On January 18, 2024 the Ontario Labour Relations Board began proceedings into a complaint by 44 former Whitby transit employees that Jeff Gray and Local 222 failed in their legal duty to represent them in a fair and just manner. The complaint charges that the leadership of Local 222 acted in a manner that was arbitrary, discriminatory, and in bad faith.
In 2022 Local 222 agreed to allow Durham Region Transit (DRT) to contract out the jobs of 35 drivers who provided Specialized Services for passengers with disabilities. As a trade-off, DRT agreed to end the contract to PWTransit to provide transportation in Whitby and bring that work in-house. Local 222 accepted this, but failed to negotiate any protection for the jobs and seniority of the workers who were then employed by PWT in Whitby. The drivers and mechanics in Whitby were already dues-paying members of Local 222. Some of these drivers have provided transit services in Whitby for over 30 years. Instead of fighting for these Local members, Jeff Gray agreed to a memorandum that said the Whitby drivers and mechanics could only APPLY for jobs with Durham Transit, with no guarantee of being hired. Those that were hired, would start as new hires at the bottom of the seniority list, and would be part-time. Because of this agreement signed by Jeff Gray, only 30 drivers have been hired by DRT, and they are on the worst jobs, with no weekends off, and subjected to exhausting split shifts.
This case is now registered as OLRB File No. 1749-23-U.
The failure of the Local Union leadership to fight on behalf of these workers is shocking. Even though the Whitby workers received pay cheques from PWT, they were working for Durham Region Transit for all intents and purposes. The routes they drove were determined by DRT, the buses they drove were owned by DRT, and they even had DRT logos on their uniforms. The PWT workers were also dues-paying members of Local 222, and some of them had been providing transit services in Whitby and paying dues to Unifor continuously for 10, or 20, or 30 years.
No Campaign, No Fight
Unifor Local 222 and Unifor National should have fought to protect the jobs and seniority of these workers. They should have tried to bargain on their behalf, and if they couldn’t get a good agreement, they should have launched a public campaign. That is what was done in other cases where workers were threatened with job loss due to a change in contractors, and Unifor has won campaigns like that in the past. But the Local 222 leadership did not launch a campaign for the Whitby transit workers.
In fact, the Whitby PWT workers didn’t even hear about the threat to their jobs from the union, even though it was discussed at the negotiation sessions between DRT and Unifor Local 222 (which also represents the drivers and mechanics in the rest of Durham region). They only heard about it from DRT drivers after it was reported at the DRT ratification meeting. The Local 222 leadership had been discussing this for a while, but never informed the PWT members or their elected representatives.
This is the opening section of the Labour Board complaint by the Whitby drivers (“The Applicants”):
Unifor and its Local 222 (the Union) acted to have the applicants lose their jobs, and have them replaced by members of another Unit of Local 222. In acting to achieve this goal, the Union completely disregarded the interests of the applicants, did not provide them with representation, excluded them and their Unit representatives from negotiations that affected their jobs, conducted negotiations in secret, and prevented the Applicants and their Unit representatives from having any knowledge of agreements that were being negotiated that affected the Applicants. The Applicants and their representatives were repeatedly given false information by the Union. The Applicants were given assurances by the Union that their interests would be protected, and all those assurances were broken.
Eventually, 30 of the drivers were hired by DRT, and all of them are now classified as part-time with the most undesirable, split shifts. (One maintenance worker was also hired by DRT.) Here is an example of the consequences of this agreement – one driver, who has served Whitby transit riders for 19 years, is now forced to work a shift that starts at 4:26 am for just over 4 hours. He has over 6 unpaid hours off, and then works another 2 hours and 20 minutes. That amounts to a 13-hour day for only 6.6 hours pay. He also has to work Saturdays and Sundays with no premium. [See Whitby Bus Driver’s Letter in the sidebar.]
Unifor claims they had no legal obligation to fight for the Whitby drivers’ jobs.
In their response to the workers’ complaint, Unifor filed a document that claims they had no legal obligation to fight for the PWT members. This is from Unifor’s response – “Local 222 says that while its decisions concerning the in-sourcing of the Whitby transit service and the effects on PW employees were at all times rational, non-discriminatory and in good faith, its decisions cannot be the subject of a section 74 complaint by PW employees and it ought to be dismissed.” (Emphasis added) Section 74 is the section of the Ontario Labour Relations Act that says unions have a duty of fair representation to their members. When Local 222 says that “its decisions cannot be the subject of a section 74 complaint”, they are saying that the decisions Local 222 made about what to do (or not do) on behalf of the Whitby workers cannot be challenged at the Labour Relations Board. In effect, Local 222 is saying that even though the PWT members were being displaced from jobs they had been doing for years, Unifor had no legal obligation to try to protect their jobs. They are asking the Labour Board to dismiss the workers complaints, and are not offering anything else to those workers, including to the workers who were not hired.
The workers who filed the complaint against Unifor Local 222 are now going through the process of having the Ontario Labour Relations Board review their complaint.
All of the documents relating to this case are available on this website:
- The full text of the complaint to the OLRB by the 44 PWTransit workers.
- The redress that the applicants are asking the OLRB to provide.
- All of the exhibits and documents that are relevant to the complaint
- Unifor’s response to the OLRB filed on November 28, 2023.
- The DRT response to the OLRB filed on November 27, 2023.
- Comments from PWTransit drivers about how they feel about their treatment by Unifor Local 222.
- A 6-minute interview about this case from community radio station CIUT FM – 89.5
Tim Thompson was the Unit Chairperson for the Whitby Transit workers for over 30 years, until the end of 2023. Gord Vickers was a long-time Unit Chairperson for Oshawa Transit workers. Here are some comments from them on the way the Whitby transit workers were treated by their union:
Tim Thompson, Whitby Transit Unit Chair:
Never have I been so disrespected by the Local’s leadership. I was lied to. I was stonewalled for answers and kept in the dark, and not allowed to represent my unit. Jeff Gray under his leadership did what all other employers failed to do – take away our seniority, vacation and jobs.
Gord Vickers, former Durham Transit Unit Chair:
When I was DRT Chair the leadership of our Local always fought for all transit workers in Durham to have their jobs and seniority protected. We always took the union principle that all transit workers should be under one umbrella with their seniority dovetailed. Tim Thompson, who paid union dues for thirty plus years and served on our Local 222 Executive Board for 9 years, has been put out to dry. That is something you just don’t do. When a union acts like an employer and workers become expendable, it is something you just don’t do. To claim before the labour board that Local 222 was under no obligation to represent Whitby transit workers – that is something you just don’t do, because it is a violation of every union principle.