City presents new offer to transit union

The City of Winnipeg has made another contract offer to the union representing Winnipeg Transit workers in the hopes of ending a seven-month-old labour dispute.

The city and the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1505, which represents about 1,400 transit drivers, mechanics and other workers, have been without a contract since Jan. 12.

The union has rejected three city contract offers. The city made the union a fourth offer on Aug. 2, Winnipeg chief corporate services officer Michael Jack said in a statement on Tuesday.

That offer included four annual wage hikes of two per cent, Jack said. Two days of mediation yielded no results, he added.

"The parties are no closer to reaching a tentative agreement," Jack said in his statement. "We feel that a strike will be initiated by the ATU during the fall schedule when it will be most disruptive to passengers and residents."

Jack described the new offer as a final offer. The three prior offers were also final offers, he said.

"We had made what we had decided was the final offer but we have engaged in some other processes over the last few months, like conciliation, like the most recent mediation and so those caused us to revisit what we had put on the table," he said at city hall. "This one is the final offer."

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The union received a mandate to strike in April but has repeatedly stated it has no intention of walking off the job. It says the city continues to ignore its concerns.

"The city incorrectly points to wages as the outstanding issue, while the ATU has continually raised working conditions including more reliable schedules, passenger education campaigns and improved customer service," ATU 1505 president Aleem Chaudhary said in a statement.

He said the union will hold a rally opposite city hall on Wednesday morning. 

The union plans to vote on the city's latest offer next week but is not recommending its members accept the deal.

The city also has not ruled out the possibility of locking out transit workers. Jack said there are no immediate plans to lock out transit workers.