The TTC is not the better way for many of its employees according to TTC union president Bob Kinnear. 
“Our operators are in a very, very difficult situation when they’ve got the uniform on,” Kinnear told Citynews.
Kinnear was responding to a report conducted by the Toronto Star over a two-year period, which found that TTC employees suffer from high rates of post-traumatic stress due to assaults and abuse from unruly riders.
The investigation revealed levels of post-traumatic stress among TTC workers are about four times higher than police rates, prompting union officials to call for major changes to TTC policies.
Kinnear sees the report as a wake-up call and wants the TTC to take swift action to protect workers and also to provide them with full compensation when they apply for sick leave due to stress and injuries incurred on the job.
“City employees, park employees, when they get injured on the job, their wages are topped up. There’s no loss of income,” he said in an interview with the Star. “Nobody should ever have to go to work and worry about being assaulted.”
Kinnear says abuse toward TTC employees ranges from verbal insults to assault, including the use of weapons such as pepper spray, knives and even guns.
TTC Chair Adam Giambrone told CTV that the city is serious about addressing worker’s grievances. He cited the city’s plan to install security cameras on all TTC vehicles and to hire more special constables to protect TTC employees.
“Obviously these problems are not new to us,” Giambrone told CTV. “We need to take this seriously and prosecute aggressively.”
The TTC also plans to install plastic shields later this year in buses and streetcars to offer more protection for nervous drivers.
TTC violence continues
Despite Giambrone’s assertions that more is being done to protect TTC workers, the violence continues. On the same day that the Star report was released a TTC bus driver was assaulted twice in one day near the Pape subway station.
Reported in the Toronto Star, the incident began like many other acts of violence against TTC employees as three men refused to pay the fare. Once the driver refused to let them on the bus, the men spit on the driver.
The men later tried to board the bus, which resulted in the driver being hit and kicked before two of the men fled. A 20-year old man has been charged with assault and resisting arrest.
The driver was not seriously injured but the incident further highlights the challenges TTC employees face every day.
Filed under: Adam Giambrone, TTC
