Strike Three!

I have written about this before, so I am going to go to another source to begin this piece (let them do some of the work):

“My workplace is at DDO [Dollard-des-Ormeaux], which is quite far from Saint-Leonard. Today, I was waiting for the 460 express bus. I left home 30 minutes earlier than usual due to limited service, which cause me to arrive at work an hour early. It’s okay. However, the bus never arrived, despite being shown on the map and STM.info website. This occurred twice during the previous strike. The next bus is scheduled to arrive 40 minutes later, so I missed the last 409 bus (service ends at 9:15 am). I had to take an Uber. I wonder, how many more days I will have to endure this.”

We all wonder, u/avoid_sharif on Reddit, we all do.

Now, this is just one small part of the discussion section of r/montreal, but it speaks volumes about what life has been like for the last five days. We are now onto our third strike with La Société de transport de Montréal and I am also beginning to wonder how long I will have to get creative with my schedule.

I am tapping this out at Gare Centrale, in a Second Cup that is also full of various travelers waiting to be taken away from this city, and I cannot blame them. I woke up early today, exercised, waited until I came down here for my first cup of coffee, packed up my laptop and other notes, and went out to catch the metro early (caught a bus that I did not expect to run, and found that it was not yet crowded). The way it works for us now is that the metro and buses will now run in the morning, late afternoon, and very late at night. No what that means is, for people without a regular nine-to-five schedule (hello), we have to get very creative with how we get around and survive this strike. Today is not too bad. My class begins at 1 pm. The last metro ends its run at 9:30 am. And I’m the instructor, so I cannot just ditch and hibernate for the rest of the season. Yesterday, one of my bosses called an Uber for me in the rain as I ended a class between transport breaks, and the first driver refused to come to the front entrance (taxis from now on, folks).

I do not think, at least since the quarantine for Covid-19, that I have ever been as grateful for my career as an online teacher. I have attempted to put everything possible on Zoom, but I still have to head out with the rest of the Montrealais and my persistent cold (rain, cold, and lack of sunlight are not helping). For tomorrow, which is supposed to be a day off, I am expected to appear at the college for a journée pédagogique (professional development day). The theme will be the use of AI technology and how it is affecting both our lives and the lives of our students (i.e. get used to it, teachers; you don’t have a choice).

We also have a new mayor, a woman who has promised to handle this problem, and spent her first day at a metro stop greeting passengers (I noted one filmed encounter where she spoke both French and…Spanish). It is only right that she would make this the key issue with voters. There is no other issue that has united this city so closely in a very long time. People want to see the Habs play near my college. They want to go out to see movies, visit festivals, and not have to jump and skip from bike to taxi to Uber to (maybe) hitchhiking to get around the city that they love. And they have kept in mind that the metro and buses were completely shut down on November 1st (they plan to do the same on the 14th and 15th as a pressure tactic).

Well, lesson learned. I say give them what they want, and get a contract together that will keep things in the city running. We are heading towards the end of the semester and I do not want my students to add, “The metro/bus was shut down” to their list of excuses.

Let’s fix this.

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You can find more poems, stories, and articles by Kendall Defoe on my Vocal profile. I complain, argue, provoke and create...just like everybody else.

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