The Winnipeg Tribune
January 28, 1976 pages 1,5
Strikers rap driver system
by Graham Parley
Trib Staff Writer
"After you've been driving for a while, some friends quit coming over to see you. The hours are awkward and you don't have many weekends off."
"The wives start to get on about their husbands about the effect this has on their social life and things can get bad. There's a lot of divorces among drivers because of this."
Dave Krahn is 26, and is talking as he takes his turn on picket duty outside the Winnipeg Transit garage on Osborne St. It is bitterly cold and there is no shelter to keep the wind from whipping at his face.
But Dave and the other pickets are convinced of the justice of their strike and, freezing or not, say they are prepared to stick it out.
The public only hears about the rates of pay, they say, and don't realize the difficulties of the job. It's not just a case of clocking on, taking the bus out, bringing it back, clocking off.
They point to the split-shift system, which forces drivers to take breaks of between two and six hours between their shifts.
It means the time between starting and finishing work is lengthend. In some cases considerably. The first three hours of the break are unpaid and the next three can earn a driver a maximum of less than $2.
"it's not much compensation for the disruption," says one picket.
Monday the forecast high is -15 C.
Negotiations began at 9:30 am on Tuesday in labor department offices in the Norquay Building. The parties, including a labor department conciliator, were tight-lipped before they broke for lunch. Talks finally adjourned at 2 p.m.
Tuesday's resumption in talks was called after city council ordered its negotiating team back into bargaining, while also standing firm on the 9.3 per cent increase that prompted transit workers to strike. The union has demanded 18 per cent plus fringe benefits.
Asked how union strike procedures were going, the confident sounding Mr. Cohen said, "they're going great".
There was an expression of confidence on the city side too. A spokesman at the city's control centre set up during the strike's duration said traffic operations were going "reasonably well". but that traffic was a little slower than Monday's.
Main traffic problems were on Henderson Hwy. and St. Mary's Rd., the spokesman said.
If there is any comfort from the strike, might be found in the $16,000 a day saving the city is not having to bus 120,000 people every day.
Normal daily deficit is computed by Nick Diakiw, works and operations commissioner, to be about $16,000. Daily revenue is about $36,000. Daily expenses about $68,000 -- a difference of $32,000 in the red. Half of that goes into continuous fixed costs, strike or no. The remining $16,000 is the amount "saved," while the buses are still.
...
Prev
Linear Mode
