Done deal: council vote ends transit strike
Posted Mar 14, 2012 04:29:05 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
After six weeks, the Metro Transit strike is over.
Union members voted 88 per cent in favour of the deal on Tuesday and Halifax Regional Council followed suit with a 19-2 vote in favour of ratification Tuesday evening..
Under the terms of the new five-year agreement, all members of the Amalgamated Transit Union will get a $4,000 lump-sum payment in the first year, followed by annual raises of two per cent.
The deal also includes stepped-in wages and a new accident review policy. More detail can be found on HRM’s website.
Mayor Peter Kelly calls the deal a “win” for taxpayers, saying it will cost the same as a Feb. 23 proposal that was rejected by the union – and includes rostering.
“Without that in place we would not have a deal,” he said. “They negotiated this approach, but the dollars have not changed.”
Metro Transit director Eddie Robar explained the union will have some say in the implementation of rostering.
“We’ll end up generating three rosters which meet our needs,” said Robar. “They will go and look at each one of those rosters and chose which one they want to become Roster A in our process, in which they’ll have a couple of volleys back and forth to have input into adjusting them.”
Bus and ferry service will be free until March 30, and February transit passes will be honoured in April.
According to the city, Metro Transit services will be phased in over the next several days as follows:
Thursday, March 15 – Ferry Service Resumes
Friday, March 16 – Bus Service Resumes (with the exception of full AAB service)
Monday, March 19 – Access-A-Bus Service Resumes
“To welcome our customers back on board and thank everyone for their patience, all bus and ferry services will be FREE from the first day of service through until March 31, 2012,” says the HRM web site. “Therefore, no March transit passes will be sold.”
Unionized Metro Transit workers have voted 88 per cent in favour of the tentative contract reached on the weekend.
Bargaining teams representing the city and the workers worked out a tentative deal Sunday night. Tuesday, it was up to each side to vote to ratify the deal: first the workers, then the politicians.
Rostering is still included in the offer, but there are more options to give the union more say.
“(Members) were ecstatic at certain points, and they were a little disappointed at some points. That’s give and take, that’s labour relations,” says Amalgamated Transit Union Local 508 president Ken Wilson.
“We didn’t expect this to be the best contract, but it’s one thing to take people out on the strike, it’s another thing to get them back. This was the best offer and the right time to get them back to work right now,” said Wilson.
A few union members spoke to News 95.7 as they left the Forum, saying the six-week strike was not worth what they’ve been offered, but was time to go back to work.
