TORONTO — Almost 12,000 Toronto Transit Commission employees, including streetcar and subway operators and bus drivers, could go on strike at 12:01 a.m. Friday — the first such walkout since 2008, Global News reports.
It would be the first strike since a 2011 law blocking strikes was struck down in court. That law had designed the TTC as an essential service.
Negotiations between Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113 and the TTC are continuing. The two sides announced Monday that they had agreed that union members would continue to operate the Wheel-Trans service for people with disabilities even in the event of a strike or lockout, with the union saying “strike action is necessary, as we are not seeing sufficient progress at the bargaining table.”
Job security, wages, and benefits are the main negotiating issues, TTC Chairman Jamaal Myers told CP24 on Monday, striking an optimistic tone about the state of bargaining: “We expect the negotiations to go right up until the last minute; that’s normal for these types of negotiations. But we are confident that things are on the right track.”
Ontario Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria has declined to say what role the provincial government might take to mitigate the effects of a strike, saying that time remained to negotiate a new agreement. The TTC “is vitally important to the city, we know that, but as the talks continue we’re very hopeful that they do come to a conclusion,” Sarkaria told Global News.
Provincial transit agency Metrolinx, which operates GO Transit commuter trains and the GO bus network between the city and suburbs, could increase service to help offset the impacts of a strike. The Ontario government could also introduce back-to-work legislation, but the provincial legislative session is slated to end prior to the strike deadline, meaning Premier Doug Ford would have to recall Members of Provincial Parliament to pass such legislation.
How interesting…a law designating TTC as an essential service is struck down, but when the pandemic hit, guess what…transit was all of the sudden an essential service!
Toronto and Melbourne, Australia are blessed to retain their extensive networks of trolley (Brit.: tram) routes through the 20th century when such systems in most cities were annihilated.