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Striking Bombardier workers from Thunder Bay held three days of activities in Toronto to put pressure on the TTC not to accept vehicles assembled by replacement workers and to raise awareness about Bombardier’s attempt to slash pensions and retiree benefits despite record profits.
“We think it’s important for Toronto transit riders and the general public in Ontario to know just where their public dollars are going,” said Dominic Pasqualino, president of Unifor Local 1075.
More than 900 workers at Bombardier’s Thunder Bay facility, members of Unifor local 1075, have been on strike since July 14 to protect pensions and retiree benefits as well as good jobs created by public investment in transit.
“Bombardier is doing really well financially, with $32 billion in orders on the books and a leg up from the ‘buy Ontario’ policy that our union fought for. For them to turn around and try to gut pensions and retiree benefits for the next generation of workers is just plain insulting,” said Pasqualino.
Meanwhile, the rail division’s new president, Lutz Bertling, was sitting on a pension worth more than $640,000 at the end of 2013 after just six months with the company.
The striking workers build the Toronto Rocket subway cars, bi-level coaches for GO Transit, and the new TTC streetcars scheduled to be released August 31.
“We take great pride in our work,” said Ron Frost, unit chair in Thundery Bay.
The workers leafleted outside TTC stations, TTC and GO Transit offices and Bombardier’s Downsview plant
