Frustration has reached a boiling point in Moncton over a lack of transit service, as the Codiac Transpo lockout nears its four-month anniversary.
Robert Melanson used to be a daily transit user.
He made a presentation to city council Monday night, in the hopes it would nudge the city into doing its part to resolve the transit lockout which started June 27.
At that meeting, Melanson and Amalgamated Transit Union president George Turple were both asked to leave by the RCMP after the talks became heated.
“That is not like me to do that and I called the mayor’s office this morning and I apologized for what happened at the end,” says Melanson.
Apologies aside, Melanson says the lack of transit service is about respect.
“It is disrespectful to seniors, to the people with disabilities, to the people who rely upon the bus to get to and from work,” says Melanson.
The city and union met last month and it seemed at that time that an agreement was possible, but talks broke down again.
“The only thing we were not able to agree on was 2018,” says Moncton Mayor George LeBlanc. “The union has a proposal on the table that would have been open-ended and we were not able to agree to that.”
The union disputes that talks fell apart over the final year of the proposal.
It says the union offered concessions of a quarter million dollars to no avail and wage parity seems to be a stumbling block.
“They want the concessions and they want to lowball us,” says Turple. “In fact, the offer they made to us was making the divide between ourselves and other city employees even further.”
Lucien Sivret is a transit user that has organized demonstrations through social media to end the lockout.
“They all say the same thing,” says Sivret. “We understand, we sympathize, but we don’t feel they are taking enough action.”
With no end in sight to the labour dispute, and both sides entrenched in their positions, transit users say it’s difficult to see the light at the end of the negotiating tunnel.
With files from CTV Atlantic's David Bell
