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LTC workers to vote on picketing at Gates

For the second time this month, picket lines are threatening to affect traffic on campus.
Amalgamated Transit Union Local 741, which represents the striking London Transit Commission workers, has deemed the Western Community Vans Program to be “strike-breaking” activity and is threatening to picket on Westerns campus in response. The union will vote on the work action later this week.
The Western Community Vans program is designed to provide rides to Western students and staff who live farther than a 30-minute walk from campus. The University is utilizing 47 volunteer-driven vans for the service and several local businesses have agreed to act as pick-up and drop-off points.
“We want to make sure we keep our students safe and give them options to get to campus and get back home safely,” Gitta Kulczycki, Western’s vice-president of resources and operations, said. “We want to afford our students with every opportunity to meet their academic goals.”
The ATU feels the initiative is acting as an alternative transit system replacing the LTC’s bus service.
“We’re not even remotely close to what a bus service might look like,” Kulczycki said. “It’s a very limited service. We’re not stopping off at multiple locations. We’re purely picking people up from these sites and then bringing them onto the campus.”
Kulczyki confirmed the program would remain operational despite calls for its termination. Representatives from the ATU declined to comment on their opposition to the program.
The University of Western Ontario Faculty Association has also called for administration to shut down the van program and, starting yesterday, began making weekly payments of $1,000 to the ATU to help fund its work action.
“We’re backing [ATU] up in their call to end what is being deemed strike-breaking activity,” UWOFA vice-president James Compton said.
UWOFA, however, is not opposed to individual students or staff offering rides to other members of the Western community.
“We are not opposing individual people helping out fellow students or whomever needs a ride,” Compton explained. “That’s people helping out other people. We do not object to that.”
Despite their continued solidarity with ATU, members of UWOFA— which represents approximately 1,500 professors and staff at Western — will be forced to cross any picket lines the ATU sets up.
“Our members are legally obligated to cross any picket lines,” Compton said. “The faculty will continue reporting to work.”
According to Kulczyki, University Students’ Council president Emily Rowe presented the ATU with the Western Community Vans program last week.
“What we are doing is precisely what had been outlined last week. The president of the ATU saw the plans in advance,” Kulczyki said. “It is not our intention to try to mount a replacement bus service.”
The University of Western Ontario Staff Organization, representing 1,200 administrative and technical staff at the University, will also cross any ATU picket lines.
“If there is an ATU picket line on campus, we are required by law to cross the picket line,” UWOSA president David Empey said. “I can’t speak for other unions, but our members will report to work even if there is a picket line.”
Faculty members refusing to cross picket lines out of solidarity to another union could possibly disrupt classes at Western. However, in both UWOFA and UWOSA’s collective bargaining agreements there is a provision requiring their members to cross any picket lines on campus.
“We have expressed our solidarity with ATU and throughout picket lines we will encourage our members to be friendly and offer any kind of support we can,” Empey added. “We support their bargaining goals but at the end of the day we are required by law to cross the line and come to work and we will do that.”

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