Canadian Federal Budget Continued to Ignore Transit Workers ATU Canada Escalates Demand for COVID-19 Vaccine Priority and Safety for Transit Workers

ATU Canada Escalates Demand for COVID-19 Vaccine Priority and Safety for Transit Workers

This Spring, ATU Canada continued to try and push the federal government in other ways to do more to address the needs of transit workers after disappointing announcements. The federal government announced its most recent budget in April and failed to announce any funding for day-to-day transit operations.

This was despite the Keep Transit Moving Coalition, of which ATU Canada is a part, sending a letter to the finance minister asking to extend emergency transit funding that they had committed to earlier last year. Sixty organizations, including large unions like CUPE and PSAC and environmental organizations like the David Suzuki Foundation, signed the letter, displaying large support across sectors. Further, a poll done with EKOS Research showed that over 70% of Canadians supported extending emergency transit operational funding.

ATU Canada has been demanding the government invest in emergency operational transit funding since last year. The demands were somewhat met in late 2020 when the government came to an agreement with provinces that saw $2.3 billion flow into the coffers of municipalities for transit. However, this came to an end for many cities at the end of March and many transit agencies are struggling.

Along with our coalition partners, ATU Canada is continuing to fight for more operational funding, especially for the next federal election. v

ATU Canada held a virtual press conference to announce escalated action amidst continued government silence over the prioritization of transit workers for voluntary vaccinations and a growing number of outbreaks of COVID-19 at transit agencies. Since as early as last year, ATU Canada has been demanding that the Ontario provincial government and governments across the country prioritize transit workers but have been met with little to no response.

At the press conference President John Di Nino outlined important demands to be met by federal and provincial governments such as: priority vaccine access, rear-door loading for passengers, isolation of the driver compartment areas, elimination of fare collection, hazard pay, and another round of Safe and Restart funding at $400 million per month for Transit Operations. In addition, ATU Canada is pushing for access to fully-paid, on-site testing and vaccinations, passenger load limits, mandatory mask enforcement for riders and provincially supported paid sick days for essential workers. Many of the protections that transit workers had at the beginning of the pandemic no longer existed. v