In a release titled “Something Stinks At City Hall”, the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 966 is calling out City Hall and Council for another wage increase.

Council moved a motion forward on June 6th regarding a second wage increase of the year for management and non-unionized staff members. The increases for these employees would equal upwards of 12 per cent for managerial roles who are not part of the city’s union.

The concern that the ATU is showing is that during the 18 months of negotiations, the new union agreement for transit staff capped a wage increase at 1.5 per cent. They are claiming it’s unfair and devaluing their good faith negotiations.

During a council meeting, it was outlined that the city had $10.9 million dollars in surplus funding. Local ATU President Fred Caputo indicates that this is contradictory to what was said during negotiations and states in a press release that during talks the city was seeing “revenue losses and a funding deficit due to the pandemic.”

Caputo also went on to say

…that City Administration had a memory lapse during our negotiations – or they conveniently failed to disclose that they were already getting COVID‐19 relief funds from the Federal and Provincial governments that would total almost $9.4 million to help the relieve the impact of the pandemic,

Even calling the increase “a slap in the face to transit workers”.

Caputo also notes that during negotiations, the Union was comparing wages to Southern Ontario transit workers but the City negotiator said those aren’t comparable.

However, in an about face the City then cited locations in Southern Ontario as comparisons for competitive wages.

National ATU President, John Di Nino, said this was “manipulating the narrative by awarding pay adjustments to senior staff is deceiving,”

In the final line of the release the ATU is asking for the City of Thunder Bay to be forthcoming and transparent with taxpayers and workers who have been misled.

The increase was discussed in during a meeting of the Committee of the Whole meeting on June 6th. The motion is yet to be ratified by City Council.

Acadia News has reached out to both the ATU Local 966 and the City for comment.