Ottawa lawyer James Kenneth Kerr has been hitchhiking between his downtown office and his home in the Merivale Avenue area since the beginning of the transit strike.
The federal government has no place meddling in the transit strike that has left Ottawa commuters in the lurch since Dec. 10, says Ottawa Centre MP Paul Dewar.
Talks got delayed when the City of Ottawa called upon Labour Minister Rona Ambrose to step in, he said. Dewar opposed her decision to force transit workers to respond to a city offer that was likely to fail.
“We wasted two weeks waiting for that vote.”
The Amalgamated Transit Union Local 279 rejected the city’s latest offer by a vote of 75 per cent. That was Jan. 8, Day 30 of the strike. The power struggle over scheduling control, which used to be in the hands of transit workers, has been deeply divisive. So far neither side has been willing to budge.
Dewar stresses the need to have sincere discussion instead of bargaining through the media. The member of Parliament says if the city and transit union can’t come to an agreement within a few days of the last vote, binding arbitration will likely be the next step.
If back-to-work legislation was introduced in the House of Commons, Dewar’s vote would hinge on the details.
Back-to-work legislation is used by the federal government to effectively end a strike. This is usually applied to long disputes that involve important public services.
Dewar says he would support legislation that saw the city and transit union sent to binding arbitration but he wouldn’t support legislation that imposed a contract.
The federal government doesn’t need to intervene for this to happen though.
“If they’re at an impasse now, all parties should agree to a binding arbitration and get buses back on the road and people back to work.”
Dewar says the federal NDP shares his approach to the municipal dispute. His party believes that everyone has the right to free collective bargaining.
The NDP has traditionally enjoyed strong union support but Dewar also represents a riding that has been adversely affected by the transit strike.
He says creating a balance here is simple: there isn’t a trade-off between free labour negotiations and transit.
Another option would be trying to establish Ottawa’s transit system as an essential service, in which case, transit workers couldn’t strike.
Dewar says he doesn’t think this would be successful because in his view, Ottawa transit doesn’t meet the technical definition of an essential service.
He doesn’t believe the strike has jeopardized lives, which is a key requirement.
The cost of essential services is another consideration, said the member of Parliament.
Once a service is declared to be essential, it goes directly to binding arbitration, making it more expensive.
On Jan. 21, Ambrose announced that the federal governement would not intervene in the strike and the order that could force transit workers back to work when Parliament resumes on Jan.26.