Metro fracas blamed on language
A young woman says a female ticket clerk assaulted her in the metro on Monday after a dispute over language escalated to blows. Wondering if the STM has security footage of the incident.
Once again the STM is up against a dilemma. Their policy is that nobody should ever have to speak anything but French, but their policy is also that employees should be polite. Is stonily refusing to speak English (even if you can) ever going to be a polite thing to do?
Meanwhile, the new language minister says bilingualism should not be a requirement to get hired for a job. I assume generally if you’re hiring people, you don’t include frivolous requirements. Can the government pass a law to dictate the skills asked for in job placement ads?
Ian 19:18 on 2012/10/29 Permalink
Pretty sure it’s not about English … since the stm worker’s side is being withheld I’m pretty sure the “I got attacked just for speaking telling the ticket taker I had made an official complaint” is sweeping some crucial context under the rug. Granted the stm worker shouldn’t have attacked her but I can almost gaurantee that the exchange was, shall we say, slightly more heated than Ms. Barak implies.
Clément 19:53 on 2012/10/29 Permalink
Personally, I’d like to get security footage and the other person’s version before passing judgement. I doubt very much the story is exactly as the Gazette reports it: One poor helpless victim and one rabid STM worker foaming at the mouth while punching the poor victim because she dared speak English.
I’m pretty sure the STM employee is not without blame, but come on, this is Montreal. If this employee attacked every English speaking commuter that comes through De La Savane on a daily basis (for absolutely no other reason than speaking English), there would be a blood bath!
Kate 19:56 on 2012/10/29 Permalink
A threat to lose somebody their job is pretty well fighting words, I agree, Ian.
Clément, my link’s to the CBC, not the Gazette – they’re usually a little more moderate on this kind of subject.
De la Savane is one of the least used stations in the whole system. I don’t think a scrap between a ticket clerk and a passenger could have got that far in most stations – too many people around, too many potential witnesses.
Ian 20:07 on 2012/10/29 Permalink
“A threat to lose somebody their job”.. you thinking in French again, Kate? :)
Kate 20:07 on 2012/10/29 Permalink
heh. i’ll pay you a drink one of these days.
Susana Machado 20:39 on 2012/10/29 Permalink
You know what they say, there are always three sides to a story, my side, your side and the truth.
On the other hand, I have had several less than pleasant encounters with STM employees. Most of them are rude, unprofessional slobs. Even if I do always speak in French to/with them.
Couple of months ago at Mont-Royal metro, middle of a dead afternoon, I approach the booth to buy two tickets. The woman was reading a magazine (hey, I don’t care, she’s allowed to do whatever… ) and didn’t see me approach, so I say Bonjour, so she looks up and says ¨Sti qu’y a pas moyen d’etre tranquile icitte!, Que c’est tu veux?” Like, sorry for bothering you!
So, yeah, there is a lot of untold in this story.
Steph 22:31 on 2012/10/29 Permalink
I can’t even fathom a situation where escalating words would justify the ticket clerk leaving the booth.
Marc 22:33 on 2012/10/29 Permalink
She did end up at the ER, for you can see her patient bracelet in the video. But the security camera footage will tell all. Anyone know if the security system is just eyes; or eyes and ears?
marco 22:48 on 2012/10/29 Permalink
It’s not normal for the ticket clerk to leave the booth to throw a few punches at a passenger? I just assume this is what is going to happen to me whenever I take the metro.
Steve Quilliam 23:50 on 2012/10/29 Permalink
Maybe it was Stéfanie Trudeau (aka matricule 728) that was in the booth working for the STM after she had been put aside by the SPVM !
Kate 00:57 on 2012/10/30 Permalink
Something like that crossed my mind when the CBC news woman described the clerk putting the victim in a headlock.
JS 06:52 on 2012/10/30 Permalink
I was there and saw the whole thing. Completely nuts. At about 1 pm I got out of the metro, go up the stairs right on time to see the metro employee getting out of her kiosk, slamming the door, and then start slamming the customer. Ran over and tried to help but my standing right behind the women and yelling and screaming and banging on the top of the turnstile thingie didn’t do squat. They were on the other side of the turnstile, tangling ass right where customers communicate with the metro employees through the porthole. A young man was on the other side of the turnstiles, and he pulled the customer away from the metro employee. After a few seconds the metro employee returned to her kiosk and got on the phone. I’d love to hear what she told whoever she called. The customer was all agitated and yelled at me to call 911, which I had but then had hung up to try to intervene directly. I told her to go upstairs and wait for the cops. On my escalator ride up 911 called me back. I described what I saw, and by the time I got to street level the customer was talking to a couple of metro cops, which I relayed to 911.
Ian 07:58 on 2012/10/30 Permalink
Did you catch the initial argument before it got physical? I’m not trying to justify the STM employee’s actions, as they’re clearly way past acceptable, but how big a verbal fight were they having beforehand?
Jack 08:35 on 2012/10/30 Permalink
@ JS thanks
Michel 09:04 on 2012/10/30 Permalink
I kinda feel for the STM employee here. I swear, when I’m knitting and having to count stitches, there’s nothing more annoying than being spoken to. You lose the stitch count, and it’s a bitch to find yourself again.
/Kidding about siding with the STM.
//Not kidding about being distracted while knitting. :)
JS 09:04 on 2012/10/30 Permalink
I didn’t see or hear what led up to the altercation. The whole time I was wondering what the customer could have said or did to induce the metro attendant to freak out like she did.
Tux 09:43 on 2012/10/30 Permalink
It’s my experience that STM employees are generally either teenage 7-11 clerk level apathetic or plain ol’ rude. It’s the rare day-making exception that a bus driver, ticket booth minder, or security person is actually actively pleasant when dealing with a customer. Do their jobs suck that much? I thought STM jobs were sweet union gigs.
JS 10:00 on 2012/10/30 Permalink
Btw, even though it’s a very quiet station, aside from myself and the two young people who got involved (actually one, the guy who heroically pulled the customer away), there were other people passing through the station. Not many, and I can’t remember if they stuck around or kept going, but there must be at least another half-dozen or so people who must have seen something.
Kevin 10:08 on 2012/10/30 Permalink
@JS
Would you want to talk about this on camera? Fling an email to CTV at montrealnews@ctv.ca
Thanks.
walkerp 10:15 on 2012/10/30 Permalink
Just bonkers. Thanks for the report, JS.
Kate 10:48 on 2012/10/30 Permalink
JS, thanks for telling us what you saw.
People on reddit are telling stories that the ticket booth jobs are often given to people who wash out as bus drivers because they have trouble dealing with the public. Odd choice if true, since they’re still dealing with the public.
My impression is that the folks manning the busier booths on the orange line always seem more awake and responsive to the public than the ones on the slightly sleepier blue line. But De la Savane, although orange, comes dead last on Métro de Montréal’s list of stations by throughput (data collected in 2006, but not likely to have changed much since then) – banished to knit all day at De la Savane is pretty well being put somewhere out of the way where your anger issues aren’t likely to face much provocation.
dwgs 11:31 on 2012/10/30 Permalink
The sleepy station might also be where you stick your problem child employees, as they’re less likely to mess up.
Josh 12:05 on 2012/10/30 Permalink
I wrote a story or two that related to the STM when I was in the student press. This was about a decade ago now and things may well have changed, but at that time I was made to believe that booth jobs in metro stations were a kind of punishment for employees who’d performed poorly elsewhere.
No one wants them, see, because you are trapped underground in concrete all day/night.
JS 13:07 on 2012/10/30 Permalink
Ran into CTV & Global earlier, interviewing Mina. She had a nasty bruise on her head. The Global reporter told me that the STM agent was in the hospital. Incredulously I blurted out “For what? Mental problems?!?” I don’t know if that will be featured in their report.
paul 15:12 on 2012/10/30 Permalink
What officials don’t realize is that these service staff act as ambassadors for the city for visitors; they are often the first source of information to tourists. They should be representing what we want our city to be…cosmopolitan, bilingual, courteous, etc.
Maybe there is an opportunity for the Tourism Board or Chamber of Commerce to get involved with job training, even rewards for employees that exemplify this behavior.
Kate 23:19 on 2012/10/30 Permalink
paul, I think you may be right on this. If it’s sold hard as a tourism issue, and not as something being done for local anglos, there’s a faint hope that the STM might have to buy the notion of having public-facing staff able and willing to speak some English. Not much hope, but some.
They wouldn’t put them at De la Savane, though…
Josh 18:07 on 2012/10/31 Permalink
Kate, the only problem with that thought is that tourism apparently is not a good enough reason for shopkeepers and their employees in the downtown core to work in English. If tourism isn’t a good enough reason for private enterprises to have that right (I mean, they *do* have that right but I’m talking about in the mind of the language fanatic here), I fail to see why would it be reason enough for a government entity to have it.
Ephraim 04:50 on 2012/11/01 Permalink
Paul, the tourism board is owned and run by the board of trade.