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OTTAWA-Members of the city’s largest transit union rejected the latest contract offer nearly three-to-one, in vote results revealed late Thursday.
“We knew our membership would support our recommendation,” said Jim Haddad, secretary-treasurer of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 279, whose leaders advised 2,300 striking OC Transpo workers to reject the offer. “We’re ready to go back to the table. Hopefully, they’ll negotiate properly now with us instead of bargaining through the media.”
Members of the union turned out in strength to vote yesterday at Lansdowne Park.
The count of their ballots slowed when some workers from the Canada Industrial Relations Board went home, leaving just three people to count, according to city spokesman Michael FitzPatrick.
Voting appeared to go smoothly during the day, however, with six ballot boxes and union members walking into the Civic Centre through the day to vote. The union and the city had six scrutineers overseeing the process. Fifteen staff members from the industrial-relations board oversaw the vote, which ended at 8 p.m.
Just before then, union president André Cornellier came up the stairs from the room where the voting took place all day. He looked at his watch and, when asked how he was feeling, replied: “Confident.”
The vote was ordered by federal Labour Minister Rona Ambrose at the request of the city.
Many of the union members who arrived at Lansdowne early in the morning were strong in their resolve against the city’s offer.
“If the guys were in for the money, they would have settled a long time ago,” said Robert O’Neill. He said the city was trying to bribe the members with its $2,500 bonus offer.
Many union members chanted “no means no” and Mr. Cornellier was busy hugging, shaking hands with, and giving the thumbs-up sign to his members as they came to vote.
There was some grumbling about automated messages members say were sent by the city promoting a video on the web pushing the city’s message and urging a Yes vote.
Hooshang Ayoubloo, a union member, said the city’s offer was preposterous, but drivers do want to go back to work and do respect the public.
Hugh Thayer, who voted against the contract, predicted the city’s offer would be strongly rejected.
“It is not about the money,” he said.
The city’s financial offer is for a 7.25-per-cent wage increase over three years, a one-time $2,500 payment and enhancements of some benefits.
Both sides have said the strike is about control over the drivers’ routes and scheduling, but the city and the union are still also apart on wages, accounting for sick days, and language on contracting work out.
The mayor and other city officials have said the city needs more control over scheduling to run a more cost-
effective, safe and reliable system. The union leaders have said they can’t accept it because, history shows, the city’s way of running the system will play havoc with their members’ lives.
The union says the city’s demands would:
• take away the right to choose work based on seniority;
• allow split shifts to span 13.5 hours instead of 12;
• give the city the right to assign several different routes in the same work day;
• let the city dictate days off;
• not guarantee that a driver could take a break at the end of one run before starting another.
Al Loney, a former chairman of the city’s transit commission, said yesterday that the dispute has become about who is running OC Transpo and what is a reasonable level of compensation for public service unions in Ottawa.
“The city’s got to hang tight. If they collapse now, they’ll have real difficulty,” said Mr. Loney, who was the elected official leading the city’s transit system in the late 1990s.
However, Mr. Loney said, the city can take measures to improve communication with transit workers by doing more to hear them out and giving them a sense that managers truly understand what’s happening on the road. He said one improvement would be to re-establish a transit commission separate from city council so that employees of OC Transpo get the sense that they have their overseers’ undivided attention, rather than the partial attention of city councillors.
For the public, a No vote means the 30-day strike has no end in sight, and the daily struggle to get around the city will continue, possibly for a long time.
A Yes vote means a return to normal only by next week as the system gets back up and running. One reason for the delay is that buses that haven’t been running for weeks must be re-certified for safety.
Before the vote, Mr. O’Brien renewed his call for union members to
accept the city’s offer, but admitted regardless of what happens, there are no winners.
The mayor said it will probably take years for the transit system to rebuild the record ridership numbers it was attracting before the strike began on Dec. 10. But he also said that the strike, even if it lasts much longer, is worth it to “repair the damages from 1999” when the union gained several advantages on scheduling.
City staff have developed a list of options the municipality could use if the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 279’s roughly 2,300 striking drivers, dispatchers, mechanics, clerks and custodians vote the city’s offer down.
These include measures to help make things easier on people hurt by the strike, including possible general use of the Transitway road system.
A memo from city manager Kent Kirkpatrick said the use of replacement workers is also not out of the question. However, the city might have problems finding enough qualified drivers, mechanics and dispatchers to run even a skeleton system.
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
“We knew our membership would support our recommendation,” said Jim Haddad, secretary-treasurer of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 279, whose leaders advised 2,300 striking OC Transpo workers to reject the offer. “We’re ready to go back to the table. Hopefully, they’ll negotiate properly now with us instead of bargaining through the media.”
Members of the union turned out in strength to vote yesterday at Lansdowne Park.
The count of their ballots slowed when some workers from the Canada Industrial Relations Board went home, leaving just three people to count, according to city spokesman Michael FitzPatrick.
Voting appeared to go smoothly during the day, however, with six ballot boxes and union members walking into the Civic Centre through the day to vote. The union and the city had six scrutineers overseeing the process. Fifteen staff members from the industrial-relations board oversaw the vote, which ended at 8 p.m.
Just before then, union president André Cornellier came up the stairs from the room where the voting took place all day. He looked at his watch and, when asked how he was feeling, replied: “Confident.”
The vote was ordered by federal Labour Minister Rona Ambrose at the request of the city.
Many of the union members who arrived at Lansdowne early in the morning were strong in their resolve against the city’s offer.
“If the guys were in for the money, they would have settled a long time ago,” said Robert O’Neill. He said the city was trying to bribe the members with its $2,500 bonus offer.
Many union members chanted “no means no” and Mr. Cornellier was busy hugging, shaking hands with, and giving the thumbs-up sign to his members as they came to vote.
There was some grumbling about automated messages members say were sent by the city promoting a video on the web pushing the city’s message and urging a Yes vote.
Hooshang Ayoubloo, a union member, said the city’s offer was preposterous, but drivers do want to go back to work and do respect the public.
Hugh Thayer, who voted against the contract, predicted the city’s offer would be strongly rejected.
“It is not about the money,” he said.
The city’s financial offer is for a 7.25-per-cent wage increase over three years, a one-time $2,500 payment and enhancements of some benefits.
Both sides have said the strike is about control over the drivers’ routes and scheduling, but the city and the union are still also apart on wages, accounting for sick days, and language on contracting work out.
The mayor and other city officials have said the city needs more control over scheduling to run a more cost-
effective, safe and reliable system. The union leaders have said they can’t accept it because, history shows, the city’s way of running the system will play havoc with their members’ lives.
The union says the city’s demands would:
• take away the right to choose work based on seniority;
• allow split shifts to span 13.5 hours instead of 12;
• give the city the right to assign several different routes in the same work day;
• let the city dictate days off;
• not guarantee that a driver could take a break at the end of one run before starting another.
Al Loney, a former chairman of the city’s transit commission, said yesterday that the dispute has become about who is running OC Transpo and what is a reasonable level of compensation for public service unions in Ottawa.
“The city’s got to hang tight. If they collapse now, they’ll have real difficulty,” said Mr. Loney, who was the elected official leading the city’s transit system in the late 1990s.
However, Mr. Loney said, the city can take measures to improve communication with transit workers by doing more to hear them out and giving them a sense that managers truly understand what’s happening on the road. He said one improvement would be to re-establish a transit commission separate from city council so that employees of OC Transpo get the sense that they have their overseers’ undivided attention, rather than the partial attention of city councillors.
For the public, a No vote means the 30-day strike has no end in sight, and the daily struggle to get around the city will continue, possibly for a long time.
A Yes vote means a return to normal only by next week as the system gets back up and running. One reason for the delay is that buses that haven’t been running for weeks must be re-certified for safety.
Before the vote, Mr. O’Brien renewed his call for union members to
accept the city’s offer, but admitted regardless of what happens, there are no winners.
The mayor said it will probably take years for the transit system to rebuild the record ridership numbers it was attracting before the strike began on Dec. 10. But he also said that the strike, even if it lasts much longer, is worth it to “repair the damages from 1999” when the union gained several advantages on scheduling.
City staff have developed a list of options the municipality could use if the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 279’s roughly 2,300 striking drivers, dispatchers, mechanics, clerks and custodians vote the city’s offer down.
These include measures to help make things easier on people hurt by the strike, including possible general use of the Transitway road system.
A memo from city manager Kent Kirkpatrick said the use of replacement workers is also not out of the question. However, the city might have problems finding enough qualified drivers, mechanics and dispatchers to run even a skeleton system.
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
