BY ROSEMARY RAY
HAMILTON, Ontario - Bus drivers and maintenance workers who
are members of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 107 are
going into their seventh week on strike against Hamilton
Streetcar Railway (HSR). HSR runs the public bus system in this
city of more than 300,000, which is 30 miles west of Toronto.
The ATU members rejected a concessions contract offer from the HSR that included a 20 percent wage cut for new hires, a 1 percent wage increase for each year of a three-year contract and the refusal of HSR to contribute to the workers' pension fund.
Showing the company that they are ready for a long fight the strikers are busy on the picket line building wooden shacks insulated with plastic sheets. Wooden skids are piled high, ready to burn in the barrels that will be the only source of warmth for the strikers as winter approaches.
This is the fourth strike by Hamilton bus drivers in the last 20 years. Strikers on the picket line explain with pride that they struck to defend their working conditions in 1971, 1982, and 1996.
Tony Iacozza, a bus driver for 20 years, said that even though public transit has come to a standstill in the city that the majority of the public is supporting the union in this fight. "The HSR is waging a propaganda campaign against our strike, trying to turn the public against us. They are putting advertisements in the Spectator, Hamilton's daily newspaper, saying we are rejecting their generous contract offer," Iacozza said.
The HSR advertisements are trying to turn public opinion against the strike by saying that meeting the union's demands would mean a tax increase of $30 per Hamilton household, substantial bus fare increases, and cancellation of later evening and Sunday bus service.
They are particularly trying to scare senior citizens who rely on public transit by saying that the special low-rate yearly bus passes for seniors would go from $160 to $360 if the HSR gives in to the union's contract demands.
Iacozza, who is the secretary-treasurer of his local, told Militant reporters that the bus drivers have not had a wage increase since 1993. "If you take the 3 percent they are offering over three years now, that equals out to 0.37 percent over eight years, which in no way keeps up with the cost of living over the same period," he said.
Strikers on the picket line were particularly concerned about HSR's demands to pay lower wages to new hires. Not only will it take five years to reach top rate the company reserves the right to not give the increase if they consider there to be a problem with "a new employee's learning curve." Any work performance or disciplinary measures taken against new hires would disqualify them from their wage increase.
In its advertising campaign the HSR is boasting that it has improved transit service in Hamilton at the same time as having $13 million removed from its operating budget by the provincial government of Ontario.
"This is not true," Iacozza said. "In 1985 the total miles operated by HSR was 9.042 million and by 1996 it went down to 8.095 miles. Not only did they reduce service to the public in the last 5 years, HSR has also raised bus fares by 25 percent."
Pointing to the fact that HSR is no friend of seniors Iacozza added that the seniors' passes jumped from $90 per year in 1993 to $165 in 1998.
On December 3 the ATU local voted down a second HSR contract offer by nearly 99 percent because it still contained concession demands.
Apart from their determination to fight off the HSR's concession demands the drivers on the picket line explain that driving a city bus is a difficult job citing lack of washroom facilities while driving their routes, eight-hour shifts without designated breaks and split shifts.
Bus drivers from Toronto, who work for the Toronto Transit Commission and whose own contract expires in March 1999, have come to the picket lines in Hamilton to lend their support. The strikers maintain 24-hour picket lines and are organizing a Christmas pot-luck lunch at the Wentworth Gate on December 23, to which all are welcome.
Rosemary Ray is a member of United Steelworkers of America Local 9208.