HALIFAX – Halifax’s mayor and regional council members are standing behind Metro Transit’s offer to unionized workers.
Mayor Peter Kelly says the municipality’s negotiating team made a “strong proposal” and he wants the Amalgamated Transit Union to take it back to the transit operators.
Council met for an emergency session in the afternoon, but Kelly says the offer put on the table at 11:30 p.m. Wednesday remains the same.
Workers walked off the job at approximately 1:30 a.m. Thursday, after two last ditch efforts to avert a strike.
The biggest issue – scheduling – may have been the straw that broke the union’s back, but that’s not the only concession ATU wants to negotiate.
Union president Ken Wilson says he was “shocked” the city’s bargaining unit wouldn’t budge on negotiating 70 other issues.
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“We need them all. That’s not collective bargaining, that’s demanding,” Wilson says.
But the ones affected the most are the drivers on the picket line and the commuters not on the buses.
“As inconvenient as this is to the people getting to work this morning, this is not what we wanted,” says striking transit worker Elaine Crouse.
“We did not want to be out here this morning. We would prefer to be on our buses driving these people to work,” Crouse said at a morning rally in Dartmouth.
Meanwhile, thousands of commuters had to find an alternate way to work and school.
Traffic was clogged up more than usual in some areas of the municipality, with more people on the roads. Although, some drivers commented on social media sites they got to work faster because there weren’t as many buses on the roads.
Many commuters opted to carpool, but others took matters into their own hands – rather their feet – to walk across the MacDonald Bridge between Dartmouth and downtown Halifax.
Strikers hit by car
The rally near the Dartmouth side of the bridge was the site of an incident that left two striking transit operators with minor injuries.
Police charged a 55-year-old man from Tatamagouche, N.S. with assault with a weapon after he allegedly drove into the men picketing in a bus lane by Wyse Road at about 10:30 a.m.
The man allegedly fled the scene, but police located the accused man’s vehicle not far from the scene.
Halifax Regional Police charged the man and issued him a ticket for failing to remain at the scene of an accident.
Police say the man is still under investigation.
The man is scheduled to appear in Dartmouth Provincial Court on Mar. 20.
Follow our continuing coverage of the transit strike on our live blog.
*With files from Rebecca Lau
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