Former Ottawa bus driver Pierre Lebrun murders four transit workers at the St. Laurent Blvd bus garage before killing himself. Lebrun had been fired in 1997, reinstated and quit again in 1998.
The massacre led to substantial changes in the collective agreement between OC Transpo and ATU Local 279. The focus of these changes was improving work-life balance for workers. By all accounts, OC Transpo was a miserable place to work before the massacre.
Less than a decade after the massacre, Ottawa's millionaire mayor Larry O'Brien sought to rollback these work-life balance gains, including extending the 8-hour split shift spread from 12.5 to 14.5 hours. ATU 279 members struck on December 10 2008. For 52 days, the transit workers held out in the bitter cold against a hostile mayor, hostile transit management, and anti-unionism stoked by the corporate media.
Early in the strike, Local 279's president André Cornellier was declared public enemy #1 in the local press. Cornellier, who was francophone, was not a polished speaker in English. Speaking to the press, he observed how the elderly and people with disabilities had supported an earlier strike by ParaTranspo workers, so he questioned why the able-bodied public could not support their strike. The press, who suddenly declared themselves the champions of bus-bound low-wage workers, assassinated Cornellier's character.
As the new year rolled around and the global economic was swirling around the toilet bowl, OC Transpo mangaement used the federal labour code to impose a "forced vote". Transit workers rejected the so-called offer by 62 percent. The workers fell under federal labour jurisdiction because some routes crossed the border into Gatineau, Quebec.
The dispute was settled with major issues going to binding arbitration. The Harper regime then imposed "essential service" legislation on the transit workers, revoking their right to strike (Ontario's Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty would also revoke Toronto transit workers' right to strike in 2011).
Larry O'Brien, who reportedly intervened directly in bargaining to cause the strike, was destroyed in the subsequent election. In his place came Jim Watson, an Ontario Liberal cabinet minister, who would preside over the corrupt Ottawa LRT disaster.
Ottawa transit workers and transit riders have a common enemy, and it is not each other. From shitty working conditions, management bullying, fare hikes and service cuts, it's the political class and OC Transpo management who are the source of Ottawa's endless transit problems.
