Transit union shifts labour ruling to a win

OC Transpo drivers were the real winners in a supplementary ruling by an Ontario labour arbitration board, says the head of their union.

André Cornellier, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 279, said drivers benefited after the board on Thursday clarified an award giving them minimum 71/2-hour shifts.

That means any driver previously guaranteed a minimum of six hours per day would be bumped up -- not just regular weekday workers. It includes "spare" workers who come to work and wait to fill in for absent drivers, whom the city wanted to exclude.

"We're very pleased," Cornellier said on Friday.

"When you have about 600 drivers that were making less than eight hours a day, and now they're going to be guaranteed 71/2 hours, how can (City of Ottawa representatives) say they won?"

The supplementary ruling was released after the city and union were unable to agree on contract language changes that were needed to implement the arbitrator's earlier ruling on the issues that produced last winter's punishing 53-day transit strike.

That ruling, from October, stated the city has the right to set full-day work schedules for bus drivers.

The supplementary ruling reiterated that "collective agreement language needs to be amended to reflect a day booking system and that it is the employer, not the operator, that is responsible for putting the work together."

Councillor Rick Chiarelli said the supplementary ruling was a victory for taxpayers. When announced in October, losing scheduling ability was a major blow for the union, as the right to set schedules had been the most contentious issue of last winter's 53-day transit strike.

Cornellier said the city did well on that issue, but the supplementary ruling offered nothing new and should not be held up again as a win.

"They won the battle, we won the war. Every operator guaranteed 71/2 hours, you know how many millions of dollars that's going to cost them?" he said.

"They already raised the flag, the touchdown, apparently, when they won the scheduling. Are they going to raise that flag every time there's a ruling that comes down that doesn't deal with the scheduling?"