It's All Performance Art 12

We are in the early stages of a creeping bus strike in my city. Some routes are getting disrupted, and it is likely to get worse before it gets better. It is hard to stay sympathetic to bus drivers when your own ability to get around is being jeopardized. Of course, their employers are largely to blame, but public transit is an essential public service and I really wish they would all be adults about it. Even if their job is difficult, they are still earning more than twice what I pull in as a mental health peer support worker, and I also have bills to pay. And I don't have a union to cover my ass, so anything I say to my employers about my crappy pay and work conditions puts me at risk of being terminated. The question is, where do we draw the line between self-interest and the general good? Whatever happened to compromise? It is unfortunate that our culture of employment is so hierarchical and authority based, that things often have to get ugly before employers will yield even an inch. I am sympathetic towards the bus drivers. But as a bus rider, I would like to be shown some sympathy as well. So, I am not going to take sides. I only wish they would all hurry up and be adults about it. I would like the bus drivers to get everything they want, but the power is always weighed in favour of the bosses, and this is inevitable. It is like a hangover from the kind of feudalism that dominated life in Europe for almost one thousand years. Feudalism has not gone away, and our thinking still has not changed enough for us to see any real and meaningful social change. And, as always, the marginalized and the most vulnerable get to pay the price for the benefit of others. The poor, the badly paid workers, the disabled, seniors, those of us how most rely on public transit for getting around, we now have to worry about not being able to get to our crappy jobs. Most of us are not union workers. We get no benefits. If we miss a shift or a meeting, we will not get paid any compensation. I am lucky that I live in social housing, but for low income workers pulling in just a little more than minimum wage? They would only need to miss three or four shifts in a week, and then how are they going to pay their rent. Homelessness is so high risk in Vancouver. What are Translink and the bus drivers prepared to do to help compensate us? Silly me that I have to ask such a dumb question, darlings. How about persons with disabilities and seniors who have to make it to medical and mental health appointments? Translink, and bus drivers, where is your conscience? I, for one, am not going to be that affected. Even in crappy weather, I enjoy walking long distances, and fortunately my work assignments are within walking distance, for me anyway. But students who have to travel from Surrey to attend classes at UBC? They will not be walking to school. Please, you guys, be adults, come to an agreement, or compromise. But stop punishing those of us who are least able to defend ourselves!