GO Transit's Board are to be commended on taking swift action to stem absenteeism problems - which are especially impacting Friday service:
Toronto Star - September 9th 2006
Unionized crews contracted by Go from CN have been leaving passengers in the lurch to enjoy long weekends.
Per GO Transit Board member Bill Fisch:
"We'll solve it.... We are going out to the tender process to see if others will be interested in (running GO trains). That will hold everyone's feet to the fire to provide a better service for us. I don't think people will stand for bad service."
It's too bad that the people running (yes I realise - a rather loose use of the term) the Toronto Transit Commission, don't have the same passion for providing service. The TTC has terrible absenteeism problems. Did Howard Moscoe and his fellow traveller commissioners try to address this in the most recent contract? Don't be silly, they were too busy telegraphing the fat juicy raise they were all too eager to grant the union.
Self-styled transit advocates such as Steve Munroe hand ring over the TTC service problems. However, they seem to dismiss any notion that the Commission push for increased performance. In my view, we need true passenger advocates - such as Mr. Fisch instead of the likes of Moscoe and Munroe.
2 comments:
It's always easy to slam the unions for service problems, but at the TTC one big issue is that management refuses to take responsibility for actually managing the service. It's easier to throw up your hands and blame everything on mythical traffic congestion than to actually run the service on the street properly.
Actually, in the case of the TTC, I don't blame the union for service problems. At GO, it's obviously as issue because if an operator doesn't show up, it's hard to get a replacement to wherever the absent employee was supposed to be.
Actually, I can't slam the TTC unions for much. The union is there to get the best deal it can for its members. Here it's more a case of the Commission not trying to get the best deal for its passengers and ratepayers.
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