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Quebec City bus drivers have just ratified the agreement in principle reached with the Réseau de transport de la capitale for their collective agreement, ending their strike.
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They voted 88 per cent in favour of the agreement, the CSN-affiliated Syndicat des employés du transport public de Québec said Wednesday afternoon.
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Bus drivers will be back to work Thursday morning.
The union reports that the new collective agreement provides wage adjustments and increases that total 18 per cent over five years, “which should improve the record on attracting and retaining the workforce.”
The union also claims to have made gains in the use of subcontractors.
“One of the major gains from the agreement in principle for drivers concerns the Flexibus, currently operated as a subcontractor, which will gradually be taken over internally and driven by RTC drivers from March 2027 with a complete withdrawal of the private sector by 2030 at the latest,” says the union.
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“The settlement that our members have just adopted is a good settlement for both parties, who are both winners,” commented Hélène Fortin, president of the union.
The employer, the RTC, had not yet made its comments known at the time of this writing.
This strike was especially contentious because there were exceptionally no essential services maintained — which is usually the case in public transport services in large cities.
Quebec’s Tribunal administratif du travail was thus reversing a situation that had prevailed for 40 years in terms that transit needed to be provided at least during rush hours during a work stoppage. Instead, it ruled that the union and the employer were not subject to the obligation to maintain essential services.
The RTC serves a population of 580,000 and operates a fleet of 449 standard buses, 109 articulated buses and 64 hybrid minibuses.
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