Ottawa’s Amalgamated Transit Union voted against the city’s latest offer yesterday, prolonging their strike indefinitely. They claim it is not about money, but about their ”quality of life” eg. the scheduling.

Right now, scheduling is in the hands of the drivers (union). They can pick their own shifts based on their seniority, currently resulting in $8 million dollars a year in overtime pay because senior drivers pick the lucrative shifts, some booking more than 60 hours a week (resulting in about 30 hours/week of overtime pay) while junior drivers are sitting in the garage waiting for work (and being paid). Some workers are now being paid for 12 hour shifts while they only work for 6 or 7. The city wants the scheduling back to save the $8 million overtime pay.

(As a side note: how hard is it to make a friggin’ schedule that has everyone working a solid 7 hours a day/40 hrs a week? They do it in every company in the world that has shift workers, yet OC Transpo cannot make it work. Who do they have working over there in scheduling?)

If this is really about quality of life, and not about money, take a pay cut of about $8 million dollars, and you can have your current scheduling. City will get their savings, and you will get your quality of life. Everybody happy.