The 9000 drivers, maintenance workers, ticket collectors, cleaning and other Toronto Transit Commission staff are set to strike Monday April 21st. We call on Mayor Miller and the City of Toronto to come to a fair settlement with the workers of ATU 113 to end the strike. The Provincial and Federal Governments must provide the money to fund our public services, rather than wasting cash on corporate tax cuts and increased military spending.
TTC Workers Deserve:
City of Toronto employees and TTC management are paid their full wages if they are off work because of job injuries, no matter what the cause. TTC workers, on the other hand, are financially penalized for their injuries.
2) Decent Health Benefits
City workers and their families are hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars better off when buying glasses for their kids or visiting the dentist.
3) A Secure Pension
Management insists that any shortfall in the TTC workers’ pension plan has to be funded out of wages. City and other workers are part of OMERS which is automatically protected against a shortfall.
4) Fair Wages
TTC workers are paid less than Mississauga and Brampton transit workers. TTC and all workers deserve a decent wage on which to raise a family.
The corporate media and big business are trying to set non-union workers against the TTC employees. They say, “Why support a bus driver who gets $25 per hour when you only get $10?” This is an absolutely hypocritical demand as these corporate bosses earn over $100 per hour and have received billions in tax handouts in recent years. The fact is that it is the corporations who are responsible for $10 wages, not union workers. They have used this kind of logic to drive down workers’ wages and set worker against worker. Poverty in Toronto has jumped from 16% to 30% since 1990. This is not because of a rise in unemployment; it is due to poverty wages. All workers deserve to earn over $25 per hour and get union benefits, as this is how much it costs to raise a family in today’s society. Non-union workers must support the TTC workers as their victory will make it easier for all workers to be raised to their level. Defeat for the transit workers will just drive more people down to the bottom.
The immediate cause for this dispute is the downloading of services from the Province to the municipal government as a tool to under-fund public services. The TTC has one of the lowest levels of government support of any transit system in North America. Only 25% of the cost of transit is supported by the Government, compared with 57% in Premier McGuinty’s home town of Ottawa.
There is more than enough money to fund public services and give the TTC workers and all public employees a decent wage. Over the last few years the Federal Government has increased military spending by $5-billion and the Harper Conservatives have committed to $60-billion in tax cuts by 2012. To put this into context, universal childcare would cost about $5-billion and free education about $11-billion.
All workers deserve a decent wage so we must support the TTC workers as the start of a movement for fair wages and fully funded public services. We need municipal, provincial and federal governments that will stop the tax giveaways to the corporations and end expensive and unpopular wars abroad. We need a socialist plan of re-investment in quality public services.
If you agree with our demand of decent wages for working class families, decent public services and an end to tax cuts, then get active! Fightback organizes workers and youth, immigrants and women, in the fight for working class solidarity and socialism. Join us in the struggle for a better society.
For more info contact:
fightback@marxist.ca
www.marxist.ca
