Winnipeg, MB – The City of Winnipeg and Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 1505 (ATU) remain at an impasse on negotiations. The City has rejected the counterproposal provided by ATU at the end of the day on Friday, August 16, as it still has the two parties approximately $68 million dollars apart. The City has asked ATU to come back with a counterproposal that is reasonably in line with what the City has offered in the previous four contract proposals, and not just another repackaging of their previous proposals.
The City has broken down the costs of three significant pieces of ATU’s counterproposal, though ATU still has additional requests above these items:
- general wage increases for all ATU members
- $10/hr wage increases for all ATU mechanics
- 5 minute mandatory recovery time at the end of each trip for bus operators
General wage increase for all ATU members:
The City of Winnipeg has offered the following general wage increase for all ATU members:
2020 – 2%
2021 – 2%
2022 – 2%
2023 – 2%
For a total cost of approximately $12.8 million over the life of the contract.
ATU has offered the following counterproposal:
2019 – 1.75%
2020 – 2%
2021 – 2%
2022 – 2%
For a total cost of approximately $18.2 million over the life of the contract.
On this item alone, we are approximately $5 million apart.
Contributing significantly to the variance in the dollar value is that ATU’s proposal for the first 1.75% increase would be effective January 1, 2019 compared to the City’s last offer which scheduled the first 2% increase as occurring in January 2020. This difference, when compounded over the life of the collective agreement, contributes significantly to the overall cost.
$10/hr wage increases for all ATU mechanics:
The ATU has asked for $10/hr wage increase for all ATU mechanics which equates to almost a 29% wage increase. Over the life of the contract this would cost approximately $9.6 million.
5 minute mandatory recovery time at the end of each trip for bus operators
ATU has requested that all trips to be developed to provide a guaranteed mandatory minimum recovery time of 5 minutes at the routes designated terminals for bus operators.
The simple addition of 5 minutes to end of each bus route, would instantly see a decline in bus service because it would take 5 minutes longer for each bus to do their run, and this would have a compounding effect over the course of the day. This would also mean that buses would sit idle for 5 minutes no matter how late the bus may be running, or how many passengers are on the bus. Therefore, in order to maintain current levels of service, the City would need to add additional operators and buses to keep the service moving, and the City has estimated this cost based on maintaining the same level of bus service that Transit provides today.
Ensuring this 5 minute mandatory recovery time would mean that the City would need to hire approximately 41 additional bus operators, 6 additional maintenance/supervisors, and would need to add approximately 32 additional buses to its fleet in order to keep bus frequency at the same level that it is currently.
This proposed item would cost the City approximately $10.6 million annually starting in 2020, or more than $32 million over the life of the contract. Plus a one-time cost of approximately $21 million for the additional 32 buses to maintain service schedules at current levels.
It is also important to note that in a previous collective agreement, ATU negotiated an item called Payment in Lieu of Rest Breaks. Operators currently receive an annual payment equivalent to approximately 40 hours straight time of wages at the end of the year. In 2018, Payment in Lieu of Rest Breaks cost the city just over $1 million. ATU is now asking for the mandatory recovery time, but have not offered to end the practice of Payment in Lieu of Rest Breaks.
Overall cost
The items the City has proposed will cost approximately $12.8 million over the life of the contract, while the three items highlighted above that ATU has proposed will cost the City approximately $80.8 million over the life of the contract. ATU has additional requests above the three items identified above. Currently, we estimate that we are still more than $68 million apart on our offers.
The ATU remains in a legal strike position, and the previous collective agreement is officially terminated. We fully expect ATU to initiate strike action in the fall when it is most inconvenient to Transit passengers.