By Mick Sweetman

TORONTO — At a streetcar stop at Queen and Bay streets Saturday about 50 anti-poverty activists boarded a westbound streetcar after showing the driver protest “transfers” made by the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) in what they called a “pilot program” for fighting the fare hike.

Driver and passengers seemed in good spirits as protesters chanted “Hey, Hey, TTC! Public transit should be free!” Protestors distributed OCAP “transfers” to passengers and hung a banner out the window reading “Fair rates not fare hikes” as the streetcar headed toward Spadina Avenue.

The rolling protest was against the TTC increasing fares to $3 starting on Jan. 3. The price hike is 25 cents a trip and an increase of over 10% for a monthly pass. Advocates of poor and working people say transit costs are already too high. The fare hike comes at a time of economic recession and job losses, growing poverty, and dangerously low social assistance rates.

By Alex Balch

LONDON, Ont. — Workers of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 741 went on strike at midnight Nov. 16, when the deadline for a new contract passed unheeded by their employer, the London Transit Commission (LTC). ATU-741 represents 450 bus drivers, maintenance workers and support staff, and the strike has effectively paralyzed London’s public transit system.

The workers of the LTC have been without a contract since June. Chief among their demands are regularly scheduled lunch breaks, a 12 per cent wage increase over three years and improvements to dental and short-term disability benefits. The union has repeatedly requested arbitration as a means of settling the dispute, but their requests have been blocked by LTC general manager Larry Ducharme and the city’s mayor, Anne Marie DeCicco-Best.