A8 - Wednesday, August 8, 1984 - North Shore News

Ellsworth
Dickson

S THE transit shutdown drags on, it
is not just the public that is having a
hard time. A food bank has been set
to aid the drivers and their families. So far the
provincial government is only monitoring the
Situation.
Today’s question 1s:

‘““Should the provincial
government step in to
end the transit shut-
down?’

Kurt Johansen
North Vancouver
Definitely. | think the
transit system 1s an
essential service and it 1s
just disgusting that the
dispute has gone on so
long. We help pay for
transit in Our taxes and
we have no service.

Margaret Lonergan
Deita

Yes. Both citizens and
local merchants are
suffering from the
shutdown. I don't know
if there is a right or
wrong side, but it ts time
for the needs of the
public to have priority

Philip Law
North Vancouver

IT think so. bt hke to
help my family by
driving them around, but
itis now becoming a
Nuisance | know other
people who are having a
difficult time going to
work and just getting
chores done

Joanna Magdec
North Vancouver
Yes, they should |
have to hitch hike to
work on the other

the city

Stabe arf
Vf bavbocor atacd
Management! can ft solve

their problems then the

government should step
in
furte Metaner
North Vancouver

Yos the shutdhowa tuas
Bote cer Com beonag Seon
young peopie arc fateh
Prakvevg cereal Chvat caer toe
Manpetous especially fo
yours gurls boar see

Breall hasstes neat mont

when school starts

he bus dispute is in its eighth week, and the

hard-luck stories are starting. A driver call

William Jackson says he’s broke, heavily in
debt, and worried about how he will feed his wife
and kids. There are also complaints about how the
cruel Socreds have denied welfare benefits for peo-
ple engaged in industrial action. Well, Mr. Jackson
wouldn’t have those worries if he hadn’t voted to
go on strike. As for welfare, why should taxpayers
who earn a damned sight less than bus drivers have
to subsidize other people’s bad ways?

To read the bat-brained
editorial comments in the
Vancouver dailies, you would
think that the Metro Transit
Operating Company is jo
blame for what has happen-
ed. But the truth is that
MTOC is simply trying’ to
manage, instead of allowing
itself to be run out of town by
the union. The Sun, mean-
while, whose editorial pages
crawl with parlor-pink
socialists, blames the provin-
cial government. By not in-
tervening in the dispute, says
that dim-witted oracle, Ben-
nett and Co. show they want
to crush the union.

For all I know the MTOC
is peopled by devils. But if |
were a bus driver, I would
never have voted for any
strike. Not when the average
wage is $31,000 a year for a
37'2-hour week, when some
privileged guys make $40,000
a year, and when it’s even
possible to top $50,000. And
that’s not even to mention

get this

by
Doug Collins

medical plans, dental plans,

three weeks’ holidays after
one year, and pensions and

other perks that add another
35 per cent to the company
labor bill.

I know guys who would
read Lorne Parton columns
and go to church every Sun-
day to get such conditions.

When this dispute began,
the MOTC put out an ad ask-
ing: ‘‘Who Runs The
Buses?’’ But the ad didn’t
spell out the answer, which is
that the union is running the
buses and wants to go on run-
ning them. One would think,
for instance, that manage-
ment would be able to tell
drivers when, how and where
they are to drive. But the
dumb managements of the
Past, meaning the B.C. Elec-
tric and the B.C. Hydro,
played the appeasement game
to the hilt and let the union
decide those things.

Mr. Aristocrat Driver
selects his routes and shifts
according to seniority. He
can also work the spareboard
fiddle, which gives him stacks. _
of unnecessary overtime.
That’s how those chaps chalk
up their $40,000 and $50,000
a year, and it’s because
MOTC wants to bring a bit
of sanity into the spareboard
system that this dispute has
taken place.

The use of part-time
drivers to help with rush-
hour traffic, etc, would see a
partial reduction of the
spareboard racket. No full-
time drivers would be laid

BE mailbox | <|

Dear Editor:

] would lke to thank the
North Shore News for
devoting space to the West
Vancouver Council Meeting,
of Monday evening, July 30.
At that tame council was ask-
ed to declare the Municipality
ot West Vancouver, A
Nuclear Weapons Free Zone
by physicians, veterans,
church organizations, United
Nations members, protes
sional groups and other
ciazens concerned about the
growing threat of human ex
tnchon However |
pomnt oul your
reading, “Groups
Support) os
roneous
happened

Council refused to declare
West Vancouver Ao Nuclear
Weapons Etee Zone and yor
with the 62 other
municipalities who have done
soo © anada

West Council
lacked the Courage lo
and

The stigde exception,

must
headline
WV
totally oer
In fact the opposite

wih

Vancouver
make

this moral sy ribvorlic
goesturc
oft the

Doreen

council present,
Blackburn.
moved a motion to have stalt
proceed with a bylaw dev las
inp West

Wa

who

Vancource a
Nuclear Weapons bree Zone

but could met find oa

secondert

Instead they passed oa
tesoluhion oin effect, calling
onthe © anadian Government
to remove nuclear weapons
only when all qeher Countries
of the world wanplement oa
disarmament program
THEIR RESOLUTION

WAS MEANINGEESS'!
Caven this as an ind ation
of the way council acts when
comfronted with moral isucs
Lotrust members of the com
“yay

will be catecmcty

lal, Saree,

when casting ther

warts

Paul Little) ¢ bhairman
West Vancouver Citizens bf of
Peace

Representalives
“hands on "|
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Why the buses aren't running

off, but Dinosaurs Incor-
porated, otherwise known as
the Independent Canadian
Transit Union, gets palpita-
tions at such a horrible pro-
spect. And that’s why the
buses aren’t running.

Even more ridiculous is the
union attitude to route
changes. Kelly’s creed is that
what was, shall be for ever-
more, amen. But what the
hell business is it of the union
if the company wants to
reduce certain runs and wipe
out others? There are some
routes -- Beach Avenue in
Vancouver is one -- where
you could fire a dozen volleys
of grapeshot through a bus at
night and hit no one but the

driver. So why should
management keep such
routes going? Is the bus

system supposed to be a Bus
Drivers Benevolent Fund?

Would the Sun and Pro-
vince, -limp-hearts though
they are, like their unions to
tell them when to put the
papers out, or what routes to
deliver them on? Would Van-
couver’s dotty mayor, who
takes the union side and
denies an alternate bus ser-
vice, like his garbage collec-
tors to decide which routes
they will work? How about a
spareboard for milkmen?

It would serve the union
right if Bennett said the hell
with it, dissolved the MOTC,
and told Harcourt and other
braves to run their own
buses. West Van. manages
nicely that way. Mr.
Jackson’s troubles might be
Over, too, because he might
be able to go to work again
instead of whining about the
consequences of his own
actions.

the following free