Durham Region Transit Angry Over Golf Course Picket

But now the vitriol between the two has literally taken a new course – and it appears to be getting personal.

The walkout, which began last Friday, centres mainly over benefits and has left up to 300,000 passengers in Pickering, Clarington and Oshawa scrambling for alternate transportation.

No new talks are scheduled and the union has been doing everything in its power to push its point with management.

So when it discovered members from Durham Transit were scheduled to play at a charity golf tournament Wednesday, the union announced it would send picketers to the entrance of the Woodensticks Golf Club in Uxbridge to make their presence known.

They complained management has time to play a round, while talks remain on hold and thousands are inconvenienced.

That outraged those in the front office, who immediately issued a statement noting the action was unwarranted, because those involved in the game have nothing to do with the negotiating committee.

“No person on my team will be golfing in the charity tournament,” proclaims lead negotiator Matt Wilson in a statement. “It is unfortunate that the CAW would cast the negotiating team in this way, it is simply not true.”

That didn’t deter the protestors. “They should really have been putting their time in to getting a result to this labour dispute and giving their tickets away to this charity event to someone else,” complains CAW Local 222’s John Johnson.

But management notes the tournament is for charity and shouldn’t be dragged into the strike.

“To call this off and not allow that money to flow through to Special Olympics would be a bad thing,” suggests Transit G.M. Ted Galinis.

The sides went back and forth until a new revelation hit on Wednesday – an apparent ‘secret’ email from the Deputy General Manager of Operations to his staff about the golf tournament. It reads “due to the current situation, it would be wise for all of you to book the day as a vacation day so there is no possibility the CAW could use it against us in the event of bad press.”

The city’s Garth Johns is outraged by the implication.

“Someone has taken that from someone else’s computer. It was not sent to them directly,” he counters.

But what about the so-called optics? “I’d say they’re taking it as a vacation day,” he responds. “What people do on their vacation is not my concern.”

The bottom line? Those on the golf course won’t be the only ones going for a drive for the foreseeable future. Passengers will have to continue to make other plans, and with less than a week already gone, the strain on many is starting to show.

And the golf game is only fueling an already blazing anger.

“It shows no consideration for the people that work underneath them,” fumes inconvenienced passenger Kenneth Hammond. “They’re saying, okay, you guys suffer. We’re just going to go relax, play some golf.”

For its part, the union has decided to try and force arbitration.

“The union had requested management to jointly approach the Ontario Labour Relations Board to proceed to first contract arbitration as provided for under the Labour Relations Act and thereby avoid a dispute,” explains Hemi Mitic, Assistant to CAW President Buzz Hargrove.

But the local complains management rejected that suggestion, sending the union into a lengthy application with the Board to force the process.

And that action, it warns, “could take weeks.”