Premier under pressure to end month-long transit strike
Posted Mar 2, 2012 06:30:40 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Former transit users who have been trudging to and from work and school every day have now been doing it for exactly one month.
Metro Transit workers walked off the job on Feb. 2 to back demands for a new contract, and most people expected they’d be back on the job after a couple of weeks.
But the union says it won’t accept any deal that includes the scheduling mechanism known as “rostering,” and the city is just as adamant that it can’t afford to schedule drivers any other way.
With the two sides apparently doomed to an indefinite stalemate and public frustration turning to fury, the leader of the provincial Tories is calling on Premier Darrell Dexter to get involved.
Jamie Baillie says Dexter should call the legislature back to the House of Assembly immediately to debate options for ending the strike.
“The time has come to go back to work in the legislature, bring an end to the strike, get the buses back on the road, and then work out in a fair way the scheduling system,” said PC party leader Jamie Baillie.
The spring session of the provincial legislature will resume on March 29.
The province can declare Metro Transit an essential service and get buses back on the road, but provincial politicians may face consequences for getting involved in a municipal labour dispute.
Baillie tells News 95.7 he’s only concerned about the thousands of people and business owners who rely on Metro Transit.
“It’s time for someone to represent them,” Baillie said. “That is the job of the elected Premier and that’s what’s missing. Because [the employer and union] are not going to resolve it through negotiation. That process has long since run its course.”
However, Dexter insists the dispute must come to an end through bargaining, without his intervention.
“My interest is to ensure there’s a freely-negotiated collective agreement between the municipality and their employees,” he said. “That would be best everybody: that will be best for the consumers, the best for the employees and the best for the municipality.”
Dexter says neither party should expect the province to step in and end the strike.
“There continues to be this back and forth that has gone on between the union and the municipality,” he said. “We expect that they will continue to find new ways to come to a collective agreement.”
Metro Transit workers have been on strike since Feb. 2, when negotiations broke down between the employer and union.
The city says it’s final offer, sent to the union on Feb. 23, will remain on the table until 11:59 tonight.
The offer was rejected by 78 per cent of the union membership in a vote, but the city says if it’s not accepted tonight, all concessions made so far will be withdrawn.
