The day before the Ontario election, the union representing GO bus drivers set a new Oct. 24 strike deadline and came out swinging at the provincial Liberal government and its Metrolinx agency, which operates GO Transit.

On Wednesday, the union accused the government of deliberately sabotaging its members’ right to strike by delaying its original mid-September GO bus strike date, using an 11th hour delay tactic at the Ontario Labour Relations Board to stall a no-board report, a prerequisite for legal strike.

A Monday ruling by the labour board appears to support the union’s assertion. It calls “the timing of this late blooming employer objection … inherently suspect.”

On Aug. 30 Metrolinx went to the labour board, claiming the essential services agreement it had signed with the union in March — the same agreement that had been in place since 1996 — was not legal. That delayed the no-board report that basically begins the countdown to a strike.

Metrolinx told the labour board and union that it needed a new essential services agreement, one that would designate some GO bus drivers as essential so they would be available in the event of a disaster. Hypothetical and real examples cited by Metrolinx included “a serious nuclear problem at Pickering or Darlington, a 9/11 terrorist event, the Mississauga train derailment, the Superior propane explosion, the 2003 hydro black-out,” according to the labour board ruling.

“This was a blatant attempt to circumvent the law of the land by the McGuinty government to prevent a potentially embarrassing strike during the election,” said Ray Doyle, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1587.

The union, which has never struck GO Transit, nevertheless will continue bargaining to reach an agreement, he said.

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The province has appointed an independent lawyer to try to settle a labour dispute that could see HandiBus drivers in Calgary walk off the job.

Members of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 583 voted earlier this month to take job action against their employer, Calgary HandiBus.

After more than a year of negotiations and talks with a provincial mediator, the two sides have been unable to agree on a new contract with the 174 workers.

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There will be no transit strike in Kelowna this weekend, at least for now.

Les Milton, President and Business Agent for the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1722, says they will present the First Canada ULC final offer to their members on Sunday.

“There won’t be a strike unless our members give us that mandate.  At this time, they haven’t done that.  We will be recommending a strike vote after we present the offer to the members, but it’s entirely up to the bus drivers and how they will protect themselves.”

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Just days after voting down a contract offer, some York Region transit workers have apparently changed their minds, petitioning union leaders to let them vote again on the deal.

The about-face – the latest twist in a two-week-long negotiating saga between Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113 and transit contractor Veolia Transportation – means a planned strike that would have shut down 24 bus routes in and around Vaughan Tuesday morning will not go ahead.

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OTTAWA — Complaining that the city has unilaterally imposed a work-booking system on OC Transpo drivers when an arbitrator ordered the city and union to negotiate one together, the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 279 has cut off bargaining with the City of Ottawa.

The question of how the 2,000 or so OC Transpo operators’ work days are to be scheduled remains an open sore in relations between the transit company and union after a 53-day strike shut down Ottawa’s transit system in winter 2008 and 2009. The strike ended when both sides agreed to send their outstanding differences, the scheduling question chief among them, to an arbitrator — who eventually ruled that management should have the right to assemble full days of work for drivers to choose from in order of seniority, rather than having drivers make up whole days from smaller pieces of work that suited them.

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A new round of contract negotiations kicks off Friday in an effort to ward off a looming transit strike in York Region.

The Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113 will once again sit down with officials from Veolia Transportation, which runs 28 bus routes in southwestern York Region, to hammer out a new agreement for bus drivers and mechanics.

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Officials with Amalgamated Transit Union Local 615 have confirmed with Global News that the earliest any job action will take place is Wednesday.

This after 89% of the unionized transit workers voted in favour of job action Friday evening, including work-to-rule and no overtime.

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Thunder Bay Transit workers are frustrated after going more than a year without a contract, and that‘s part of the reason they voted 96.6 per cent on Sunday in favour of a strike, their union president said Monday.

Charlie Brown, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 966, said the City of Thunder Bay asked the more than 130 workers to make several concessions.

“They‘ve lumped a whole bunch of concessions from their side on the table,‘‘ said Brown. “The big ones are a reduction in a portion of our benefit plan, which is not acceptable . . . they tried this during the last contract and it didn‘t work.

“The city is also looking for an unlimited number of part-timers which we think will be an erosion of the full-time work force and detrimental to us down the line.”

Brown said the city wants mechanics to go from a five-day work week to seven, “with very little compensation.”

“In 16 meetings and 14 months we haven‘t had any real negotiations,‘‘ he said.

“We‘ve settled nothing, except three or four minor items which were typos in the contract . . . they don‘t affect anything.

“There‘s no wages on the table, we haven‘t even talked any money at all,” Brown said, adding that he believes Thunder Bay bus drivers are near the bottom of the pay scale in Canada.

“We‘re going to have to look at wages sometime . . . we brought numerous proposals to the table and the corporation has agreed to absolutely nothing,” Brown said.

Brown said the union is waiting to receive a report from the Ministry of Labour, but the workers could strike near the middle of September if an agreement isn‘t reached.

In the last round of negotiations between the city and the union, workers were setting up the picket line when “the city manager came down, and we spent the whole afternoon getting the contract done at the last possible second,” Brown recalled.

“Our members know ridership is going up, they know they‘ve been doing their jobs properly. We‘re saving the city money and when we get to the table – I guess the expectation for any working person is if you do a good job over a period of time you‘ll get a little more at the end of that,” Brown said.

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Thunder Bay Transit employees will soon find themselves in a legal strike position now that contract negotiations with the city have stalled.

Charlie Brown, president of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 966, said the union filed for a no-board report after talks broke down Thursday morning.

The union will be legally entitled to take some sort of job action – for example, a strike or work-to-rule campaign – 17 days after the province receives the report. The city would be in a legal position to lock out the workers.

“We‘re not talking money at all at this point in time,” he said in an interview. “We‘re looking at a number of concessions that the city‘s asking our bargaining group for. We‘re looking at a reduction in certain areas of our benefit plan, which we find unacceptable. They‘re looking to increase to an unlimited number of part-time workforce for drivers, which we think is going to erode the full-time workforce.”

Thursday morning‘s negotiation meeting lasted about 10 minutes, Brown said.

“We‘ve been in negotiations for almost a year-and-a-half now,” he said. “We‘ve been at the table 16 times, and what was presented on the table from both parties on the first day is still on the table today.”

A strike vote is to be held Aug. 29, Brown said.

Assuming nothing is settled before the union is in a legal strike position, Brown said the union does have a plan.

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OTTAWA — A lockout of about 500 Greyhound employees that would have stalled bus travel across Ontario and Quebec has been avoided as a result of a deadline-beating agreement.

“We are pleased to have agreed upon this contract,” said Greyhound spokesperson Bonnie Bastian. “We plan to continue service as usual.”

The tentative agreement, which the union still must ratify, comes just hours before the scheduled 12:01 a.m. Thursday lockout, which was announced last Friday after 87 per cent of the membership of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1415 — which represents Greyhound drivers, maintenance workers, and terminal staff — voted against the company’s final offer. The workers’ contract had expired July 1.

The lockout would have prevented 490 union members, including drivers, maintenance crews and terminal workers from going to work. All Greyhound bus travel in Ontario and Quebec would have been stalled, except for trips from Ottawa to Sudbury, Toronto to Sudbury, and all points west as the workers who operate those routes are under a different union.

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