quote:
Lack of an 'ouch factor' might prolong transit strike This mess in bus and métro service could last a long time.
That's the risk of these public-transit "half strikes" - walkouts in which strikers must, under provincial law, provide "essential service" for parts of the day. The last time these same maintenance workers used the tactic, in 1987, they did so for 27 days. The other time a half strike crippled the system was three years before that, and it lasted 30 days.
Any strike that provides partial services has a built-in problem. Although the services diminish the pain to the public, they also tend to protract it.
Because 9-to-5 workers can still commute and keep the economy more or less rolling, there's less public pressure on the transit corporation - and the elected officials who oversee it - to settle the dispute speedily. And because the transit corporation continues to pay strikers for their six hours' work a day, instead of the normal eight, there's less financial pressure on the union to settle.