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The Situation: You are head of a public transit union serving the largest city in Canada, and you're in contract negotiations with the city. Last week, you almost went on strike but an 11th-hour agreement was reached. You agreed that you'd give a 48-hour strike notice. The public was pretty upset about the potential for a strike, and was kind of nasty to your employees.
On Friday, your union members voted against last week's agreement.
The Decision: Do you... a) give 48 hours' notice like you promised, and go on strike? b) out of concern for your workers, go on an unannounced strike at the end of the day? c) go on an unannounced strike immediately, at midnight on a Friday night, stranding people who assumed service would go to 2:30am as usual?
I suspect the backlash from this is going to be far worse than the 48-hour lead-up would have been. People are pissed. I hope the new contract includes hazard pay, because in one idiotic move the TTC has used up their quota of public sympathy for the next 25 years or so. David Miller, the mayor of Toronto, was resisting calls to declare the TTC an essential service - but now he's reconsidering.
I feel bad for everyone in this situation - the stranded people, the morning surprise for transit riders, the TTC operators who're going to be on the frontlines of the backlash... Everyone except for the idiot who thought this was a good idea.
He, I think, should be stuck on the main floor of Union Station to take the abuse that would otherwise be directed at the regular staff.
(Edited because I put a completely unrelated link in by accident.)
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