still on strike

Well, there you go. I thought the numbers would be the opposite, a grudging acceptance. Instead the members of ATU 1724 have grudgingly rejected the mediated offer. Fifty-eight percent of HandyDART employees said no. This just tells you how poisoned the relations are with the employer, to manage in one year to turn a non-militant group that has never had a strike, into such determined strikers. But 42% said yes, so it's not good.

Expect something like another miserable month for the passengers, before the heavy hand of the government brings HandyDART back to work. Or maybe, just maybe, the employer will say yes now to binding arbitration, which the union had asked for.

I suspect it's the pay scale. HandyDART drivers were offered an amount that is $4.75 less per hour than drivers make in Victoria. This is a historical wrong that may never be corrected. And it may explain why they feel hard done by. They are. But so too are the passengers, and I fear the sympathy for the drivers will begin to slip.

Oh dear, that's all I can say.