Everyone Loves to Hate TTC Employees – And It’s Wrong
I’ve said many times over the years that TTC employees, specifically members of the Amalgamated Transit Union 113 are probably the worst treated public workers of any of the unionized municipal employees. On average a TTC employee is assaulted by a rider daily, and we all I’m sure can recall hearing insults hurled, things yelled at, and comments made about transit workers throughout the course of our own travels. It’s shameful.
Now there are photos appearing of transit workers appearing to be asleep on the job. I have to say when I first saw it, my initial reaction was like many, and I was annoyed. But thinking about it, it became clear that I don’t know enough about the individual to know whether this is medically related or what is going on in their life.
Transit users in the city rely on our TTC employees to literally get us where we’re going. Without the TTC I would have a serious problem getting to work, and certainly couldn’t live where I live and work where I work. I know when I use public transit I am thankful for the workers who drive the buses and help me get to where I’m going because I literally couldn’t live my life the way I do if they didn’t do what they do.
I understand the frustration many have had after seeing this photo, but I still think it is totally inappropriate to use a photo of a sleeping transit worker to attack TTC employees or an individual who could quite likely be suffering a medical problem the individual taking the photo did not know about. I agree with the ATU 113 officials who suggested a better plan of action would have been knocking on the glass and asking the individual if he was OK instead of opting to humiliate him.
I agree things could be a lot better with Transit and sometimes customer service is a part of that. We’ve all met snarly drivers, collection booth agents, and others, but the public treatment of TTC workers certainly doesn’t help improve the situation and does put the union in a ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ situation that hurts the City as a whole and all of us in the process.
We need transit workers to keep Toronto moving. Mutual goodwill is the best way to ensure the table is set for fruitful, and uneventful negotiations that can see the TTC to operate without labour interruption. As riders we should pick our battles and recognize this incident isn’t worth the alienation it causes or the energy expended trying to get to the bottom of it, in what has largely become a PR exercise that is somehow tied to the transit fare increase. I suspect whatever the reason it appears this individual is sleeping would still exist if a metro pass was $109, and not $121.
I feel bad for the individual whose face has now been published in each of Toronto’s major paper, and gone viral on Twitter, and think each of us needs to recognize that human decency should keep us from humiliating members of the public service. I suspect if the individual in question was a member of a union that is less targeted for criticism, and not a transit worker we wouldn’t be seeing their picture in the paper or on twitter, and someone would have done the right thing, and checked in on them to ensure they were OK.
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Tags: Amalgamated Transit Union 113, ATU 113, Sleeping, Sleeping TTC worker, Toronto TTC worker sleeping, TTC, TTC Workers
