With the TTC Union legislated back to work by the Ontario government as of Sunday afternoon, on the surface things are back to normal. But it seems more likely now that "normal" will change, and that the city will put in a request with the province for the TTC to be declared an essential service.

I don't know very much about labour law, but there's a definition of essential services in this online document, Guidelines for Essential Services Agreements. This is a Federal document, but if Ontario's decision would be based on the same criteria, then here's what it says:

"Services should be identified as essential where there are reasonable grounds for accepting the probability, or even the possibility, that human life or public safety would suffer if a work stoppage interrupted the duties of these employees."

Prior to Friday night I could have argued either way for how to classify the TTC, but that was because I never would have imagined they'd withdraw service the way they did. But stranding people in the middle of the night, especially on a weekend night when many folks have been out drinking and planning to transit home, clearly goes well beyond a mere inconvenience.

If the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113 executive wanted us to understand just how important the transit workers are, they've succeeded. If they planned to use that as a bargaining chip when they threatened striking in future negotiations, they may have failed miserably.

I'm going to continue to be friendly and polite with TTC workers, since I know that for many Friday's actions weren't a personal choice. But if the government moves to take away their right to strike, well, let's just say I won't be writing any letters of protest to my MPP.