Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Ambrose to force vote UPDATED

Earlier this afternoon, federal labour minister Rona Ambrose announced that she will force ATU Local 279's leadership to put the City's latest offer to a vote of the union's membership. The Ottawa Citizen pre-emptively endorsed that action in an editorial in today's edition.

The date of the vote was not immediately apparent, a story in the Citizen reported.
Ms. Ambrose ordered the vote be conducted by officials at the Canada Industrial Relations Board, and that it be “held as soon as possible.” She left it up to the board to decide when the vote will be held but ordered that it take place no later than Jan. 9. There was no word Wednesday from board officials on what date they might choose.
The union had no comment in the story, which led coverage on National Newswatch as recently as 6 p.m. today.

UPDATE: Another story at cbc.ca reported that a vote will be held no later than Jan. 9, and it added that Ambrose "is also asking the industrial relations board to look at agreements between the City of Ottawa and the union regarding essential services. The board has the power to make orders and confirm or change existing essential-services agreements."

ATU 279 president Andre Cornellier's comments appeared in the CBC story:

Andre Cornellier, president of ATU Local 279, said he was "very disappointed" with Ambrose's "unprecedented" decision.

"We still believe strongly that the membership will reject the second offer," he said, adding that he believes workers will "react in a different negative way" to the forced vote.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Shouldn't you endorse any move to end the strike as well, Public Transit Portal?