Sisters and Brothers, Friday was a sad day for the Union as the first ATU Member fatality has been announced: a Transit Operator and Shop Steward from Lynnwood Washington. It is unknown to me how Br. Scott Ryan became infected, but the chilling message to all of us is:

The Union has signed a Letter of Understanding with the City of Red Deer allowing the arrangement of Operators’ shifts in a rotation that will give everybody a break and share the workload evenly. We believe this to be the fairest thing to do for everybody and if there any problems, Bob, Josh and the Stewards are there to help.

Confusion and lack of clarity still exist at ETS Operations around hours of work for On-Call days. Here’s what the Union negotiated with the City about those days:

It’s not mandatory to do so, but it helps. Regardless, you ARE On-Call.

Work at Transit Fleet Maintenance is affected by a couple of emergencies that the Union and the City are working urgently to correct. First, the buses and LRVs MUST be cleaned and there are not enough of us to do it all properly.

The City was too slow implementing the flexibility granted to it by the Letter of Understanding signed a week ago and now they do not have enough staff and equipment in place to do the job properly. So, with 1300 or so City workers sent home with pay due to service closures, they now have to contract out work to get the buses and LRVs cleaned and disinfected.

The Union’s first priority is to protect our members and their families. This means disinfection is the highest priority, so the Union bit back the bitterest words and said “Get it done, but get our people working as YOUR highest priority.”

This means that contract workers will be working with us in the Divisions for Saturday and Sunday to clean buses. By Monday, redeployed City workers will be in place to pitch in. The situation is not the fault of the contract workers. Please do not take it out on them.

It also means that contract workers will be deployed at Century Park and NAIT through to Wednesday to “sweep through the trains” picking up garbage, cleaning up spills, etc. while the motorman changes ends. By Thursday, redeployed City workers will be in place to take over the work.

In addition to the lack of cleaners, there is also a problem with short staffing in other maintenance areas due to self-isolations and actual illness. For example, last week, Centennial was down by 9 HETs. This imposes a need to redeploy some skilled workers in order to ensure book-out is made.

If you ARE redeployed, your shift hours and off-days will be kept, you’ll just be reporting to a different Division, doing different work. The Union is asking you to accept this redeployment as part of your contribution to keeping the system afloat.

At Security, more urgency. Peace Officers are needed at Expo to help maintain order. Most of this work is being managed using TPOs and other Peace Officers who volunteered to change their post. As many as 4 others may need to be forced. This will be done, as needed by seniority.

In addition, the influx of homeless onto the LRT has necessitated an increase in security presence there. There are no TPOs to redeploy to that duty, so the City has, temporarily, contracted to place some of the Transit Centre security agents on the trains. Their role is to show a security presence only, as they have no authority to enforce even the most minor Bylaw.

There is a growing problem of homeless campouts on the buses and LRVs. Increasing aggressiveness, treating buses as dining rooms, bedrooms, bathrooms has changed the image of ETS in the space of a week. The City needs to act now, even in the context of the Pandemic, to FIX THIS PROBLEM. This is my highest priority in the next few days and we will get it done.

Yesterday, the Coalition Presidents, including myself, met with City HR people to discuss when, how and to whom the City of Edmonton will issue layoff notices.

I WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT I AND THE EXECUTIVE are doing everything humanly possible to ensure that no ATU member is laid off in this critical time. There is no bottomless money bucket for the City to dip into and they will not be able to continue everyone on payroll indefinitely.

You may know that the City of Windsor, Ontario has closed its Transit system. While this could be viewed as the tip of the iceberg for layoffs, you should know that Windsor is in a labour dispute with the ATU Local there and this action appears to be an incredibly grotesque bargaining ploy.

ATU Canada has issued a demand for the Federal government to step up with $5billion in operating grants for Municipalities. Traditionally, the Federal Government only provides capital funding, so, we’re expecting them to go beyond that rule and help transit properties, even the big ones, to operate their systems.

So, I’ll leave you with these information pieces for today. Please remember we are all in this together. Look out for each other, protect yourselves, and know that every kindness is appreciated.

Be Safe, Be Healthy, Be Apart

In solidarity,

Steve Bradshaw

President/Business Agent