Canada's Labour Minister Rules in Bus Strike

Canada's Minister of Labour Rona Ambrose entered Ottawa's transit strike fray on December 31 ordering the union to vote on the city's latest proposal.

The Minister’s decision calls on the union to hold the vote as soon as possible and no later than January 9.

The City of Ottawa asked Ambrose to get involved to force the union membership of the Amalgamated Transit Union to vote on the city’s latest contract offer.  The union has been on strike since December 10.

The union fired back that its current strike is not extraordinary and would not be appropriate use of the Minister’s “exceptional power” found in the statute of the Labour Code which grants her the power to force the union to vote on the latest proposal.

In a letter to Ambrose, the union stated, “Given that the power granted to yourself under Section 108.1 does not appear to ever have been used since its enactment in 1993 . . . it is submitted that it must be regarded as an exceptional power – one to be used only in exceptional situations.”

The union also called on Ottawa City Council to vote on the federal mediator’s settlement proposal. In a press release, the president of the union, Andre Cornellier said, “The City is trying to use obscure parts of the legislation to have the Minister force a vote on an offer that has already been nearly unanimously rejected by our members.  We think City Council should be held to the same standard they are suggesting for us, we think a public debate and vote by Council is in order.”

The federal mediator has called on the parties to put the scheduling issue, which has been the most contentious, aside.

On December 30, Ambrose, according to the Ottawa Citizen, had said: “ ‘I have very few options, as a federal minister, to get these parties back to the table,’ she said, adding that it's an anomaly for a federal minister to be involved with local transit issues, which are typically under provincial jurisdiction.”

However, because the transit company -- OC Transpo – crosses provincial boundaries, it falls under federal jurisdiction.