Late last year, bus drivers in the Strathcona County reached out to Local 569 of the Amalgamated Transit Union to unionize their workplace.
Actually, bus drivers covering routes for Strathcona County residents used to be unionized when the County contracted transit out to Diversified Transportation.
However, that contract was terminated, and the County began covering transit service themselves. Local 569 began their organizing effort “in or about the fall of 2023”.
Strathcona County wasn’t too happy about it, and they started to participate in unionbusting activities to discourage to vote from being successful.
The Alberta Worker recently obtained a copy of an email sent to workers from Wade Coombs, the director of Strathcona County Transit. In it, Coombs reported that 98 people participated in the vote, and of those, 51 voted in favour of unionizing.
This means that drivers of both the conventional buses and the mobility buses in Strathcona County now belong to Local 569.
Coombs went on to say that Strathcona County Transit “will now start working through the next steps of the process”, which likely will include bargaining for a new contract.
Steve Bradshaw, the local president and business agent for Local 569, told The Alberta Worker that “ATU is excited to take on the challenge of representing the workers at Strathcona County Transit.”
“Our task now is to ensure every member is represented to a very high standard,” Bradshaw added. “This completes ATU’s dominance in Edmonton area transit as regional transit is once again on the table. We will be there on all fronts to ensure workers’ interests are respected.”
