TTC workers vote in favour of strike action amid contract talks

The union representing some 12,000 TTC workers has voted overwhelmingly in favour of a strike if contract negotiations with the transit agency fall apart.

Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 113 says its member who voted in a tally taken Friday night were 98 per cent in support of strike action.

Bargaining between the union and the TTC is still ongoing after the previous collective agreement expired on March 29.

"Our members are clearly angry and upset about how they have been treated at work," ATU Local 113 said in a statement.

Earlier this month, the union said the TTC is "refusing to align" on key issues like job security, wages and benefits. The union represents workers who operate and maintain the TTC network.

"The people who ride TTC are working people too. Like us, health-care, logistics, and delivery workers all went to work every day during the pandemic while everyone else was told to stay home. They will understand how hard that is to accept when management routinely hand themselves double-digit raises," the statement continued.

This is the first time in more than a decade that TTC workers are in a legal strike position. Last year, an Ontario Superior Court judge ruled that a 2011 law that forbade them from walking off the job was unconstitutional.

Justice William Chalmers said the law, passed by the previous Liberal government, violated protected Charter rights.