The Globe and Mail, CBC Toronto, Newstalk 1010 and other media outlets reported this morning that some TTC workers were planning on fighting back after this weekend’s reprimand from their boss.
The news organizations told their readers and listeners about rumors of job action after a new Facebook page, “Toronto Transit Operators against public harassment” appeared. On the page, workers have been posting their own photos of rider indiscretions, after recent images of employees sleeping on the job and stopping for coffee sparked outrage among passengers.
By this afternoon, however, the same media and others, including the Toronto Star, are reporting that the campaign has “fizzled” — especially since, within a few hours, riders themselves had seemingly taken over the site, contributing even more complaints about service.
On Saturday, the TTC’s chief general manager, Gary Webster, e-mailed all 12,000 TTC employees. In the stern note, Webster criticized the “culture of complacency and malaise” in the organization. He told workers he’s “becoming increasingly tired of defending the reputation of the TTC; tired of explaining what is acceptable and what is not”.
Webster’s memo resulted from an avalanche of recent passenger complaints. Rider fury has been mounting for weeks, and hit its pinnacle when photos of a ticket collector asleep in his booth at the McCowan Station on the 3 Scarborough rapid transit line surfaced on the web. Last week, the situation boiled over when a video appeared, showing a TTC driver verbally abusing passengers on the 310 Bathurst overnight bus, after some of them questioned him why he enjoyed a seven-minute coffee break en route.
Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 113 president, Bob Kinnear, told Newstalk 1010 that the union is not supporting a work-to-rule campaign, even though he understands the frustration that his workers are facing. Kinnear says the union will hold a news conference on tomorrow morning to address the issues that his members are experiencing.
According to the Star, Kinnear says Local 113 members remain frustrated at “having to work under the microscope. We’ve got 13- and 14-year-olds that feel that they have an entitlement to film our operators in the performance of their duties, and that’s not acceptable,” he said.
He explained that the union did not call for working to rule, but that individual members who are frustrated by how TTC management and the public treat them are behind the Facebook page. He said he had not heard of any specific work-to-rule actions occurring Monday.
Kinnear said Webster’s memo makes it appear as if “he has given up. He seems to be putting all the problems and all the ills of the TTC on the backs of the front-line employees, when that’s just not reflective of what’s going on out there,” Kinnear told the Star.
He added that Webster has a responsibility to defend the TTC.
“We do recognize that improvements have to be made, but for the (chief general manager) to simply put the onus on the frontline employees is irresponsible as far as we’re concerned.”
Meanwhile, the chair of the Toronto Transit Commission, Councillor Adam Giambrone, told the Globe and Mail that TTC staff will report on the start of a plan to address customer-service issues during the Commission meeting on Wednesday, February 17.
The Star reports that the TTC says it ran “problem-free” Monday morning, and there were no reports of any employees “working to rule.”
Some TTC drivers formed the Facebook group to give TTC workers the opportunity to share “suggestions on how to fight back to the recent photo and video harassment from passengers just looking to make trouble for us,” according to its description. It also encourages transit workers to post their own photos of passengers who break the rules.
“Reminder to work to rule on Monday. Check out ATU site,” stated a post on the group’s wall, according to media reports.
The Local 113 website has no information about any work-to-rule campaign.
Toronto Star report here.
Globe and Mail report here.
CBC Toronto report here.
Newstalk 1010 report here.
When employees “work-to-rule, they do no more than the minimum that the rules of their workplace require and follow safety or other regulations to the letter. This disrupts service less than a strike or lockout; and just obeying the rules is less susceptible to disciplinary action.
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