TTC workers regain the right to strike

Ontario judge overturns 2011 ban on Toronto transit workers’ right to strike as a violation of the charter.

Thestar.com
May 9, 2023
Lex Harvey

TTC workers have won back the right to strike.

An Ontario Superior Court judge ruled Monday that a 2011 law banning TTC employees from striking violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

“I conclude, on the evidence, that the benefits that may be achieved by removing the right of TTC employees to strike do not outweigh the harm caused by the loss of the right to meaningful collective bargaining,” Justice William Chalmers wrote.

“This is a historic and important decision confirming the right to strike for working people,” the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113 wrote in a press release.

In 2011, the Ontario government under then-premier Dalton McGuinty enacted a law, called the TTC Act, which prohibited unionized TTC workers from striking, after city council under former mayor Rob Ford formally asked the province to designate the TTC an essential service.

Former mayor David Miller had tried to make the same request following a 36-hour TTC strike in 2008, but the motion was defeated by council.

In his decision, Chalmers found the TTC does not provide “essential services” and quashed the government’s argument that “the disruption of transit services in Toronto would ‘threaten serious harm’ or ‘endanger the life, personal safety or health’ of the whole, or part of the population.”

Chalmers also rejected the province’s request to delay the implementation of the decision by one year, to March 31, 2024, when the union’s contract is up, calling that request “unreasonable.”

A spokesperson for Premier Doug Ford’s office did not comment in time for deadline.

“On behalf of the executive board of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113, we are proud that today we won our fight to protect our members’ right to strike. This is not just a win for transit workers in Toronto. It’s a win for all workers fighting unfair treatment,” said Marvin Alfred, ATU Local 113 president, in a press release.

“We’re aware of this decision and are assessing any potential impacts going forward,” TTC spokesperson Stuart Green wrote in a statement. “Our commitment is, and always will be, to work with our union partners to reach a negotiated settlement at the bargaining table.”

Local 113 was on strike in 1991, 1999, 2006 and 2008, resulting in about 12 days off the job in total. A city report from 2008 found that a TTC strike would cost the economy $50 million per day.