Letter to City Council: Payband Adjustment

June 9, 2022

MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT OF ATU LOCAL 966 TRANSIT WORKERS

Dear Members of Council,

I will start this letter by thanking councillors Mark Bentz and Peng You for having the leadership to vote no to the outrageous salary band adjustment for City Managers and non-union workers.

As President of ATU Local 966 Transit Workers, I feel it necessary to speak against and express the utter disappointment and anger felt by myself and my membership over the recent lack of respect shown to unionized workers by City Administration and members of Council as they have voted to pass this unprecedented pay hike for all non-union and management staff. City Manager Norm Gale has gone as far as to say this increase is needed to improve management recruitment and retention of management staff by offering more pay. This, unfortunately, does not hold true for the city’s working class unionized employees. We continue to have to fight tooth and nail to gain any ground on benefits and pay just in an attempt to try and keep pace with inflation, but continue to fall further behind.

At a time when City Administration has mandated its negotiating committee to hold union staff at 1.5% per year increases, due to financial instability brought on by the pandemic, I find that this 4% to 12% increase for city non-union and management staff is not only unreasonable, but also disrespectful, and shows a lack of leadership and how undervalued unionized staff truly are.

ATU members have worked tirelessly and under extreme stress throughout this pandemic to keep Transit on the road for our riding public. These same members came to work everyday knowing that there was a strong possibility of contracting and bringing Covid -19 home to their loved ones. Our members did not have the option of working from the safety and comfort of their homes during the pandemic, unlike most of the City Administration, Human Resource department and Council.

ATU members were the heroes with frontline workers from the beginning to the end of this pandemic and that should account for something. As members of council, I ask you to reconsider and vote No to the salary pay band and have administration come back with a more reasonable increase.

Fred Caputo

President/Business Agent