Morning Brew: August 22nd, 2008

The US election is a conspiracy to keep people from finding out the evil truths about the corporate, self-appointed, world wide police force. It's up there with award and reality shows and makes me sing verses from Floyd's Animals album.

If the TTC became an essential service, labour costs would go up even higher than they are now. My TTC pass costs enough already, thanks.

Funny now most media says the TTC wants to maintain the "workers' right to strike", but fails to mention that this is also to preserve its own "right to lock workers out". Coverage of collective bargaining issues is so often one-sided... ah, well.

Funny how... argh.

There is an additional premium you have to give workers when you declare them an essential service, because they've lost the right to strike, but I think the TTC should do it anyway.

Take the hit in the short term, but start cutting benefits, employees and start contracting more out. They can't strike in protest and, in the long term, labour costs will fall.

The reason I feel that Canadians give a darn about the U.S. elections is that we are so inundated by them through our media outlets, who don't give the Canadian elections half the scrutiny (but then, we don't have the farce of the two years pre-show either).

US elections - also, the President can be equated to leader of the world. That might have something to do with it.

Guy Lafleur said: "...start cutting benefits, employees and start contracting more out [and] in the long term, labour costs will fall."

But in the 'essential service' scenario, changes to the collective agreement (e.g. benefits cuts) would be subject to the discretion of an arbitrator. Such cuts could be difficult to obtain. Also, it's not just a one-time hit to the TTC but rather an ongoing tendency for the arbitrator to favour the workers.

Sure, but the city has to be willing to set the bar low from the outset. The arbitrator will have to find a point somewhere between the two positions. The cuts would be somewhat tempered by the arbitrator, but if the city continues to be aggressively low in its positions, costs will trend down.

We should care about the outcome of the US elections as our economy relies heavily on them. Sadly, our economy likely relies far more on their election than it does our own.

If only we had some better candidates to choose from, perhaps we'd care more about our own.

anyone who takes the TTC on a regular basis would be surprised to know they're not already on strike. bus and train drivers operate like they're on a work-to-rule campaign.

the U.S. election is electric and always filled with dynamic characters. in Canada, we have Stephen "Shake my hand, son" Harper, Jack "I'm so left, I'm right" Layton, and Stephane "The Librarian" Dion. the closest these lameasses get to being exciting is...well, I don't have a punchline for that one.

In defence of dynamic & electric librarians everywhere, I'll have you know that should be Stephane "The (political science)Professor" Dion.

hey Greg, some of my best friends are librarians. I think I slighted their profession by including Dion.

How about Stephane "The bologna and mayo on white bread sandwich" Dion?

nothing's more boring than that.