(Laval) The Société de transport de Laval (STL) advises its customers that service disruptions which may lead to cancellations of passages are to be expected for the whole day of Tuesday.
Posted at 6:17 a.m.
The public carrier attributes these disruptions to pressure tactics that it describes as illegal on the part of the drivers’ union.
The STL evokes the concerted boycott of overtime and school assignments. On April 11 alone, nearly 150 trips had to be canceled according to the Société de transport de Laval, which would have left more than 2,000 customers without service.
She adds that gestures of intimidation were made against certain drivers to follow the directive to refuse overtime.
The employer claims that the union’s actions contravene the safeguard order obtained by the Administrative Labor Tribunal last November. Legal interventions will be undertaken on Tuesday by the STL to put an end to the means of pressure.
To put an end to the labor dispute, the STL proposed to the union, last February, to appeal to an arbitrator, which the union refused.
The collective agreement of the 625 STL bus drivers, members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), affiliated with the FTQ, expired in August 2019.
The dispute mainly concerns wages in an inflationary context. The STL, which covers more than 1,400 kilometers in the territory of Laval, reported two weeks ago that because of the COVID-19 pandemic, its ridership had not reached 60% of the usual level and that its revenues in were suffering.