in this province? Why aren't we looking first to a Canadian company for this role? And along the same line, where is the support for the Canadian-made Zenn car? Shouldn't we be encouraging Canadian businesses first?
Quick background: The Zenn car is considered a low-speed vehicle, also known as a neighbourhood electric vehicle (NEV). Such cars are especially suited for urban dwellers since they don't have lengthy commutes.
It's a fact that despite the Zenn car being made in Canada, and the company having been around since 2000, it's still not road-legal anywhere in Canada except B.C. and Québec. Know where it's being sold? The States. Know where we first saw them? Portland, Oregon. Why? Because almost all of the continental U.S.' state governments have passed legislation allowing NEVs on local public roads, and almost all of the Canadian provincial governments have not. It's a travesty that foot-dragging provincial governments are simultaneously keeping an environmentally friendly option out of our hands while impeding a Canadian business' success. We should be using a Canadian company to set up the infrastructure to support electric cars, and offering incentives for people to buy Canadian electric cars in particular.
Well this is good news all right, but why does it take an American company to get things into gear in this province? Why aren't we looking first to a Canadian company for this role? And along the same line, where is the support for the Canadian-made Zenn car? Shouldn't we be encouraging Canadian businesses first?
Quick background: The Zenn car is considered a low-speed vehicle, also known as a neighbourhood electric vehicle (NEV). Such cars are especially suited for urban dwellers since they don't have lengthy commutes.
It's a fact that despite the Zenn car being made in Canada, and the company having been around since 2000, it's still not road-legal anywhere in Canada except B.C. and Québec. Know where it's being sold? The States. Know where we first saw them? Portland, Oregon. Why? Because almost all of the continental U.S.' state governments have passed legislation allowing NEVs on local public roads, and almost all of the Canadian provincial governments have not. It's a travesty that foot-dragging provincial governments are simultaneously keeping an environmentally friendly option out of our hands while impeding a Canadian business' success. We should be using a Canadian company to set up the infrastructure to support electric cars, and offering incentives for people to buy Canadian electric cars in particular.
17 January 2009
Bad Ottawans! No buses for you!
Ottawa transit strike drags on over scheduling issue
If the City and the ATU are soooo sorry about the "inconvenience" (oh sorry, I was thinking "extreme hardships") this lengthy process is causing, where is the urgency?? If they were really that concerned, wouldn't they be in negotiations every day trying to hammer this out? And are they allergic to binding arbitration, or is it just against their religion? (Update: I stand corrected - but what's with the preconditions?) How can we introduce some actual urgency to this? Oh hey, I know! We'll make O'Brien, Council, and the ATU drink 2 litres of pop each, lock them in a room together, and nobody gets a bathroom break until this thing is resolved. Hey, it's cheaper than arbitration and twice as fast.
This strikes me as a personal vendetta gone bad, a Mexican standoff between two pigheaded sides, where the poor, sick, elderly, and disadvantaged pay the price. People are getting canned because they can't get to work, failing classes because they can't write their exams, getting sicker because they can't get to their surgeries or doctor's appointments, getting poorer because they are having to pay for taxi cabs or artificially inflated parking fees, getting depressed because they can't get out to visit friends or go to community events, losing their businesses because customers can't get to them, missing time with their families and losing sleep because they have no option but to walk everywhere, and suffering stress overload from struggling so hard every day for nearly six weeks to get through the snow, ice, bitter cold, and traffic since the ATU decided doing this in December would screw us up the worst. Estimates as of 13 Jan peg the cost to our local economy at $280M and up, $8M per day. All this on top of the global economic crisis and being in a recession, where people are already worried about losing their jobs, homes, and life savings. Oh and how many Ottawan children have had their Christmas ruined by all this is anyone's guess.
Unless the Canada Industrial Relations Board determines that there is "immediate and serious danger to safety or health" under an excessively narrow definition, only Parliament can force the bus drivers back to work while an agreement is hammered out. But oops.... Parliament has prorogued until 26 January because our PM is busy dodging a confidence vote.
Thank you ATU, for your selfishness in deliberately targeting innocent people who can least afford the hardship, and holding them hostage for the sake of internal matters of seniority and scheduling.
Thank you Mayor O'Brien and City Councillors, for injecting unnecessary bravado and grandstanding, and turning this into a public showdown and referendum on union-busting rather than solving the problem at hand. Many more thanks for refusing to have transit declared an essential service.
Thank you all 3 of the above, for exercising an exceptional level of urgent urgency usually reserved for things like cleaning out the mystery box at the back of the garage or sorting the sock drawer.
Thank you Labour Board, for making your criteria for hardship excessively difficult to meet. Hardship doesn't really count unless someone's on the brink of death.
And last but not least, thank you once again Harper, for throwing everybody else under the bus in order to look out for your own job. In Ottawa you've done it figuratively and literally.
Please can somebody at least pretend to care more than a two-second "sorry for the inconvenience" and blaming someone else? Grow a spine and a conscience and solve this! And act like your nana's heart transplant depends on it.
If the City and the ATU are soooo sorry about the "inconvenience" (oh sorry, I was thinking "extreme hardships") this lengthy process is causing, where is the urgency?? If they were really that concerned, wouldn't they be in negotiations every day trying to hammer this out? And are they allergic to binding arbitration, or is it just against their religion? (Update: I stand corrected - but what's with the preconditions?) How can we introduce some actual urgency to this? Oh hey, I know! We'll make O'Brien, Council, and the ATU drink 2 litres of pop each, lock them in a room together, and nobody gets a bathroom break until this thing is resolved. Hey, it's cheaper than arbitration and twice as fast.
This strikes me as a personal vendetta gone bad, a Mexican standoff between two pigheaded sides, where the poor, sick, elderly, and disadvantaged pay the price. People are getting canned because they can't get to work, failing classes because they can't write their exams, getting sicker because they can't get to their surgeries or doctor's appointments, getting poorer because they are having to pay for taxi cabs or artificially inflated parking fees, getting depressed because they can't get out to visit friends or go to community events, losing their businesses because customers can't get to them, missing time with their families and losing sleep because they have no option but to walk everywhere, and suffering stress overload from struggling so hard every day for nearly six weeks to get through the snow, ice, bitter cold, and traffic since the ATU decided doing this in December would screw us up the worst. Estimates as of 13 Jan peg the cost to our local economy at $280M and up, $8M per day. All this on top of the global economic crisis and being in a recession, where people are already worried about losing their jobs, homes, and life savings. Oh and how many Ottawan children have had their Christmas ruined by all this is anyone's guess.
Unless the Canada Industrial Relations Board determines that there is "immediate and serious danger to safety or health" under an excessively narrow definition, only Parliament can force the bus drivers back to work while an agreement is hammered out. But oops.... Parliament has prorogued until 26 January because our PM is busy dodging a confidence vote.
Thank you ATU, for your selfishness in deliberately targeting innocent people who can least afford the hardship, and holding them hostage for the sake of internal matters of seniority and scheduling.
Thank you Mayor O'Brien and City Councillors, for injecting unnecessary bravado and grandstanding, and turning this into a public showdown and referendum on union-busting rather than solving the problem at hand. Many more thanks for refusing to have transit declared an essential service.
Thank you all 3 of the above, for exercising an exceptional level of urgent urgency usually reserved for things like cleaning out the mystery box at the back of the garage or sorting the sock drawer.
Thank you Labour Board, for making your criteria for hardship excessively difficult to meet. Hardship doesn't really count unless someone's on the brink of death.
And last but not least, thank you once again Harper, for throwing everybody else under the bus in order to look out for your own job. In Ottawa you've done it figuratively and literally.
Please can somebody at least pretend to care more than a two-second "sorry for the inconvenience" and blaming someone else? Grow a spine and a conscience and solve this! And act like your nana's heart transplant depends on it.
16 January 2009
Adapting to the cold
Today we needed to make a grocery run. There were 150 car accidents yesterday in Ottawa alone, from black ice in the cold snap we've had the last few days. Weather Canada has issued a frostbite warning which has been in effect since Tuesday. Wind chill today has hovered around -30°C. So yeah, it's a bit chilly. We bundled up in layers and walked about 2 blocks to the store.
Now, this was our first time being outside in such temperatures, and I have to say it's a weird experience. Not to be gross, but at this temperature when you sniffle and the cold air rushes in your nose, you can briefly feel your nose hairs freezing together and sticking. Yes, seriously. Now, want to hear some sad commentary on L.A. life? I thought people used ski masks basically either for skiing or robbing people. In case you're wondering, yes I feel like a dork. And I obviously stayed in gangland far too long for my own good. Anyway, apparently you can wear these things several ways. Very handy. Weather like today, when your nose hairs are freezing and your whole face is numb, makes you realize how nice one of those puppies would've been.
By the way, along these lines, a simple tip most Canadians probably take for granted: if you open your jaw a bit but keep your lips closed, it draws the cold air over more of your sinus area and throat so the air that hits your lungs isn't so cold.
Another item we can't live without, which we never saw anywhere in the States and don't know the name of (help with this, anyone?), are a flippy type of glove. The bottom part is like a fingerless motorcycle glove, and there is a top part that is half attached to the back part of your glove and kept in place by a button or velcro. You can undo the fastener and flip this part forward to cover your fingertips. This way, if you need to do something that's too small and fiddly to do with gloved fingers, you don't have to take your gloves off. You can flip back the top, freeing your bare fingertips while keeping the rest of your hand toasty, then flip it back over your fingertips to warm them up. Genius, I tell you!
My (adult) son recently came up from the States to visit, and had bought new wiper blades to install before leaving for home. We said our goodbyes and he left, but when I looked out the window to check on him he was still out there struggling with the wipers. I went out there and discovered that the wind had kicked up significantly and gotten much colder... it was blowing his wiper packages and the little parts all over the place as he tried to figure out how to get his blades on with his bare hands. Oh I felt so bad for him! Apparently he'd forgotten to bring gloves. I was wearing my flippy gloves so I gave them to him to put on. Despite living only a few hours south of us in the States, he'd never seen anything like them either and thought they were brilliant. I helped him get his blades on and sent him on his way, telling him to keep the gloves since they sell lots of them up here. He told me during a phone call a couple of weeks ago that ever since that day they've officially become his favourite gloves. I smiled and thought, that's good since I just sent you another pair. :-D (I didn't say anything, it's a surprise.) It felt awesome to find something so helpful for him.
But now this begs the question... these things are amazingly useful, so why is it that nobody I know can find them in the States? Not even my son, who is only a couple of hours from the border and has similar weather. Yet, we've found them easily in various places in Ontario. Are they a Canadian thing? Weird.
And here, for the uninitiated such as myself, are guides on protecting yourself from hypothermia, frostbite, a wind chill hazard chart, cold weather cycling, and winter driving including putting together a winter driving survival kit.
It's embarrassing to have such a level of ignorance about these matters that I have to look them all up on the web, since other Canadians have probably been taught all about this stuff from an early age. I arrived here as a middle aged Canadian who had only ever seen the snow 3 times, with zero knowledge of how to dress for it, prepare for in it, walk in it, drive in it, or even play in it. I had leaky uninsulated workboots, no waterproof gloves, and I'd never been sledding in all my life. Some part of me envisions people secretly smirking and laughing their arses off at our ignorant California ways. During our first winter, a lot of people politely smiled and asked how we were handling the cold, not-so-secretly wondering if we weren't going to pack up and high-tail it back to California at any moment.
Well, it's dangerous not to know about this cold weather stuff, so I figure I'd better get cracking no matter how embarrassing it is.
Now, this was our first time being outside in such temperatures, and I have to say it's a weird experience. Not to be gross, but at this temperature when you sniffle and the cold air rushes in your nose, you can briefly feel your nose hairs freezing together and sticking. Yes, seriously. Now, want to hear some sad commentary on L.A. life? I thought people used ski masks basically either for skiing or robbing people. In case you're wondering, yes I feel like a dork. And I obviously stayed in gangland far too long for my own good. Anyway, apparently you can wear these things several ways. Very handy. Weather like today, when your nose hairs are freezing and your whole face is numb, makes you realize how nice one of those puppies would've been.
By the way, along these lines, a simple tip most Canadians probably take for granted: if you open your jaw a bit but keep your lips closed, it draws the cold air over more of your sinus area and throat so the air that hits your lungs isn't so cold.
Another item we can't live without, which we never saw anywhere in the States and don't know the name of (help with this, anyone?), are a flippy type of glove. The bottom part is like a fingerless motorcycle glove, and there is a top part that is half attached to the back part of your glove and kept in place by a button or velcro. You can undo the fastener and flip this part forward to cover your fingertips. This way, if you need to do something that's too small and fiddly to do with gloved fingers, you don't have to take your gloves off. You can flip back the top, freeing your bare fingertips while keeping the rest of your hand toasty, then flip it back over your fingertips to warm them up. Genius, I tell you!
My (adult) son recently came up from the States to visit, and had bought new wiper blades to install before leaving for home. We said our goodbyes and he left, but when I looked out the window to check on him he was still out there struggling with the wipers. I went out there and discovered that the wind had kicked up significantly and gotten much colder... it was blowing his wiper packages and the little parts all over the place as he tried to figure out how to get his blades on with his bare hands. Oh I felt so bad for him! Apparently he'd forgotten to bring gloves. I was wearing my flippy gloves so I gave them to him to put on. Despite living only a few hours south of us in the States, he'd never seen anything like them either and thought they were brilliant. I helped him get his blades on and sent him on his way, telling him to keep the gloves since they sell lots of them up here. He told me during a phone call a couple of weeks ago that ever since that day they've officially become his favourite gloves. I smiled and thought, that's good since I just sent you another pair. :-D (I didn't say anything, it's a surprise.) It felt awesome to find something so helpful for him.
But now this begs the question... these things are amazingly useful, so why is it that nobody I know can find them in the States? Not even my son, who is only a couple of hours from the border and has similar weather. Yet, we've found them easily in various places in Ontario. Are they a Canadian thing? Weird.
And here, for the uninitiated such as myself, are guides on protecting yourself from hypothermia, frostbite, a wind chill hazard chart, cold weather cycling, and winter driving including putting together a winter driving survival kit.
It's embarrassing to have such a level of ignorance about these matters that I have to look them all up on the web, since other Canadians have probably been taught all about this stuff from an early age. I arrived here as a middle aged Canadian who had only ever seen the snow 3 times, with zero knowledge of how to dress for it, prepare for in it, walk in it, drive in it, or even play in it. I had leaky uninsulated workboots, no waterproof gloves, and I'd never been sledding in all my life. Some part of me envisions people secretly smirking and laughing their arses off at our ignorant California ways. During our first winter, a lot of people politely smiled and asked how we were handling the cold, not-so-secretly wondering if we weren't going to pack up and high-tail it back to California at any moment.
Well, it's dangerous not to know about this cold weather stuff, so I figure I'd better get cracking no matter how embarrassing it is.
Dare we hope?
Ottawa council willing to budge on transit scheduling
Maybe, just maybe, we are beginning to see the end of this stupid standoff. Seeing union members "storming out" of the last meeting certainly wasn't encouraging. Supposedly it will take a couple more weeks now while an independent fact-finder objectively clarifies the scheduling issue and dispels any misconceptions either side may have.
Seems to me that no matter how you slice it, you can pretty much bank on the fact that we will be continuing to limp along through the worst of this winter with no resolution. Even if this fact-finder did his/her job properly, gave them all the facts in a timely manner, and they all magically came to agreement that same day, we're still talking 2 more weeks minimum without public transit.
I'll give them this much... in a way it's a good thing because frankly, nobody seems to have a really clear picture on what exactly the sticking points are in this scheduling issue, since the ATU has insisted it's not about the money and all manner of claims are being made on both sides. At least one side is lying, if not both of them.
I've "heard" (as in online, using my eyes not my ears) accusations that senior drivers schedule themselves such that they will only have to drive 6 hours, but still get paid for 8 due to an 8-hour minimum daily pay requirement. I've not heard any ATU members or leadership deny this.
I've also heard claims that drivers will have 13½-hour shifts. But I understand this isn't really true because most of them are working split shifts since most of the demand for transit is when people are trying to get to/from work. I don't know how long the break is in between... 3 hours? 5 hours? But even if your first shift ends on the other side of town from your home and you have to wait around, it's not like you're working that whole time. And if you have to travel across town from one shift to get to the next, surely it doesn't take 3-5 hours to do so. You should be paid for any necessary transit time, but you can't count that gap in between as working hours. I once had a job as one of a team of several people, and we were frequently sent to remote locations for a week at a time. You had to stay in a hotel and work 8 hours a day until the project was complete. You only got paid for the 8 hours each day you were working; the time you spent getting to the job site and back counted as working hours; but you didn't get compensated for the other 16 hours a day you spent away from home during the week. Of course I missed my loved ones back home. But hey, I knew what I was getting into when I took the job. And before you say, "Now see, that's a situation where having a union could have helped," guess what? That was a union job! The terms: an hour's work for an hour's pay!
ATU members have said that the change in scheduling would make it difficult for them to plan their personal lives. But honestly now, when you decided to be a bus driver, you can't tell me you didn't know ahead of time the hours that most people would need transit, and what that would require of you. If working funky split shifts presents a problem for you, why would you consider such a job in the first place? Something here doesn't smell quite right.
All that said, I've also heard from drivers that the City makes outrageous demands, such as scheduling shifts back to back without proper time allocated in between for a driver to get from the end point of the first shift to the starting point of the second shift. Thus, there is no way for a driver to start the second shift on time. I don't know if this is really true in their case but I can say I've seen that type of thing before, when companies with a ridiculously single-minded focus on their bottom line make you crazy by allotting 15 minutes for a 1-hour job and the like, blatantly ignoring customer satisfaction and/or safety rules in the interest of saving a buck. In all fairness, I consider this issue to be a distinct possibility, and I've not heard the City deny this accusation.
Somewhere under all this posturing is the truth, and I'm not convinced I've heard it yet.
Maybe, just maybe, we are beginning to see the end of this stupid standoff. Seeing union members "storming out" of the last meeting certainly wasn't encouraging. Supposedly it will take a couple more weeks now while an independent fact-finder objectively clarifies the scheduling issue and dispels any misconceptions either side may have.
Seems to me that no matter how you slice it, you can pretty much bank on the fact that we will be continuing to limp along through the worst of this winter with no resolution. Even if this fact-finder did his/her job properly, gave them all the facts in a timely manner, and they all magically came to agreement that same day, we're still talking 2 more weeks minimum without public transit.
I'll give them this much... in a way it's a good thing because frankly, nobody seems to have a really clear picture on what exactly the sticking points are in this scheduling issue, since the ATU has insisted it's not about the money and all manner of claims are being made on both sides. At least one side is lying, if not both of them.
I've "heard" (as in online, using my eyes not my ears) accusations that senior drivers schedule themselves such that they will only have to drive 6 hours, but still get paid for 8 due to an 8-hour minimum daily pay requirement. I've not heard any ATU members or leadership deny this.
I've also heard claims that drivers will have 13½-hour shifts. But I understand this isn't really true because most of them are working split shifts since most of the demand for transit is when people are trying to get to/from work. I don't know how long the break is in between... 3 hours? 5 hours? But even if your first shift ends on the other side of town from your home and you have to wait around, it's not like you're working that whole time. And if you have to travel across town from one shift to get to the next, surely it doesn't take 3-5 hours to do so. You should be paid for any necessary transit time, but you can't count that gap in between as working hours. I once had a job as one of a team of several people, and we were frequently sent to remote locations for a week at a time. You had to stay in a hotel and work 8 hours a day until the project was complete. You only got paid for the 8 hours each day you were working; the time you spent getting to the job site and back counted as working hours; but you didn't get compensated for the other 16 hours a day you spent away from home during the week. Of course I missed my loved ones back home. But hey, I knew what I was getting into when I took the job. And before you say, "Now see, that's a situation where having a union could have helped," guess what? That was a union job! The terms: an hour's work for an hour's pay!
ATU members have said that the change in scheduling would make it difficult for them to plan their personal lives. But honestly now, when you decided to be a bus driver, you can't tell me you didn't know ahead of time the hours that most people would need transit, and what that would require of you. If working funky split shifts presents a problem for you, why would you consider such a job in the first place? Something here doesn't smell quite right.
All that said, I've also heard from drivers that the City makes outrageous demands, such as scheduling shifts back to back without proper time allocated in between for a driver to get from the end point of the first shift to the starting point of the second shift. Thus, there is no way for a driver to start the second shift on time. I don't know if this is really true in their case but I can say I've seen that type of thing before, when companies with a ridiculously single-minded focus on their bottom line make you crazy by allotting 15 minutes for a 1-hour job and the like, blatantly ignoring customer satisfaction and/or safety rules in the interest of saving a buck. In all fairness, I consider this issue to be a distinct possibility, and I've not heard the City deny this accusation.
Somewhere under all this posturing is the truth, and I'm not convinced I've heard it yet.
15 January 2009
Canadian irreverence
These are a couple of hilarious videos showing how refreshingly irreverent Canadians are about politics. For those of us who are used to the stiff formality of American politics, these come as a bit of a shock... yet we immediately fell in love with this down-to-earth, politicians-are-people-too type attitude.
A little quick background to set context for non-Canadians: Rick Mercer is a political satirist. All the other people in this video are high-ranking government officials. The lady in red at the gate is Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party, who has been trying to get a seat in Parliament but so far cannot because of the failings of the first-past-the-post voting system. The guy whose English is not so good was the leader of the Liberal Party at the time. The guy next to Rick Mercer while Rick is reading the paper is Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Background: Prime Minister Stephen Harper continually claims to work with the other 3 political parties, while in actuality stubbornly refusing to do so. So the 3 parties finally joined up in a coalition against him where the Liberals and NDP would form the government and the Bloc Québécois agreed to support them. Because of this Harper was going to fail a confidence vote last month and thus be out on his ear, so instead he dissolved Parliament until Jan 26 (chicken!), but he'll still have to face the vote then and is expected to fail. In the meantime the Liberals picked another leader, Michael Ignatieff, who will likely be the next Prime Minister in short order. This video is Geri Hall from the show This Hour Has 22 Minutes getting *very* cheeky with Ignatieff.
A little quick background to set context for non-Canadians: Rick Mercer is a political satirist. All the other people in this video are high-ranking government officials. The lady in red at the gate is Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party, who has been trying to get a seat in Parliament but so far cannot because of the failings of the first-past-the-post voting system. The guy whose English is not so good was the leader of the Liberal Party at the time. The guy next to Rick Mercer while Rick is reading the paper is Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Background: Prime Minister Stephen Harper continually claims to work with the other 3 political parties, while in actuality stubbornly refusing to do so. So the 3 parties finally joined up in a coalition against him where the Liberals and NDP would form the government and the Bloc Québécois agreed to support them. Because of this Harper was going to fail a confidence vote last month and thus be out on his ear, so instead he dissolved Parliament until Jan 26 (chicken!), but he'll still have to face the vote then and is expected to fail. In the meantime the Liberals picked another leader, Michael Ignatieff, who will likely be the next Prime Minister in short order. This video is Geri Hall from the show This Hour Has 22 Minutes getting *very* cheeky with Ignatieff.
14 January 2009
Ignorance is bliss - and a threat to democracy
Thank you Rick, for setting the record straight.
This is exactly what I've been saying. The Cons use the same trick as the U.S. Republicans - preying on the ignorance of some of our citizens and deliberately spreading misinformation about how our system works. They should be thrown out for this slimy tactic alone - it is an act of open contempt for democracy, the parliamentary system, and the voters.
Shame on you if you don't stay informed enough about how it works to keep from falling prey to such tactics.
Shame on you twice if you vote anyway.
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