Absimilliard Posted May 12, 2008 Share Posted May 12, 2008 To put this into context: La Ronde was owned by the city of Montreal until 2001, so, due to that, the employees are unionised and represented by the all powerful Montreal city workers union... The kind of union where trying to see the union president without an appointment will have you thrown out like trash out of the building! During the 1990's, the park was held captive by a serie of ugly strikes. One strike had all the park's dolphins die due to a lack of care! The last strike in 1999 soured things so bad that the city put La Ronde on sale. La Ronde employees can enjoy, right now: Guaranteed hours after a certain point of the season. Meaning that even if the day is a complete washout and 500 guests show up, you're still paid for your whole shift! Wacky schedule guaranteeing a weekend out of 2 off. Starting wages near 10$/hour. This year, Six Flags originally wanted to get rid of the guaranteed hours, but this was a guaranteed strike or lock out situation, so they got the following clause in: Six Flags can use 5 rainout days, but those hours will be compensated on busy days. La Ronde employees accepted Six Flags offer and so, there won't be any strike this year! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ginzo Posted May 12, 2008 Share Posted May 12, 2008 One strike had all the park's dolphins die due to a lack of care! Very, very sad. Why wasn't care of the dolphins part of Montreal's strike contingency plan? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carnage Posted May 12, 2008 Share Posted May 12, 2008 Very, very sad. Why wasn't care of the dolphins part of Montreal's strike contingency plan? Because there are higher priorities in Quebec. Making sure English isn't used on signs is more important to them then a few dolphins. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeemerBoy Posted May 12, 2008 Share Posted May 12, 2008 Sounds like even Buffalo is > Quebec. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcjaco Posted May 12, 2008 Share Posted May 12, 2008 ^ Oui, oui. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CycloneMan Posted May 12, 2008 Share Posted May 12, 2008 Je suis heureux de voir qu'ils ne sont pas en grève! C'est un parc Six Flags qui fait un bon travail, car ils acheté! Nice to know that they aren't going on strike! This is the one park that Six Flags seems to be doing a good job on since they bought it! -Dainan "Teehee" Rafferty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Absimilliard Posted May 12, 2008 Author Share Posted May 12, 2008 A pro union governement party here passed a law that doesn't allow companies to hire scabs! So, during the strike talks, the poor dolphins got neglected and died... In 1999, La Ronde got park executives and ex employees to come here as "volunteers" to still open the park. They weren't paid, but were given a tank of gas for having showed up... Sadly, the union got in court and "proved" that it was violating the anti-scab law and the park closed for 11 days. The loss of revenues and headaches were bad enough that the city of Montreal cancelled the planned Gravity Works! (the guys who did the Dania Beach woodie in FL) and Inverted coaster (they wanted to buy Eurostar!), put the park on sale and it eventually went down to either Parc Asterix or Six Flags as the companies who wanted the park. Six Flags won, got the park in 2001 and did a great job getting the park out of its permanent fair look! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wood Dragon 1988 Posted May 12, 2008 Share Posted May 12, 2008 I've heard some really crappy things about La Ronde. I had no idea the workers were unionized. It sounds like the union actually helps them out a bit. The compensation/scheduling doesn't seem nearly as bad compared to what most amusement parks offer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carnage Posted May 13, 2008 Share Posted May 13, 2008 Nice to know that they aren't going on strike! This is the one park that Six Flags seems to be doing a good job on since they bought it! Really? Where did you get that idea from? I've read nothing but scorn about La Ronde, and how it's operations are amongst the worst in the Six Flags chain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
denning Posted May 13, 2008 Share Posted May 13, 2008 Nice to know that they aren't going on strike! This is the one park that Six Flags seems to be doing a good job on since they bought it! Really? Where did you get that idea from? I've read nothing but scorn about La Ronde, and how it's operations are amongst the worst in the Six Flags chain. Because the scary thing is that before six flags got invovled it was far far worse. Leave it to the Quebecois to ruin even a themepark with a perfect location. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Absimilliard Posted May 13, 2008 Author Share Posted May 13, 2008 At least the park has some families visiting now! Before Six Flags bought it, the park was 90% teenagers who smoked in line, cut in line, brought their lunch, so they would not spend a dollar more than the 50$ season pass their school sold them! The city of Montreal also let the park get rundown during the 90's... its only in 1999-2000 that they started to clean up the place. Six Flags came in in 2001, didn't do much beside figure out what they didn't work and then ripped out and rebuilt the 2 park entrances, all the park's bathrooms and started running restaurants themselves. Six Flags did some good work with the park, but between maintenance (who are in no rush to inspect rides and coaster trains..) and employees (37.5 hours at work in 3 days... that's their excuse for being tired and slow on sundays! Don't you dare tell me to move faster or I'll drop a grievance on you!), the lines just don't move. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
packfanlv Posted May 13, 2008 Share Posted May 13, 2008 I never knew the employees at La Ronde were unionized. Perhaps this explains a lot about the operations and cleanliness of the park. I persoanlly think that this is by far the worst property in the Six Flags chain. It is clear though that this park has had problems for a long time. I think in adding a couple of good coasters, (Goliath is great) Six Flags can now concentrate on making it feel like less of a dump. Does anyone know why they still allow people to bring in their own food? I would think that they would've gotten rid of this. Of course maybe it has something to do with the local culture. When I was in line for Goliath last year a kid was eating plain tuna fish in front of me with his hands. He had a large plastic container and what looked like three cans worth of tuna. The smell was horrendous! I do love the province of Quebec though. It really is a unique place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Absimilliard Posted May 13, 2008 Author Share Posted May 13, 2008 In 2002 or 2003, they tried banning lunches and outside food from La Ronde.... but, the GP complained and protested so loud they had to back off and still allow people to bring in food... They managed to get rid of the "Babysitter" park through by raising passes a lot (90-95$ this year) and stopped selling passes to schools directly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carnage Posted May 13, 2008 Share Posted May 13, 2008 In 2002 or 2003, they tried banning lunches and outside food from La Ronde.... but, the GP complained and protested so loud they had to back off and still allow people to bring in food... Did they have a referendum?? If they can't have independance, then damn it they should be able to bring food into the theme park. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now